Please excuse our dust

Over the next couple of months we will be making a few changes at Simply.

A few sections will be revamped or reorganized. This most notably includes Discus University, which will no longer be used to critique individual fish pictures submitted by members. We feel that this type of judging would be best left to NADA as it is their area of expertise. If you haven't already, please check out NADA's website or their sub-forum here at Simply for more information about the association and its mission. It is our hope that the University section will become an informational one, containing articles and guides on what to look for in quality discus. Until we have completed this revamp, Discus University will be taken offline.

Our Discus Hobbyist Challenger contest will official wrap in December. We would like to thank all the participants who've been busy growing out their discus all year. After we've chosen a winner, we'd like to incorporate some other fun, interactive features here. We are still toying around with ideas on monthly or quarterly contests that members can enter. More on that later.

The Livestock/Product Reviews sub-forum will be moderated more closely to ensure that only first-hand experiences are posted. Any posts not directly related to a sale/trade in the Buy/Sell/Trade sub-forum will be removed. We have a tendency to get off-topic and chit chat in various threads (and we mods and admins are guilty of that, too) but these areas were originally intended to be strictly reviews or sales/trades only. Admittedly we've been a bit lax in enforcing that but we will be more diligent going forward. The idea is to cut down on unrelated posts so that sales threads and review threads are more easy to find and navigate. We hope to make these sections leaner and more efficient. Also, we will be disabling posting in the Livestock and Product Reviews sub-forum for new members (those with less than 10 posts) in an effort to prevent fraudulent reviews from newly registered accounts. It's a bit suspicious when multiple accounts with 0 posts log in solely to praise or bash a vendor, never to be seen again.

On a final note, we always consider suggestions from members and all of Simply's mods and admins have group discussions about adding/removing/changing sections and features here. Some of these changes have been suggested over the past year by Simply members. We appreciate your patience -- it does take time to consider and implement these changes. Thank you for your suggestions!

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Any posts not directly related to a sale/trade in the Buy/Sell/Trade sub-forum will be removed.

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Is this correct? So then all reviews related to non-sponsors or items not purchased through the forum will be removed? So if eheim comes out with a new canister filter, or marineland a new heater, these are items no longer to be reviewed?


-Rick

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Originally Posted by nc0gnet0

Is this correct? So then all reviews related to non-sponsors or items not purchased through the forum will be removed? So if eheim comes out with a new canister filter, or marineland a new heater, these are items no longer to be reviewed?


-Rick

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Think they mean that if someone posts a for sale ad you can't say "your fish are stunted" or whatnot

sent from an undisclosed location using morse code

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The Livestock/Product Reviews sub-forum will be moderated more closely to ensure that only first-hand experiences are posted.

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Any posts not directly related to a sale/trade in the Buy/Sell/Trade sub-forum will be removed.

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Rick, these two sentences stand alone. Posts in the Livestock/Product Reviews are required to be first hand experience of the subject being reviewed. Posts in the Buy/Sell/Trade are required to be directly related to the sale/trade of the OP item(s). What ties them together is both sub-forums will be moderated for compliance to the rules which govern that sub forum.

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Originally Posted by lipadj46

Think they mean that if someone posts a for sale ad you can't say "your fish are stunted" or whatnot

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This is correct. Things like "nice fish, glws" or "you're never going to sell an item for this price" aren't really necessary.

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Rick, these two sentences stand alone. Posts in the Livestock/Product Reviews are required to be first hand experience of the subject being reviewed. Posts in the Buy/Sell/Trade are required to be directly related to the sale/trade of the OP item(s). What ties them together is both sub-forums will be moderated for compliance to the rules which govern that sub forum

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Ahh ok, it can be read either way, my bad.

I like a feature in another forum.. in buy/sale section.. there is no discussion.. only op post.. everything else is via pm... I mentioned it to a mod sometime ago.. forgot who.. it works pretty well.

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Originally Posted by Skip

I like a feature in another forum.. in buy/sale section.. there is no discussion.. only op post.. everything else is via pm... I mentioned it to a mod sometime ago.. forgot who.. it works pretty well.

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We may eventually switch to that method but I do think it's somewhat helpful if people can ask related questions. Let's say someone posts a few fish for sale and another member asks them, "How old are these fish?" or "would you be willing to split up the group?" It'd be nice to have that answered in the thread rather than twenty people having to contact OP via PM with the same questions. But we'll see how it goes for now and it's something to consider later.

10-4

The 10 rule is also pretty good idea in review section..

I have also seen before. That memeber had to have minimum number of post before access to other sections of a forum. .

I am in a sw group. . You can't post a sales thread unless you are a premium membership..



Overall good changes coming!

I like the premise behind these changes and offer a few additional change ideas for the future, please.

1. With the changes in the sales sections of the site preventing any comments about the good/bad of the seller or product being sold, can it be a little clearer that iTrader ratings upon the completion of the sale are appreciated by the buyer and seller? Maybe even "sale pending" & "sale completed" options so that an email reminder is sent 7 days after the "sale completed" is triggered or one side rates the other? I dunno... just spitballing ideas because I've done numerous transactions here & was never rated, even if I rated the other person, so I had basically given up on bothering to rate anyone recently.
2. What about the possibility of a lock on any thread in the "buy/sell/trade" or "hey I'm looking for" subforums if it has not received a post in 90, 180 or 365 days?
3. The ability to specifically flag threads that were from the old forum software & have none of the images (or lots of visual html/coding issues) so they can be reviewed for cleanup (such as hiding all of the "check out this example photo" type of posts which no longer contain photos) without using the "report post" button, which should keep a higher priority (or have an option in the "report post" page to rank the importance? Examples: "Issue needs immediate attention", "Thread is questionable and needs review", "Thread is in wrong subforum and needs moved", "Pre-20xx (don't recall update year) thread needs cleanup"

Thank you very much for everything you guys (& gals) do for all of us, despite the headaches we provide regularly.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...s/headache.gif

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Originally Posted by Tazalanche

... just spitballing ideas ...

Thank you very much for everything you guys (& gals) do for all of us, despite the headaches we provide regularly.http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...s/headache.gif

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Like when you spitball ideas? :)

Another suggestion I have for buy sell trade and hobbyist fry section is once the fish are sold that the thread is deleted. It would help with the thread resurrection and keep the area neater.

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Originally Posted by Trier20

Another suggestion I have for buy sell trade and hobbyist fry section is once the fish are sold that the thread is deleted. It would help with the thread resurrection and keep the area neater.

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I usually avoid deleting stuff, especially since iTrader gives you the option to link back to a thread for a transaction and that would let future potential buyers see what someone has sold in the past. However, going along with David's idea, I'd like to implement a feature that closes a thread in that section after X number of days of inactivity.

I'm pleased with your decision about the University.

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Originally Posted by Skip

10-4

The 10 rule is also pretty good idea in review section..

I have also seen before. That memeber had to have minimum number of post before access to other sections of a forum. .

I am in a sw group. . You can't post a sales thread unless you are a premium membership..



Overall good changes coming!

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10 post restriction is a good idea, but it is merely an inconvenience if someone really wanted get around it and post something. I would think implementing a time based restriction such as 10 days or one month after the registration to post reviews would be an idea.