Buy/Sell Forum: "No Posting on behalf"
 

In view of a recent case where a member was sold a TKL thru this forum by another new member (new nick at least), there's been a discussion on how best we could avoid these scenarios. The opinions of the other moderators who spoke up were all for it. Trading of TKL is strictly prohibited. All known cases of members selling untagged aro will hv their account disabled.

Besides, we've had a really high number of new nicks registration at AF who contributes nothing to any discussion other than just selling. We've decided to try and contain this excessive advertising. The objective of the forum is to facilitate the discussion of arowanas and ornamental fishes. We do not want this forum to be like Singnet Classifieds, Yahoo! Auctions or Ebay. The buy/sell forum is for hobbyist to " turn your unused items into cash" and only for aquaria items.

As of now, we'll be prohibiting all new nicks/members with less than 30 posts counts and less than one month registration to start new threads at this Buy/Sell Forum. Hopefully this will discourage those who treat AF as a bulletin board solely to advertise, and those who think they can get away, continue selling TKLs, just by registering new nicks. There are also the sellers who bring in mass sale fishes/feeders/services who just do not want to post at commercial despite the sticky put up by Alvin Koh, as usual claiming ignorance. I hv till now, leave the individual species forums buy/sell open for all. If the abuse persists, then they will also be restricted.
There is obviously no best way to please and accommodate everybody. And unfortunately some genuine members will be affected by this change. We're however, not closing off all the avenues and the individual forum buy/sell is still available. However, if the problem we now face is just shifted there, they will then be restricted as well.

All those threads that are started " ON BEHALF OF FRIEND " will be closed. We've just had too many complaints where disputes arises when posting on behalf and thereafter threadstarter disclaims all responsibility under the excuse they are just doing their friend a favour. These are all deemed as trying to circumvent the rules. Offenders will have their access to the buy/sell forum restricted.

Any flouting of our guidelines will result in first a deduction in your rep points to zero or -10 points whichever is lower and recalcitrant offenders will have their account disabled.


Regards
John

the avenue is not entirely closed .. u can post replies when someone is selling, or wtb and u can also pm, just no starting of new threads to advertise

Dear John, I am more concerned by those Forum guys that just post "upz", "smilies" or "Parrot post" (repeat the ads) Some "chit chat" or "Hi jack" people's thread....

Should take action against these forum too... most threads started Right but ended up with "Upz", ":p"... Private Chit chat session... Etc...

Everything here requires bandwidth, and it isn't free... Other then legal and unhappy issue... please consider the $$$ issue.

50post will encorage forumers to hit the quota! then end up with more rubbish posting!

The buy/sell do not hv post counts .. why ? cos we want to eradicate the upzz .. like i mention in the first post, i'm sure some genuine members may be affected .. suggest an alternative, instead of " it's unfair to me " which is the lesser of the two evils .. ? another thing ? is AF just a bulletin board for buy/sell to u all ? or watever u hv read and learn thus far, u will impart to those newbies who join recently ?

We're clear abt these concerns. And we're not closing every single avenue. Does a member join AF just to sell his goods ? This amendment takes away the privilege to post new threads, which in recent times, AF hv experience excessive advertising and quite a bit of dubious ones. It does not take away his privilege to reply to threads which he can always do when he needs to buy anything or the use of private message. On TKLs, do we always hv to wait till someone gets conned before learning another lesson and the whole process repeats itself again to another unsuspecting member in future. I agree abt the freewheeling in any market place. Our point is, we dun want AF to be a market place. Buy/Sell is supposed to be a subforum, categorised under Others, but it has since taken over and become the dominant forum in terms of views, visits and posts and excessive advertising by traders which is not wat we had intended all along.


rgds
john

it is hard to have a win-win situation in such cases. please do remember that all our moderators need to work too. at such, they cannot spend all their time online looking out for people who breaks the rules... it is up to us, people who make use of the forum, to actually follow the regulations.

however, not everyone is just as considerate as many of our brothers here (i believe)... there are always a few people who breaks the rules (and that is the reason why there are rules). to discourage such people from posting irrelevant stuff for sale at the buy/sell forum, the moderators have to resort to such measures, as mentioned before, they are not available 24 hours a day to close such threads. hence, to help reduce their workload, they have to impose such restrictions.

