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RULES FEEDBACK: does advertising your boards selling post elsewhere = violating the boards-only rule?
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Boards-only Marketplace Rules Feedback  

60 members have voted

  1. 1. Allow cross-posting a boards-only sale to social media (not eBay)?

    • Allow cross posting to social media as long as the for-sale thread is linked, and buying requires a reply through the boards
    • Do not allow any cross posting of a boards-only marketplace post anywhere any time. Period.
    • Allow cross-posting, but we need more than a link and "reply through the boards" - see my reply on this thread for details.
    • One does not simply change the rules on the marketplace without 4 years of debate, 3 DQ exits, 2 "the boards aren't what they used to be" threads, and a partridge in a pear tree (I cheated the votes... it's over 9,000!)


29 posts in this topic

  • Administrator

Hi all,

This came up on a recently moderated post, and I wanted to get some feedback from the membership on this.

The Background:
When we first offered a marketplace on the boards, people loved it because it was used as a way for community members who trust each other and trust each other's grading to buy and sell books with each other. Often those posts were even board-specific offers, meaning that because of the trust, the community, and the low hassle process the books were offered at a better price than elsewhere.

As the marketplace became more popular, people started advertising their eBay sales on the boards. This was a good idea, but it created a kind of annoying situation where people were just looking through the same books they just finished reviewing on eBay, but on the boards.

That was when we decided to implement the boards-only rule. It helps the community stay focused on selling to each other, and prevents the double-review issue above.

 

The Situation:
Someone posts a selling thread on the boards, and then cross-posts that thread to other social media (facebook, instagram, whatever) -- maybe even specifying that you must be contact the seller through the boards to buy the book, requiring the buyer be a board member.

 

The Question:
Does the above situation stay true to the spirit of boards-only offers? Even if it CAN be true to the spirit, if we allow this, does it become a problem if abused? I think that when posted to social media like Instagram, it's not quite the same as a true selling offer like eBay. It's also less likely that people are reviewing Instagram for books to purchase, and more likely that people will be encouraging new members to sign up to the boards from their social network.

 

Possible Results:
We will choose to either add an amendment to the rules to allow this kind of thing (with whatever stipulations), or disallow it based on a combination of admin opinion and your feedback.

 

Thanks! Please feel free to vote AND comment on the reasons for your vote.

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VERY BAD IDEA!!!

Example - post a sale thread here, then post on Facebook with a link to this forum.  Now we have random Facebook people who sign up just to make a deal on the forum resulting in significantly more buyers who don't honor deals and cause problems.  If you want to sell on Facebook, then sell on Facebook.  If you want to sell here, then sell here!

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  • Administrator
7 minutes ago, Red84 said:

VERY BAD IDEA!!!

Example - post a sale thread here, then post on Facebook with a link to this forum.  Now we have random Facebook people who sign up just to make a deal on the forum resulting in significantly more buyers who don't honor deals and cause problems.  If you want to sell on Facebook, then sell on Facebook.  If you want to sell here, then sell here!

Well, maybe... but everyone here was once not here, and then they were new. This process could help grow the community. Yes, an influx of new members always means sorting out the reliable from the unreliable, but I wouldn't say that's a bad thing.

If a particular seller doesn't like the take a risk on new members, they could always just choose not to work with them until they have an established kudos thread?

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1 minute ago, Architecht said:
10 minutes ago, Red84 said:

VERY BAD IDEA!!!

Example - post a sale thread here, then post on Facebook with a link to this forum.  Now we have random Facebook people who sign up just to make a deal on the forum resulting in significantly more buyers who don't honor deals and cause problems.  If you want to sell on Facebook, then sell on Facebook.  If you want to sell here, then sell here!

Well, maybe... but everyone here was once not here, and then they were new. This process could help grow the community. Yes, an influx of new members always means sorting out the reliable from the unreliable, but I wouldn't say that's a bad thing.

If a particular seller doesn't like the take a risk on new members, they could always just choose not to work with them until they have an established kudos thread?

