We announced a while back that we would be making enhancements to the search engine on Epinions. The changes are currently in beta, so some of you may have already seen the changes. One feature affected by these changes is the SAP (Suggest A Product) process. When the changes are fully rolled out to the live site SAP will be temporarily disabled.

The current SAP process only allows the new products to be added to the Epinions only database. We are working to streamline the SAP process, so that the new products are included across the entire catalog.

We will have more information on when the SAP process will be turned back on soon.

Christal

I put in three SAPs last week and haven't heard back yet (I haven't checked today's e-mail yet). Is it possible that they were affected, or is the SAP shutdown from today going forward?

May we have an update as to when we are able to obtain SAP's?

Thanks!

As a temporary solution, members can submit their SAP requests using this form.

Christal

The SAP creation link has been removed from various locations throughout the site, but the actual SAP process is still enabled.

So it's totally possible that some SAPs could get created in the coming weeks if community members are savvy enough to have bookmarked links, etc.

The basic premise is to halt the creation of SAPs so that the catalog team can migrate existing SAPs to the regular product catalog and to give Epi Eng time to overhaul the current SAP process to enable creation of suggested products directly into the product catalog.

I hope to have SAP++ back up as soon as possible.

damon

epi eng

Great news about the concerted effort to make these fixes.

Thanks for the effort and work.

How long do you think the SAPs will be more or less disabled? A few days? A week? Two Weeks?

Thanks

Perhaps a work-around is possible for say.. brand new products? Movies in Theater... Books... etc.

Please take the long-term view. The current process is not sustainable. To migrate 20,000 products is not an easy task. It requires someone looking at each product and figuring out if there's a duplicate product and how to map the product attributes to the new product catalog.

Also, once the SAPs are moved over, these products will be able to have deals mapped to them. Meaning your SAPs will generate revenue for the category in which you earn Income Share. This is a good thing for all: SDC, the community, and the Joanna Sixpack that reads your review and buys a product as a result.

damon

epi eng

Given the technical issues (we know a little about), the various behind the scenes staffing and financial issues (we know little about beyond the rumor mill) and the Google and marketplace changes that have caused many sites to shut down or change in very drastic ways; I remain very optimistic that our valuable community will continue and commend Damon and others for their hard work in delivering a better stronger Epinions.

Thank You.

I'm still going to use the seat belts but I'm staying patient and optimistic.

Kudos also due to the Category Leads I've personally dealt with in dealing with the situation as well as anyone could have hoped for.

I have a question, mainly for the category leads. Should we even bother with SAP requests right now, or just wait? I have six reviews ready to go, but they need to be SAP'd. I don't want to bog the leads down, and I don't want my requests to get lost in the mix. But eventually, I want to publish them for obvious reasons. Should I wait?