Thread: Am I Reading The Classified Rules Correctly?

Originally Posted by Prahston

Greater than one post per day for 90 days would certainly be considered Active Membership that's for sure. Reasonable? Not so sure about that.

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I dunno. You seem to be doing OK at the moment - 4 posts in a bit over 2 hours. I have every faith in you.

James.

The 'special circumstances' option is there for special circumstances. 1 post per day (on average) is anything but a difficult requirement to fulfill. The classifieds is here for active members: people who are part of the community, give back and are around on a regular basis. It is indeed a hands on hobby, but it generally takes some time and discussion / asking questions before you know everything you need to know. If you are indeed one of those people who pick up everything first go, then kudos to you but by definition, you are not an active member.

If there are no active members discussing things and later on helping out, there there would be no forum at all.

I'd also like to point out that the people who have thousands of posts to their name are not 'no-lifers'. Talking about myself, I do have a real life that eats away at my time. I am a full time systems engineer. I study Japanese and martial arts. I make razors and knives. I have 2 young daughters, 1 wife and a house that need attention. Despite all that, I still find the time to be an administrator here, which does take considerably more time than making 1 post per day.

Now I don't expect everyone to be interested in investing their time in becoming a forum regular. Most people in fact only stay around for long enough to learn the hobby, and then move on. Fair enough. That is why we are here for, after all. But in that case it also makes sense that they are not considered active members.

Originally Posted by Prahston

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Rules are Rules certainly but when I see something that seems so confusing to me I am gonna ask about it... Not necessarily ONLY to get an answer to that one question but to get a pulse on the community as well.

Classifieds are a membership perk - "membership" being the operative word, closely followed by "perk". If you have a burning need to sell something I hear ebay is available for just such situations.

If you want to sell something for free here to the membership, under the auspices of SRP, you give the members a reason to trust you by becoming an active participant in our community. Yes, the time limits and the post counts may not be the "gold standard" way to go about it, but it is fairly standard practice and usually weeds out the fly-by-nighters.

I'm not trying to be obtuse but this is not really an intellectual Forum where you can just while away at the keys for hours on end... This Forum supports a VERY 'Hands On' Hobby/Activity... So, it is counterintuitive to me to require new members to spent such a great amount of time creating posts when most of the answers to those initial questions require the User to go out and 'try' one thing or another.

It is counter-intuitive to me that a new member, who needs to go out to try things so as to learn, would be needing to sell anything in the Classifieds so early in their learning. Straight razors are a slow burn and I would suggest that the last thing on any new member's mind should be trying to sell personal gear within the first 3 months.

Of course, there are exceptions and perhaps you are one. But if I were you I'd be less worried about the rules and more concerned with building a solid reputation here amongst the community you would like to sell items to. It is really not a lot to ask for a free service.

Good luck to you.

James.

No offense but it takes at least three months to even know if a razor is shave ready. These are about the best classifieds I've ever seen for selling quality gear, the post count and time limit are to keep junk sellers and scammers out of the classifieds.

Originally Posted by Prahston

1. Members wishing to post a 'For Sale' (FS) or 'For Trade' (WTT) ad must have a minimum of three (3) months of membership and no less than 100 posts or six (6) months of membership and no fewer than 50 posts. Exceptions to this rule may be made by the senior moderator team.

You could always start-off as a buyer...

Originally Posted by Prahston

1. Members wishing to post a 'For Sale' (FS) or 'For Trade' (WTT) ad must have a minimum of three (3) months of membership and no less than 100 posts or six (6) months of membership and no fewer than 50 posts. Exceptions to this rule may be made by the senior moderator team.
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100 posts in 3 months or 50 posts in 6 months... What if I am at 4 months and 75 posts? Still have to wait until I have 6 months time in?

Color me... 'Confused'...

The rules seems pretty simple to me and of course there is a simple explanation for the rules. Without any rules the classifield would be full of unwanted item, words get around pretty fast about a free service.
Actually i think the same rules should apply to the monthy "Contest and giveaways" many people join SRP just to enter the contest.

It sounds like there is not a request for explanation of the rules, it sounds like there is a request for justification of the rules. I guess I would ask, Why should anyone justify the rules?

They are.

Period, enough said. I am not trying to be a jerk, but there are other places to sell and buy...heck a person could create their own forum...and even charge people to be part of it.

Here we have a free forum that has a LOT of members, it has been going on for a lot longer than I have been a member, they seemed to do just fine without me...I see no reason that they should justify anything to me. I think it is up to me to follow their rules in exchange for them allowing me to be part of this and learn so much from it.

But that is just me...

Evidently I've found a subject that is a bit sensitive or has some energy behind it. And, my Title may have been perceived as flippant rather than an attempt at self-deprecating humor. So, let me try it this way...

I was simply asking for clarification of a rule.. NOT justification as I completely agree with the statement above. Why would I ask for clarification? Well, mostly because putting in that kind of post count in that time then having someone say, "Oh, that Rule... Nah, we don't really do it that way anymore...", would 'really' be a drag! Secondarily, my previous experience on Bladeforums.com years ago and more recently HondaChopper.com did not have the same restrictions... In fact, there were many Members who just posted Buy/Sell/Trade and rarely in the Forums at all. Further, I've been around intenet Forums for quite some time and one of the easiest ways to identify a Troll is High Post Count, ie, "Just ignore them. They are just a Troll. Their Post Count is over a Post/Day...", so this is just a paradigm shift I hadn't expected.

I understand all of the above but a couple things to consider:

1) Newbie here does not mean New at life... I bring a fair amount of skills from other Hobbies and employment. I am, in fact, currently using razors I have bevel set and honed without much difficulty. I definitely have been a Buyer picking up more than half a dozen razors here (serious case of RAD) and that actually helped improve my own skills.

2) My opinion is that the only way to develop a Good Reputation is to do Deals. I could post for hours every day on every corner of this site and still be the kind of flake that describes items poorly, ships such that it promotes damage, or goes on vacation after receiving your money and not updating you thus leaving you hanging for a couple weeks wondering what is going on.

In fact, I would have been more than fine with an answer like, "Rules are rules, yes your quote initially is correct. Deal with it." I just wasn't prepared for the energy behind this topic and so was trying to do damage control with subsequent Replys.

I'm just stoked about this and wanting to learn, do, ec 'more'... No harm no foul, I think. ??

You are right, no harm no foul. All of us have gone through the process of meeting the requirements for posting in classifeds. It is only a few months. We welcome you to post when you can and please take advantage of the entire learning
curve here through the library and all of the post topics. Your already up to 35 posts and well on your way. Enjoy.

And thus far you have 5 new posts just from this thread to count down toward your 50, or 100, 6 months or ??? Aawwww now I'm confused.