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….but one of the biggest reasons I like using the forum for sales is because it’s not ebay or Craigslist. T_T
Jon and Pam, I mean no offense by this and I’m a newish member so maybe you did in the past, but I’ve never seen you sell or trade pieces in the forum. Pam I realize you work with the ebay format all the time, but for some of us it’s really not the most convenient or easy way to sell things. I work full time, and formatting and putting up my pieces on ebay, individually, is quite frankly a pain in the arse compared to being able to come here to the forum, and make a post with all the pieces in one place. That makes this forum format my first choice when I have to sell.
Honestly, do whatever is easiest for the staff in the long run, please! 🙂 I just think this seems to be a good way to manage the content:
– Archive threads that are older than, say 3 months, or have had no activity for 3 months, some criteria such as that.
– Have users be able to track their own posts in their account page, as on the old forum
– Give users some options for sorting their search results, like by date, or whether to include archived posts.…but I’m not a member of the staff. 😉 So while this seems the best way to make everyone happy without having to recode the whole forum, there may be some practical issues with implementation that I don’t see.
Also, I think a point is being missed. If a thread is old enough to make it off the front page and hasn’t been bumped by the seller, the items are probably sold. We don’t exactly have to sort through pages and pages of new posts each and every day. So, for people looking for new posts, there’s Mark Topics as Read and it’s very easy to see what’s updated or new when you come back. Or if you’re worried you’ve missed something, you can use the Advanced Search to narrow it down. (Maybe the Search gets an option added to sort by how recent they are, so you get a nice reverse chronological list. 😉 Eh?)
Again, maybe I’m missing some practical points about this, but this seems a far more practical way to handle the forum content than completely reinventing the wheel. And there are reasons the current format is favored by some sellers here compared to ebay or Craigslist.
It’s not even two cents at this point, it’s like 12….sorry :S
The search sorts by how closely the posts it found match your query. I wonder there can be an option to sort matching results by the post date, or exclude old/archived posts.
Jon was saying that locating anything OLD is too hard, the advanced search shows that you can locate anything you’re looking for, no matter how old.
While I did find posts that went back years, I also found tons of hits on the first page for items currently for sale.
So some people complain that they can’t find anything, other people complain that they find too much. Even on Craigslist or Ebay, you have to SEARCH to find what you want, and LOOK through the results. Near as I can tell there is no mind-reading forum software. 😉
I wonder if that is the Lady of the Lake in Temecula because I had the exact same thing happen to me at one with a Male! Went in for red dragons, the only one left from the year before was the Red Fire Male. He was very faded on one side. The store owner was pretty rude to me when I mentioned it, like she had been asked before or something XD
Acetone will damage the plaster, no question. But I’ve pulled several horns without breaking them. If you’re careful, go REALLY slowly, and understand the risk and that you’ll probably do a tiny bit of damage, it is possible. There was a thread about it… Let’s see if I can put my money where my mouth is on that Advanced Search function.
[dance dance] Aww yeah! First hit!
http://windstoneeditions.com/forum/acetone-remove-kirin-horn
Also I really can’t stress enough the importance of being patient while pulling a horn 😉
That is without a doubt the most stunning dappled gray I have EVER laid eyes on. @.@
He’s INSANE. Can’t get over how strong the dappling is. It reminds me of the effect you get when you sprinkle salt on wet watercolor. Gorgeoussssss thanks for posting!!
What’s simple to me is this:
1) Check the forum. Read the topics that interest you.
2) Click the “Mark topics as Read” button when you’re done. It’s right there at the top of every forum page.
3) Come back in a few days, there are only a few threads that have ANY new activity. They are marked in big red letters. They are easy to see.
What if you want to look back and find something that you have already marked as “Read”? It is still a jumble of stuff to search through.
Use the Advanced Search. I just tested it three times. First search for phrase “fantasy grab bag” turned up posts in the Flea Market only that mentioned Fantasy Grab Bag Unicorns. Second search for phrase “emerald male” brought up all posts mentioning an Emerald Male dragon. Third search for phrase “violet flame fledgling” had similar results. All were easy to sort through and went back years in the archives.
Here’s a screenshot of how I set it up (click for full size):
Regarding step 3: if you find you aren’t getting very many results, search the box marked “Containing any of the words:” rather than the one marked “Containing the phrase”.
Does this solve the issue somewhat?
I’m all for three sub-forums– Buy, Trade, Sell. 🙂 We could give that a test run, and see if it alleviates or solves the other issues.
I thought the Track function wasn’t working, oops. Awesome! [checks] … But it only shows a list of threads you’ve posted in, which makes it hard to locate specific posts quickly. Ideally, you could just access a list of your own posts only, in chronological order. I do remember that on the old forum. Would this be difficult or easy to re-implement?
Please don’t limit how many photos we can post, or further limit how large we can make them. (We already host these images on our own sites so it seems s bit strange to limit number of pics. Am I missing something?) I second staying away from a Craigslist type format. I actually love Craigslist, but it is a horrible format for selling high-end collectibles like Windstones IMO.
I think that’s a pretty good idea. 🙂 Any seller could check if someone wants to buy their piece before they even have to post a thread about it in the Sales forum. In that way, it could reduce how many sales threads are posted.
Yeah, I’m sorry, I reread your post better and was trying to make an edit but you replied before I could word what I said more appropriately. Sorry! 🙂
What if the Search function worked better? Would that solve _most_ of this issue?
What if you could click on your account page, and see all of the posts you’ve made in one place? Would that make it easier to update an old sale thread of yours? If your old post is more than three pages back, why not just make a new thread? Few people are going to go looking in the archives for current sales.
How do we make this easiest with minimal work? Perhaps some changes to how posts are tracked might solve 80% of the issue.
I do see your point. How often do people need to search more than three pages back? How can those people best be accommodated with the least stress on the staff? Items are usually sold by the time they get to the bottom of the first page. If they get to the second page, they’re usually bumped by the seller.
So are you looking for items to sell, or an old forum post of yours that you want to edit?
I have absolutely zero problems finding anything in the Flea Market/Trade forums. Dead threads are usually halfway down the first page and I just don’t read them because they don’t get updated and the items in them aren’t for sale anymore.
I agree that change is necessary too, but as I mentioned before, the options that have been suggested seem to make navigating the forum more restricted to post in, and more difficult to moderate. :/
So, why do we need to be sorting through dead threads? How is this different from the General or Community forums? When threads go dormant on there, no one complains about the clutter, or needing multiple sub-forums, or more mods to delete threads that aren’t updated.
If a complete restructuring and increased moderation is necessary, so be it, but I don’t understand why it’s necessary as the current format is not that difficult to navigate!
I’m not so much for the idea of sub-forums for different kinds of Windstones. It works for people selling one piece at a time, but for sellers with a lot of pieces being sold at once, you’re asking them to create and keep tabs on multiple threads in multiple forums where there would have been only one before. Just putting in two more cents…
What’s simple to me is this:
1) Check the forum. Read the topics that interest you.
2) Click the “Mark topics as Read” button when you’re done. It’s right there at the top of every forum page.
3) Come back in a few days, there are only a few threads that have ANY new activity. They are marked in big red letters. They are easy to see.
Isn’t this a bit easier than the other proposals, which require:
A) increased moderation
b) a complete restructuring
c) more sub-forums
d) changes to the visual layout
e) changes to the forum coding
f) some or all of the above???????????
