Suggestion for the for sale forums

trilinearmipmap · #1 09-15-2006, 04:30 PM

A lot of people seem to title their for sale postings "For sale", you have to go into the thread to see what is for sale.

How about having a standardized posting ie. the title should list the item for sale and the price.

Delphinus · #2 09-15-2006, 04:39 PM

It's a good suggestion, I for one do agree with you, but wonder how best to write up a guideline for that sort of thing. For example, maybe someone has a whole bunch of items to sell, and to list it all in the title is hard, or can't be done due to the limit on number of characters in a title, or the person isn't all that computer-savvy and doesn't type quickly and so on,... etc.

On the other hand, it's not TOO hard to take a look in the thread to see if there's anything.

But in the end I think what I'll do here is modify the "guidlines" to include the suggestion to make the titles somewhat descriptive. I'll see what I can come up with.

Fish Breath · #3 09-15-2006, 04:53 PM

May I suggest too that if you are posting an item for sale you must include a price. I know it is in the guidlines but I see alot of item for sale with no price until they are asked by a few people.

Delphinus · #4 09-15-2006, 05:04 PM

Ok I've added the following to the guidelines:

Quote:

Subject Titles
Try to think of a title that is descriptive of the item(s) being sold (or sought). Having this information in the subject line will help buyers (or sellers) direct their attention to your posts.

As for pricing (and locations for that matter), technically yes people should be posting this sort of thing. Generally speaking though it seems to be more of an oversight than anything else. But hopefully people will get the hang of it and then it's a non-issue.

GMGQ · #5 09-17-2006, 07:18 PM

BTW, I think this guideline does make it sound too confusing. It makes it sound like you do want people to put a lot of information in the title.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Subject Titles
Try to think of a title that is descriptive of the item(s) being sold (or sought). Having this information in the subject line will help buyers (or sellers) direct their attention to your posts.

All we really desire is a "brief idea" of what they are selling.

So maybe:

"Try to include a brief description of the item(s) being sold (or sought) in the title of your thread. Having this information in the subject line will help buyers (or sellers) direct their attention to your posts."

AndyL · #6 09-17-2006, 08:25 PM

I think the rule should be more along the lines of posting your location in the title

Now that would be truly helpful!

GMGQ · #7 09-15-2006, 05:06 PM

Well if they have a bunch of stuff to sell, all we can ask for is for them to put something general like:

FS: Misc. equipment
FS: Lighting stuff
FS: plumbing stuff
etc

The idea is for them to put at least SOMETHING in the title, so that we get an idea of what they're selling -- without having to click it.

People only put "FOR SALE" because they want to generate interest for their post and make people click it out of curiosity. It's such an old school mentality.

And I think having an Asking Price should be manditory. I've seen many other message forums get fed up and make it part of the rules. The only reason why people sometimes dont do it, is because they're asking a high price, and they're afraid they'll get flamed for it. But then the moderators will just have to step in and tell the kiddies to keep their non-buying comments to themselves and let the seller sell.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Delphinus

It's a good suggestion, I for one do agree with you, but wonder how best to write up a guideline for that sort of thing. For example, maybe someone has a whole bunch of items to sell, and to list it all in the title is hard, or can't be done due to the limit on number of characters in a title, or the person isn't all that computer-savvy and doesn't type quickly and so on,... etc.

On the other hand, it's not TOO hard to take a look in the thread to see if there's anything.

But in the end I think what I'll do here is modify the "guidlines" to include the suggestion to make the titles somewhat descriptive. I'll see what I can come up with.

mark · #8 09-15-2006, 06:43 PM

When I put the pointer over the link (thread title), I get a preview window of what's inside.

Seems with the preview window function, the thread title could be general but if the first few lines had a summary (what, where, how much) of what was for sale...

GMGQ · #9 09-15-2006, 07:16 PM

Yeah, but it still takes like 1 second for the little preview to show up. Not everyone's gonna wanna sit there and move their mouse over each thread to see the preview. I personally like to keep the cursor off the screen whenever possible, and just use the wheel to scroll up and down to see everything.

It's much easier to just glance at the whole listing and see the titles all in one shot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mark

When I put the pointer over the link (thread title), I get a preview window of what's inside.

Seems with the preview window function, the thread title could be general but if the first few lines had a summary (what, where, how much) of what was for sale...

StirCrazy · #10 09-15-2006, 11:42 PM

this is a waist of time plain and simple. a title is simply that a title.. it is a quick statement.. if you want info read the thread, thats why titles are limited to a small number of characters.. other wise what would be the use in having a body to the post.. just put everything in the title.

now something constructive would be banning topics like "testing the waters" or "gaging interest" If you want to sell something say for sale as the other two imply that it isn't for sale and you just want to know if anyone would be interested if it was to come up for sale.

Steve