For sale or trade forum

[Grey Doffin]

Hi guys,

Recently the for sale forum was split into 5 separate topics: swords, tsuba, other kodogu, books, other art. Am I the only one who doesn't think this is a good idea? Used to be I could click on the forum and the seller's titles told me what was available. If something looked interesting I'd click on it and if not I'd click on mark forum read and I was done: 2 or 3 clicks total. Now I may have to open 3 or 4 different forums and take more time and clicks to see the same information. I don't get what the new system gains me; not like I couldn't tell from the title what I'd be looking at and if I wanted to click on it.

Anyone agree? Grey

[Brian]

Grey,
I think most, including myself, prefer it this way. It is much easier if you are looking for a certain type of item that wading through a page of various items hoping the seller titled it well. I often have someone looking for a sword, and seem to remember something appropriate having been listed, and then I have to wade through my entire Sales section trying to find it again. This way works well for me.

The forum software is really powerful through. I bet most aren't using 25% of the capabilities.
Sounds to me like you would really benefit from using activity streams.
For example, go to the top of the forum. Select Activity, then Unread Content.
Then go to Content Type, and click Topics...then the small gear. Select Narrow By Forums and then the For Sale Section or any others you wish to check.

That will then give you a listing of all the unread topics just in the section/s you chose.
On the right, you can save this activity stream so you can select it anytime you like. Using this, you can have custom streams of content that you have customized and will only see those. Neat, right?

[ROKUJURO]

Often, changes seem to have two sides - one feels negative while the other (looking closer to what we are used to) seems more positive. 

I think we will get accustomed to it.

[Grey Doffin]

Brian said:

"For example, go to the top of the forum. Select Activity, then Unread Content.
Then go to Content Type, and click Topics...then the small gear. Select Narrow By Forums and then the For Sale Section or any others you wish to check.
That will then give you a listing of all the unread topics just in the section/s you chose."

Which is exactly what I had before you made the change except I didn't have to do any of that and I didn't have to choose the sections I prefer, which I don't want to do because I want to see everything for sale in all sections on one page. I open the forum, read what looks interesting, and mark the forum read so I see what's new when I come back.

But I'm not going to win this one, so how about you combine the Tsuba and Kodogu forums? Often sellers have some of each to sell and this way they won't have to make 2 listings and we won't have to visit 2 forums. Your system would make sense if hundreds of items were listed for sale every day. As is, with maybe 2 or 3 items a day, keeping it simple makes better sense.

Grey

[Brian]

Grey,
I find a lot of collectors collect only tsuba. The number of guys looking for other kodogu is far fewer, and I think tsuba are important enough to have their own section. Judging by the number of guys that sent me messages in favour, I think we would be best served keeping it as is. I also appreciate being able to find tsuba on their own.
But Grey, that process you quoted above....you can select the entire For Sale section, including all the separate parts, and it will combine the results and give you all the new posts from all of them. And then you save that activity stream as a new one, and anytime you want to see those results, you click that custom activity stream and get instant results. It's basically a link to any custom search you setup.
So one click, and boom...all the new posts from any section or a combination of them. All saved in your personal activity stream section above.
Give it a try. You can set and fine tune the results to give you exactly what you want, and even have a preview of the post or not.