Rules for trading

[Retrobob]

Hi all,

I suggested in a recent thread that we require that a member have a minimum number of posts before they can start a trade thread. This is a system that works very well on other forums I've been on, most notably the Retro Gamer (magazine) forum.

The idea is to reduce the risk of someone showing up, pimiping their wares and leaving without sending the goods.

Also, new members who are genuine about wanting to sell something chatting too will have to post and hopefully find they like the place and stick around.

I would set up a poll, but a) I don't know how, and b) don't have the authority on the site to implement it anyway! That said, I would be happy to write trading guidelines for the site.

[Aypok]

I'm not totally against the idea, but I'm not sure if the forum software supports such a feature. I'm not saying it doesn't -- I honestly don't know -- I'm just saying that it may not be an option. If anyone more familiar with ProBoards knows differently, please do correct me.

If we're going to add rules to the trading section, I'd like to add the rule that all sellers must provide their location (preferably by setting it in their profile, but mentioning it in the thread would be acceptable).

Having said that, I'm not convinced we need rules... I'm not aware of anyone being scammed through a trade on here (not that reactionary-only policies are the best way to run things, of course). Plus, it's not like many people use the trading forum these days; most people go straight to eBay. :(

That's not really a vote for or against the idea -- I'm relatively indifferent on the matter -- I just felt like rambling a bit.

And since I'm rambling: congrats on your thousandth post, Retrobob. :)

[Retrobob]

Wow I never noticed, I'm kind of glad it was something serious and mildly constructive rather than me just going "LOL" at some crazy eBay price or something.

I doubt the (archaic!) forum software can do anything unless mods manually add people to a permissions group which I wouldn't advocate as I hate creating work for people! There's nothing formal where I've seen it before, other than probably a sticky post with the trading rule(s).

I'm not saying that anyone has been scammed on here before - in fact I've had some great experiences buying and selling on here in recent weeks. Perhaps I just get annoyed when on other forums people sign up just to sell stuff and then bugger off and I didn't want to see it here. Then we had someone new join and post a super brief introduction followed by a "how much can I get for this post".