i do understand how you feel when you are "punished" for things that you did not commit at all, but think of the forum as a community, for a tolerance of 50 posts, you will be bringing the rest of the members a lot of convenience. furthermore, when you have got 50 posts, you too will see less of nonsense threads, while having the priviledge of using this forum and its buy/sell section.

meanwhile, you can post the things you have for sale at your signature. i am sure many bros and sis here DO read the signature, cos u do hear comments like "I like your signature" and stuff like that.

i am sure that you too, will like to eradicate the problem of irrelevant postings, and that you, a sincere fish hobbyist, will gain your 50 posts soon. think about it, 50 posts is actually easy to gain, just by contributing your knowledge to any of the forums (and there are so many of them).

Brother, I agree with you that this is the place to share knowledge and experiences in keep aros and fishes. Knowlege is gain through reading the experiences that have been pen down by fellow brothers of this forum.

How should the buy/sell section be treated? Is it not a marketplace where bros trade/buy stuff that they require for their hobby?. it is place where a willing seller and buyer meet. Come now, don't be naive over this. If it is a fish, call it a fish not something else.

Bro John, I appreciate the intricate line you and yr team have to take. And I know there's no simple blanket solution for all.
Maybe I did not communicate my definition of a marketplace well enough.
I don't just mean buy/sell/exchange when I say free-wheeling but also free-wheeling of ideas, views, critiques, etc etc
From my own experience, the freest markets are also those with the least restrictions (once again I dun mean commercials transactions only).
eg 1 the USA which speaks for itself (its world hegemony is another issue)
eg 2 China - the power that be realise that as their country opens up, they need to lift restrictions. I can see China becoming a free market if this trend continues.
While the examples I give may not seem relevant, think about it deeper.
Think BIG. This is what your arofanatics.com has become in case you've not realised it yet. Good work ;)

hmm... why not think of it this way... this is a forum. we are given a place to share our interest, and yet we don't pay a single cent. this, is a priviledge. so we cannot take the buy/sell forum for granted. so if people want to use it, first contribute to our fish keeping community by posting 50 posts, and you get the added bonus of using the buy/sell forum. fair isn't it???

just like you want to set up a stall to sell your things, you have to first pay the rent. (AND DO NOTE THAT ILLEGAL HAWKERS ARE NOT ALLOWED... :D :D :D )

the admins would have anticipated all the difficulties everytime they administer new rulings to the forums, as such, this case is also the same,thus i believe they would have come up wif a solution prior to making such decision.

imo, it'll be unfair for the admins and their team if we members do not appreciate their hard-work.

i believe despite all unhappiness amonst new members who wishes to buy/sell or trade here, it's indeed a good move to have such ruling against LFS or any traders who come in guise of hobbyists & start to treat AF as a marketplace, using it as a platform only to sell their stuff.

all in all, i'll like to appauld the admin for doing such a good job in maintaining this forum as the best fish-keeping forum.

As mentioned by John, this is actually a forum to share ideas, advice about fishes etc etc...

If you really want to see who are the real hobblysts and traders, just remove all the buy/sell forums...

Those that stay are the real hobblysts....in my opinon...

Well, i think it's kinda irrelevant and blatant to bring in external scenarios to validate the stands of not supporting this new regulation.

Just make it known that this is www.arofanatics.com and it's catered for hobbyist and definitely not for sole trading.

Contribute to the forum and share and soon enough it's 50 posts, why lament, rant and ramble if you are genuine enough.....

Good to eradicate the traders faction.......and also beneficial to promote more sharing of information, whether it'd be "lame" or whatever, abide by the rules and do the necessary if you want to be able to post legitimately in buy/sell.......repurcussions of any sorts in it's dubious ways will definitely be taken care of by the forum admins/moddies.

I think just leave the job to mods and they shall decide what is deem appropriate action to take.

If we as the hobbyist are just here to share the knowledge base on all fishes, why bother what the mods decide?

Let the mods do their job and let us just do our surfing then. :D

There's a reason why we are just members and why they are the so called moderators.

cheers!

