New! Competition end dates posting

[MSE Andrea]

Update 21 Jan 2013:

The new "sort by end date" function mentioned below is live. There's a little more info in the announcement post.

Hi everyone

We’re launching a new feature today that’ll hopefully improve everyone’s use of the Competitions Time Boards.

Simply put, when posting a new competition thread on here you’ll be asked to give its end date before you click submit and the date will then show up on your post.

We’re aware compers have previously requested the ability to sort via end date and we’d like to if we could. If we do though, it’s a much bigger job and takes up resource that may have an impact on the forum so for the time being it needs more discussion before deciding.

Enjoy!

MSE Forum Team

[RuthMarianna]

It is easy to sort by end date yourself anyway.

[bargainhuntergal]

I'm a little bit worried about this to be honest, as an end date comper (who's trying to catch up with as posted admittedly, but still does end date every day to see if I've missed some or not got to them yet as posted) if this is not yet going to be searchable then it's going to be a nightmare if people do this new end date thing and stop posting the date to the title as how will we be able to sort into any sort of end date order? I can't see any new fangled buttons that let you sort the forum into end date order, plus ones already posted say 'Unknown'?

I hope my worries are unfounded but with Advents coming up it's going to be insane enough without having something new that could cause problems.

[robbies_gal]

i agree i hope this doesnt mean people wont now put it in their title

[fire**fly]

Originally Posted by gabbyevs

i agree i hope this doesnt mean people wont now put it in their title

hi, it means when a poster wants to submit a new comp at the bottom of the posting is now a

Format: DD-MM-YYYY

that needs to be filled in & it automatically puts the End date in the post for when the comp is submitted on the boards hth x

[Jean III]

I have just posted a new thread and it would not submit until I had put the end date into the "new post form" at Additonal Fields section at the bottom.

[iwannabeonthebeach]

its showing on every post within a thread, is this right?

[zombieslayer25]

I thought it was because the end date was unknown and that was there instead of the question mark in the title. Well now I know it says it on them all for now. I assume then after a while they wont say that for so long then, but will have an end date.

So the end date will still be in the title then so we can still sort the boards out by end date as we do now and we can just ignore the "End: Unknown: then?

[MSE Joe]

Hi Jean III,

That should now be fixed for you.

Joe

[thenanny2die4]

Oh, as it stands, I'm not keen...

There have been some recent changes to the board which I wholeheartedly welcome; I love using the skip x for example, but it doesn't impact users who choose to ignore it. This, however, does seem to have the potential to make the current search/ordering facility work less well for us. If it had come with the ability to search by date order, it would have just taken a bit of getting used to but, since we decided to use the current title format, it's worked beautifully, with just some gentle nudges and explanations from experienced posters to newbies.

My plea would be for all posters to continue with the current title format.

[fire**fly]

Originally Posted by Jean III

I have just posted a new thread and it would not submit until I had put the end date into the "new post form" at Additonal Fields section at the bottom.

think it's a great addition as will help newbies & comp posters,
& also save lots of 'bumps' on a comp/s as when/if before we replied to the E: dates not being put in & posting CG showing them.

[Svenena]

Originally Posted by thenanny2die4

Oh, as it stands, I'm not keen...

There have been some recent changes to the board which I wholeheartedly welcome; I love using the skip x for example, but it doesn't impact users who choose to ignore it. This, however, does seem to have the potential to make the current search/ordering facility work less well for us. If it had come with the ability to search by date order, it would have just taken a bit of getting used to but, since we decided to use the current title format, it's worked beautifully, with just some gentle nudges and explanations from experienced posters to newbies.

My plea would be for all posters to continue with the current title format.

Firefly explained above that the format of posts won't change, it's just that instead of having to type the date in the correct format yourself, you select the date and it's put in automatically; if I've understood that correctly.

If it's still going to be in each thread title, then it will still be possible to sort by end date using the options at the bottom of the page.

Sounds like a great idea to me!

[mnkyhngr]

displaying the end date adds an extra line to the forum listing, making the listing a lot longer than it needs to be.
It adds no value as the end date is in the title

Please remove it from display

[bargainhuntergal]

I've not submitted a thread myself but if it's still putting the E: ??/?? in the title automatically then that's fab.

It wasn't obvious that that was what was happening though, it looked as though people were still having to type that in as normal as some of the newly added 'Unknown' ones have a date in the title.

Edit: It surely can't be doing it automatically can it? *confused look* There's this one on there that has the end date in the new format, but it's not in the E: ??/?? format in the title:

E: 2/01/2013 Win an i-Pad
End: 02-01-2013
Bex__0

Edit 2: That thread seems to have disappeared now, not sure if it was a dupe or self promotion or something (I hadn't read the thread before only noticed the title).

[bargainhuntergal]

Originally Posted by fire**fly

hi BHG
think it's showing all the old ones posted still from when we had to type out the E: XX/XX
now before you post a comp it won't submit untill you've put the end date in iyswim, so newbies/posters can't submit a comp until they put the end date in the new format at the bottom of the post when posting,
if it's implemented in the long puzzler comps as well it would be great for the end date compers

Thanks for the explanation fire**fly!

I don't like being confused, and it doesn't take a lot tbh!

Edit: What happens to the title if you tick the 'Unknown' end date box (I've just looked at the post a new thread link to see how it works)?

[iwannabeonthebeach]

bit confused by this one now though
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=4276555

[fire**fly]

Originally Posted by bargainhuntergal

I've not submitted a thread myself but if it's still putting the E: ??/?? in the title automatically then that's fab.

It wasn't obvious that that was what was happening though, it looked as though people were still having to type that in as normal as some of the newly added 'Unknown' ones have a date in the title.

Edit: It surely can't be doing it automatically can it? *confused look* There's this one on there that has the end date in the new format, but it's not in the E: ??/?? format in the title:

E: 2/01/2013 Win an i-Pad
End: 02-01-2013
Bex__0

Edit 2: That thread seems to have disappeared now, not sure if it was a dupe or self promotion or something (I hadn't read the thread before only noticed the title).

i might be wrong but i think if ops put something like
2/12 it won't work because it needs the both figures to work & the year ending
ie: 02/12/12

looking through the comps any that have 9/11 (as example) are showing as End: Unknown

so they need to put 09/11/2012

thinking that's how it should work now but old ones posted will show as not known, what do you think ?

[bargainhuntergal]

Originally Posted by fire**fly

i might be wrong but i think if ops put something like
2/12 it won't work because it needs the both figures to work & the year ending
ie: 02/12/12

looking through the comps any that have 9/11 (as example) are showing as End: Unknown

so they need to put 09/11/2012

thinking that's how it should work now but old ones posted will show as not known, what do you think ?

I'm really not sure? *confused look again*

The thread that I noticed had the right date with the 02 in the new format bit underneath, but in the title it didn't have the 0 before the 2?

It's a shame it's gone really as no one can see what I'm on about.

[fire**fly]

Originally Posted by iwannabeonthebeach

bit confused by this one now though
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=4276555

it's showing
E: DAILY £100.00 Google+ Giveaway | Shade Station
End: Unknown

as it's no ending date been put in

[fire**fly]

Originally Posted by Barnabysue

This one has an end date but is showing as unknown:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....php?t=4276331

maybe it was posted before the new format was implemented so
it shows as Unknown because there's no 2012 in