I was caught by surprise by this, and after looking over the new rules, I will venture to suggest that they are kind of dumb -- at least the one about the minimum number of posts. On the one hand, I appreciate why they have been changed (to keep the "community" feel and to filter out people who just want to sell). However, just because someone doesn't post to the forums, doesn't mean they aren't reading them and participating in that way (me, for example; I rarely feel like I have anything important enough to post, but I learn from others' posts all the time). Also, I'm not sure what is wrong with people selling things here if there are folks who want to buy them.

Seems like an unintended consequence of this new rule could be a bunch of worthless posts, so people can get above the minimum threshold, and who wants to have to wade through those?

I believe the new minimum post req's is to help in preventing con artist's and thieves from just joining and scamming. There is quite a bit of trust on this board and out of the many transactions I've had on here, I've never thought twice or had any kind of issue. I feel that with in an effort to keep it this way as the board and forum has grown, the new regs are going to help. It isn't that hard to hit 40 posts, but the investment in time is well worth the piece of mind you will later have, and others have in the event you opt to exchange large amounts of money and products with blind faith with people you have never met to the other side of the world simply because you have a mutual compulsion to spend ungodly and unnecessary sums of money on parts/bikes that are far lighter than would ever be "necessary" . I think that the name of the site itself is totally fitting. It's as silly as the concept itself but we all love it .

(edited post... original was ambien induced)

Yikes, I just read the rules.
I view the site a lot but seldom post.

abrown3mtg--I'm in Twin Cities too? Are you in a club? TCBC for me.

Post #18

Bob

The post count rule discourages people like me and others that do not post that much from being a contributor of the site.
It is like not buying from someone on Ebay with only 10 positive feedback and you will not sell to anyone with less than 30 positives.

I have some weight weenie stuff for sale that I can not post until my post count is up to 30

Alex

I think you will find that most of the deleted posts are from people who joined with less than five posts. Ergo, people who joined with the sole reason of posting stuff for sale.

These are people who will add little to the forum, and who, as you rightly suggest, we are trying to discourage. We have not seen a sudden increase in garbage posts by people trying to 'reach the goal'... if you noticed, there is another part to the rule... that of minimum membership.

This part of the new rule further discourages those who join and their first post is an ebay link to the frame they are selling (trust me, there are quite a few like this, who then disappear forever once we delete their sales post).

Thanks!

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I thought the new rules were pretty good personally.

Last thing I bought off this forum wasn't described properly & I felt like I'd been had (this was before the new rules). In that instance a cassette described as 'chorus' standard but which was about 10yrs old so more like veloce standard in the current day & age, given lack of drilling & amount of metal on the thing - this is WW after all.

If people sell things on the forum & describe them like you would within a trusting community, rather than to take advantage of the distance selling & lack of feedback (ala ebay) then this has to be a good thing & I'm all for it.

It would be handy to have the ability to reply to a posting on the selling page where you can flag up a concern / maybe respond to where a seller hasn't been 100% above board. This would at least allow people in the future to search previous posts & see how well other people have been treated by sellers.

At the moment there isn't any come back at all & you really need to feel you can trust the seller before committing hard cash - say if you were buying a frame with cost upwards of £1k, which is a lot of £ to gamble with.

I am de moderator of a large Dutch forum. We used a 25 post minimum rule the last years, it worked reasonably. The only downside was spamming from some people tryinh to reach the 25 posts as quickly as possible. To prevent the spamming we added the 1 month rule some weeks ago and it works perfect. I think I know where Franky found his inspiration for these rules

When someone wants to sell cycling parts there are more than enough opportunities to sell their stuff, for example Ebay. People that only register to drop an advert often don't react on PMs (because they don't visit anymore), there are some people trying to rip off other cyclists, etc. All these problems are prevented by adding these rules in the For Sale part of the forum.

I was wondering why the rules aren't coded in to the forumsoftware yet? Add a few lines of code to posting.php and your done. It will save the mods a lot of work.

Agree up to the part about rating people. That goes beyond this being a forum. I think the mods have taken the right steps to offer certain protections, after that I believe the buyer/seller should take certain precautions to protect themselves.

I recently sold a pretty valuable item on this site to someone I did not know, thru a friend so shipping didn't have to go overseas-- I shipped it insured, required signature and I also required the buyer to send an email, include a note in the paypal statement and a PM stating instructions as to where it should be shipped.
The guy in the US who was receiving it commented about how I was the most careful person he'd ever dealt with- in the end- no issues, I didn't leave much open for any potential problems.
That said, I've yet to have an issue buying or selling with anyone on this site-- I'm hoping I never do.

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Speedplay is the devil.

Looks like most people aren't agreeing, and like I said, I do see the point of the rules. It just hoses people like me and BlackTiBob and Alexn (at least there are some sympathetic souls). So, here is one more post, and now I have to go find (or start) some other threads so I can be viewed as a real person.

Actually, I've already done two different sales through the list (before the fine new rules took effect), both to great folks who were very easy to work with. So I used to be a real person and I vow to become one again.

I agree with arguing this a bit more...gets my count up too.

But here is the thing for me at least:
I have been a member for over two years now. Yet my post count does not reflect that. Renovating my house for over a year did not give me the chance to ride and I am a lurker. I am riding again and this site specially helped me a lot to figure out the parts I wanted for my recent road bike project. Now I have parts left over.
The part on selling stuff on ebay I do not agree with at all. If you want to sell light bike parts and would like someone on the forum to be able to pick up some good parts for a fair price I would consider that contributing to the community. I made use of the forum here and light-bike.de to buy light bike parts. That is part of a community and being part of it. I do understand the need of blocking spam in the for sale section.

However it is not that the software is blocking posting in the forum and seeing deleted posts all over the place does not look that good either.

Anyways....I respect the rules.....but I do not have to like them :-p

Alex

Yeah, I'm from Minneapolis, I live in dt minneapolis. I have joined the TCBC for rides and picked up some sweet deals at their swap meet... ($30.00 for a giro ionos helmet for my ex). You don't happen to ride a Ti Serotta from flanders do you?

Dan, why so bitter. The 30 post rule is not that hard. And you are already half way! The rules are reasonable and they prevent users from only signing up and post a for sale add. The rule forces people to engage in the community, and with that, deserve some credit.

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Lurkers aren't really a member of the community, they generally take far more than they give.

It just seems a bit cheap to be a member of the forum just to sell stuff.

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That seems a bit far to go. You don't have to chat about everything to be a member of a community. Lurkers might not be on the site as much as others, therefore when they get ready to comment, someone else has already stated their point. Maybe they only post when they find it necessary, they don't have to respond to every post like some others do.

I semi-understand what you're trying to say, but I completely disagree with them not being a part of the community.

While I guess it's true that lurkers on forums 'take far more than they give' I don't think it's fair to count that against them. Many people using the site may have just gotten into cycling or may have been cyclists for a long time but have never before gotten into the whole weight weenie thing of considering £1/g saved as being value for money.

As far as selling things go, there is always going to be a risk in buying anything over the internet, from individuals or companies but at the end of the day, pay using Paypal and a credit card and if the goods don't turn up or aren't as described then you're covered.

Personally, I don't see anything wrong with new members posting items for sale. Nobody is forced to buy anything and even if someone just signs up to sell something and is never heard from again then so be it. They managed to sell their gear without having to pay eBay/Paypals middle-man fees and someone on the forum gets a good deal on something. Everyone's a winner!