Suggestion for the for sale forums

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by trilinearmipmap

the title should list the item for sale and the price.

in your thread you want the item and the price in the title.. another guy wants a brief description, and so on and so on.. yes I agree .. "fish tank for sale", would be a good title.

Personally I think the boars should start charging for "for sale posts" maybe have a 2 buck fee to post a small ad, $5 for large and then an additional 2 bucks for every picture. we are using the boards bandwidth and service for monetary gain maybe we should help pay the bills.

Steve

[WWWD]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

Personally I think the boars should start charging for "for sale posts" maybe have a 2 buck fee to post a small ad, $5 for large and then an additional 2 bucks for every picture. we are using the boards bandwidth and service for monetary gain maybe we should help pay the bills.

Steve

I believe this is why the board went the route of sponsors. I think the amount of revenue that would be collected would be minimal at best when you can run ads for free on the online version of Buy & Sell, Craigslist other local boards.

Probably more the half the traffic generated on this board comes from the buy and sell forums, if you shunned that traffic away with user based fees I doubt the sponsors would continue their support for much longer, they are paying the fee's based on usage of the boards patrons.

I also have a hard time believing that if someone was going to sell frags (which a lot of people on the board do) they are going to pay $2 for an ad and another $2 for one image only to receive $10 minus the fees. Ontop of that it requires the board to add another layer of managment to handle the collection of money and support, once you agree to take someones money they will start complaining.

[StirCrazy]

Originally Posted by WWWD

Probably more the half the traffic generated on this board comes from the buy and sell forums,

exactly my point.. do you believe that more than half the traffic on this board should be for people to generate revenue? I feel the primary purpose of this board has drastically changed over the years. when I first got her there was maybe 1 or 2 for sales a week now thats all you see. where there used to be multi page discussions on things and tons of DIY stuff there is now only the occasional real discussion and even less DIY and they are low post affairs at best. If you look at the membership list you will see a ton of people with under 5 posts, you look at the posts and they logged on to sell stuff, did there selling and left.. what did that contribute to the board... In my opinion (and it is exactly that and opinion) this board and its posts should benefit everyone not just 1 person who gets a deal cuz some one who got into the hobby with out the time and or dedication needs to sell off there stuff.

as for frags and such ya they are valid posts but in the same sense, you have some one selling frags every month for a year making money and thats ok, but some one like me cannot list my Ca reactor or skimmer for sale just because I have a company name and it is deemed to be competing with the sponsors. Well isn't some one who sells frags several times a year doing the same thing? what about people who keep having tanks for sale, like 10 tanks.. are they not basically being a wholesaler?

all theres rules came to be because the sponsors didn't like people selling cheep products on the board with no overhead as it is hard for them to compete and they are paying for the right to advertise there products on the board where other people are not..

So you can see the amount of traffic generated by the buy and sell my not make sponsors happy as it is basically taking business from them.

Maybe a fee isn't the best way, maybe you should only be allowed to make 1 or 2 topics per month in the buy sell, maybe they should have to go to the mods for approval before they are posted and have a locked buy and sell so all you see is the original post and all replies are done by PM. Who knows maybe we should drop the rest of the board and just have buy sell as that is what gets the most traffic on the board anyways.

just as a comparison yes I do use the Buy and sell my self, but only 0.006% of my posts are in the buy and sell, the rest are in the forums involved in discussion and what not, which personally I hope some of which will benefit other users, as reading others posts when I started out was a benefit to myself.

Steve

[G1GY]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

all theres rules came to be because the sponsors didn't like people selling cheep products on the board with no overhead as it is hard for them to compete and they are paying for the right to advertise there products on the board where other people are not..

The rules didn't stop those with no overhead from selling product. It just forced those with no overhead to become a sponsor in order to sell their product here.

[howdy20012002]

I, for one, think that buying and selling are a huge part of the board
it allows us to share things and pick items up at substantial savings.
I know that for myself, I am always looking at what people are selling off cuz you never know what kind of deals you can get.

[dirtyreefer]

Originally Posted by StirCrazy

Personally I think the boars should start charging for "for sale posts" maybe have a 2 buck fee to post a small ad, $5 for large and then an additional 2 bucks for every picture.

I think that's a brutal idea, and you'll end up killing the traffic on this board by doing that. These kinds of boards can't compete with the larger boards for knowledge and advice, if I need an answer quick I'll go there and post something or search rather than coming to here and waiting perhaps days for a response. If there are questions I have that relate to something local then I have no problems posting here, nor do I have any problems giving advice (the little that I have to offer) to those who need it.

The buy and sell however is a great way to meet people, as well as be able to share frags and sell used equipment locally. Like Chin said, this board is like a community and it's often nice to put the name to the face (so to speak).

[Tarolisol]

when I first got her there was maybe 1 or 2 for sales a week now thats all you see.

Well maybe there are more buy and sell posts because the hobby has grown ten fold since you started posting on this sight.

Also i dont think you should have to pay for an add, it would kill the traffic on the site. When i come on here i chech the buy sell to see if theres anything interesting then read the posts. Which i believe most people do, if you wanted to do something to stop people from using this site as a revenue generater make people have to be a member for a month. or a certain amount of post before they can sell somthing.

My only suggestion for the buy and sell thing is you should have to put a price down, none of this best offer junk.