How about a Submit Deal button on the frontpage

[ryanflucas]

Not sure if I'm the only one here thinking this, but I really am getting sick of opening deal threads and seeing tons of people posting "this is already posted, this is a useless thread, blah blah" at the beginning of every thread. Ok so I do an initial search before I post something, or a quick gander over the first 2 pages of the deal specific forum, but occasionally I'll miss something, or I'm sure new users wanting to contribute just do and don't look at all. The complaining will just make them think twice about sharing a deal in the future.

So how about closing off the deals forum to specific people (admins, cheapy, etc) and all other submissions are via a 'Submit a Deal' button the users clicks on the front page, and fill out a corresponding form. This way they fill out the boxes (name of deal, store, link to specific details, time period sale is going for, etc). They click submit, and the system auto-searches for related deals so if anything turns up, it says "This deal already exists", "Your submission looks like it fits here, would you like to post it in this pre-existing thread? Y/N", etc.

Frankly I don't care if someone posts a duplicate deal submission. Granted I'm not an admin here, I can see if this got out of hand and clutter was an issue. I just see users posting, getting a bunch of people telling them they were wrong for posting it, and never posting again just because said users don't feel like reading an extra post or two.

Thoughts? I'm a vocal regular on GameTZ and fairly silent regular on here. You certainly have a larger user base then other boards but I'd hate to see less deals getting posted due to new users being intimidated.

[Moxio]

Does a plug-in like this exist? Because it seems like it would be kinda hard to code up from scratch. But it sounds okay if it could work.

PS How tall are you?

[ryanflucas]

6'8" (wearing no shoes)

[CheapyD]

We actually have a system like this in place for the UK version of the site. We tried it out on the USA side and it's just too much effort for the deal submitters. People are used to being able to post deals free-form, and there would just be too much resistance to changing the process.

I don't think anyone should be chastised for re-posting a deal, so maybe we can just work on that part of the problem.

[ryanflucas]

Yeah working on that part would be good. I'm just not sure how it could be moderated\handled?

On one hand it's new users posting deals already covered. On the other hand it's posts by new users without using the search system. Most users will just ignore, or pass over a thread when they see this like I do.

What is annoying is when I browse each post and I need to scroll over the early post dribble where OP posts, and 4 or more people post how redundant OP's post is. I browse with my iPod Touch most of the time, so any extra scrolling can get annoying.

[Ryukahn]

I don't think it's nearly as bad as it was a month or two ago, so I'd say the mod's are doing a good job of keeping the thread crappers out.

If I see a deal has been reposted I'll try to grab the link to the original thread and post it along with a brief note saying it's a repost.