Buy/Sell forum. Annoyance / request

[doctoremmet]

Though as a learning opportunity for all of us, it's probably possible to raise a topic such as this, or other rules, without including specifics of who might be at fault.
This forum works well for discussing general rules, but if the problem is a single member, a report to moderators is more suitable.

Genuinely good advice, I’ll take it to heart.

 

[wst3]

you guys are way more generous than I! I think listing dozens of items in a single post should be banned, but so to should posting a dozen items in a dozen posts. And the no bump rule is a little nicer than I'd have done.

The point of having the classified section is to allow members to sell one or two things they have outgrown, and at the same time allowing newer members to get a decent deal on something that might otherwise be out of their reach.

It was never meant to be a storefront, but that is what it has become. I'm not sure that can be reversed at this point.

Plus, as a new member this person seems awfully arrogant - and certainly appears to know that he is skirting the generally accepted practices.

 

[Collywobbles]

What if there was a rule (tough to enforce, but something you can point to) stating that a user is only allowed to make X amount of listings per day, and if they wish to sell more than X amount of things at a time, they should put them in a single post.

This could be a terrible idea since I've never actually used that part of the forum, but hey, just a thought.

 

[Mike Greene]

As a potential buyer, however, I see the split threads as a good thing, and makes it clearer to me what is now up for grabs without having to check inside the threads with "Lots of plugins for sale!!" in the title.

That's a good point. My first thought was that a bunch of separate threads was annoying, but as I think about it, I think you're right that separate might be better. We won't make that a rule, though, so for people who prefer "Lots o' Plugins for Sale," that's still fine, too. (I modified the wording of the "Edit your initial post" rule that André referenced.)

On the broader issue of the Classifieds section in general, we're never going to make a perfect Classifieds section. It simply can't be done. Think of a new rule and I'll give you a reason why it won't work. Or worse, why it could harm the rest of the forum. For instance, minimum post counts could result in a savvy scammer posting a bunch of useless posts in the main forum to bump his count. Ugh!

Plus a rule like that works against legit members who have low post counts. Scan through some Classifieds threads and notice how many legit sellers only have a handful of posts. There's nothing wrong with not posting every thought that comes into your head, so I don't want to punish those who don't.

The Classifieds section is an "Is What It Is" section. We do what we can to keep it clean, but honestly, it's not what the forum is about, so we're not going to go to great lengths (like creating a seller feedback section or various other ideas) to improve the section.

With that said, I did write a "Buyer Rules" sticky, to alert unwary buyers of what can go wrong.