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Marketplace: PM Sent?

thegoldenmackid

thegoldenmackid

macrumors 604
Original poster
Dec 29, 2006
7,770
6
dallas, texas
For godsake, stop saying "pm sent"

There are threads where it gets repeated three and four times.

Please, tell me...what is the purpose?

If the seller doesn't check his/her pm's, it's not your job to remind them. It is especially annoying when someone specifically says "either by responding to the post or by PM" and then you respond with "PM sent", that violates the whole principle.
 
Agreed. It used to be a sticky in the Marketplace but for some reason it was deleted.
 
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The bolden part (#5) is my doing .... :)
 
Most MR rules I don't mind, but er, can we sort of start looking at avoiding having too many rules?

I don't want posting here to become like writing an article on Wikipedia in terms of navigating the rules.

Honestly, someone posts "PM sent" in a marketplace thread, is it worth getting your knickers in a twist over? There's no big sig, no jarring flashing image, just two words and maybe a small text sig that you can skim over and read the next post down.

Maybe I'm uncomprehending. Enlighten me then, why do the words 'PM sent" in a marketplace post bother you so much that they should have a special rule created and enforced against them?

I'll just be clear - I've never done a 'PM sent' post in my life. I find them mildly irritating too. But I find having too many rules far more irritating.

And sometimes it's useful to know who else is involved in a marketplace discussion, and what stage they're at.
 
The reason for the rule is that, before we had it, "PM sent posts" were used to bump threads when they didn't deserve it. So these posts are at best useless and at worst unfair to other members. They also clutter the New Posts and Forum Spy displays.

Rather than make a complicated rule that says who can post "PM sent" under what conditions, we prohibit them in general, to keep things simple. As a result, dealing with that rule is less like, say, writing an article on Wikipedia!
 
I'm not suggesting that we start banning users solely on that basis.

However when someone specifically says to either PM or post on this thread, and you chose to put "pm sent" it jst gets annoying. I agree that it is bumping. I posted this, just to remind users, that this is a rule and that the mods shouldn't have to live with it...
 
I'm glad I stumbled upon this thread, as I had no idea it was frowned on. I actually copied it after seeing others do it, figuring it was how things were done. I can understand the thread bumping issue, and will refrain from making this error again myself.
 
Well, it's not *completely* useless. If I see a guy selling something and I see that 3 other people have already "pm sent", then I know my prospects of getting the item are slim. It sets up an expectation this way. Conversely if many people have "pm sent" over, say, a few days, and none have received a response, then I know something might be up with the seller.
 
notjustjay said:
Well, it's not *completely* useless. If I see a guy selling something and I see that 3 other people have already "pm sent", then I know my prospects of getting the item are slim. It sets up an expectation this way. Conversely if many people have "pm sent" over, say, a few days, and none have received a response, then I know something might be up with the seller.
Click to expand...

OTOH, since something like 75% of tentative offers are never followed up on by the buyer, the PM sent post thing has little real value. It just leads to "still for sale" posts from the seller, to counteract the chilling effect of the PM sent post...

As a seller, the last thing I would want is someone sending a lowball offer, and posting "PM Sent" or "Dibs!" and killing interest on my ad for other potential buyers.

The offer and sale transaction should be strictly between the seller and buyer, in private.
 
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