Bartertown.com

Hi All,

How long should you keep PMs in your mailbox for trades that you've made? Is there a norm of year, months, weeks?

Cheers,
Vried

My personal rule is don't delete any PMs for a trade until both parties have received their goods and left positive feedback saying they are happy with the trade. Once that hurdle is cleared I clean out the PMs.

I keep them all, just in case. I have made a bunch of folders for references, dealt with messages, waiting for messages, etc. It is much easier for me to stay organised this way

I keep them for the duration of the trade, and the exchange of Refs. Once that is done, I keep a copy of my partners address for future dealings, and delete the remainder of the PMs. This way you have complete records in case of a Backout or BTR documentation trail.

There is no "auto-prune" of the old PM's, I imagine that you could have some 4 years old, if you wanted to.

I keep PMs until both sides have exchanged References.

I also keep a backup copy of PMs in an off-line file, one file per trade, "just in case".

I think this is probably standard practice among most established traders.

Actually, John, I disagree. I'd imagine that less people than you think actuall keep second copies of PMs.
Of course, like you, I'm guessing. I could very well be wrong.

Like most here, I delete them all after references are left by both sides.

On the other hand, if you feel the need to leave a NEGATIVE reference for your trade partner, I suggest keeping them for a bit over a month, as they can come back and refute it for up to a month.

Eric

If you don't have off-line backup, then what happens if there's a hiccup in your mail?

I don't use email. I trade via PM... and, if it went down AND the data happened to be lost, I'd be S.O.L.
I trust in the phpbb software & new server enough for that not to happen, though.

Eric

Until this last year, I would keep all the PM's until references were left (usually me waiting for my trade partners to leave me one). I didn't keep ANYTHING else. But, last year, a newer trader was looking for information for one of my trade partners where a trade wasn't working for him. And even though I had just finished the trade I didn't have ANY of the information to help him. I felt bad enough about it that from there on in I kept a little notebook with every trader, customer, and painter that I had come into contact with.

I still keep my PM's until references are left and then dump them. Other than customer PM's (or potential customer PM's). I put those in my saved PM's folder. If the phbbhbhb ( ) ever goes down then I have lost those. But, I still have the more pertinent information in my notebook.

Karl

I use PM, too.

But you never know what will happen...

Thanks for the advice everyone. So i'll save the PMs of there addys and dump the rest.

Cheer,
Ein Vried

I keep handle them like MM and Harlie0; keep them till the trade and refs were left.

For pm's that aren't replied or responded to [or is it too?], I try to delete them every week or so..sometimes it's longer.

kturock wrote:I keep handle them like MM and Harlie0; keep them till the trade and refs were left.

For pm's that aren't replied or responded to [or is it too?], I try to delete them every week or so..sometimes it's longer.

Check you out with your capital letters and stuff.


(It's "to," BTW... you had it right.)


Eric

Not bad eh? Only took me 20 minutes to type that, over and over and over....