A simple rule that would make the WTS and WTB forum categories far better IMO.

Petelele · 2019-10-13T22:20:35.000Z

If we could just add a rule so that people wanting to sell or buy would have to let us know where they are located i would actually use those forum categories.
a forum post could look a bit like this:
[NLD] WTS Emisar D4.
[SWE] WTS Acebeam etc etc
As it stands i have to click on every single listing only to see that they are from the States, making it a completely useless listing for me. for a light that costs 20 euros id still probably have to pay 25+ eur shipping making it useless to me. i would really appreciate if we can add country tags to the WTS and WTB sections of the forum.

raccoon · 2019-10-13T23:21:54.000Z

It'd be nice for deals as well.

Most of the deals that I find are U.S. only, and I usually put that in the thread title.

Petelele · 2019-10-13T23:23:14.000Z

Good point. I have seen a bunch of amazon only deals which usually don’t ship to Europe. I really appreciate you putting that in the title.

brad · 2019-10-13T23:43:16.000Z

[NLD] WTS Emisar D4. [SWE] WTS Acebeam etc etc

If you didn’t have the Netherlands as your location I would never have guessed what NLD is.

Petelele · 2019-10-13T23:49:35.000Z

Haha, fair enough… maybe [EU-NLD] Would work better? Though I would hazard a guess that most Europeans associate NLD with the Netherlands.
Fun side-note I thought the people on Reddit posting with NLD in front of the title were fellow flashlight aficionados from the Netherlands. And then I saw a post where someone illuminated a mountainside and I grew suspicious. In my defense I had only seen like 4 posts at that point …

hIKARInoob · 2019-10-13T23:51:46.000Z

If you don’t know the code, then shipping is probably too expensive.

Lightbringer · 2019-10-14T02:34:58.000Z

Wellp, if anyone could armtwist people to be more specific than “please help!” in a subject-line, that’d be awesome, too.

Lux-Perpetua · 2019-10-14T03:21:13.000Z

Great idea Petelele! I must admit I‘m more familiar with the Alpha-2 code (NL) instead of the Alpha-3 code (NLD) for The Netherlands. In any case, I like the idea that we follow the ISO 3166 standard. :THUMBS-UP:

en.wikipedia.org

ISO 3166-1

ISO 3166-1 (Codes for the representation of names of countries and their subdivisions – Part 1: Country codes) is a standard defining codes for the names of countries, dependent territories, and special areas of geographical interest. It is the first part of the ISO 3166 standard published by the International Organization for Standardization. It defines three sets of country codes: The alphabetic country codes were first included in ISO 3166 in 1974, and the numeric country codes were first in...

leftdisconnected · 2019-10-15T05:09:58.000Z

Codes are fine as if you don’t recognize it, then you don’t need to know (as Lightbringer noted), but it might even be possible to write “Netherlands” or “U.S.” or “Antarctica” . Everyone knows that U.S. stands for Unilateral Soccer…. or something like that. Unbearable Snobs? Heck, I can never remember this nonsense…

But I agree that people should include this info in the thread title :+1: .

Lightbringer · 2019-10-14T04:28:48.000Z

Oh, I hope you didn’t interpret my comment as anything against this thread.

I just see topics like “please help me!!!” and have no idea about what.

“Please help me swap out this driver/LED/whatever.”

“Please help me post a picture on BLF.”

“Please help me because I’m on fire.”

etc.

Same dealy. You click into the thread, and find out he needs help using spellcheck on his browser or something. :person_facepalming:

Petelele · 2019-10-14T09:00:17.000Z

Lux-Perpetua:

Great idea Petelele! I must admit I‘m more familiar with the Alpha-2 code (NL) instead of the Alpha-3 code (NLD) for The Netherlands. In any case, I like the idea that we follow the ISO 3166 standard. :+1:

ISO 3166-1 - Wikipedia

I thought the Alpha 3 would be easier because the letters usually resemble the name of a country a bit more for instance SE or SWE. both are fine by me though.

