In an attempt to make the job of moderating this forum easier, I've had to make some unfortunate code changes that remove some flexibility and options for all of us.

Previewing Posts Before Posting
Each day people create posts without previewing their work. These posts include broken links, broken images, broken code, misquoted text, etc. If these posters would look at their work before submitting it to the public, they would have the opportunity to see these problems and be able to correct them.

The system now does not give the option to submit a post unless it's been previewed at least once. This won't prevent people from making mistakes, but it's my hope that it will cause post authors to look at their work with a critical eye before sending it to the site for publishing.

Unfortunately, this adds an extra step to all posting and slows down quick responses. It's annoying, but so is having to be a moderator and fix a dozen posts a day. We'll see if this has a noticeable reduction to the errors.


Marketplace Responses
Our Marketplace Forum has a very well-defined set of rules that are in place to create a home for safe and convenient transactions. Unfortunately, many people do not read the rules and consistently bypass them.

One rule that was often ignored was the one that states that the Marketplace Forum is a sales-only forum and not meant for discussion. Each day myself and other moderators had to remove chit-chat posts from that forum and we often had to message the author, explain the action, and then we'd get caught in an exchange. All of this took time... lots of time.

As a result, I've removed the ability for people other than the topic's own author to post responses of any kind in the Marketplace. Instead, the system now sends the person to the private message system where they should have been in the first place.

Unfortunately, this leaves out a couple of very valuable things from the site: 1) the ability to ask for further details about the item being posted so that the public could also benefit and 2) the ability for a person to post their thoughts after a successful transaction and give feedback on the seller.

The first one is easily remedied by the author himself who can choose to add more details to the public posting after receiving questions via a private message. The second is more serious and is an unfortunate casualty of the necessity of me having to reduce the moderation workload. Interestingly, very few people took advantage of the ability to give feedback after a transaction so I guess this is not a big loss.


I'm sorry for the inconvenience or lack of flexibility this causes, but the amount of work that was being caused for the moderators of this site simply outweighed the benefits for me. Despite my best efforts to affect change through teaching and dialogue, I lost the battle in the end and had to bring in technology to create limitations.

Thanks, Nathan! I'm glad that stuff will be off you and Chad.

Sounds good, Nathan. One thing-I cant seem to send PMs since the change. I get a prompt to preview, but after doing so, there is no choice that says "submit".

Sounds good to me too. The first time I couldn't find the Submit button I was momentarily confused, but then realized what you had done.

I often hit Preview regardless, and generally don't post in the Marketplace, so I guess I'm not really your target audience anyway.

Changes make sense to me. I always hit "Preview" anyway. Awesome site, as many have said before, we all appreciate it.

Hi Nathan,

These seem like very reasonable changes. They certainly don't represent any major inconvenience for me.

Yours,

Christian

Be aware that the preview seems to show attached photos in the reverse order of attachment. They'll display as intended in the final post, though, so attach them in the same order as always.

Well just doing a preview doesn't seem like much of a hardship if it helps in reducing errors that you have to spend time going in to fix. :cool:

I didn't always do a preview but I usual do use a Spellcheck program to get rid of my worse spelling mistakes or typos, I also edit my text if I find a typo got away from me and at times I may have to do it a few times in a row ! :(

The Preview helps here as it is at times easier to spot mistakes when the appearance of the text is changed in the preview compared to what it looks like writing the message.

One shouldn't depend on the Spellchecker alone as it can add errors itself and a quick proof read should be done after the Spellchecker has been used. ;) :lol:

Oh, automatic translation software can also cause errors and not be depended on except as an aid to those whose language skills in English need a little help.

Lets not forget that Nathan also has a life to live, and money making work to do, and anything that makes running the site less time intensive is a good thing for him, and for us if we don't want him to burn out, frankly doing something that should be something he still enjoys doing ! I'm sure that some nights he would rather just get more sleep than work on code or herd cats.

Note after doing a few posts today I think it's actually not slowing me down at all significantly and one gets used to it immediately and I could almost say I like it better than the previous way to post as it forces me to re-read myself more efficiently. ;) :D :cool:

The preview button concept is a good one and isn't going to be a hindrance. As you guys know I am notorious for bad punctuation and capitalization (a relic bad habit of mine from the early implementaion of email but before the www) and spelling but so far today it has already helped me catch a few errors. TY Nathan. tr