Marketplace Forum Restriction For New Members

[collin]

Bianca joined March 31st, 2011, and made 5 posts up through May 6th, until today with all these other posts. Perhaps she has some money to buy a Rick with, or has one to sell now.

Well, that remains to be seen......if you want to find Bianca, i'd look in the Marketplace.

For those that missed it or doubt what i'm saying, take a quick look at the "active topics" screenshots here:

[kiramdear]

Her post count seems to have leveled off at - guess what - thirty.

[8mileshigher]

Maybe an auto-deletion mechanism, or a penalty box lock-out from the Marketplace for those folks who do these senseless. one-after-another phony posts, when they hit 30.

In that way, avoiding some of the irritation factor on other Forum members ?

[Danotron]

well, you hit a hot spot with me!

If I had a vote in this matter (which I'm not saying I do) I'm in the camp that thinks most marketplace privileges should be based on some combination of number of posts and/or time as a member, with the posts being higher than 30. Some people just post more than others. Some people like to read and learn more before they post that much, and theres nothing wrong with that.

For instance if it was 50 posts or two months, or 100 posts or 3 months, etc. I think that would take care of most of the "I've got something to sell right now; or the "I've really want to buy something today" people.

I think an exception could be the appraisal section, as I believe those can be legitimate questions; and we should be (and are) a good resourse to those looking for guidance. We do collectively know a lot about Rickenbackers

Personally, I have both bought and sold things here on this forum and never had a bad experience. I think mostly because I had a good feel for who I was buying from or who was buying something from me, even if I never met them in person.

There are some good deals here because you know if your selling something you love, it's likely going to a good home.

By the same token, when you buy something here, not only are you buying something from somebody that is likely to give you an honest description of the instrument; but you get to read comments from others "in the know" as well.

I think some combination of time spent as a member and/or number of posts, with time being more important, is the right thing. If your a member for 3 months but only post 25 times, maybe you just enjoy reading all of the information available here and are a bit nervous about chiming in too much .....yet.

Hey, you can always go to eBay if you don't like it. No requirements there

[xpitt]

The short replies like" +1", "great" or just one smiley are quite usual here even from the "vetereans", taken this 30 post hurdle a long time ago. I mean, when you log in and read all these posts and feel like taking part you just do it and post. Opening the active topic section you often can see just one name from the top to the bottom with last posts. In this case it is the combination of not having 30 posts and filling up in just one day. I for myself joined here in 2007 just reading topics and posted first in 2009 . I didn't even think of reaching some marketplace benchmark. RAS came later and slowly .. Maybe she should have the chance to take a stand here on this issue and let us know more about her. Just give her a chance !

[electrofaro]

For instance if it was 50 posts or two months, or 100 posts or 3 months, etc. I think that would take care of most of the "I've got something to sell right now; or the "I've really want to buy something today" people.

+1

I think it should be just a time frame (3 months/90 days sounds good, imo) - that would avoid an x amount of useless posts.
Still, newbies just looking for a cheap sale will post in any forum with their WtBs. But... we should just move these to the Marketplace.
Yes, THE place they can not access until they've been around for 3 months, so after 3 months they can visit their own WtB thread again

[sowhat]

Well, kind of predictable, huh?
How about this one: an "Approve" button for new members that "approved" members may click in case they like what was said and/or find it worthy therefore supporting a nice man or woman? Then, after a new member reaches a certain number of "approved" (i.e. meaningful and worthy) posts, he/she is automatically switched to the next "status", without "Approve" button but with full access to all forum sections.
Naaah, forget it. That's just a stupid soda pop thing.

[admin]

At the end of the day, there is no system that will safeguard against individuals whose interpersonal style is to use others.

We have a choice between useless posts or useless time. At least with the limited post rule we may see the motivation of others more clearly through the quality of their writings.

We can recall those with many posts and long-term memberships whose actions were far from honourable, lying about their real name in some and and using their "reputation" to cheat others.

Also who among us has not been fooled by someone that we have considered a friend. We do the very best we can to assess the genuineness of others and hope that their motivations are straightforward and stable over time.

Recently I have thought about getting an upgrade for my crystal ball.

[jdawe]

I'm not sure raising the post threshold to 100 would be a real deterrent - someone who is prepared to spam the board to get to 30 might be prepared to keep going to 100, which would exacerbate the problem.

On the other hand, as a relative newbie myself with just over 100 posts I'd be disappointed if access to the marketplace were restricted to exclude people like me. I haven't used it as either a buyer or seller (yet) but find it interesting and educational to read.

[Halbert]

I'm not sure raising the post threshold to 100 would be a real deterrent - someone who is prepared to spam the board to get to 30 might be prepared to keep going to 100, which would exacerbate the problem.

On the other hand, as a relative newbie myself with just over 100 posts I'd be disappointed if access to the marketplace were restricted to exclude people like me. I haven't used it as either a buyer or seller (yet) but find it interesting and educational to read.

+1

(sorry, couldn't resist)

[winston]

When you decide to get an upgrade to the crystal ball Peter can you order two? My crystal ball is sometimes a little short of being crystal clear also. Being able to see everything with absolute clarity would sure come in handy at times.

[cjj]

Dang, I don't even have one! Where do you go to get a crystal ball? Or is that something you can only get in Canada?

[gibsonlp]

I am sorry but I've got to offer the "Israeli" approach.

A bit long, bear with me:
A friend of mine is an architect and he is designing our house. A few weeks ago we had a long conversation and I was puzzled as to how come he is not sure if our bomb shelter will be approved as is (shelters are mandatory in Israel).
He explained to me that the shelters officer (army bureaucrat) is different for every zone and he doesn't know the guy in our zone yet. According to the "book" - the design is as requested (size, door size, window size, locations, etc...) but every shelter officer has his own idea of interpreting the requirements.
He then said that he envies an architect friend of his who lives in the states - because there a building rule is a building rule and there is no room for interpretation so basically - as long as you made sure that what you deisng is between the allowd parameters - you are good to go.

So. What am I trying to say here?
Perhaps the Israeli, annoying approach would work in our case! Israeli regulations and rules are always flexible, this allows to (sometimes) avoid absurd situations such as (in our case) a friend of a few veteran members who can't sell his rick on our marketplace even though many people know him only because he doesn't have enough posts and a newbie who spams the board only to gain access to the marketplace.
What do we have here? someone we are sure we can trust who can't get in and someone who we probably can't trust who just gained access by tricking the system.

I used to moderate the largest cars forum in Israel (81,000 members), the off-topic section was off limit for new members and after a year a member could ask to be allowed in, this does not mean we didn't let people in before that but it allowed us to have a flexible rule as we also refused many request for non contributing members even when they had 1 year in the forum.

Just my 2 agorot.

[winston]

We don't want to be accused of favoritism, so we have to apply our rules evenly to everyone. I suppose we could just reset the post count for members who just post nonsense to gain access to restricted areas back to 0 posts. That's not that tough to do and it would send a very clear message.

[collin]

I suppose we could just reset the post count for members who just post nonsense to gain access to restricted areas back to 0 posts. That's not that tough to do and it would send a very clear message.

Except for the delay, and still having to deal with an active topics screen that looks like the screenshots above.....it would work.