Suggestion: add commute-time filters to the market boards

P

PrimeHarbor

Seller
A standard commute field would improve search, but requiring one on every thread could create more work than useful information. On the Manila board, travel time only makes sense when it is tied to a destination, transport mode and usually the time of day.

Could those details be offered as optional structured entries that feed the forum search, with consistent tags used when members know them? That might make valuation and market-report threads easier to compare without slowing down casual mobile posts.

The other issue is moderation effort: inconsistent destinations or free-form tags could become difficult to maintain. Would a short list of common destinations be practical, or would that make the feature too restrictive to be worth adding?
 
I would make it an optional field rather than a required one. Commute time is only meaningful if the poster also gives the destination, travel mode and approximate time of day. A bare “30 minutes” tag could be more misleading than useful.

Structured optional entries could still feed search, while members without that information could post as usual.
 
That makes sense. I was picturing one commute figure, but Manila traffic makes the time-of-day point hard to ignore. Perhaps the minimum useful entry is destination plus travel mode, with travel time left as an optional estimate. Would that create too much work on a phone?
 
Even that may be too rigid across regional boards. A named business district might work in Manila, while another market may revolve around a station, university or several scattered employment areas. I would avoid a fixed destination list. Let posters enter a short destination, then use broad tags only for mode, such as driving or public transport.
 
Free-text destinations preserve regional flexibility, but they weaken search through spelling variations and inconsistent place names. A compromise would be an optional commute section in the posting form: destination as text, mode from a short list, time as a range, and time of day as optional.

I would test it only on new Manila threads first. Migrating old threads would create substantial moderation work and many older posts will not contain enough detail anyway.
 
A small trial sounds preferable to changing every market board. On mobile, keep the whole section collapsed behind “Add commute details” so casual posting stays fast. After enough new threads appear, moderators can see whether members complete the fields consistently and whether anyone actually searches by them. Old threads could remain untouched unless their authors choose to update them.
 
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