Minimum Number Of Posts Before Letting Someone Post In For Sale Section

[Mike Cavanaugh]

This thread is about a discussion which every member has a right to participate in, to have an opinion about and to express their thoughts publically on. Nobody needs to come to Admin about any of this unless they themselves feel the need to.

Admin as well as Mods are reading, participating and monitoring this thread - just like we do with any thread in any forum on this site.

LOL SORRY JO!!!! I was attempting to make a point! I was not actually suggesting that anyone contact the Admin...

Well, I think after all of my replies to this thread my opinon has been clearly stated. I will now respectively bow out...

Ball-pythons.net is the best forum in the world. Lets keep it that way.

[dsirkle]

I can understand the sentiment behind the minimum posts idea but I am not in favor of it. The end result would be to deny access to the large number of honest people that don't regularly post here but have nice herps to offer to the members here and would just make the comparatively small number of scammers just have to put out a little more effort to be able to sell here. If you look at the effort that was put out to weave stories by HEH and LAW they will do it.

[scutechute]

I have to agree with Robin and people who are thinking along the same line. Nothing any admin or any rule can do will substitute for tapping into the wealth of information on this great site, or in its people. I've only sent out a handful of pm's, but everytime i have the people have returned it with a friendly answer to whatever question i had, or told me where to find it. A person who is new to snakes, or any hobby, should expect to do some homework before shelling out money.

it's already been said that having a minimum post requirement will encourage more "nice pickup" posts (although i have to agree with eddie, it's a lonely feeling when you post and nobody replies or comments - sucks) or other quick posts without much content. So this new way of enforcing an already existing rule - i think that's how Mike's referring to it now - will make the informational forums bloated with one-word posts, and decrease the number of people that can put their animals in the ads section. The number of "informational" posts will be diluted with a lot more "fun" posts, which is great an all, but I don't know that it makes this community better.

I don't see how having forums less concentrated with informational, insightful posts would be an improvment. Prohibiting smaller, newer breeders from posting ads until they "level-up" thier post count on bp.net like it's a online game or something (yeah, i play WoW) makes it seem....i dunno, wierd. I'm not sure about this.

I do think separate forums for ads and for adoptions is a good idea.

I think post-count shouldn't "count" as anything but a indicator of the person's contributions to the site. It shouldn't bar you from doing this or that.

I'm just trying to stick up for the readers of this forum! Let's hear it for the quiet people!!

[grunt_11b]

I have to say I would be against a set # of posts, but to set a membership time limit would be ok.. The reason I say this is I've been a member here for a while now but haven't posted that much. I've met some of the coolest people (in person) from this site.. I'm just not that talkative.. Like now I've read this post like 5 times and still havent gotten what I want to say out.. LOL I'd rather talk to a person face to face.. But coming here and learning has helped me tremendously in my keeping.. So next season when I have animals for sale I'd like to post them here. But if there is a 1000 post limit that would never be possible. Unless of course I ramp up my Nice pic, Killer animal, Great pickup posts.. But whatever is decided I will not gripe about thats just not my style..

Alan

[phrack3r]

i think it should be done but if your going to do it make the post amount around 250 not as high but not low, if iwanted too i could get 100 in a day without spaming. but if there is going to be a post restriction there should another forum for wanted ads where the person wanting something has to pay first but the seller has to have a certain amount of posts like 250 to be able to look at the topics minus the maker. and if thats not possible than a risk taker forum where post ount doesnt matter but all scams are there own fault but should be reported. i do have expertise in this kind of matter by being a moderator in some forums i used to be a part of while i sold video game money for real life money and have had been scammed before and all, i will make a post later on ways not to get scammed and if we need a sole moderator for that forum ill be glad to volunteer. if wanted a record of sale from old forums i do have a list of a small amount of trades but i did have well over 1500+ trades in my video gme money carrer and thats selling and buying together since i was a merchant but since stopped due to game going downhill. i also could give some good suggestions to make the sale area a whole lot safer.

[blackcrystal22]

Jess, by your participation here, people are getting to know you - and you are more likely to get a sale from other members here. That's how you start building your reputation.

When someone joins here and makes their first post in the for sale section and you've never heard of them, and you click their post and see it's their only post, are you saying that your that naive (how you described yourself) that you would consider their ad without doing more legwork on them?

Is an animal that might interest you more important that protecting yourself by doing the extra work in vetting them?

My first major purchase after I had my first ball python was when I was still relatively new as well. I didn't know the seller, his site was very pretty and impressive. I loved his animals. I still checked BOI on him, and he had great references. I also asked Adam of 8ball if he knew of him and Kara of NERD if she knew of him. Kara told me that while she had not personally purchased from him, she knew people who had, and had nothing negative to say of the transaction.

