Cycling UK Forum

Classifieds.
Is it not possible for sellers to post the word Sold in the title rather than possible buyers have to often scroll through the many messages on the post to find the word Sold at the very last message.
Also when an item is offered for sale you get the "PM sent" in the next reply. If the OP is selling a number of items you do not know which item they are referring to and whether or not to declare an interest or offer. Its like there is some secret bidding going on and you are not in the loop. It would be much easier if buyers declared their intentions in the reply rather than the secretive "PM sent". I've also noticed sellers replying "PM replied to". What! What do they not want us to see? Is is a code?
Thanks for the opportunity for this new year rant.

All good points, not a rant. Nothing's enforceable - it doesn't need to be - it's just conventions that when adhered to make everyone happy.

I suspect that some advertisers don't appreciate that they can edit their thread title, which is the best way to close an ad., which has served its purpose. (It's probably explained somewhere, but not everybody ploughs through all the rules, guidelines etc.)

I also suspect that the PM thing is caused by people not wanting to trespass too much on another member's ad.

I've suffered from this a couple of times [hence the moan] as I've offered to buy something and found days later that I've been beaton to it by somebody who sent a PM before me.
Now if I see "PM sent" I don't bother offering to buy as I assume an offer is in hand even though the PM could be just asking for further details so the seller could also be losing the chance of a sale. It would be nice if conversations were more open and if asking further details we could all view the info.
Cheers. Jim

I agree that all of the points in the OP are very valid. We used to remind people to add "Sold" to sold item threads in the past (or do it for them) but there are just too many these days for us to keep up.