Question about the classifieds

This may have been addressed in the past, but I've been wondering if there's a reason you don't have the classifieds set to auto prune.
Alot of people never bother to delete their ads when replacing them, or when the items are sold. I was reminded of this a couple of days ago when someone inquired about some snakes I had posted. The ad was placed before Christmas and I had forgotten, and failed to remove it.
I just pulled up the python classifieds as an example and the oldest ad was placed on 2/15/2003. I think it's safe to say that ad is outdated. It looks like all the classifieds are intact back through Feb. 03

It really doesn't bother me personally since I see all the adds as they are placed with the "view new posts" and very rarely browse the classifieds directly. I think though that alot of people don't notice the date on a post, and I wonder if they reply to a few only to be told the animals were sold two months ago will that discourage them from bothering with the ads at all?
Aside from that, pruning that behemoth down would probably trim alot of fat from your regular backups.

Probably the reason I don't use auto-prune is because that is not an option in vBulletin. So the pruning has to be done manually by the admin (me), who doesn't have the time to do this as often as he should. The reason you see ads back to Feb, 2003 is because this past February I pruned everything that was older than a year in the classifieds section.

If everyone would delete their own ads when the animals or merchandise has sold, or the ad is no longer valid, then this wouldn't be a problem. Heck, I may have some old ads myself out there!

Yeah, I know it is a problem, and the solution is for me to prune them every month or so, but quite honestly, I have other things more pressing on my mind.

As a temporary solution, I can set the default display to only display those ads that are 30 or 60 days old or less, which would require a conscious effort on the part of the viewer to see the older ads displayed. When I get a free moment, hopefully I'll remember to do that.

well is there anyway for the person posting the adds to view all of there ads at one time and delete the old ones? like some option that just givees a link to the ads the particular classified user has so it can be easily maintained from the posters end?

Any registered member can do a search on their user name and limit the search to a forum or category of forums. But using this to delete ads will not be the easiest thing in the world to do, as it will be tedious.

I candelete old ads

Just tell me 9 months, 6 months. 3 months.

I had just assumed it was an option on these boards. I'm running the phbb you include with the hosting, such as my paltry forum is haha, and it has the auto prune so I figured this system had it too.
I don't blame you for not doing it manually particularly if every ad has to be deleted one by one.

If it is something you deem to be enough of a problem, I don't mind lending a hand and pruning them if you needed it. I hate to sound like I'm complaining (I'm not) without offering any help or solution.