a marketplace suggestion

[rbelyell]

i dont know if its just me, but i find it tiresome that many who do not post or post very little use our marketplace as their own personal rent-free store! Rangefinder Forum charges a modest fee ($8usd) to post a sale. here, we have a 'supporting membership' program. my suggestion is either that we charge a fee, or at least require 'sellers' to be 'paid supporting' members. how do others feel?
tony

[Himself]

Well Tony, it's been beaten to death in Mod's cafe.
The answer: still pending.

[rbelyell]

oh, i dont do the 'cafe', as i'm a delicate flower who wilts under strenuous debate! anyway, guess where my vote goes?
tony

[Himself]

My vote goes there too.

[my_photography]

I am with the two of you on this matter.

[CarbonR]

I would be for something intermediate : under a certain amount of post (for example 100, 500, or more), if you want to use the marketplace, you have to pay, if you have more posts than required, you are a contributing member to MFLenses and thus you are allowed to benefit from the marketplace audience for free

[Kram]

I know I am in the minority here but I think it should remain free to long standing participants.

[TrueLoveOne]

If you sell your gear on ebay, you'll have to pay 9% of the total amount, including p&p. But you only pay when you sell.

A similar set-up would be good here as well I guess. Personally i think one shouldn't have to pay a percentage over the handling costs, only over the amount you got for the object.

[Aanything]

Asking for the supporting registration for having the possibility to sell items in the marketplace look quite reasonable to me: I don't know (but I can suppose) if this would be somewhat in contrast with the philosophy of "you support the forum if you feel to, no special access or so" about which i read somewhere, and that looked very good to me.

Also, the activity of moderators in this regard seems ok: informing the ones that didn't read carefully the rules, and eventually deleting the post it's probably the most effective way to keep the marketplace working, trying to leave it the most open possible.
Obviously this requires some work, and one that is wanting to misuse this tool can have the opportunity to reach their aim in the time between when the item is put for sale, and when someone notices the irregularity and does something about it.
So i don't really know: it seems to me it's working ok like it is, but many of the solutions proposed above are reasonable.

One thing I wouldn't do, if it was up to me, is a system based on "you pay if you sell the item": these ideas are being suggested to avoid people misbehaving, but measures in this direction could encourage cheating (i.e. people telling they didn't sell the item: this would cause honest people pay the fee, and dishonest ones not, that is the opposite of the intention).

[rbelyell]

yeah, pay as you sell will turn this into ebay. supporting members have a public notation on their tag line, so not only moderators can police the marketplace, but all of us can if we see a listing by someone not 'tagged' as a supporting member. seems to me if one wants support from the forum in terms of a place to post stuff for sale, its reasonable to ask them to provide support to the forum.
tony

[hoanpham]

A kind of agree with Tony.
Also dislike people just reply nonsens just to increase number of posts.
Supporting program sounds ok, but free is ok too, as long as we don't misuse the forum.

We also have a choice to ignore the ad from seller that don't follow the rules.
Personally, I like that some hard to find items would stay in 'family'.
May be an internal market place within advanced section that is not open for public?

[TrueLoveOne]

I was not aware of the "supporting member" option on this forum.....

But that indeed seems to be the easiest way to keep a clean sales section. You can only place your sales if you support the forum.


(yes I have some sales published, and i am not a supporting member, but I'll change that soon, now i know! and this forum is worth it, you learn something every day )

[Sirrith]

If you start charging for a feature, you then become liable in part if anything goes wrong. If the marketplace remains free, then MFlenses can avoid liability (with appropriate disclaimer) in case of a scam or other illegal occurrence.

[rbelyell]

sirroth, no disrespect to you intended, but 'charging' for ads categorically does not make you liable for anything. if you buy a car through a newspaper ad, the paper has absolutely no liability for that car. not even close.

further, if we require 'supporting membership' in order to sell, then we are not charging anyone to run an ad. we are merely setting conditions under which an ad may be run.
tony

[Attila]

[Attila]

[visualopsins]

[peterqd]

[CarbonR]

I'm not sure we should ask to pay both marketplace access and supporting membership. Supporting is a way to help the forum, paying for setting ad when you are new is a winner-winner deal : you enjoy the great audience of MFLenses, which enjoy a part of your money. When you are a contributing member (with a given number of posts of at least 500, it should save us from flood/useless posts, no one will do it just for ad without being banned or limited by moderators), your contribution is now your posts. For me the supporting program is something unrelated to marketplace, this is some "honorific" thing, and of course one of the ways to help the forum

[TijmenDal]

[Attila]

[youngcoby]

And please, add free for supporting members.

I have spent quite a lot of time on the forum, since I found it in 2008. Unfortunately, I don't have (or at least consider myself having) not enough knowledge to actively bring knowledge to the forum.

I consider myself still a very beginner in photography.

But this didn't witheld me from rolling in the supporting member program as soon as it started.

my 0,02 €

[Tervueren]

i also get a bit peeved by individuals who may or may not be a trader, but the way I look at it is, they might just be selling something that otherwise I wouldn't have been aware of so I would say leave as is, no need to maybe cause any infighting in what is one of the best forums around.
A couple of things here to consider if it's decided to change the rules and if access to the classifieds is limited to say 100 posts then of course you restrict your audience for selling any item you have listed, you also may miss out on buying an item from them if they go elsewhere.
How about leaving it free to all forum participating members but open a 'Trader Sales' section where a sponsorship fee is payable to the Forum for its use, maybe then it will attract people like Digital Rev and the like to advertise any special deals they have available.

[Attila]

I think Marketplace should remain free, only requirement be an active member not only use just free selling place.
Probably best if sale is available only above x posts I am not worry about stupid posts just get entry, if somebody do it I will delete him with his all posts. Supporter member system works well many people kindly support with yearly 25 USD , that should cover all expense to run this site well. I will count it , but in my guess cover it well.

[akfreak]

Free. You already have a 200 post minimum so only people who are active get to even post. I used to try to sell on FM forums but I refuse to pay to sell stuff there. I hate to see that happen here. There is always neat stuff for sale here, keep it free I say!