Petelele · 2019-10-14T09:04:29.000Z

Lightbringer:

Oh, I hope you didn’t interpret my comment as anything against this thread.

I just see topics like “please help me!!!” and have no idea about what.

“Please help me swap out this driver/LED/whatever.”

“Please help me post a picture on BLF.”

“Please help me because I’m on fire.”

etc.

Same dealy. You click into the thread, and find out he needs help using spellcheck on his browser or something. :person_facepalming:

Yeah I wouldn’t be opposed to more rules at all. One we should watch out for though is having so many rules that it becomes intimidating to post as a newbie (me) maybe just send a standard message to people with an undescribtive title urging them to change it? I’m sure most people would co-operate

Lightbringer · 2019-10-14T16:57:50.000Z

I’d rather not make it a “rule”, per se. “Highly suggested” would be better.

Also, like when people post a subject “Acebeam W30”. Ummmm, okay. Is it a review? A question about the light? WTB? WTS? What what what what what? It’s rather annoying, yet out of a sick and twisted curiosity, I’d still click on it. I might not reply if it’s still too annoying, but…

Also, “Where can I buy xxx?”. Okay, so you point them at, say, Amazon (or Illumn, or MTN, or…), even go through the trouble to provide an actual link to a product, and get back, “Oh, I’m in Outer Mongolia and Amazon/etc. doesn’t deliver there.”. Oooookay, but at least SAY SO in your message, or at least fill in the damned “location” field so people know where you live, at the very least which country, just to keep people from needlessly spinning their wheels trying to help.

There was an article out there floating around outlining how the best way to get a correct answer is to ask the right question(s). Making people guess just annoys potential suppliers of the right answer. And worse is when you gently try to point it out, and they get all nasty to you, like, “Yeah, really helpful, thanks a lot…” (sarcastically) as someone did to me not all that long ago.

So… if anyone finds that article, maybe that should be required reading first.

AlexGT · 2019-10-14T17:07:12.000Z

And while you are at it, please stop deleting the sale price, it’s annoying!

CJ_Avlis · 2019-10-14T20:36:48.000Z

A rule???

Maybe just a smart thing to do???…

it eliminates some of the annoying/unnecessary back and forth for sellers

IMHO, it shows an increased level of thoughtfullness/seriousness & by extension, a bit more credibility.

Sales posts with just the bare bones of info, get little more than a glance from me.

Big_Sam · 2019-10-14T22:31:14.000Z

I suppose for those of us not in the US, I just assume that unless it says EU or UK, it will be in the US and ignore it.

I try to put location in the title, although I usually could post to the US, it costs too much to be worth it…. not to mention our terrible exchange rate at the moment.

BOO5TED · 2019-10-14T22:59:00.000Z

leftdisconnected:

Codes are fine as if you don’t recognize it, then you don’t need to know (as Lightbringer noted), but it might even be possible to write “Netherlands” or “U.S.” or “Antarctica” . Everyone knows that U.S. stands for Unilateral Soccer…. or something like that. Unbearbable Snobs? Heck, I can never remember this nonsense…

But I agree that people should include this info in the thread title :+1: :+1: .

Pretty sure it’s unconditioned stimulus. At least that’s what my therapist says.

travis · 2019-10-15T01:21:28.000Z

Unnecessary.
There is no uniform “country code” abbreviation system.
Just look at home country listing adjacent to members avatars.

Let’s not over complicate things.
I already have myriad Laws in California for that……

Petelele · 2019-10-15T01:57:17.000Z

There are however internationally recognised standards. And I’m sure people will figure it out. The country listing next to the avatar only becomes visible once you have clicked on the listing, which is the biggest gripe I have. Since 99% of them end up being listings from the states anyways.

Kame_Sennin · 2019-12-17T19:11:16.000Z

Up