Members Reviews Thread.

[Jaws22]

I was wondering if a thread could be started to review members who buy and sell?

[Regalblue]

Why not? 

[Ron]

I like the idea and have thought about it many times myself, but I think it's hard to police. If person A complains about person B, but person B says it's not true and wants the comments removed, what should be done?! Maybe it isn't true and the comment should be removed .... but then again maybe it is true and should be left to warn the community? Who makes these decisions?

So maybe an alternative is allowing reviews, but only positive comments - then any negative comment is removed, true or not. Who's to say a swindler doesn't get friends to make false positive comments? Or popularity makes some sellers appear more legit than others?

So maybe an alternative is that we just say "go get'm!" and leave all moderation out of it (aside from language, etc), so buyers can decide for themselves if they want to risk doing business or not? I suspect people would still complain to moderators about it and if we just let things go, I wouldn't be surprised if at some point the law gets involved when one person sues another for slander and involves the forum. 

Overall I like the idea and in an ideal world where everyone is honest it'd be great. However, in the real world it just strikes me as hard to implement.

[tugboat]

Excellent idea! Maybe make it like a grading system or something along those lines etc.

[linuxrulesusa]

Ron has excellent comments. 

Buyer/seller feedback is a nice idea but hard to implement, because of potential problems like 1) sellers not being accurate, 2) buyers not checking things out, 3) 'first dibs' on hot items.

I think there's also a degree of trust/word of mouth.  If you get to know certain people, then you're comfortable buying from or selling to them.  You get a feel for this over time.

Also, I would think it's easier to gain a good reputation if you participate in all aspects of the forum, e.g. the various cichlid/non-cichlid sub-forums, vs. just showing up to post about a favorite cause or to buy/sell. 

[RichE]

I have seen it on other forums its a positive/neutral/negative system

The only part that the "public can see" is the positive neutral or negative, the mods and the 2 parties can see the comments

vBulletin is the hosting site, there are a ton more options

[Marty]

The biggest issue with forums like v bulletin is the cost.  Just for the forum package it's $249.00.  Then customer support is $199.00 per year.  Then you have add ons, which aren't free.  You could easily spend $1000.00 on the initial setup.

[tugboat]

I'm sure we don't need anything that elaborate, possibly it could be added as a component of your profile etc.

[linuxrulesusa]

If we're voting I'd say leave it as is..the forum runs and is stable and has great uptime compared to some other sites I'm on (cough...MR...cough).

[Marty]

If we're voting I'd say leave it as is..the forum runs and is stable and has great uptime compared to some other sites I'm on (cough...MR...cough).

That's the other thing I like about this forum software.  We've been down once since I loaded the board and that was due to our host's servers going down. 

While this board doesn't have all the bells and whistles, there are mods that we will be implementing (whenever Ron and I can get together) to improve the functionality of the board.  What I don't want the board to end up as is something that is too "busy" looking.  This is a fish forum, it's meant to be informative and a place that's interesting to go to, but mostly to get information out there.

My personal opinion is that when you have too many bells and whistles, it ends up taking away from the main reason we're here, which is to learn.

Now, don't get me wrong.  We will listen to suggestions as to how we can make things better, but we're not going to make changes for the sake of making them.

[olliesshop]

If we're voting I'd say leave it as is..the forum runs and is stable and has great uptime compared to some other sites I'm on (cough...MR...cough).

That's the other thing I like about this forum software.  We've been down once since I loaded the board and that was due to our host's servers going down. 

While this board doesn't have all the bells and whistles, there are mods that we will be implementing (whenever Ron and I can get together) to improve the functionality of the board.  What I don't want the board to end up as is something that is too "busy" looking.  This is a fish forum, it's meant to be informative and a place that's interesting to go to, but mostly to get information out there.

My personal opinion is that when you have too many bells and whistles, it ends up taking away from the main reason we're here, which is to learn.

Now, don't get me wrong.  We will listen to suggestions as to how we can make things better, but we're not going to make changes for the sake of making them.

Just my 2 cents ... I really like the way the forum is organized and the functionality.  Being a webmaster (for my Church) I know how much work this is.  So thank you !!!