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Buying and Selling
- Thread starter diedrichg
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pirateghost
Unintelligible Geek
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We've discussed this before.
I don't believe it's a good idea, but I will let others weigh in.
I don't believe it's a good idea, but I will let others weigh in.
i was also interested in buying and selling some nas stuff and this is the first place i could think of, i have a bunch of unused nas disks i wanted to pass on to other member xD. i think it can be a good thing, but of course there should be rules.. perhaps on type of things you can sell and be active on the forums.
BigDave
FreeNAS Enthusiast
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IMHO the moderators and admins have enough to do in here.
There are many other places to buy and sell on the web, the management of which is quite onerous in the least.
Having said that, in the past some folks use the off topic section for announcing needs and then use the PM feature
to hook up perspective buyers/sellers on such sites as ebay. As a seller on ebay, I could set up a private auction for
a particular ebay member at a previously agreed to price.
There are many other places to buy and sell on the web, the management of which is quite onerous in the least.
Having said that, in the past some folks use the off topic section for announcing needs and then use the PM feature
to hook up perspective buyers/sellers on such sites as ebay. As a seller on ebay, I could set up a private auction for
a particular ebay member at a previously agreed to price.
JoshDW19
Community Hall of Fame
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@BigDave I think that's perfectly acceptable if people want to use off-topic and say they have an ebay listing for a part they are selling or they are looking for something. Our concern is having unprotected transactions taking place here on this site. That just seems like a whole lot of trouble for everyone involved.
darkwarrior
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I too think using the Off Topic section is okay provided the seller is not abusing the site. Let me clarify... If I were to sell a motherboard then I have no issue announcing that I have this item for sale and give some details. I'd even include a reasonable price but that's just me, and tell anyone interested to PM me. The abuse would be if the seller were to keep pushing the sale, bumping the topic to the top of the Off Topic section all the time. I could live with one time but after that, as a moderator I think I'd delete the thread. But I do like the ebay idea a lot. It helps to protect both the buyer and seller.
As mentioned above, we did discuss having a For Sale/Wanted section but it's not really worth the aggravation and having forum members upset because they got ripped off is bad for morale. And you know bad things do happen.
As mentioned above, we did discuss having a For Sale/Wanted section but it's not really worth the aggravation and having forum members upset because they got ripped off is bad for morale. And you know bad things do happen.
BigDave
FreeNAS Enthusiast
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@joeschmuck
I wonder if you (mod/admin) could just head that type of thing off
by closing down the post to further replies, then all further communication would have to take place via PM or through the auction
site's channel instead of the threads getting cluttered with BS.
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We could but that would be tasking us with more work than what we may want to do. If we stumble across some abuse, then I think we would take some action and locking the thread would be acceptable as well.
I think the powers at hand have already stated that for sale postings are okay in the Off Topic area so lets see what happens. Hopefully we see items related to FreeNAS and not items like Snow Blowers, Whiskey Stills, or Herbal Supplements for sale. Maybe we should establish some generic rules for this in the Forum Rules at least stating that the item can be listed and that an establishment like ebay should be used to perform the transaction. But since I don't see many people selling stuff in the first place on our site, I don't see it as a major issue.
But hey, I have a lot of old computer crap in the basement. Well that stuff will end up in the recycling bin, it's not worth much of anything except the gold content. I rarely get rid of components I think I would use again, otherwise my ESXi System 2 would be up for sale. I don't honestly need it and it works great for ESXi and FreeNAS. Just add hard drives. Shipping costs would make it a bad deal I think for a purchase but I haven't actually looked at shipping prices.
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I thought I'd share some experience from other forums.
A key to minimize modwork is to restrict the ability to comment in threads. That saves tons of trash talking and problems. Each thread is basically just a sticker presenting the deal, only OP can post in thread ...and the rest is done via PM at the discretion of users.
The key here is to only let OP have access to each thread.
Setting up this type of classfields requires quite little moderation other than removing spam and an initial 'disclaimer' where the 'rules are laid out'. (sort of - we don't assume responsibility, use at own risk, precaution XYZ etc, don't bump too often etc). Then it runs on its own.
But - frauds? trolls?
Another added feature is a special 'sales reputation'. That's a bonus.
Ie, buyers and sellers get the opportunity to rate each other. Even if reputation is on the line for the guys with lots of posts... ..posts, forum charisma or skills are not indicators of business trustworthiness - is my bitter experience.
I've seen reputations-lists been done on user initiative, as in adding 'successful transfers' to a list maintained by each user as "references" to at least have some sort of credibility check.. That has been really helpful, even in it's simplest form.
On another forum where I've been selling and buying stuff for a couple of years is literary a sailing ghost ship without any signs of a moderator for a few years.
The part of the forum that does best is is the classfields. That said, I fail to see why it would be much different here.
Cheers.
A key to minimize modwork is to restrict the ability to comment in threads. That saves tons of trash talking and problems. Each thread is basically just a sticker presenting the deal, only OP can post in thread ...and the rest is done via PM at the discretion of users.
The key here is to only let OP have access to each thread.
Setting up this type of classfields requires quite little moderation other than removing spam and an initial 'disclaimer' where the 'rules are laid out'. (sort of - we don't assume responsibility, use at own risk, precaution XYZ etc, don't bump too often etc). Then it runs on its own.
But - frauds? trolls?
Another added feature is a special 'sales reputation'. That's a bonus.
Ie, buyers and sellers get the opportunity to rate each other. Even if reputation is on the line for the guys with lots of posts... ..posts, forum charisma or skills are not indicators of business trustworthiness - is my bitter experience.
I've seen reputations-lists been done on user initiative, as in adding 'successful transfers' to a list maintained by each user as "references" to at least have some sort of credibility check.. That has been really helpful, even in it's simplest form.
On another forum where I've been selling and buying stuff for a couple of years is literary a sailing ghost ship without any signs of a moderator for a few years.
The part of the forum that does best is is the classfields. That said, I fail to see why it would be much different here.
Cheers.
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