I would argue that most people arrived here through google searches about graded books.  They then learned about the community through Comics General and the other forums.  Then they move towards the selling area of the boards.  This fosters a board member who understands the board culture before they start buying and selling.

I think that allowing people to link to sales threads will flip things.  People will arrive here just to buy and sell and do so without understanding how things work around here.  

Just think it will only increase the likelihood of PL and HOS incidents.

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If you have cross posting/selling, you are going to turn the selling forum into a flea market. I can see a ton of problems, for example:

1.It's going to be impossible to tell when someone really sold a book elsewhere, or when they just got a better offer.

2. You are going to have the most traffic on the boards in the probation thread.

You may get more people, but they will just be here to sell (not that we don't have some now, but at least it's contained).

 

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@Architecht  If you want to grow the community, give away some free slabbings or something. Send emails inviting people to "old home week", now that some people know how to use the new boards (I'm not counting myself as one of them;) but I can muddle through). Tell people they can buddy up with a friend and learn how to get around. Emphasize the good stuff, like the easy picture posting (a huge plus now that Photobucket has gone insane:)

Advertise the selling forum for sure, but require that some time be spent on the boards reading before they can sell.

Heck, advertise it and don't require time be spent here, but make it board sales only, at least that way, it won't become a zoo.

I think we forget that the boards were here before the selling forum was. 

I love seeing new people here, most are terrific, I don't like the scammers though and we have had more than we need in the past few years.

 

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I'm still a noob only, not even here 18 mos., so won't give an opinion.

But sometimes the lightest touch is best when it comes to rule making, so perhaps it makes sense to just stay silent, allow it when it happens and let the occasional boardie who does the cross-selling on FB keep his thread alive, and kick the can on expressly permitting it which might just put the idea in more people's heads.

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I think there's already plenty of members that only use this forum for a marketplace without adding an influx of people from social media.  I'd much rather see new people contributing in the discussion forums as opposed to buying/selling books and nothing else.

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I have inverted myself since I joined the boards...I joined and stayed in Original Art forum for years before venturing out to the rest of the boards. I never sold anything for years. Now I sell much more than I post. Weird, I know.

So I learned the rules from the OA section first, where things run slightly differently on sales. (Which is why they have their own sales area I guess.) But before I sold comics and was selling any art from my collection I always sent out an email to comicart-l yahoo group announcing my sales on the boards. I have also posted links on comic book junkies forum to my comic sales here. I don't see this as any different. But then again I do not do social media (I do use twitter but almost exclusively as an image hosting site) so I have no knowledge regarding Facebook or Instagram or anything like that so I will defer to boardies on those forums specifically. But driving traffic here from out there is a good thing I think.

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  • Administrator
On 12/12/2017 at 12:04 PM, Bird said:

@Shadow Images you did not do that correctly I do not think. Hey @Architecht, Shadow has a good question (about allowing violations of paypal's terms of service)

I'm only sort of aware of this one, but here's how I would state moderation position on this kind of question:

We don't allow personal paypal for two reasons.

  1. It deprives buyers of protections that they should give up, and
  2. It's explicitly against the terms of use of PayPal

If either of those things are also true about asking for an extra 3% for paypal, then I think we would veer towards disallowing it.

If I understand things correctly, it's ok with PayPal if you say something like "3% discount for cash/check", though?

I'm not familiar enough with the specific terms of PayPal use to know in this case what is and isn't acceptable. But if we see enough abuse of those terms, we'd clarify it and add it to the posting guidelines.

 

 

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Charging  an extra 3% isn't a violation of paypal rules.   They actually make a little more money.   It is frowned on by buyers here, including myself.  Many won't purchase books if someone asks the buyer to pay the paypal fees.  It's the cost of doing business. 

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3 hours ago, comicdonna said:

Charging  an extra 3% isn't a violation of paypal rules.   They actually make a little more money.   It is frowned on by buyers here, including myself.  Many won't purchase books if someone asks the buyer to pay the paypal fees.  It's the cost of doing business. 

It is under the No Surcharges clause of the agreement. The only reason I bring this up is I have know of accounts that have been frozen for people asking for the 3% and customers reporting them.

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