We enacted the 50 post / 6 month rule because we had several problems in the past with members joining this site just to use the Classified forums.
I'm sure there aren't many (if any) spammers who would wait 6 months, which is why we chose that timeframe. The idea was to keep spammers out.
The rule about only posting items for sale that you actually own came from having several people post items for sale that a non-member friend had, or even just a car / part they saw for sale on another forum. These ads pretty much all had very little or no contact info, and we had complaints from members who were trying to make purchases and had difficulty contacting the actual owner of the item listed for sale to make the deal.
We tried briefly saying that if you posted an item for sale you must be the point of contact for the sale, but then all people would do was wait for one of our members to contact them, and then pass along their friend's / acquaintance's / whoever's contact info, and the trouble would start again.
Obviously this wasn't the case for every ad that was posted for an item that didn't belong to the member posting it, but it happened often enough that we felt action had to be taken.
If you (or anyone else) has any suggestions on better ways to handle an issue like this, we would gladly listen to your idea(s). If we feel that your idea could make things work out better overall, we'll most likely make a change.
Here are the current Classified Rules:
Quote:
This area is strictly for members to buy and sell cars, parts, and other merchandise that they own. No corporate or shop advertising/sales by non club sponsors will be allowed to be posted here. Any member consistently posting parts, cars, car care services, or offering to part out cars in the Classifieds may be seen as offering a "professional service" and will be required to either limit such activity or become a paid supporting sponsor of the NJFBOA.
No thread should be "bumped up" more than once during a 48 hour period. The only member that is entitled to bump the thread will be the member that posted the ad. All responses must be directly related to buying/selling the item(s) being offered in the original post.
DO NOT post in someone's ad to criticize pricing or item description. That should be kept to a private message. If you feel that a particular ad posted is intentionally misleading, please report the thread and explain your reasoning. This is done by clicking on the Report Post icon (the red triangle with an exclamation point) found underneath the person's username and avatar.
All items listed for sale must have an asking price included in the initial post. The asking price must be an actual dollar amount. Posting an item and just asking users to make offers is not permitted.
This is not a place for eBay links to be left open. If you have an item you are selling on eBay and you would like to offer it locally, state that the item is also listed for local sale in your auction description and include the eBay link and asking price in the initial post.
All users will be required to have 50 posts or six months of membership on the board before using the Classifieds Forum. Excessive meaningless posting to reach the required minimum post count will not be tolerated.
Sales are to be held privately between buyer and seller. The club does not take any responsibility for the actions of anyone participating in transactions here.
All posts made in the Classifieds Forum WILL NOT count towards your overall post count.
If you have any questions about these rules, please contact a moderator or admin via PM.
Please note that inappropriate posts in this section will be deleted with no notification to the user.
NOTE: Once you hit 50 posts or 6 months, There is a program that runs several times a day to check for post counts of 50 or more. You will not have access to the Classifieds the second you hit 50 posts, but you should within a few hours. It is not immediate.
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- Justin