Learning to search - very important to anyone who wishes to post an offer on SC

[ilovemykids]

This is taken from the SITE OVER VIEW - Here you'll find various site information post in the Site Related section.
However with all the reposting currently going on I thought it'd be useful to have it's own separate sticky thread to be viewed by everyone. Also some things have been added to the information. Please take a moment to read...

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Please do a search before posting a new offer to see if it has already been posted. We all miss things that have been posted from time to time and repost, but the more reposts there are the more work it is for the mods to keep this area tidy.

Also, please use the search feature at the top of the page rather than simply the 'search this forum' function as this will check the entire site as opposed to just the one section.

Search tips:

• Try a couple of searches using different terms if you don't find anything the first time.

• Search using only one or two key words. Too many words will just turn up more posts than you can look through or maybe nothing at all as sometimes it is just too much info for the search engine.

• Also search out the main piece of the URL. An example would be out of the following link I'd search out the highlighted section, not the whole link......

• Often it is easier to find by searching for the freebie offered or contest prize or catch-phrase rather than the name of the company or contest name.

• It is best to search the entire forum, rather than just one subsection.

• Keep current with threads! Almost half of the reposts are posted earlier in the same section, only one or two days before for the most part.

• When titling your thread please use the full month name instead of the sort form. Example: [August instead of Aug] and [September instead of Sept]

If you do a search for something and you find the offer has been posted before, but maybe needs updating, just make a reply in that thread and it will bring it back to the top of the forum. Please do this instead of reposting the offer...thanks!


If a post has been moved to the expired section or to a different section it is because a mod did a search and found the same contest or freebie in previous posts or because it is better suited to one of the other sections.



A quote from another poster for some of the reasons REPOSTS are so annoying...

I know some days it seems like maybe we are a little anal about repost, but there really is a reason for this. A lot of us enter about 50 - 60 contests a day so it is very hard to remember if we have entered a contest or not. Most of us have figured out some sort of a system to help us remember if we have entered or not and one of the ways is that if a contest is single entry we will make sure that we post a thank you to the contest poster.

Not only does it give the poster a little recognition but it also helps us to remember that we have already entered.

A large percentage of single entry contests will disqualify you for entering more than once, so by double posting a contest there is a very big chance that people will be disqualified.

PLEASE do a SEARCH before posting a contest. Not only are you making more work for the mods who are already very busy with other things besides trying to keep this board neat & orderly but you are risking having some of us disqualified for double entering.

[koala]

Just a reminder

[elliott_gyal]

large percentage of single entry contests will disqualify you for entering more than once, so by double posting a contest there is a very big chance that people will be disqualified.

^ thats the most important thing in my opinion.

im not on here as often as i used to be, but if you see a repost, the quickest way for me to merge it into the original thread is if you say "repost" rather than reporting it since i get reported posts/etc from all over the forum...