I think you’ll need to make it “only SDMB members would be allowed to post threads”, and allow guests to comment on threads. Nothing prevents me from sending someone a PM to buy their trinket, but it’d be nice for the seller and potential buyers to see that someone’s made a claim for it.
Also - you’re probably going to end up with a few heated pit threads about so-and-so being a shitty marketplace vendor, and how the fuck can the SDMB allow him to still sell things, yadda yadda yadda. Certainly something to anticipate having to create a preemptive rule for.
This recently came up on my board. It turns out there’s an easy way to exclude forums from New Posts, just change the link to e.g.
replacing 21 with the forumid of the forum to be excluded. (Multiple forums can be excluded as well, just separate them with commas.) There’s also an include option, if you want to have a link that only returns new posts for a given set of forums.
Doesn’t this run into a giant issue with anonymity? If you’re buying a good from someone then you’re going to need to know a lot of personal information about them, unless they’ve already set up corporate identities. But those are easy to find out about, since they’re public records.
So if you sell something as Cecil Adams, but the buyer is directed to a PayPal account for EDZotti at ChicagoReader.com and the return address on the package is Ed Zotti, Ivory Tower, Chicago, IL 60666, then the game is up.
Admittedly, it’s up for just those who do the purchase. But just the thought makes me queasy.
What about unhappy purchasers? Will they take their complaints over to the other forums and slander the seller?
What about scammers? What if someone takes your money and doesn’t send you the goods? Do they still get to be a member in good standing? How will the Dope monitor all of this activity?
I agree that this would definitely need to be hammered out beforehand. I’ve noticed that complaints outside the norm have a tendency to get ignored by the administration until the problems have festered and become way worse than they needed to be. Since deadbeat buyers and sellers would be something completely new, I think drafting a policy prior to opening the marketplace would be important for minimizing drama.
Presumably buyers and sellers would send contact info via PM, so the only person the information is revealed to is the other party of the transaction.
Unless you’re already assuming that and it’s still making you queasy that personal information will be shared between the two parties making the deal. In that case, I don’t know what to suggest other than to not be so sensitive.
For starters, I will say that this is one of those ideas with next to no cost of implementation, minimal risk and some chance of success. There is really no reason not to try this. Worst Case Scenario: nothing happened, delete the forum, live another day.
The idea is closely related to what I was just proposing in this other thread:
In my proposal, the idea was to leverage the members’ knowledge as consumers to increase ad revenue. Here it uses the members as merchants to… what exactly? Increase page views, for sure (or at least if volume follows). Maybe some memberships sold to guests who want to promote something. The main benefit I saw to my proposal (that ads will follow reviews) is also present here, I think. A thread started to promote my lizard skin mittens is certain to be peppered with ads for similar and related products. Those ads are more likely to convert to clicks than in other threads or forums. So far so good.
My main concern with this is whether it will generate volume. Do we have enough vendors here to make this happen?
I think we have a lot more consumers (opinionated consumers at that) than we have vendors.
That said, it doesn’t have to be either or. As my distinguished colleague would say, why can’t it be both?. “Recommend a toothpick brand” and “Olive Garden is the roxxors/suxxors!” threads could make their home in this new marketplace and they would all drive each other’s traffic.
I think the “Job wanted” and “take home these kittens” threads should also be welcome here. At first, all traffic is good. If clutter then becomes an issue, then some pruning might be needed but for now, the more the merrier.
The big question. If I start my thread selling something and someone buys it and wants to review it (positively or negatively). Can they do it on my advertising thread?
My only concern would be the images. I am not sure yet how I feel about those.
Oh, and although it is certainly not my business, do you have someone to mod this? I cannot imagine anyone wanting it.
I hate the idea. Absolutely hate it. It cheapens and demeans what we do here. Crass commercialization has ruined many a good thing, and would probably do the same to the Dope. There are literally thousands of venues where I can go to buy stuff. The internet doesn’t need another one.
Sorry for the dreaded consecutive post, but have you run this by CL legal? I see more potential for litigation here than just with a regular message board. Could raise a number of issues…a guy thinks he’s paying for relatively cheap advertising, then gets banned for something in another forum, now he claims breach of contract…or he’s selling a crappy product, but claims to be willing to litigate unless you delete negative reviews, etc. Even if the lawsuit is entirely frivolous, it can be expensive to defend.
