Suggestion for splitting up marketplace/creating subforums

[basketb]

Now with the new forum, could we split up the marketplace forum/create subforums for the following:
For Sale - only
Looking For - only
Feeler: what is this system worth - only
Lenovo.com and the Lenovo outlet - hints and tips
ebay - whatever is related to ebay - questions, merchant feedback, good deals, bad deals, etc.
Merchant feedback - for merchants other than Lenovo and ebay

I left out the sponsors of this forum on purpose (techdeals, etc.) as they probably want front page visibility.

I think sellers will like to have at least the WTB threads separated out as these then will not bump down their sale threads.

On a related note (and this was already suggested on the old forum by somebody else), should we shorten the bump interval to 48 hours (down from currently 72 hours)?

[Harryc]

I like this idea, but I just work here . I'd also add a subsection for 'Hot Deals'. As far as the bump interval, I think 72 hours is fair.

[bill bolton]

There is no immediate plan to change the general structure of Thinkpads.com

Dividing up fora into smaller topic groups does not necessarilly provide a better overall outcome. Many areas on ThinkPads.com work effectively because there is adequate traffic to make them interesting enough to return to relatively often.

Cheers,

Bill B.

[KristianJ]

I could perhaps see merit in allowing a shorter period of time for bumping WTB/LF threads (48 hours perhaps). However for selling, I think 72 hours is reasonable enough, especially since there are allowances for bumping in shorter periods if the price is being reduced. Recently I think I've seen a vast majority of the bumps in FS threads accompanied by a reduction in price, as opposed to a simple bump with no accompanying reduction.

[rkawakami]

I donno... I kind of like the idea of splitting up (at least) the WTB and FS posts. Of course the one major drawback with this is that for the two people who have/want the exact item in question, they may not see each other . But this even occurs with the one-forum-fits-all structure. I've seen several times where a third party will post that the item is being sold or is wanted elsewhere in the Marketplace. I guess it comes down to how/if the members are using the search function. Separating WTB and FS posts into their own subforum would greatly help those that do use the search system when looking for buyers/sellers and might encourage previous non-searchers to use this option. That's based on the assumption that people think that searches find too much.

[CRAZYBUBBA]

Perhaps for ease of all users we could write:

WTB (to buy), FS (for sale), WTT(to trade) before anything in the threads that we post to the marketplace. I like having a singular marketplace for all things.

[rkawakami]

That's more or less the custom already. Look at the Marketplace and you'll see those, along with LF and Feeler. Having separate buy and sell subforums would remove plenty of unwanted search hits if the searcher is able to restrict the search to a specific forum.

[charles.atcher]

I also like the idea of a separate WTB and For Sale sub-forums. I tend to glaze over a post, and then click into to find that it was a WTB post. Granted, that's my fault for not reading, but I could use the help...lol.