Best that ATDrake have a sticky to post their threads in Deals forum?

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by murg

Using requests from three and four years ago to justify current behaviour is just not on. The current users of this forum perceive that there is a current problem.

Not all of them, and this has been a divide in preferences that has existed in MR for years, if one goes back through the various Feedback threads.

Originally Posted by murg

Having look at your linked thread, Arcdata now has a thread that they can post in to their hearts content. I have no problem with you having a thread (even a monthly one, although I don't see the point of monthly threads) to post all of your offers in, which allows us to look at it or ignore it, as we now do with Arcdata's thread.

Arcadata has a dedicated thread, in accordance with MR's official rules on affiliate links, because she is posting affiliate-linked bargain offers for which she is receiving a small commission when her fellow MR members buy them using her links, which now require disclosure and grouping under one openly-declared aegis. She doesn't post freebies in it.

Originally Posted by Difflugia

At one time, each book had its own thread, but there was a decision to change to the genre threads. I don't have a preference for either style, but I'd like an attempt at consistency.

There was no actual decision. People have always had the choice to post however they felt worked best for a particular offer, and even back when indivdual threads were the default choice, there were still round-up threads for grouped/periodic offers.

[cromag]

I appreciate the wealth of titles ATDrake manages to find, but I only fire up my desktop computer (with the decent-sized monitor) in the evening. During the day I'm on my netbook, and the new offerings frequently scroll to the next page. Also, sometimes new threads get lost in the flood.

Again, I'm glad they're there, but I'd like them to be a bit more "managed."

[Blossom]

I love that ATDrake is posting again! I thank you for all your Romance freebie and deals posts in our Romance thread. I am okay with whatever is easiest for ATDrake but just saying if the romance books were not posted in our mega thread the deal would missed out on by a ton of people or it would reposted by someone else. We have subscribers who only come to MR for that thread. You would not believe how many lurkers I get notes from that they never look at anything but our Romance thread. I'm sure there are others who do the same to other mega threads. Saying all of that I am just happy to ATDrake's posts and happy with whatever makes him happy.

[Jessica Lares]

I think this should be something that is addressed technically within VB. Bring in prefixes like FREE and BARGAIN, along with what - Books, Omnibuses, Audiobooks, Software, etc, along with categories. If you can select multiple prefixes in advanced search, I'm not sure it would be that hard to implement it with the deals section itself. I'm sure there is a way to do it without it looking tacky.

That would be a better approach than individual threads which end up getting cluttered with small talk all the time.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I love that ATDrake is posting again! I thank you for all your Romance freebie and deals posts in our Romance thread. I am okay with whatever is easiest for ATDrake but just saying if the romance books were not posted in our mega thread the deal would missed out on by a ton of people or it would reposted by someone else. We have subscribers who only come to MR for that thread. You would not believe how many lurkers I get notes from that they never look at anything but our Romance thread. I'm sure there are others who do the same to other mega threads. Saying all of that I am just happy to ATDrake's posts and happy with whatever makes him happy.

If ATDrake was posting all the romance books in the same manner as all the other posts that are at issue here, it seems like you would feel the same as me. Most of ATDrake's posts for other genres are single posts. If ATDrake would post in the genre threads I would think that it was great too.

[Athens80]

I prefer ATDrake's posting style and I'm glad to have those posts back in the forum. Those posts have been a significant portion of the interesting posts.

They have headlines! A great innovation in publishing. Those headlines tell me whether the thread is likely to have information of interest to me.

When I look at the sticky threads I see whether or not they have new posts, but not whether those posts are likely to be of interest to me. A good percentage of the individual posts are friendly chatter which obviously some users enjoy, but which I'd be glad to see handled as user to user messages. Also, a very few users post many freebies and deals which are almost always of no interest to me. But even though I might see that the sticky's new, last post is from that user, I can't assume that the sticky has nothing of interest without scrolling through it from the end. It's as if your news source had no headlines but a few like "international," "national," and "sports" and you had to scroll through all the new posts in each to see whether any of them was about something you're interested in.

So different people use the forums for different reasons, some more social-oriented and some more information-oriented. Neither is "wrong."

[JoHunt]

Reading through all the posts in this thread, wasn't it agreed that 3 posts per day would be a compromise to satisfy both camps?

From post #5:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...94#post2900394

Originally Posted by ATDrake

But we don't have a separate optional freebie-threads-only subforum that people can ignore, and we both know from the Feedback Forum that there are periodic complaints about too many individual book threads why can't you all just post in a single one/too many book threads at all I can't see my hardware deals/too many threads marked just for Kindle but sometimes they actually show up elsewhere/oh noes this free deal has expired why does it still say free/etc.

And it turns out that people who really, really don't want to see individual threads can't block seeing the ones I started even with the Ignore function, so 3 per day seemed like a decent compromise. If there's anything they would have liked which expires before the cutoff/or they didn't see it in time, well, too bad for them.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by joehunt

Reading through all the posts in this thread, wasn't it agreed that 3 posts per day would be a compromise to satisfy both camps?