Also, are you prepared for an onslaught of ads for boner pills, escort services, and porn sites? $15 a year for access to a forum they can spam with that crap is going to be highly attractive, I think. More so if they can include pictures.
What about political/advocacy ads? NAMBLA, Westboro Baptist Church, PETA, Aryan Nation, Democrats, Republicans, NRA, Planned Parenthood, Anti-Abortion groups, etc. Do they get to play?
The signature link deal…current policy is you’re only supposed to use your sig once per thread. Would that change? Advertisers want maximum visibility. How many threads can they link in their sig, and can they display the sig in every post? Can they demand other users not be able to choose to not see signatures–which I think is a current option…
What if I approach Fancy Organization, LLC, and offer to provide a link in my sig to their website (for a small fee, of course)? (Assuming I also get them to pay for a Membership as well.)
Not sure what you mean - because only paying members will be able to post at all in the proposed forum. My concern is that a minority of enthusiastic individuals might try to flood it, spoiling it for others.
It sounds good to me. There’s another forum I’m part of that has a similar board. They make it so you can only link to your store, rather than selling on that board, and any communication related to it has to be off-board.
They also limit it to one thread per member, which might be something to consider (or perhaps, one thread per member per month, or some other limitation)
Would members be allowed to advertise for companies they don’t own? I would love to be able to advertise for my parents, as well as myself.
I think, as usual, people are getting paranoid. There’s no harm in giving it a try.
ETA: This is something I would be willing to resubscribe to use.
I agree with my learned friend Oakminster. I fear that conflicts generated over disputes in the marketplace forum could spill over into other forums.
Perhaps more importantly - questions about cars/computers/books and so make frequent appearances on the Dope. That’s because we can all be fairly confident that product recommendations are being made by neutral, well-informed parties. What if I’m selling my macbook in the Marketplace, and my response to a “what PC should I buy” thread is “buy a macbook!”
I may disagree with advice from Dopers, but I never doubt that it’s offered solely for the benefit of the OP and the community at large. A Marketplace forum would change that.
Please don’t do this. We’re here to fight ignorance, not the recession.
Your learned friend Oakminster didn’t say any of that though. He mostly raised a bunch of ,imho, bogeymen. I mean really, a lawsuit over a $15 subscription? I can understand not liking what it would do to the character of the board but I’m betting most of the problems would be a little board drama, if any.
I have concerns about what it would do to the board character too. I realise the “Fighting Ignorance” ship has long since sailed, but actively encouraging people to sign up purely to sell stuff is… not a direction I think these boards should be taking.
That and I find it interesting to note that, whilst a “Politics” forum is apparently completely impossible to set up (despite constant requests for one from significant numbers of people), but here we are being told that a “Marketplace” forum is in the offing. Intriguing.
This is why I probably like better my idea of a forum where people talk about products instead of trying to sell them. It is a lot more in line with the current tone of the board.
In any case, I think we are way overestimating the number of dopers with something to sell here. Not to mention the number of strangers that will rush in to advertise their wares. Again a point in favor of a review over marketplace forum. I know there is no shortage of consumers with opinions in this board.
I haven’t read the thread yet so I apologize if this has been mentioned, but I would think there could be problems moderating disagreements between buyers and sellers and with the inevitable overflow of hostilities into other forums. I can also foresee posters with a hard on for certain other posters initiating purchases for the sole purpose of being a difficult customer and causing trouble.
Another problem might be charging for stickies. Depending on price, I can foresee lots and lots of stickies with the result that stickie postings might eventually consume the first several pages of the forum.
Other than for those two concerns, I think it’s a great idea and I’d love to see it implemented. And it would be better than Craigslist in one important way, which is that it would allow sellers to reach people outside their own town. Craigslist doesn’t allow multiple postings or postings to multiple cities, and I would think that as a seller it would be great to be able to offer items to people nationwide.
I like the idea. But even if I didn’t the cry that it would ruin the intelligence of this place seems silly. Just don’t go there. Remember all of the hand wringing that went on when they added the Chicago boards? Didn’t change a damn thing for those of us not there.