I'm totally cool with people using 'Thanks' to mark threads of single entry--their is no better way to mark your entering them. I find that completely reasonable.

However, Daily contests do NOT need to have these marks, since you can enter them every day. In fact if its daily you should enter them as much as possible and increase those odds. If one thinks a thread needs bumping, I would suggest making a policy that encourages people only to only bump threads that are near falling off the back page that wouldn't just fall off on their own.

Bumping near expiring threads does a couple of things...

1) It creates a backlog of threads that stay on the monthly view of daily threads. This means dead contests that you have to avoid.

2) It creates unintentional problem, of users having to choose to ignore those threads--or risk breaking the rules and entering after the deadline.

3) Ignorable threads are limited in the amount you can ignore. Once you reach the maximum its a pain to choose which ones to remove.

4) I spend (others too) sizable amounts of time bumping threads that need to remain on the front page. This time amounts to hours over the course of a month. I purposefully choose to avoid things that would expire on their own. I also have the bad habit of take it a little personally when someone ruins this work that helps our community.

The solution:
I would suggest we make it a rule NOT to bump threads that would expire on their own from the 30 day list. This eliminates clutter, reduces ignore list size (and cost of maintaining such a list), and in general makes the forums a lot easier to navigate.

This may sound like a rant, however I'm sure other people think the same thing. This is all about making this place better.

What do you consider the back page? I've never understood why you bump old contests. My "last" page goes back several years. ??? I'm not complaining, just trying to understand why you bump the old contest threads.

This may sound like a rant, however I'm sure other people think the same thing. This is all about making this place better.

You mean better for you? There are probably things that you like but others don't and vice versa. We can't make everyone happy. :shake: I don't understand why people bump an IWG daily to say that they didn't win that day (it is annoying) but making a rule about it won't solve the problem. If someone new happens to see the post, they too can bump it again. For as many members as there are, it can be bumped endlessly. There are new members all the time who haven't read the rules and don't plan to do so, but I don't think mods are willing to warn or ban a member just because they bump an old thread.

I understand that it's annoying to you, but it's actually helpful to a lot of people. I know that I have seen an older thread bumped the day the contest it ends and I'm able to enter it if I've never seen it before. You may not like that it lessens your chances of winning (I assume that's what you mean by timing it to fall off the back page) but some people are just trying to help out others. That's what the C&S "what i've won" thread is all about. We're here to help and celebrate SD members. We're a community. If you don't like it, you don't have to participate.

You mean better for you? There are probably things that you like but others don't and vice versa. We can't make everyone happy. :shake: I don't understand why people bump an IWG daily to say that they didn't win that day (it is annoying) but making a rule about it won't solve the problem. If someone new happens to see the post, they too can bump it again. For as many members as there are, it can be bumped endlessly. There are new members all the time who haven't read the rules and don't plan to do so, but I don't think mods are willing to warn or ban a member just because they bump an old thread.

I understand that it's annoying to you, but it's actually helpful to a lot of people. I know that I have seen an older thread bumped the day the contest it ends and I'm able to enter it if I've never seen it before. You may not like that it lessens your chances of winning (I assume that's what you mean by timing it to fall off the back page) but some people are just trying to help out others. That's what the C&S "what i've won" thread is all about. We're here to help and celebrate SD members. We're a community. If you don't like it, you don't have to participate.

I want to make this VERY clear, I could care less about a few 1000 more entries in the pot. When a contest has likely millions of entries a few more are statistically insignificant.

By falling off the back page, I'm referring to the default monthly view of 30 days worth of contests. I do like a nice clean list to enter, when I have to scroll through 7 additional pages of expired contests that takes a TON of time. I want to make it so entering a full 30 day (monthly view) takes only 3 hours. That is my timing goal. I accomplish this two ways, promoting contests that would NOT expire in a months time with a bump to make sure as many people get to enter as possible. Secondly I try to ignore threads that are expired, but can't fall off the page because they are bumped right before they expire. Unfortunately the secondary method isn't VERY affective. The 400 allowable ignored posts fill up VERY quickly, especially when people bump everything needlessly.

As for you telling me to leave if I don't like that, that is pretty rude, I'm looking for a dialog to maybe promote some common rules of etiquette here.

What do you consider the back page? I've never understood why you bump old contests. My "last" page goes back several years. ??? I'm not complaining, just trying to understand why you bump the old contest threads.

The back page, is the 30 day (monthly) view when you sort contests by daily. I do bump old contests, but never ones that would leave the 30 list on their own. This is based on expiration date, so only non expired contests remain near the top. Expired contests only clog the board (IMO). I want as many winners on our website as possible, half the fun is seeing other people besides oneself winning.

What do you consider the back page? I've never understood why you bump old contests. My "last" page goes back several years. ??? I'm not complaining, just trying to understand why you bump the old contest threads.

:rofl2: Totally! I've asked several times what that means and never gotten an answer.

Just because YOU think it's "important" Implode, doesn't mean everyone else thinks it is. Why do you have to complain about every little thing around here? If it wasn't for everyone ELSE posting all the sweeps, maybe you would have LESS to complain about? Just BE GRATEFUL FOR A CHANGE and genuinely THANK people who work so hard to make SD a place YOU frequent. This isn't YOUR personal website.

(Oh, and I enter plenty of contests EVERY day without using SD at all after the initial post....Have you heard of just bookmarking them on your own computer???)

I'm with MsTex saver. My back page is set far enough back that things getting bumped alot confuses me, but I'm really not that bothered either way. Sometimes someone bumping something reminds me of it, or maybe it's something my all too defective brain has missed up until then.

I personally never bother to use the ignore feature - I filter things by what kind of contest and enter as the mood takes me - I do IWG's and Dailys that I'm interested in, and then if I have time I'll run back through and find other stuff that catches my eye. I'll often find that something I thought I wasn't interested in (or capable of, in the case of the essay contests) interests me enough later on to enter, or I think of a good entry to write.

I also like some of the things that people write on the threads, especially some of the daily threads - it's a community, and that's part of the fun of a community, as is the "what I've won" part - I find it incredibly fun to hear that other people are winning nice things - even if I'm not. Sometimes it's just as good to share in someone else's joy.

I would think the thing that would be nice on the site is to have the icons, like the instant win and daily ones, that lets you just load and look through them separate. Have these also for months that contest ends, like if a contest ends in JAN when you post it you click the JAN icon along with the instant win or daily and then when you look through the site and you want to narrow the contests down you could also do it by the month it ends.