Before commenting on this one, can you please explain what fields you would include in this wizard?

It would be great if a spellchecker feature could somehow be added.

It gets aggravating when people misspell the name of a store or a product such that it becomes impossible to find via search. Should reduce reposting a little bit.

Or, an easier way for the error to be corrected by the community - not restricted to words but also $ calculations, etc. OPs don't always return to their topics to fix errors.

jayK made a good list. I would add, for the region part, if there is a list of states, please make it easy to 'select all' or 'select none' - that way it is quicker to select all but 2-3 states (as is often the case for contests, excluded in NY, FL, and RI, e.g.). A different tool than a regular drop-down where the control key is used to select multiple items would be appreciated, but I don't know what options there are.

Speaking of contests, this type of posting wizard would be VERY good to implement in Contests and Sweeps. Since fewer fields are needed, maybe you could test it there. (e.g. begin date, end date, frequency(daily, monthly, once), etc)

jayK said:
My ideas:
- Item Name
- Item Mfr
- URL
- Type (high-level: e.g. technology, food, automotive, home decor, service, etc. with cascading subtypes)
- Retailer (autopopulate link to resellerratings.com)
- Price (before rebate/PM/etc.)
- Rebate amount (yes/no checkbox + amt field + rebate form URL field, allow multiple)
- PM amount (yes/no checkbox + amt field + PM retailer name field)
- Coupon amount + coupon code (yes/no checkbox + amt field + coupon code field, allow multiple)
- Shipping cost
- Region (national, regional, state with dropdown menu)
- YMMV (yes/no checkbox)
- FatCash (auto-populated)

Using this type of framework, how do you deal with the hot deals which are not for a specific product (e.g., 20% off coupon for store X, target clearance, etc.)?

Just a random thought here... what good is a wizard if the potential for most of the feilds beings left blank exists? I understand the concept and it appears to be good on paper, but you also lose the individuality of the members by making them use a template. More often than not the members tell the OP to update this infor or that info, what is so horrible about that? Playing devil's advocate does not mean I don't agree with the ideas, I am just trying to see all sides of them, good and bad.

I think the repost checker could be implemented without a posting in a template, right? That seems like a valuable feature.

Promote a uniform format with all desired elements included, improving readability and leading to better search results. That is really needed--great idea.
• Allow posters to do first-level deal categorization. ? Don't understand ?
• Provide coaching toward quality posts. Yes.
• Discourage reposts (with a checker). Yes.

Besides moderating to encourage positive behavior, we think better OP’s will reduce the flame-bait and non-constructive critical comments too. I don't really understand this. FW seems to be a great, free and useful service--why do we have to read the kind of junk people wrote about the recent Omaha Steak deal? They should be put in a virtual 'time out!' I'm not sure if you guys just don't have enough moderators (I can udnerstand that), or the rules aren't strict enough, but perhaps things can be altered. i don't blame FW--I blame the posters. THanks!

Gertrude23 said:FW seems to be a great, free and useful service--why do we have to read the kind of junk people wrote about the recent Omaha Steak deal?You don't have to read the junk, just set your ratings filter to "poor".

I like the idea. While populating the fields may be optional, it at least forces the OP to put some more thought into the posts.