Members with only one post selling items in the BST.

I think 100 posts might be a tad excessive... Over at 4hv.org The min number of posts is 15. So, maybe a little bit higher than that (30? 40?) might be more welcoming.

Obviously it would weed out a lot of the guys who just come here to simply sell their stuff, that doesn't even remotely relate to lasers. Like oso.

I'm thinking the B/S/T should be for laser and electronics related things...it's not an eBay, and never should be considered as one.

I feel 50 or 100. shouldn't be that hard, stick around a few weeks.

Great idea Mark!

daguin said:

It could be set up with "thread start" moderation with un-moderated replies
or
We could rely on YOUR eyes to alert us to someone not meeting the minimum posting requirements starting a thread

Click to expand...

I think it should rely on the community to report the threads of sellers with less than 50 posts, wouldn't want to have to make you mods do all the work :beer:

Of course^^
The mods have enough to do. Especially as of late.

I would report definitely.. great idea too ^

Good idea TJ.

I say 50 posts and non-negative rep is good enough to sell on this forum. Don't need to have positive rep.

We should also devise a list of those who have scammed before, other users we've run off before because they were clearly scammers, etc. a list of people that you should DEF not buy from.

such lists do exist, although they might need to be updated...
http://laserpointerforums.com/f63/known-scammers-41713.html

jakeGT said:

We should also devise a list of those who have scammed before, other users we've run off before because they were clearly scammers, etc. a list of people that you should DEF not buy from.

Click to expand...

I'm not sure about this, and correct me if I am wrong, but aren't there legal issues with declaring people as scammers?

Posting there forum usernames? I really do not know and have no say as to the legality.

But I don't see how posting usernames of ppl who belonged here in a thread Labeled "WHO NOT TO BUY FROM" or something along those lines could be illegal.

Just a list of ppl who have been through LPF and are undesirable sellers/ scam artists/ do not stand behind there work (bhwollen) etc etc.

ARGLaser said:

I'm not sure about this, and correct me if I am wrong, but aren't there legal issues with declaring people as scammers?

Click to expand...

Really? I never heard of this. Many websites have such lists and never heard of a single lawsuit of such matter (who it would it be against anyway?). And we don't use real names..

This brings up a good point though: maybe we should differentiate "Proven Scammers" from "Potential Scammers" on our lists.

I would vote for this if you can avoid the above pitfalls.

What pitfalls are you talking about?

I dont know if slander can be applied to a forum name. Maybe if it was their real name, but even then I doubt anyone would spend the money to bring a forum to court because someone said they were a scammer. I dont think the term scammer can really be classified as libelists. I could be wrong though.

This whole post limit situation relies on a mechanism. Reporting members under 50 posts selling items doesnt really do anything, other than make more work for the Mods. We need a setting in the forum software that will not allow anyone with under 50 posts to open a sales thread. Then the community can check out the previous posts, and make a judgement to report it to the Mods if they see the member just spammed the 50 posts or not. Or if the member has some negatives that need to be considered.

If there is no mechanism anyone can make a quick phishing post, and the Mods would have to delete any threads made by members under 50 posts. Which could be a lot. I think we should only use this as a last resort.

If we do go the way of above, then it brings up another issue. We have to make sure people know this before making a thread. With the clutter of Stickies in the BST section I dont see this as possible.

Not to open an even bigger can of worms, but I think the BST need to be restructured. The Stickies are out of control. The only Stickies that should be there are the information ones. The Pro Shop was created to have the main sellers an area to post their wares, and to separate them from the already cluttered BST section. They are completely redundant, and goes against why we opened the Pro Shop to start with. I also know there are outside ads in the BST too, but I dont expect them to go anywhere.

Soooo, to recap.

1. We need to find out if it is possible to block people with under 50 posts making a thread in the BST section.

2. If not........then we are screwed, because I dont see anything I detailed above happening.

Can you chime in please Avery???

We can report the thread and spam it up with you "don't have enough posts" posts and so you can't sell here. If there is no software to support it that is

Wouldn't be that hard.. I'll volunteer to do all of the reporting since I'm browsing the forums consistently through the day usually.