Retailer Threads

[Tangled Metal]

There's value in starting threads, I know I've got some very good advice and information from some I've started. There's some very important information coming out from retailer threads where people have started it saying they had an issue or had significantly good customer service. I don't think this should stop. I also think new threads should be started about retailers if they offer new information or a change in service standards.

What my first ever poll is about concerns the 35 page retailer threads. Those threads where another forum member reads it for the first time and posts a comment rather than reading all 35 pages to realise it's all been said before (no doubt losing the will to continue well before all 35 pages have been read).

My basic premise is any whether threads about retailers should have a best before date after which they get locked?

This could be applied to other long running threads I reckon but my poll is with the retailer threads on mind. I've finally got the message Spa Cycles are good retailers. It took a long time but 35 pages I've got it.

BTW has anyone ever read the whole 35 pages of the Spa thread? If anyone has the time to do so can they read all the pages and tell us at which page count they thought it first got repetitive? It might inform any decision to lock those threads should that be popular.

Thank you for your indulgence. I am genuinely interested in opinions as well as votes.

PS I'm not getting at Spa Cycles with this, another day it could have been Halfords or Sjs or Evans Cycles.

[gaz]

Having just read your post on the Spa Cycles thread in the reviews section I'd make the following comments.

The current "rules" recommend adding comments to an existing thread.

IMO the Spa thread stays near the top and is easily found and added to, even so its early pages appear to be made up of half a dozen or so separate threads that the mods have merged together. Such merging continues for other retailers, Taylor Wheels and Rose are recent examples.

The forum search engine does not cope with three letter words. Whilst there are work arounds you cannot use the forum search engine to find "Spa" or "SJS".

If it could be fully automated I could see some benefit in deleting "historic" review posts. There would have to be a debate on how to define "historic", 12 months, 24 months, half a century?

Having said that, it's up to the reader if they start on page one and work forward, or page thirty five and work back. I know what I would do for up to date information.

[PH]

leave it as it is, it isn't just a review of a retailer it also contains information on their products that come up in a search.
If you want an idea of the retailer you don't have to read all of it, I'd start with the most recent and work back a page or two.
The length isn't helped by off topic posts, like the long one you've just added, which will probably get a reply or three adding to the pages. It would have been more appropriate to have started a thread in the correct board. either "Using the forum" or here in the "Tea shop"

[Vorpal]

I would argue that there is value in letting a review thread run. The Spa Cycles thread is long, not because it is a 'good' shop, but because a number of forumites have experience with them, both good and bad.

I've read most of the Spa Cycles thread. I admit that I don't remember all of the details, but I don't think that I need to.

[thirdcrank]

IMO, the main point is that nobody has to read it all. The fact that somebody new to the thread may not read it all then touch on something already covered is not much different to how it would be if the earlier stuff had been pruned, so preventing them from reading it anyway.

At the very start of the Spa review, somebody posted a negative review and was rebuked for criticising a much-loved institution, which resulted in some home truths emerging. The shop has meanwhile gone from strength to strength.

[geocycle]

I’ve just bought a bike from Spa after reading the thread. I felt better prepared as a result and I knew what sort of business I was dealing with. The whole experience has been excellent to date.

[Cyril Haearn]

I have created a few polls, yours is only valid for a week, longer would be better, not sure if you can change it, I changed a poll and the votes were zeroed, -1

I probably have read all 35 pages but not in one go
I like reading, just got a book with 600 pages

Would locking a thread be censorship? I would just start a new one, that would make a mess cos the info would be scattered

[mjr]

What biased poll option wordings! -1

[Cyril Haearn]

What biased poll option wordings! -1

It is best to offer more answers including "don't know"
But don't change it now, if you do all votes are zeroed

[Tangled Metal]

Fair enough. I guess I'm alone in this questioning of the value of this Spa thread now.

Perhaps restraint in members posting when all they're adding is another post just like most if the others?

[thirdcrank]

... Perhaps restraint in members posting when all they're adding is another post just like most if the others?

I think it's quite wrong to imply that the comment is all similar. The thread goes back a long way and IIRC, began as at least two which were combined. There may even be others which weren't merged with what is now the main Spa thread. In my earlier post on this thread I mentioned home truths. Spa Cycles has long been a real institution for what I'll term CTC types, ie many of the longer term forum members. I've described it as the unofficial CTC shop and for a reason. However, it's not always been sweetness and light as can be seen from some of the negative posts. I'd attribute some of the length of the thread to people who have had good service and cannot believe some of the negative stuff posting out of disbelief. I think that many posters recognise the value of the place and are keen to report that it's still doing well. On that subject, it's developed from a rather quirky shop in a Harrogate side street to a thriving mail order business, all on the strength of providing for a different market.

I've posted again on here because we've now got people bickering on the main Spa thread about this topic, rather than reviewing the shop.