Why [SOLD] instead of deleting post?

Originally Posted by Lizzy65

10 years from now

Who knows where this site will be 10 years from now. But for the moment, if what is being done is working well, and with so many positive reasons for the closed ads to stay up, maybe if it ain't broke don't fix it for now.

Originally Posted by Lizzy65

I understand all of your points, however 10 years from now, can you imagine how many pages some of the animals are going to have?!

Maybe they should consider having separate folders for completed sales, like ebay does. Just a thought...

Well, there is ten years of them there now. But my question is why how many pages per animal would be a problem for a viewer? Unless your compelled to look at ever page? Why would someone care how many pages there are? The listings are by date. People start viewing on page 1. Unless you are researching something (which would be good for those people to go back and look at older ads and those people will be glad they have those ads to look at) why would it bother anyone?

So what does it matter? I don't understand your concern.

If I'm going to look for a recent ad in the BP section I'm not going to page 2,240 and contact people. Or believe a animal listed in 2003 is still available.

The only person that would be concerned is the person paying to have all the information stored.

It doesn't affect anyone else. Doesn't distract from the current ads. Maybe only people who can't read a date on a older AD or someone with a compulsive disorder to look at every page. Oh snap, That might be me.

You may want to note that even using the search function, I have the number of returned hits capped at 200. So even searching for something common, you aren't going to get more than 200 possible hits. Searches are very server intensive processes, so I had to limit the number of records returned for this reason.

I have gone back in the past and removed older posts that were several years old that were soft deleted by members. Also every once in a while one or more of the mods will take it upon themselves to go back and delete any attachment photos on those old posts to free up some space on the server. Whereas the text in classified ads will trigger search engine hits, the photos won't, so they can go.

So far this seems to keep things manageable. The only times those old ads even affect the server is when someone actually LOOKS at them. Otherwise, they really don't affect much at all in a negative way.

But thank you for your concern.

I dont really see too many sold adds unless im using a search tool... and in that case, its expected to find sold ones, your searching for some specific reptile and odds are that the first couple results will yeild the animals available and the posts after it are sold, they are in chronoligical order, so as you srmtart seeing 'sold' posts that typically means they are older posts anyway.

Personally, i think its better, because if your looking for a specific and you see they are all sold, then you as the buyer can make a Wanted add and be more specific to your own needs and have people find you instead!

Either that, ir its morivation to get onto the boards quicker/more often so you can be the next reason someone writes SOLD

Originally Posted by WebSlave

Whereas the text in classified ads will trigger search engine hits, the photos won't, so they can go.

I was wondering where the photos went. I decided not to long ago to look up some past ads to compare what the "quality" of some animals were compared to today. My initial reaction to my quest was: "dang it.... my mission came to an end so quickly.... oh well, I tried "
But thanks for the thread either way, I used to delete my ads as soon as the animals were into the other owners hands, but with the reasons I have seen to keep the ads up, I may just reconsider my methods.