Hello C&F community. Desperately trying not to be a Grinch.
One of the things I like most about C&F and most of the other discussion lists I belong to is ease of navigation. I like that we have separate forums not only for the instruments themselves but for side-discussions as well. This provides an easy and concise way for those of us who like to discuss technical, design, function, instrument comparison’s or just fun issues to browse for threads that lean toward a specific topic of interest.
To my point, we have a well functioning forum called Used Instruments Exchange which seems to work really well for it’s purpose. I check it daily. I’ve noticed over the past several months a growing trend to ignore that forum entirely and instead clutter up the Whistle forum with FS, FT or WTB posts.
I understand that new models happen from time to time so it makes sense that an announcement is made here. But if we provide a perfectly well used and high functioning forum for the specific purpose of selling or trading instruments, I for one would appreciate everyone using forums as intended.
Or maybe it’s just me becoming more of a curmudgeon as I get older.
The counterpositive to your well-reasoned gripe:
A disadvantage of the UIE forum is that it is impossible
to separate the topics into the instruments one cares
about. In the Flute Forum, for example, if there’s a
FS/WTB/WTT post, it probably concerns a flute.
In the UIE, however, it’s sometimes hard to tell.
I’ve seen subject lines like “FS: Blackwood Shervio”
and I have had to click on it just for a clue as to
what was being sold.
Honestly, as long as people preface the post with
a tag like FS:, WTB:, etc., it seems easy enough to
skip over them as necessary.
Regardless, your beef is with the moderators:
(emphasis mine)
And is the UIE forum still considered experimental?
If so, that’s a good argument for cross-posting, in
my mind.
Oh, another disadvantage of sequestering such
threads to UIE is that the forum in question does
not allow comments on posts. Such things are
relegated to the appropriate forum for that
instrument, which seems reasonable. I’ve learned
a lot over the years from comments in for sale
threads.
My issue is that one forum is provided and maintained for discussion, and another for sales. Sales are not discussions and are largely between buyers and sellers so it would be natural that an occasional ambiguous posting such as you note might occur. That’s what PM is for and why editing posts is allowed.
I’d appreciate forums and threads being used as intended. Otherwise they are redundant and largely a waste of our and the moderators (who are unpaid I might add) time. I’m also not going to take the Mods to task for attempting to provide an organized and efficient mechanism.
Finally, the majority of the FS/FT/WTB listings currently on the Whistle forum are not cross-linked to the UIE forum. They stand alone and are specifically not listed where most traders would look. That seems illogical to me. If the extra posts were limited only to cross-linking rules it would at least comply with the intended usage. Therefore, the current chaotic and inconsistent use of forums forces one to look in several different forums if one wants to see what is being offered FS/FT/WTB. If rules were observed, this would be largely unnecessary. I’d also argue that it would better serve those who actually seek to sell, buy or trade their items if they felt confident that the UIE forum was the best and only place to post.
I’m not losing sleep over this. It is only an observation and a request to reduce unnecessary clutter in order that one’s precious time be spent enjoying what one expects to see on the forums.
Seeing as most of my points were already mentioned above (sorry, I should not have posted before reading the entire thread! My fault!) I will go ahead and remove my comment .
Just to sum it up, I think there are a lot of advantages to using the other forums, it’s allowed, provides for discussion where desired, reaches certain people who might not have initially intended to trade or sell an item they have prior to seeing an offer or want for it, and it doesn’t really clutter things up to the point where I have difficulty finding the discussions not related to trade!
Whew. I should start condensing my posts like that more often. Takes so much less time to write!
Apparently I’m the only one bothered by this so I’ll just let it drop. I guess there’s no need at all for a UIE thread, we’ll just have to search through all the forums when we’re looking to sell or buy something. I guess just start ignoring it and any other attempt to organize things in a logical manner as well.
Ah, well. It was a chorus of member complaints about the commercialisation of the discussion forums that drove us to set up the UIE in the first place. And now look. Of course we’ll keep the UIE up anyway, just because we aim to please everyone, and people do in fact use it regularly.
Now all we need for the UIE is for people to actually, like, read the BIG ORANGE RULES and not post to other people’s threads there. That’s what the other forums were supposed to be for.
Y’know, it’s really easy to ignore big orange things when everything else is white and blue. I’ve trained myself to ignore things that don’t match the color scheme of the website I’m looking at since they tend to be ads in other places. Even though C&F doesn’t have ads, the habit stands. Maybe other people have done the same.
I didn’t mean any criticism toward the mods. It was just an observation. Megapop’s suggestion would probably work pretty well though. I can’t imagine the sort of comments you’d get from something like that.
Ah, but for discussions about sales, one must do it outwith the UIE forum.
I have never liked the fact that no followup questions can be posted on the UIE forum. In a perfect world, IF the sellers were always perfectly clear about what they were selling, there would be no need for followups. But the sellers’ OPs are often vague, and everyone looking would benefit from some clarification.
I belong to another site where the FS/WTB forum is structured like all the rest, and it works great. No, they don’t turn into lengthy meandering threads; the followup posts are extremely useful, with people asking questions which needed to be asked, and the seller posting additional information and/or additional photos to clarify things.
