We are complaining about 6 quarters for a for sale ad and 8 quarters for a garage sale ad? If I sell something off this site it’s generally a face to face transaction. If this alleviates selling something on eBay, dealing with crazy craigslist people, shipping, forms of payment, etc...it’s worth it at double the cost.
I agree, but it has become an integral part of that community. How many of us trade and sell parts with our real-life riding buddies. Now, it is just incorporating people beyond our own riding groups, but still in the family of riders. I feel that this might be a bit of a gross generalization. I can't speak for all the others, but I know I have not made anywhere near a boat load of money, and I feel that the parts I have sold have been very fair, if not generous, in price. Yet, I don't love the fee. I'm a part of several other forums (non-bike related) and each has there own style of market. Through my experiences with those I feel that there may be a better alternative. However, I am not sure what that is. It seems that as a community we can bring our opinions to be heard so that the leaders and members of the community can continue to bring new ideas to strive to make this place the best. In the end, it's about respecting the opinions and thoughts of others even while disagreeing with them, and seeing what valuable aspects can be drawn from them.
Maybe all the non-doohickey members can get together and co-op a big garage sale ad. The cost could get as low as $0.05/item. Of course, the savings should be passed on to the buyer. :-k I'm surprised that Paypal allows transactions as low as $1.50.
Does this mean we're going to see the FS posts replaced by "I just posted this in the classfieds" posts ala emptybeer? Or the classified ad w/ 50 different items? I'm indifferent about it, just wondering if it will change anything.
Hopefully the homepage recent ads will be enough and people won't feel encouraged to post threads about it as well. I wouldn't mind a signature link to their ad though. Keeping the forums easy to use and free of clutter has always been a high priority. Garage sale ads should accommodate the multiple item ads. Some of this stuff is being debated/decided on the fly since it's a new thing. I will say though that input is taken into consideration since the members are what make STR special.
Just noticed that one of the (4) ads in the new classifieds section was posted by a person who a) became a member on December 7th b) has ZERO posts c) I have no idea where they live. (No offense- Just an example). While I am a fan of the changes, I'm not 100% comfortable with the idea of NOT knowing a person is a member of OUR community... More information could help (i.e. sellers location etc.)
Good point. Over time the seller feedback should help but the concern is still there with completely new members. So maybe something that forces sellers to list location? Or other info? Or...?
Or we can keep the minimum 25 post count for classified? Here is an idea, if we really want to keep STR as a close knit community and not like MTBR then at some point we might think about making this a invite only site. But that also has it's disadvantages. As times goes the close knit feel does seem to be more distant with more people and more rules......growing pain I guess.:?:
Indeed. I guess it's a mixed blessing. I've wrestled with that internally a lot about STR. The only real conclusion I've come up with is to try and keep things efficient, organized, and friendly. Also encouraging sub groups and such so you get the small close knit groups of friends but still have the larger community within reach (the social groups feature has helped with that a bit). Great topic but going off on a tangent a bit. So back to classifieds...
How about bumping up the 25 post minimum to 50? That way if someone REALLY wants to be part of the site and not just off load stuff, they'll start posting more meaningful posts instead of just one to five word posts just to get their post count up. When the 25 post count requirement was in effect it was easy to spot who was just here to sell something. I think with 50, it would be even MORE obvious when someone posts that many in such a short time and it would help weed out SELLERS ONLY a little better. My .02 cents. :wave: .
I think that might be the same as before for having people do a bunch of crap posts to get to list, maybe less since they still have to pay $.
25 posts minimum/member for at least 30 days should weed out 99% of the spammers with nothing else to contribute.
I like the idea of having 25 posts and 30 days. Would there be a way to easily set up a system where if the total price of your item(s) is less then $25 it uses the old method and is free and over a total of $25 it uses the new method. This would allow for the friendly sales of "I just want to get rid of this part" and let the serious sales that make a lot of money use the new/better system.
