Wanted items

[mepriana]

Hi

First, just wanted to say I really like the new look of the forum. It is definitely much easier to read for long periods of time!

My little suggestion is for the Market Place section....it would be useful if the WANTED items could have their own sub forum, rather than being lumped in with the for sale items. That way people who are looking to get rid of something might find a taker without advertising. Just a thought

M.

[Salonikios]

That's a very good point.

[Longbyt]

From a Mod's point of view, another sub-forum means in effect more Threads to move!

	Quote:	mepriana
	That way people who are looking to get rid of something might find a taker without advertising...

I don't understand what you mean here. It looks to me as if folk are 'advertising' whether it is in the one forum or the other. I agree that separate would be easier to check down the list but if members obeyed the Rules and put Wanted or For Sale neatly at the front of the title of their Ad, the problem would be minimised.

Another aspect is that if 'Wanted' were separate, I can just imagine the stuff that would be posted in there. Wanted - information about where to put my rubbish. Wanted - urgently, a cleaner. Wanted - some self-raising flour, where can I get it? We actually get a fair number of mis-placed posts in that Sub-forum already.

See what everyone else thinks about your idea when the world wakes up!

[Mrs. Doolittle]

	Quote:	Longbyt
	From a Mod's point of view, another sub-forum means in effect more Threads to move! I don't understand what you mean here. It looks to me as if folk are 'advertising' whether it is in the one forum or the other. I agree that separate would be easier to check down the list but if members obeyed the Rules and put Wanted or For Sale neatly at the front of the title of their Ad, the problem would be minimised. Another aspect is that if 'Wanted' were separate, I can just imagine the stuff that would be posted in there. Wanted - information about where to put my rubbish. Wanted - urgently, a cleaner. Wanted - some self-raising flour, where can I get it? We actually get a fair number of mis-placed posts in that Sub-forum already. See what everyone else thinks about your idea when the world wakes up!

I agree, more forums, more work. The for sale/wanted section seems to be growing and splitting it would be helpful. But what must be making more work for moderators is having to close threads with sold items rather than allowing the OP to delete them and then if one is searching for an item, one turns up closed threads! Such a waste. They should just disappear keeping that part of the forum current. Also, if one is using square brackets, these somehow mess up the search button, at least this is what I found.

[Longbyt]

Perhaps all brackets muck up searching - maybe other signs too? Is the search function looking for a word with a gap after it??
The square brackets are usually put there by the Mods to make it clear what they added - and seeing them all shows how many posts we edit!

[mepriana]

	Quote:	Longbyt
	From a Mod's point of view, another sub-forum means in effect more Threads to move! I don't understand what you mean here. It looks to me as if folk are 'advertising' whether it is in the one forum or the other. I agree that separate would be easier to check down the list but if members obeyed the Rules and put Wanted or For Sale neatly at the front of the title of their Ad, the problem would be minimised. Another aspect is that if 'Wanted' were separate, I can just imagine the stuff that would be posted in there. Wanted - information about where to put my rubbish. Wanted - urgently, a cleaner. Wanted - some self-raising flour, where can I get it? We actually get a fair number of mis-placed posts in that Sub-forum already. See what everyone else thinks about your idea when the world wakes up!

Yes, more forums, more forums to check/monitor, however a separate WANTED section could eliminate some fo the work Mods need to do in changing titles of the WANTED ads placed in the FOR SALE/WANTED section now.

My point was that if someone is looking for something and makes a post, readers might be more inclined to browse the WANTED section to see if they can provide people with something, although they would not necessarily post a FOR SALE ad with the item.

As for people who post idiotic WANTED ads, there is nothing to stop them doing that now, but as much as I would wish otherwise, few of us have the power to alter them...they are going to crop up no matter what.

My suggestion was made from the point of view of improving the readibility of the section to user of the forum, yes, without taking into account the Mods workload, but as I started to mention above, it doesn't have to increase the workload - a well organized section should hopefully decrease workload.

[mepriana]

	Quote:	Mrs. Doolittle
	But what must be making more work for moderators is having to close threads with sold items rather than allowing the OP to delete them and then if one is searching for an item, one turns up closed threads! Such a waste. They should just disappear keeping that part of the forum current. Also, if one is using square brackets, these somehow mess up the search button, at least this is what I found.

I agree with this point. A lot of searches turn up old threads which are really no longer relevant in the FOR SALE/WANTED section. It IS one part of the forum which could just be kept current....I wonder, is it possible to have posts here expire (and delete/disappear) after a certain amount of time then?

[Mrs. Doolittle]

	Quote:	mepriana
	My point was that if someone is looking for something and makes a post, readers might be more inclined to browse the WANTED section to see if they can provide people with something, although they would not necessarily post a FOR SALE ad with the item.

This is exactly what I have done, more than once. Before I created an ad I looked and saw that someone was looking for room fans. So I sent a private mail. But we needed to exchange email addresses in order to me to send a picture, since one was not posted.