Posts With A Searchable End Date Poll / Discussion

gingerchick

I'm of the opinion that trying to achieve a searchable date format would become to complicated and very confusing, especially using the year/month/date format.
And would end up with everyone berating those who don't use the correct format, causing loads of threads to get bumped and discussions all over the comp board.

I come on here, work my way down the threads until I come across the time of threads that I was online previously and use the thanks button to see if I've entered or not.

Yes there are probably loads of competitions I've missed, but I've also entered loads of well.
I think I'd have to be on here 24 hrs a day to enter the whole lot.

This is a hobby (well addiction really;) ) for me, I enjoy this site and am just grateful for all who post the comps in the first place.
As others have said, putting extra rules/regulations on this may put people off.

Right I'm off to enter some comps now, I don't think I've ever posted this much in here ever before.:D

fluffynit

Sorry to be boring and uninspired but I like the board the way it is


fluffynit

josie301

Al_Mac wrote: »

I tend to use the sort into thread start time, work through them until I get to one I've thanked. And I'll stick to that, as it works for me,

However. I think having the format YYYYMMDD is logical and tidy. It is easily sortable. I'm an orderly person. And I actually think, much more useful than the current numerous variations.

If it doesn't change, I wont really be bothered.

I do think a lot of people are putting it down, when it wouldn't impact them and in some instances make it a lot easier.

Rules can be changed, if they aren't right, or they can be improved.

Would somebody quote me.

Thanks

Al Mac

Al Mac

Lively discussion! - its all a bit too serious for me!

I'm not bothered either way, but all those numbers are harder to read
20080107 - looks like some sort of binary code!

dawnylou

Hi all,
I have just had a chance to have a read through this lot!

I would be more than happy to change titles so that everyone was making posts in the same way and therefore making the date searchable. Not only would this surely make it easier for compers to find comps that expire shortly in case they have missed something they really want to enter, but surely it would also make it easier for BGs to find all of the posts that need to be moved to Game Over?

I have over the last few days been making posts to show all compers all the comps that are due to end - however this is only a temporary thing as I am currently trying to keep myself busy and take my mind off other problems at the mo.

However if some people were not keen on this change then has anyone ever considered that we have a post for each day of the year i.e;
01st January 2008
02nd January 2008
etc etc

then everytime someone has a new comp to post it would be added to that thread??
That way all comps are kept together that end on the same day. BGs merely need to move the thread to Game Over after the date and shouldn't have to go hunting through hundreds of pages. Compers just need to click on the relevant date if they are behind.
If someone has a comp but isn't sure of the end date then it could just be posted as normal or maybe under a misc. thread??

Please don't anyone flame me for this - it is simply an idea.

Thanks you for listening/reading as I have babbled on!!

kit34

im a like thing as they are kinda girl , i look to find the last post i thanked and work forward and its worked fine for me , if i miss a couple then so be it there are always plenty of comps posted , i also think the people who post the comps have enough to do

thats my tuppence worth

kbarty

I like things the way they are too. It did take a while to get used to it, but I've finally found a way that suits me and I'm pretty certain others have their own way too. I'd say if it aint broke don't fix it and just experiment with ways of using the forum to find the way that suits you best. there won't be a perfect solution for everyone. Hope that made sense.

divadee

Right I can sort of try and clear this up.


The end date rule was only bought in way way back when this board was first created for the use of the board guides, not, for people to really use for themselves.

This was because we were having comps posted and we had to go into every thread and try and find out if it had closed or not, not exactly time efficent!!!

For people who want to know when we move comps over to game over as a board guide we have a little tick box at the end of the thread lists and we tick that and move them over in batches of 200. This is why the comps end date is so important to us. We can easily just look down the list and see the end date and move without looking into every thread to find a date. This cuts down the time searching by about 80%.

I know this discussion has been raised many a time, but to be honest i dont see why its so important!! Do people only enter comps that are closing soon? Or like most compers enter most/everything to increase ther chances of winning something!!

To be honest a searchable date could be more useful for board guides than compers as we could just search a date and move en masse so to speak, but this would take a lot of tweaking and hard work for board guides in the short to medium term. And others have said that new date format is kinda difficult to read.

With regards to having one thread per date this was trialled right back in the creation of this board, and again caused so much work and problems it was stopped. This was when we only had 20 pages of comps, so imagine the stress now we have an average of 150-180 pages of comps :eek:

I will mull over some of the suggestions with the other board guides, but in my eyes if it aint broke dont fix it!!!! This board has worked extremely well for the past few years, Yes I am quite precious about it as this was mine and foxy's baby we created it and got it where it was today!!! We didnt even have a game over in the beginning!!!!! Everything was on the one board!!! So it has evolved and moved with progression, but I personally feel that this is one of the best boards on the forum, the friendliest most helpful and above all fun!!!!


Sorry for the novel but wanted to clear a few things up!!!

Hootie19

I quite like the "belts and braces" approach.

Keep the format as it is now, as a lot of people are used to it, and it's easy to use.

But have a separate thread for either dawny's idea "comps ending on xx day" or maybe "comps ending in xx month" where people can cross post the comps they've listed in the usual way, with a link to their thread so we can still use the thanks button.

Or is that going to be too time consuming for those posting the comps? (I rarely post any as I'm always beaten to it, so it's unlikely to be an issue for me :rolleyes:)

elver_man

For myself i am not realy interested in searching by end date and i think that the present format that is used by most ie E: 1/2 works well. Having an end date like 01022008 or 2008.01.02 just lengthens the thread title and to me looks more confusing.

I work through the posts by thread start time and this works well, if i miss the odd one then thats life as i'm only doing this for fun with a bonus if i actually win a prize.

My view is leave it as it is.

RoxyK

I voted for change as it would be nice to be able to search by end date, but really its not essential and I'm not bothered. Trying to get everyone to write the correct format could be a nightmare and I agree could stop people posting and make the forum not as friendly, which would be a shame. The the proposed format is just not easily readable either. If it was that or stay the same, I'd actually rather stay the way it is.

Myself, I'd rather have a search function that was a little more reliable Imagine if we changed everything and it didn't work that great anyway..... or a daily comp email that actually arrived each day. These things would be nice but just aren't essential. The comps are all about having fun and maybe winning some stuff too for me

The moderators do a great job and the decision is really theirs, together with those that post a lot of the comps. I don't so will just go with the flow.