To post, or not to post.

grannybiker

Like many others who used to post competitions prolifically before MSE changed, my rate has dropped right off.
Those comps I have posted have turned out to be dupes, despite me using many variations of the URLs and search terms.
My dilemma is this... Using another site, emails, and other means, I'm coming across competitions that sometimes need answers, so I check here first to see what others say. But search isn't finding them, so I go off to google / search their site, etc. Do I post them here, only to find it's a dupe?  Or do I not bother and carry on doing my own comping?

Rahven

It's a tough one isn't it?
The logical position is that it's better to have them posted twice than not at all, but it's both annoying to find that you've duped, and then annoying because it creates work for others. 
(Please do post them  )

mjm3346

I am sure that having to enter a date field when posting a competition is something that was proposed/tried on the old working forum and rejected by the major posters. But even ignoring that it seems astonishing that having used the date field it still has to be entered in the title as well.
Search seems worse! than the far from perfect one on the old forum and I cannot see even how to get the search results in date order if it does find something.

I don't think any of these get posted now

https://shop.kelsey.co.uk/promotion/win

grannybiker

I can deal with the irritation of duplicating the end date, but it's the non-working search that's bothering me most.  It means someone has to request a merge, then a BG has to do the merging. I'm guessing along with many others.
Just bitten the bullet and posted Wanderlust ending today.
Also we've been missing the Love it! magazine email comps, (e.g. quiz@loveitmagazine.co.uk,)  but as all these need several answers, it seems too cheeky to pinch from elsewhere to post here

Blulu

I have nothing useful to add - sorry. But I just wanted to say thanks for whatever you do for us, and that stands whether you carry on posting comps here or not. I am optimistic that MSE will sort things out for us at some point, but I don't imagine that will happen very quickly. Meanwhile, if you post and dupe sometimes, it's probably more of a pain to you than to the rest of us, for wasting your time.

You might do this already, but in case you don't, perhaps you could bookmark any comps you post. Then if someone spots that it's a dupe and comments, at least you'll get a notification, so you can edit the post/s.

Thanks again

Best wishes

Blu XXX 

grannybiker

Yes, bookmarking's a good idea. Thanks. Just hope that anyone spotting a dupe, (I usually do it by recognising it's a comp I've already entered.) mentions whether they've requested a merge or not, LOL! 

BootsMullery

You don't need to Bookmark. In Notifications you can select to be notified of any replies to Discussions you start.
Everyone should do this as there can always be informative and helpful replies.

Rahven

mjm3346 said:

I don't think any of these get posted now

https://shop.kelsey.co.uk/promotion/win

I've posted the ones I could, between fighting with the MSE spam filter and Match's page crashing. Will come back later to finish

mjm3346

Rahven said:

mjm3346 said:

I don't think any of these get posted now

https://shop.kelsey.co.uk/promotion/win

I've posted the ones I could, between fighting with the MSE spam filter and Match's page crashing. Will come back later to finish

👍👍👍

redfox5

It's not foolproof but I try not to post anything until I've caught up with the board. That way I will hopefully see if it's already been posted. 

BootsMullery

redfox5 said:

It's not foolproof but I try not to post anything until I've caught up with the board. That way I will hopefully see if it's already been posted. 

As the ones that are posted but "missing" from search are only ones that have been posted since the previous 7:30pm (as reported in CCC and Site Feedback) there's not that many to remember anyway. A quick manual check back to the previous 7:30pm (after searching)  should find them if they're there.