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Condition note
The Condition note is a useful feature; I use it for each of my
listings to alert BookMoochers of the condition of the item they would
be receiving from me. Unfortunately, the Condition note only seems to become available to the
lister to complete _after_ an item is listed, i.e. _after_ emails have
gone out to those who might have the item on their Wishlist. I recently listed a book which was on the Wishlists of more than 200
BookMoochers. The book had some soiling issues, and it took a few
minutes to complete the note. Being a newbie, I was unaware that the
Condition note feature is available to the lister only until the title
is claimed by a moocher. As it happened, the book was snapped up in
just a few minutes before I could attach the Condition note. The BookMoocher whon claimed the book, not seeing a Condition note with
the listing, may have thought the book was in a better condition than it
actually is. I do not know. I sent the moocher two notes explaining the situation in order to
provide a chance to cancel if desired. When I did not hear back after
several days, I figured the condition was unimportant to the moocher,
and I sent off the book. We shall see how the moocher reacts upon
receipt of the book. I learned that a better strategy is to use an editor or word processor
to prepare the Condition note _in advance_ of listing an item, copy it
to the computer's memory, and then quickly paste it into the Condition
note box immediately upon listing the title. I did this successfully
later on with a much more detailed Condition note; the book was taken
by a moocher who responded that my note had been read carefully and
that the book was still desired. In my opinion, this first episode and uncertainty could have been
avoided if the listing process were engineered _not to be completed_
until the lister has the chance to sign off on the Condition note. Only
thereupon would emails be sent out to BookMoochers having the title on
their Wishlist. Although signing off on a Condition note would
constitute another button to consider or even another step in the
process (depending on how it is engineered) for those who do not
ordinarily include such notes with their listings, this disadvantage
would be offset by the subtle encouragement to listers to go ahead and
prepare a Condition note with their listings -- a "best practices" type
of strategy whose implementation can only result in less potential
misunderstanding and greater harmony among users of this site. Boxholder
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