Re: ★★★ voice your opinion on the hot deals forum ★★★
create all the rules you want for people to follow in the deals section.
require certain colors in subjects: the location in one color (because i dont care if the store isn't near me), the brand in another (but some yellow's get lost on my screen, so choose one of the darker ones).
wait a minute. should the locations all be in one color, or should different locations have different colors (like Home Depot in orange, and Lowes in blue)? then brands can also be in different colors (like Milwaukee in red, and Dewalt in yellow (please see above about yellow)). we can rely on their order in the subject to indicate which field it is (location first, brand second).
well, i am sure we can work that out, right? seems simple enough.
calculate the percentage off of list and include that in the subject. dont forget to also include enough of a description so that the reader knows *exactly* what is being offered, including model numbers, sizes, and colors, if applicable.
then, in the body, include a list of several other locations with their prices, so the reader can make sure it is a reasonable deal, with the minimum possible investment on their part. we will also need to include any codes needed, along with any restrictions (single use, min purchase, having an account, only certain sizes or colors, expiration date). oh, yeah, we should mention if there are any limits (three per customer, and if it is per day, per visit, or just three per customer).
we need to provide structure for this information also, so that the reader can quickly determine if they are interested.
actually, make sure that the new site software includes enough filtering at the thread summation level that i can sort the postings so that the newest appear first. actually, the newest without comments appear before the ones with comments, because i dont want the comments pushing something i have already seen to the top. the exception, of course, would be if the comment is more than a month after the last comment, which might imply that the deal is back, so i want the option to have it treated like there were no comments (or maybe pushed to the top of the group that have comments. hmmmmmm).
furthermore, providing a way to sort them so that certain location's deals appear first, keyed on the provided percentage off so that higher percentages are at the top would be great. actually, also allowing me to select an order for brands to effect the ranking would be really useful. i want the Elora 50% off deals at amazon.com to appear before the Wiha 60% off deals at amazon.de.
but wait, maybe there should also be a way to include shipping costs in all this. and a dynamic system that keeps track of who is charging sales tax, and who isn't, because that really effects my price, doesnt it?
oh, and remember that the system needs to enforce the structure of the subjects ("title" according to the screen i am looking at). it will be much easier to do all this if the "title" is always in the correct order, not to mention easier to understand.
we should probably form a committee to evaluate suggestions for additions to this. changing the order of the items to add an additional bit of information should be possible, but the mixing of old posts with new ones will make sorting harder. of course, this is a well understood problem. the two common fixes are to add a version number to the end of the subject ("title"), or to take the system down for maintenance and add all those fields to older postings to bring them up to date.
sure, this is all doable, and i am sure that the people posting the deals won't have a problem with all this extra work. after all, it is for the benefit of the community, isn't it?
reductio ad absurdum (rɪˈdʌktɪəʊ æd æbˈsɜːdəm)
n
1. (Logic) a method of disproving a proposition by showing that its inevitable consequences would be absurd
Maybe in the long threads deals could be posted with bold or 
that was pretty good.