http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=59589 Having received many a complaint about the behaviour of users in the trading forums we've changed the posting mechanics in those forums. Comments?
I agree something had to be done and I can understand how hard it would be to moderate strictly. I think its a good idea, as long as any usefull info that is raised by IM/email is added to the original post. I do think this will turn the for sale forum into more of a sellers market, but having said that, no one is forcing anyone to buy anything. Lets see how it goes
Surely this will make it a lot harder (impossible, in fact) for the forum to intervene if users start running off with people's money? Since there wont be any tracable evidence that deals are being made, it will be even more down to trust. I'm not sure it's such a good idea.. I'd certainly be less confident sending someone money with just emails to go on.
Hmm - agree there's a problem but every other forum manages it - if it's a case of needing more moderators I'm sure there would be plenty of volunteers myself included.. I can see it driving people away from using the FS forums imo..
I don't see how this puts anyone in a worse situation WRT people running off with money - to sell something through the forum you still advertise it in one of the trading forums, so the seller (money taker) has still gone through the boards, which means we have as much information about them as we ever had (IP tracking etc.). This really isn't about needing more moderating, it's looking for a way to reduce the amount of moderating needed. We could easily have chosen to heavily moderate the trading forums instead but I doubt this would've been a better solution... Rob.
Got to say I think this is the wrong move, if a question about a for sale item is posted and answered then it there for all to see. Also most buyers like to drop a note complimenting a good transaction, something they can no longer do.
I agree that more moderators would have been a better idea, not allowing replies means that there is even less of a trail of evidence should anything go wrong. The main problem I can see though is this being quite annoying for sellers, answering the same question over and over (or will people have to include a FAQ with each item they sell?), refusing the same offers over and over, etc. Another problem I could see is losing the first come first served way things normally work, with perhaps sellers upping their price if they get multiple offers for their items. At least with things being kept public this is limited. I run the forum for a military unit, I faced a similar problem with the fact that in the areas that all ranks have access some ranks were posting stuff that wasn't appropriate for all to view. I tinkered with the idea of disallowing replies but this would have defeated the idea of the forum in the first place. Instead for the areas that needed it I added a few extra moderators and the problem has pretty much gone. I know that bit-tech has a much larger user base but since the problem isn't so time critical a few extra moderators should be able to resolve this, no?
Just noticed a couple of for sale threads, and guess what no contact email address. I can see a few frustrated sellers thinking no one is interested in their sale..
Well, people will either learn to put their email address in the sale or use the boards email feature. But using this you don't have a record of your offer, not that it really matters as the seller will get the email, but it is nice for your own records...
If we had PM's on this forum I'd agree with whats been implemented. Im not overly keen on giving my email out to people anyway.
hmmm... i must say i dont really like the change, i know its not always easy, but i wouldnt buy off anyone unless they had a decent post count on bit-tech and or had some kind of feedback like hexus or something... even tho its not nice i think we need to be a little less trusting, and just use your common sense. its a real shame that some people are getting ripped off, but i did like the trading post as it was. just my oppinion, cheers
If you enable (if it isn't already) email through the forum then you needn't publish your email address on the boards, or you could just give out IM details. Kermet - if a buyer gets a question a few times I'm sure they'll update their post (and equally if an item has sold), but even if they don't it's only a few cut and pastes. We've never operated a first come first serve system, the seller is free to choose their buyer. Thanks for your suggestion about moderators - I'm sure the problem could be fixed through moderation but we've never heavily moderated at bit-tech and we don't want to start now. Sure this moves the trading area away from being a 'forum' and more towards being a 'freeads' area. yodasarmpit - you're right buyers can't reply with a compliment to the thread, but what good did this do anyway? A proper reputation system is far better than a few old replies in FS threads and there are a few reputation systems around. If a buyers happy I'm sure they'll be happy to let the seller know through a reputation system (hexus or whatever). Thanks all for your feedback, at the end of the day if this doesn't work we'll revert back to the old system, few things are fixed in life We'll see how it goes...
Hypothetical situations... Right. So now, seeing as I have got a reasonable reputation from answering people's hardware questions, I can go into FS/T, post up a deal, get people to email me, and pick the highest bidder. No awkward questions, no more dibs, no more haggling - I could even take everyone's money, since contract law isn't especially clear regarding e-mail transactions. And the next time I do it, there's nobody that can say "this guy jerked me around before, he'll probably do it again" - they can't even email the buyers because they don't know who they are. They could post it in one of my threads somewhere else, but then that's going to be cluttering up that forum instead. They could give me bad reputation, but it won't matter to me that much because enough people give me good rep that it'll balance out, and nobody can see what comments have been given, just the overall score. I can't see this working in any way, and I doubt I'll be using FS/T in its current state.
Same here, I like to look back over previous transactions from the seller to get a general idea of how they went. With no feedback throughout the transaction you cant do that.
I gotta second this. I haven't traded a whole lot on the few forums that I do frequent, but the ability for interested buyers to reply in the thread is invalueable. Not only does it give me a history to go back on (should I need to), it gives other interested parties first-hand knowledge of how the sale is/isn't going.
im not a huge fan of the new way of doing things either, i would post reasons but they are all up there already
Might just work if PM's were enabled, but i can see it killing the FS section tbh.. it will mean no thread bumping also, which will mean that people will be recreating threads after they've gone off the first page? unless editing a post bumps it? Dont think it does tho... edit : apparently not. Now i really cant see it working.