In the interests of full disclosure, I should point out that there wasn't an actual agreement that led to that compromise of no more than 3 non-repeat threads per day. That was a voluntary limiting action I undertook of my own volition when considering the discussed concerns of another poster who complained.

Also, it turns out that you can add up to 5 tags per thread for one's own threads and 2 per for threads started by other people, and I've gone back and added a few to several freebies I've previously posted as a test.

So, with that in mind, if anyone's interested in seeing a sampling of what's still free over the years, or available in certain subjects, please try the following examples:

• permafreebie (for stuff where I know the creator intends to make it a long-term resource)
• long-term freebie (for stuff that's still out there that hasn't been put back up in price yet for months or years on end and can still be picked up for free in at least one of the venues listed)
• business
• canada
• science

Apparently the default tag link grabs threads from all over MR, so perhaps modifying them to "business e-books" or similar would work better for auto-pulling up all the applicable freebies for anyone who's interested in a particular subject matter.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

If ATDrake was posting all the romance books in the same manner as all the other posts that are at issue here, it seems like you would feel the same as me. Most of ATDrake's posts for other genres are single posts. If ATDrake would post in the genre threads I would think that it was great too.

But I do post in the genre threads. Here are my contributions of KDP Select Amazon-exclusive & Smashwords author-provided backlist freebies & publisher promo sale bargains to Horror, Kids/YA, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, and you can auto-search on the rest of them by clicking the number of Replies for a thread to get the pop-up, then clicking the number next to my username for all the posts I've made within the threads. The only two I haven't contributed to are Cookbooks and Audiobooks.

Actually, in terms of plain numbers, the majority of the free books I've posted have actually been inside the genre threads. I only do individual threads for official (or occasionally glitch) publisher promotional* freebies from established imprints with decent reputations† who make their books (if not the current freebie) available in multiple stores, which I believe they deserve a minor visibility spotlight for, in order to encourage them to offer more.

* And sometimes also non-profit-provided science/art/history/reference stuff which I particularly like and I've got a free daily slot for.

† Minus Ellora's Cave.

[Dr. Drib]

Moderator Notice

Announcements of this thread will not be allowed to be 'promoted' in another forum. The only proper place for discussion and/or annoucement is THIS forum only.

Any further creation of threads outside of this forum will therefore be deleted and further action will be taken if this behavior persists.

[TrevorViking]

You all take this stuff so seriously!

[FizzyWater]

My opinion is, if ATDrake is willing to scout out the good deals, and he's not posting affiliate links (because isn't that why the other person has their own thread?), he should be allowed to post however works best for him.

I visit Mobileread from the New Posts > Last 24 hours at least once a day. So I see the new stuff either way. Maybe if I only visited by going to the forums directly, it would mean more to me to have them all in a single thread. I don't know. I'm just grateful someone's willing to take the time to find and list the deals.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

But I do post in the genre threads. Here are my contributions of KDP Select Amazon-exclusive & Smashwords author-provided backlist freebies & publisher promo sale bargains to Horror, Kids/YA, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, and you can auto-search on the rest of them by clicking the number of Replies for a thread to get the pop-up, then clicking the number next to my username for all the posts I've made within the threads. The only two I haven't contributed to are Cookbooks and Audiobooks.

Actually, in terms of plain numbers, the majority of the free books I've posted have actually been inside the genre threads. I only do individual threads for official (or occasionally glitch) publisher promotional* freebies from established imprints with decent reputations† who make their books (if not the current freebie) available in multiple stores, which I believe they deserve a minor visibility spotlight for, in order to encourage them to offer more.

* And sometimes also non-profit-provided science/art/history/reference stuff which I particularly like and I've got a free daily slot for.

† Minus Ellora's Cave.

Yes, I did notice that you started posting in the genre threads recently and I thank you for that. I'm probably reacting to the huge volume of posts before that and the fact that it seems to be a lot of christian books posted and there is a thread for that as well. But I do appreciate that they are listed as christian so I can avoid them.

[Lynx-lynx]

@ATDrake, my thinking is that if your many (generously informative) single post threads went into a sticky members would be able to subscribe to your thread in the same way that they subscribe to other threads. Alternatively members could drop into your sticky thread, in the same way that they drop in now.

Either way a member chooses, that is by subscription or dropping in, they know that you provide quality information and offerings that either need to be taken up quickly or adhere to a mentioned time frame.

You would still be able to contribute to the genre threads as you do now, but members will also know that you will have many more offerings in your sticky thread.

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by Lynx-lynx

@ATDrake, my thinking is that if your many (generously informative) single post threads went into a sticky members would be able to subscribe to your thread in the same way that they subscribe to other threads. Alternatively members could drop into your sticky thread, in the same way that they drop in now.

Either way a member chooses, that is by subscription or dropping in, they know that you provide quality information and offerings that either need to be taken up quickly or adhere to a mentioned time frame.

You would still be able to contribute to the genre threads as you do now, but members will also know that you will have many more offerings in your sticky thread.

I appreciate the intention and work that goes into the postings, but find there are too many, and they are so long that they obscure other's postings. So I think this is a great suggestion, that can preserve both.