The pretty snakes that I really hoped I could get were not enough to make me make the purchase. It wasn't until I independently verified their legitimacy before I ever contacted him (and have since made multiple purchases from and shared my experiences on Fauna).

That's my point. You recognize that you are naive - but you HAVE to protect yourself.

Thanks to this forum, I'm not as naive as I used to be. In the beginning, I did contact someone I was unsure of, though I found Tim Bailey, and everything changed. The reason I did so was because I was unaware of the true risks in the reptile business.

I had never purchased an animal online, and had done my research about the animals needs, but I never thought it would be important for purchasing.

I have always understood scammers abilities, but not so much in this type of trade. I guess at the time, I thought anyone who was breeding and selling reptiles must be a large corporation and industry. I was unaware of how largely spread this trade has become.

Does that make sense? I'm a bit weird with words right now.. I've been very jumbly lately.

My choice with Bailey was because of how organized his website, and the way he talked to me through e-mail and gladly answered my questions. Talking on the phone was also a large step for trust.
Back then though, I was very lucky. I could've been naive enough to purchase from anyone.

I don't know if theres any real way to educate and let people know that there ARE ways to check up on sellers out there. But I hope that maybe a slight minimum post count or time limit could sway away the people who don't have enough time to spam their posts away. If anyone has better ideas, I'm all for that. I just hate sitting here doing nothing about potential problems for others. The post count doesn't have to be high (so the non-talkative ones have a chance too!) but even 25 posts is a good start.

And I agree Mike, this is the best forum on the internet.

[AaronP]

This is all I have to contribute to this thread:

Use common sense before you buy an animal. Contact the person, see if you can find out previous people whom he's bought/sold to, see if you can contact them. If you decide to buy from them without knowing any previous history then you're putting yourself at risk to get jipped in some way or form.

I'm sorry if I sound like a butthole, but wake up and smell the coffee, this is money we're talking about here, and where there is money there is scum. I've been selling/buying/trading items on the internet for the past 5 years and I've had dozens of positive transactions, a couple of 'eh' ones and a couple of ones where I got screwed it's just a risk you take. I've yet to buy an animal off the internet, but I've also been lucky enough to have the opportunity to buy my animals in person.

[Kesslers Kreatures]

I have to say i agree with some sort of system, i have yet to purchase from someone that has posted in the forsale threads here. I can say that i would be more at ease if i knew it was someone that has been around here and people knew of and had talked to before. I think 500 posts are a little much though. MAYBE 100... thats a big maybe. or maybe a time period of being a CONTRIBUTING member, not just a lurker.

I lurked this site for a LONG time before actually talking to people and making myself known. I know i sound like a bit of a hypocrite saying people shouldn't lurk but i never lurked and tried to sell something. I just tried to learn as much as i can before i posted and tried to contribute, If people have enough snakes that they need to sale they should have some kind of expertise or basic knowledge that they could share with members here that need the help instead of trying to make money for their first post

Jo, as you stated earlier, this is a community and it doesn't seem right that people can come and just post right out of the gate, some kind of contribution should be necessary before trying to make money off other member of this great community.


I also agree with the adoption section, for people who just need to rehome and not want to make a quick buck by joining and posting right away.

[West Coast Jungle]

This topic has been brought up several times in the past and is not something that has been ignored.

In case many were not aware the clasified section did have new rule changes in early 2007. That change actually helped stop and curb alot of abuse of the for sales section.

As mentioned earlier if you dont like an add or new person placing one dont buy it or respond to it.

If you think someone is pulling a scam, report it to one of the staff.

If someone has only 1-5 posts and they are already in the classified section, HELLO RED FLAG! Why get upset, just use common sense. If a price is too good to be true it probably is. Many people that have been scammed went for the too good to be true price from the guy no one ever heard of

No matter how many minimum posts, someone could by pass that in a matter of days or weeks if they wanted to, so in the long run it wont stop dishonest people, just delay them.

Whenever you are interested in any add wether it be here, KS, Craiglist, Fauna, please do your homework, get references, check the BOI, use our feedback forum. The tools are there but if you are too lazy or just want the best price it doesnt matter how many posts someone has you are bound to run into a problem.

Every members amount of posts are right under their name, make your own minimum and there you go.

This forum is not known for its for sale section like other forums because thats not what its about. We are not ignoring peoples concerns, actually we went through this several times in the past and have made changes accordingly.

I dont mean to be rude or condescending so please dont take it that way, just stating this is not a new concern or situation, thats all

[SlitherinSisters]

The whole point of the "sale section" is for our members to find and/or post snakes they have for sale. Just getting 100 posts is hard, what if I've been a breeder for decades and I just joined the site and now have to get 500 posts? That just doesn't make any sense to me. We will be getting a lot of posts with no purpose.

I do think 100 posts is reasonable....

But I also agree with the others. We all know how many posts we each have.