A Modest Proposal
Something said in another thread last week got me thinking. A hobbyist pointed out that sometimes hobbyists will just see a showcase and initiate contact. So if any useful or important information is relegated to a provider's most recent ad, the hobbyist may not see it and the two parties may get their signals mixed up.
In order to save everyone time and confusion, what if a feature were added to the showcases whereby the provider could link directly to one of her ads, much as she can link to her reviews or website? Then hobbyists could check the ad with a single extra click.
I know when I see a showcase that catches my fancy - often following from a comment in a discussion thread either by the provider or a monger that mentions them - that I look up her latest ad to see what it says and get more info if available, especially if I'm thinking about contacting her to request an appointment. At the very least that means going to her profile's statistics tab and checking the latest threads started by her. If she starts a lot of threads and few ads, it's sometimes faster to do a manual search than scroll down through all her threads looking for the last ad. This involves going to the search page and looking for threads by the provider in the ad sections, which means scrolling through the colossal list of forums and making sure I check the Provider Ads and Weekend Lineup forums before executing the search. Either way, it's tedious to say the least. I only do it because I like to be thorough in my research. I doubt most would bother.
Would hobbyists use a direct link in a provider's showcase? Would providers bother to insert the link to their latest ad, or even any of their ads? Would the feature be useful to either both parties and would it get used?
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