Well, the new ones would definitely be affected by this. A change is always painful but we should just see how it goes first before any change should be made again.

I'm old yet considered new because of reactivation. Just have to accept my fate for now. :confused:

I really dun see the point of not allowing ppl to buy and sell in forum afraid one day it become another Ebay? then remove the sell and buy section. Bcos one day more and more newbie will still lead to more members hitting 50 posts and more and more ppl will sell more rubbish! so in the end back to square one. so wat u guys going to do next? increase the number of count again? If so then the oldbies will gain the most advantage.

So wat if people come in will go straight to buy/sell most are hobbist who dun mind 2nd hand stuff or in barget and are not going to buy and sell to gain profit. Even they are how much can they earn? $1000? $2000?
Some ppl like me come in read a bit here and there or make full use of the search function to get instant answer as i know most of my doubt are FAQ and can really hardly get 50 posts. :mad:
U prefer ppl to repeat a common topic everytime in order to get 50 msgs which lead to a huge database?

As for solution for preventing ppl from selling TKL why not submit in our IC number to validate our identity and gain permission to sell or buy? And any mis act in the forum or anyone selling TLK can be trace and action can be taken against him. And can even prevent him from register a valid login ID if he is ban.

erm... maybe you read through the whole thread to gain a better understanding? lets not get heated up here... there is no way to get the best of both worlds... what the mods are trying to do is to prevent people who sign up just to sell their rubbish here... this is a fish forum... i don't go to the buy/sell forum to look for CD players... i want to look for fish and tanks... i can go to yahoo auctions or ebay if i want any other stuff...

it is not exactly a problem of how much they earn... it doesn't concern us... he can sell an arowana for $3,000,000... :eek: and we don't care... willing seller, willing buyer... but lets keep this strictly a fish forum... i don't want to click on buy/sell forum, and get pages and pages and pages of handphones and MP3 players on sale...

if you visit this forum often, you will notice that some people really do post some rubbish and one liners... but that is only a few people... and most of the time, other members will remind them not to do that... 50 posts is a reasonable number... not too much, and not too little... at least, it prevents people from coming here with the sole intention of trying to sell other stuff...

as for submitting IC number, its hard... wait people anyhow humtum an IC number in also can what... we can ensure that it is the correct IC number...

I can see ur point .. the amendments didn't work in ur favour

I think enough inputs in this thread.......if it irks you so much, go venture into another forum perhaps....so that the simple prerequisite of 50 posts won't stand mandatory as an eyesore for yourself......before ya can start to post in buy/sell.....

Stop lamenting, ranting and rambling, makes ya real lame via justifying a few "methods" which sounds simple to your own vague mentality but please understand that this is a forum shared by all......implementing a change is subjected to all sorts of reactions.......etc etc.

Think about it, lament and rant further, you could have simply hit 50 post counts in discussion threads.

IMHO there is some preference and bending for "Selected few"...there were threads that was selling "On Behalf of Friend"...wat was the rule again? :rolleyes:

I must applaud ur thoroughness and patience for waiting long enough to find an example of this. Unfortunately I did not go through every thread to detect that. Inevitably there'll definitely be some threads that we all missed, but to say there are preferences ? then u better name those whom are "preferred" over others or are the "selected few" . But on second thots, I remembered u mentioned abt not coming to Buy/Sell forum anymore because u didn't like certain things. Waoh it must hv taken a lot out of you to come and detect this or have you been waiting a long time since your good fren found no place here. Maybe u want to highlight those cases u found and see if there has been any "preference and bending for those selected few". I'm quite surprised I dun even know I have some "selected few". If u want to accuse, then do it like a man. Dun insinuate, or beat around the bush. Tell me who are those "preferred" in ur words. Take ur time. Do ur search. But dun juz point to some threads. Say it out, LOUD and CLEAR, who these preferred and selected few are. Or u can pretend u didn't see this and wait for another opportunity to snipe again.

Look thru ur own posts. How many of them are postings in buy/sell but not "unless really need to sell off some things urgently" http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/4/4_13_13.gif

To all the admin/moderators
Thanks to all the hard works,as u know I'm a newbie here
My question here is: Are TKL legal in S'pore?

TKL is totally illegal in s'pore...