Marketplace rule change?

afboundguy

Acan's are inedible candy
Staff Member
Moderator
BRS Member
I was wondering what the membership thought of switching to a rule more like something that R2R has where you need to be a member for X amount of days and make X amount of meaningful posts (not just "love that" or "great pic") posts before being able to sell in the marketplace if you're a paid member?

In the past few years the club has defiantly had a change in it's overall make up and I know from working behind the scenes it is always a tough balancing act that the BOD has to deal with to keep the forums from being essentially a craigslist type of page and keep the essence of what the club was founded as which is a place to come and discuss reefing. I happened to be on R2R a few days ago doing a little digging and saw they had that rule and figured I'd toss it out to the membership and see what their thoughts and reactions were?
 
If you pay for membership, you should be able to sell on day 1.
If you don’t pay for membership then the soak in time makes sense.

I’m also sick of opening BRS and all I see is marketplace posts. I understand you want some action on the site but this is an info exchange forum and not a flea market. These posts should not be on the homepage post refresh.
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A rule like that would weaken our ability as reefers to score local livestock. I agree it may help on many fronts but having Boston reefers as a single spot for the reefing community to meet/sell/trade locally is invaluable. I think pay to play works fine, some people just don’t want to make small talk on a forum so it would unnecessarily exclude specific reefers.
 
I agree and disagree....
Yes some people will obviously take advantage of this like anything.

I see alot of for sale threads from New members, that did not know this site existed when the were in the hobby. And everyone knows with this hobby there is a high turnover and they only heard of the site through chance when they were getting out of hobby to unload there stuff.. win win for member that scores some stuff for cheap win for person try to recoup some money they put into this difficult hobby. Then after stuff is sold since they are no longer in hobby there username is a ghost.
I dont know just seems like if that rule was in place (which I don't completty disagree with)
The stuff the person is trying to unload cause there getting out of hobby will just end up on Craigslist anyways...
 
If you are a paid member you should be able to post for sale right away. I like that you are proposing new ideas, but I don't know if it is comparable to R2R. They have supporting members, but for the most part the people on there are not paying anything for a "membership" so that rule makes sense.

For me, half the fun in the hobby is buying new coral, and now selling fragged coral as my tanks mature. I don't mind seeing all the for sale posts.
 
What about not showing marketplace posts on the “Latest posts“ page to remove the emphasis on buying and selling? R2Rs “latest posts” doesn’t show marketplace posts.

I looked and I wasn’t been able to easily locate any information about BRS. The main menu doesn’t show anything. The home page just shows latest posts. The bottom of the page has terms and rules and help but these linked pages show general information pertaining to any forum.

If this was a gun club or an owners association there would be stated goals, a creed, bylaws, an organization chart or officer list, an explanation of what the collected membership money was used for, etc...

From the homepage this site just looks like a forum. And the forum just looks like a place to buy and sell. The catch is that in order to sell you need pay a membership fee. For people trying to determine whether or not they should pay for a membership what thoughts do they have?
Why do I have to pay for a membership just to sell?
What is my membership money being used for?
What benefits do I get with a membership?
Is my money just going to the owner of the site or are there paid staff?
As a member am I a part of the club or association?
Do members have a right to see the club expenses and yearly balance?

I like the idea of R2Rs minimum post requirement in order to sell. The very lazy won’t post a bunch of messages in order to meet that requirement. Given a choice between paying a fee to sell or having to post a minimum number of messages, a lot of people may opt to just pay the money. This is great for BRS if the goal is to obtain money, but not conducive to growing the forum.

Having a minimum post requirement on top of having to pay a membership would turn away a lot of people IMO. To me it depends on the goal of the forum. Note that I say forum and not club. I haven’t seen anything documented about BRS to show otherwise.
 
I like what R2R does, and they modeled after reef central.
That being said, i believe thats best for those sites because they arent local, theyre national/international and have a much higher flow than we do, and sponsors.
I can see value in both sides of this,in regards to BRS.

I prefer...
Members only marketplace
Non member market place that is available to members as well.
Non members limited to starting threads in other forums until after contributing a specified number of posts (like r2r).
Its $20.00 to join... if you have a tank, you have $20.00. It may help gain membership.

Either way i love what we've all got here!
 
What about not showing marketplace posts on the “Latest posts“ page to remove the emphasis on buying and selling?
This would also benefit the sponsors, who have the priveledge to have their own forum.

People would still be able go to the Marketplace forum itself to see the newest Marketplace threads anyways, so it's only one extra click.
 
Can someone confirm what they see when clicking on bostonreefers.org
 
Thanks, I changed the landing page to show the "Home" page with Forum Names. On mobile if you click the lightning bolt, it will refresh to "Latest Posts". Also, if your on mobile and have the site bookmarked, delete it and then just type in www(dot)bostonreefers(dot)org and then create a shortcut from there, that'll bring you to the landing page for the club from now on, instead of seeing all the "For Sale" posts.
 
What about not showing marketplace posts on the “Latest posts“ page to remove the emphasis on buying and selling? R2Rs “latest posts” doesn’t show marketplace posts..

I like this idea a lot not sure how doable it is. And this post got the input I was looking for which is mainly trying to get the club further away from the "reefing Craigslist" it has been trending towards for years and years. Anything we could do as a club to get it back to the days when there were tons of non market posts and threads I'm all for.
 
I'm sure there is a will and a way. Myself, not sure how to go about that, maybe a custom script that's implemented. I'm learning this software as I go and the backend as well. Someday, everything will be covered. As of right now, I've added a few new forums for various subjects, a "Who is the BRS" at the top of the page
 
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