While browsing the Dubai board, I kept wanting a consistent price-per-square-metre option across listings, valuation questions and market reports. It would make local comparisons easier and cut down on repeated calculations. Would this work best as a required field, an optional tag or a search filter? My concern is keeping the posting process quick enough for casual members, especially on mobile.
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Would a price-per-square-metre field make Dubai threads easier to use?
- Thread starter daily_porch
- Start date
I would use an optional numeric field rather than a tag. Tags will become inconsistent: some people will add currency symbols, ranges or abbreviations, making search unreliable. If a member enters total price and area, the forum could display the calculation. The form should also ask whether the area is in square metres or square feet.
harbor.simple
First-time buyer
Useful in principle, but which area would the calculation use? Dubai discussions do not always describe floor area in the same way. A neat-looking figure could create a false comparison if two posters used different area definitions. There should be a short label beside the area field rather than just a number.
I disagree with making it required. Plenty of useful threads are general questions or observations without a specific property and price. Forcing a value would either block those posts or encourage made-up placeholders. Make it optional, then let search users filter for “has price per square metre” when they specifically want comparable threads.
Could the field appear only after someone selects a listing, valuation or market-report category? That avoids clutter on ordinary discussions. On mobile, price and area could be two short inputs on one line, with the calculated result shown in the published post rather than adding another box for members to complete.
A filter would be more useful than a visible tag alone. I would want to set a minimum and maximum, not browse dozens of near-identical labels. The difficult part is regional consistency: some boards may normally discuss square feet, while others use square metres. Store one standardized value for search but display the member’s original unit as well.
Giulia’s point is the one that could make or break this. An automatically calculated number is only as comparable as the area entered. Perhaps the display should read “based on area supplied by poster” and preserve any description they provide. That is less tidy, but better than implying the forum has verified the measurement.
What happens to old Dubai threads? I would not ask moderators to edit years of posts or infer missing figures from the text. Launch it for new threads, then allow authors or moderators to add structured values to older posts only when the necessary price and area are already clear. Old threads without the field should remain searchable normally.
Agreed on avoiding a bulk migration, but I would keep moderators out of routine calculations too. Their effort should go into correcting obvious misuse, such as rent being entered as a sale price or a non-numeric tag. A short prompt and validation in the posting form will probably prevent more inconsistency than manual cleanup later.
tradeTheHill
First-time buyer
A sensible first version seems to be: optional structured price and area fields for relevant property-thread categories, automatic unit conversion for filtering, and a visible note showing the original unit and area description. Do not make the calculated figure its own free-text tag. Trial it on the Dubai board first, watch whether mobile users abandon the fields, and leave old threads untouched unless their authors update them.