Mk1 Forum - Group Buy Policy and a Separate For Sale Section?

[jrleech]

I've just tried to do colours to see how it looks, but can't get html to work on the forums... so I can't ! Probably just as difficult as the indenting though (unless you can colour anything with a [xxx] reference)?

[firstmk1]

I find it annoying that when a number of people are searching for a part, E.G. calipers, you can't simply reply "I have a spare set available" yet it seems fine to link to an auction or retailer.

[jrleech]

You can also get a mate to put a post up saying that "Fred has a set for sale in the for sale section, see here". That's within the rules I think, you just can't say you've got a set yourself....

[Speedy]

I find it annoying that when a number of people are searching for a part, E.G. calipers, you can't simply reply "I have a spare set available" yet it seems fine to link to an auction or retailer.

But there is nothing stopping you PM'ing the person with that information..

[Speedy]

You can also get a mate to put a post up saying that "Fred has a set for sale in the for sale section, see here". That's within the rules I think, you just can't say you've got a set yourself....

*sigh*

Yes, you could. Although I don't really understand why you would want to do that when you could PM somebody anyway.

[Speedy]

I've just tried to do colours to see how it looks, but can't get html to work on the forums... so I can't ! Probably just as difficult as the indenting though (unless you can colour anything with a [xxx] reference)?

You can't post HTML into the forums. It would be something which we'd have to change with the code which draws out the boards. I do think its the best idea, and I'm inclined to make peoples posts who don't pick the mk the same as the background colour.

[anna]

I'm inclined to make peoples posts who don't pick the mk the same as the background colour.

Lol

Now do you mean white so it can't be read, or the infamous IMOC pink?

I vote Pink for people who CBA to select the mk!

[Flat Pack]

Can you make the current For Sale and Group Buy forums appear as 'sub forums' of the Mk1 Club? Might help people that are scared to venture outside the Mk1 Club bit... You'd need tags on the posts in those forums then too obviously or it might not make much sense!

On the subject of tags, I'd make them a separate field in the database. Then when you display the list of topics you could make them a separate column in the table so they'd format nicely. Then you could do other nice things too, like have options in your profile so that you only see topics with certain tags (so if you really wanted to only ever see mk1 stuff you could, or if people not using tags really irritates you off you could automagically ignore them) and add them to the search parameters to make searching by them easier (and faster too). I'll shut up now before Alex decides he wants to kill me...

[jrleech]

Completely forgot about the pm option Speedy.... good point

If you can do the colour thingy, and/or force Mk revision selection for For Sale ads, then that would be great....

[Speedy]

Can you make the current For Sale and Group Buy forums appear as 'sub forums' of the Mk1 Club? Might help people that are scared to venture outside the Mk1 Club bit... You'd need tags on the posts in those forums then too obviously or it might not make much sense!

On the subject of tags, I'd make them a separate field in the database. Then when you display the list of topics you could make them a separate column in the table so they'd format nicely. Then you could do other nice things too, like have options in your profile so that you only see topics with certain tags (so if you really wanted to only ever see mk1 stuff you could, or if people not using tags really irritates you off you could automagically ignore them) and add them to the search parameters to make searching by them easier (and faster too). I'll shut up now before Alex decides he wants to kill me...

Gah
1. No, read above
2. Yes, it would have been good if tags had been implemented as a seperate fields from the begining, but they weren't, so anything which is done will have to cope with the thousands of threads which already exist like that.

Your name will go on the list

[jrleech]

Actually, what I though Flat Pack was suggesting wasn't that the Mk1 club had their own sub forums for For Sale and Group Buy, but that he was suggesting that the Mk1 forum has a For Sale and Group Buy sub forum (or sticky link) that just links to the main one.

That way Mk1'ers can feel like they're not venturing out into the big bad world, when they actually are

Maybe just a sticky For Sale / Group Buys link at the top would get people moving about....

At the very least, a sticky Group Buys topic that gets updated with current Mk1 Group Buys (linking into the main GB forum) would be good....

[monkeymax]

Maybe just a sticky For Sale / Group Buys link at the top would get people moving about....

I finally got around to finishing this earlier today:
http://www.imoc.co.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=76384

At the very least, a sticky Group Buys topic that gets updated with current Mk1 Group Buys (linking into the main GB forum) would be good....

The trouble with this is:
1) It'd require one of the moderators to constantly update it - possibly not a huge problem as long as one of us checks the group buys section regularly.
2) It'd still require people to check those threads every once in a while! Even if the person who updates the thread were to change the title to put the date the thread was last updated, there would be no new posts indicated to users.

Hmmm...

(plus it's yet another sticky...)

[tonigmr2]

You can also get a mate to put a post up saying that "Fred has a set for sale in the for sale section, see here". That's within the rules I think, you just can't say you've got a set yourself....

Having been caught out by this today, I agree, it is counter-intuitive. I take Alex's point that you can PM someone, but I think there is a point here about members helping each other out and the perception of whether this is 'flogging parts'. You may have a part spare and not really be thinking of selling it, then someone pops up asking for help and you have it in your garage. Yes you can PM - but then no-one else knows the answer to that question.

Given that someone could then pop up and say you can get that same part from company X and that is more money than the one you have, and say that first person doesn't want it, then other members could end up buying it more expensively from that company. So it is a loss to both the member holding the part they don't want, and the member buying it more expensively from elsewhere.

I still think MK1-ers should look in the for sale section but think it has become too over-zealous in regards to people actually helping each other, when they are neither affiliates or companies, and don't intend to be! By all means remove straight for sale ads, but to remove an answer to a Q attached to 'I have one I don't want' is OTT, again IMHO.

There is a hole in the rules here, intended to protect the MK1 forum but actually causes a problem with inconsistency across the board IMHO.
T