[Yamikotai]

One question we get asked quite often around here is recommended sites for buying components and such from; could we have a sticky thread with links to recommended sites? It would be organised by country.
I had a look round and couldn't find such a thread in existence already.

I can do the UK sites.

Any thoughts?

[Hefemeister]

I think UK, US and Australia would be nice to have. perhaps in general and high performance computers.

or we could just have Dell.com and let people select their country.

[Mak213]

We tried this before and it failed. People got into fights about the sites recommended. They thought 1 site deserved to be mentioned over another cause of 1 reason or another. For this reason we havent done it because all it does is cause conflicts among those recommending parts.

While we do recommend many sites and parts, to have a specific list would be counter productive. People would spend more time arguing that sita a should be listed while site b should be removed. Someone else will come along and say site c which was never mentioned is lower priced than both. Along comes a spammer to get their site listed and posts site d, a scam site, and gets a couple of customers before it is removed.

So as you see a list as such would be tough to maintain and keep civil. We coul lose the thread off cause how would we get feedback on it.

If a way can be brought up which would help users and not cause problems then fine. But it would have to contain ALL sites and not just ones a person prefers. No leaving out a site like TigerDirect cause you or someone you know had a bad experience with them. It must be impartial.

[hikaricloud]

And no one reads the stickies anyway, they'd still post a thread asking what site to go to.

[Yamikotai]

Originally Posted by hikaricloud

And no one reads the stickies anyway, they'd still post a thread asking what site to go to.

In which case we would point them to this thread. Which is kinda the idea...

If a way can be brought up which would help users and not cause problems then fine. But it would have to contain ALL sites and not just ones a person prefers. No leaving out a site like TigerDirect cause you or someone you know had a bad experience with them. It must be impartial.

I could be impartial for the UK sites, it would be up to others to be impartial for other countries.

So as you see a list as such would be tough to maintain and keep civil. We coul lose the thread off cause how would we get feedback on it.

I can see how this isn't likely to work in that case. Could it be worth a second try, though?

[hikaricloud]

Originally Posted by Yamikotai

In which case we would point them to this thread. Which is kinda the idea...

Well yeah, but considering that defeats the purpose of having a sticky in the first place, what's the point?

Think about it, the stickies are there so people can read them and not have to ask questions that have already been answered in the sticky. If they post a thread anyway because they haven't read it, we could link them to the sticky, but they've already posted a topic and we're already responding to it, so why not just tell them the vendors? It'll take about the same amount of energy.

It would be a good idea if it could be impartial and people would actually look at them I suppose, but that is a tad bit of wishful thinking.

[Yamikotai]

In my experience in various forums, stickies are there for folks like us to find 'em easily for others. I mean, sticky is just another word for bookmark. In my opinion, anyways

[Mak213]

Originally Posted by Yamikotai

In my experience in various forums, stickies are there for folks like us to find 'em easily for others. I mean, sticky is just another word for bookmark. In my opinion, anyways

But following that line of thinking, dont you already have the sites bookmarked? So wouldnt it be just as easy to just copy/paste them rather than create a sticky if it isnt going to be used for the right purpose?

The point of stickies is not to have them be a quick reference for our active and knowledgable members. They are meant to provide information for the most commonly asked questions.

While a topic like this can prove to be useful, it needs to be shown that it would be used properly. As said above it is fruitless to create it to have it overlooked. Just to turn around and have people directed to check the link when a answer can be given just as easily.

I will think about it more and get back after i weight the pros and cons more. Maybe figure out a way to create it and stop it from being taken off course from its intended purpose.

PS. Sorry if some of my words are mis-typed and that. Not easy responding on a Internet Tablet that is only a couple of inches bigger than a blackberry. Keys are so close together that the stylus might not hit the one intended.

[Trotter]

A thought...

A thread for this could be started by a mod (who could edit it) and set to be moderated (meaning posts would not show up to the general population until approved by a moderator). The catch would be that people could only recommend sites that they have dealt with, not what they have heard of or Googled. A brand new member's post would not be regarded as it could very well be a drive-by spammer.

[Mak213]

Wouldnt the thread not be seen by members if it was set to moderated?