The requests/services/jobs section rules are horrific at this present moment. It currently does nothing to aid a buyer into buying a legitimate website. If someone is selling a website I think it's essential to allow feedback in the threads. Anyone selling anything in that section should be completely transparent about what they are selling. If they are selling a legitimate high quality website they shouldn't have a problem with allowing feedback.
It's beyond belief that MyBB allow people to sell websites behind closed doors, essentially. This is a breeding ground for scammers, false advertising and manipulation. Feedback is a must in this section to help protect MyBB users from purchasing websites that are clearly not worth what they are advertised for. There's a lot of gullible young MyBB users out there that need protection. It's very easy for a seller to manipulate what they are selling via a one on one private message conversation as opposed being transparent in a public thread.
These rules need to be changed for user protection and to ensure that all MyBB users have adequate information and feedback from the entire community before they commit to handing over hundreds of dollars for a website or whatever is being sold in this section.
There's a middle ground that has to be struck somewhere, IMO. The problem with allowing open discussions in threads like would be in R/S/J is that there would be arguments that would start (and the age range you mentioned wouldn't help in this case). It would add more of a workload onto the staff.
But at the same time, I agree with the idea that people shouldn't be given a totally closed-doors type of place to buy/sell things.
Quote:These rules need to be changed for user protection and to ensure that all MyBB users have adequate information and feedback from the entire community before they commit to handing over hundreds of dollars for a website or whatever is being sold in this section.
While i agree with your point that feedback and informations are needed to determinate user decision on purchasing something, there is also a problem with feedbacks in a form of personal opinions that expressed in a particular thread (even if that user isn't really interested in purchasing) resulting in 4+ pages long discussions and argues.
I agree with you both (Josh H & Jonny S), the arguing would be an issue. But then that opens up another point, should MyBB be favouring a no feedback/argument policy over the possibility of a user getting scammed or mislead into buying something thats not quite what it seems ?
In my opinion the welfare of the users come first in all instances. Although the possibility of arguments in a public thread is an issue, it doesn't help the buyer in any way what so ever. Not all users are as educated as others in terms of buying online and they should be given the best protection/information possible. A possible solution in this particular section would be to use a thread ban feature with a zero tolerance policy for any sort of argumentative posts.
The ability to leave feedback is a must and shouldn't be sacrificed for the sake of extra moderation.
People will get scammed at least once either way. People who scam are banned and there isn't much more staff can or should do.
(2013-08-22, 12:00 PM)Alex Smith Wrote: [ -> ]People will get scammed at least once either way. People who scam are banned and there isn't much more staff can or should do.
So you would have no interest what so ever in trying to reduce the possibility of someone getting scammed ? Yes of course people are going to get scammed, changing the rules here wont prevent everyone from getting scammed. If you settle for "
People will get scammed at least once either way" thats just being irresponsible.
People will always get scammed, but changing the rules here will decrease that possibility. If it only prevents one person from getting scammed then in my view its well worth it.
(2013-08-22, 01:27 PM)MYSQLi Wrote: [ -> ] (2013-08-22, 12:00 PM)Alex Smith Wrote: [ -> ]People will get scammed at least once either way. People who scam are banned and there isn't much more staff can or should do.
So you would have no interest what so ever in trying to reduce the possibility of someone getting scammed ? Yes of course people are going to get scammed, changing the rules here wont prevent everyone from getting scammed. If you settle for "People will get scammed at least once either way" thats just being irresponsible.
People will always get scammed, but changing the rules here will decrease that possibility. If it only prevents one person from getting scammed then in my view its well worth it.
Suppose if a person opens a service or a sales topic for the first time, no one can tell whether its legit or not. If he is a scammer, then most probably the first buyer would get scammed. I believe that's what Alex tries to point out. And allowing feedback on R/S/J won't solve it.
Trust me, i have seen R/S/J topics for years, and i rarely saw any topic where people pointed out a scammer (maybe one or two occasions). Most of the times people criticized websites or themes released in R/S/J, argued its not
upto standards (?) and at the end of the day left a sales topic with 3-4 pages with hardly anything useful for sales.
The current R/S/J guidelines are formed to stop that and to avoid fights between members. Changing it will be a deja vu.
With all these issue rising up, i believe sooner or later MyBB team would wish to close the R/S/J section for good.
Also if you know it's a scam and have proof make a post in private inquires/report the thread. Allowing people to debate other non-sense in the forum isn't the solution.
We don't take scamming lightly. There usually isn't a need to warn others that you've been scammed if you report them to us; they won't be around for long.
(2013-08-23, 02:17 AM)Nathan Malcolm Wrote: [ -> ]We don't take scamming lightly. There usually isn't a need to warn others that you've been scammed if you report them to us; they won't be around for long.
I completely understand that scamming is not taking lightly, I've never doubted you guys on that at all. The fact that you guys say you ban scammers is a clear indication that this does indeed happen. I just think its not good enough to allow a user to be scammed in the first place. I'm most cases it shouldn't even get to a point where a user is banned for scamming, something needs to be done to even prevent it getting to that point. This is why I think feedback is vital.
Alex, you just seem to be missing the point every time. If you know it's a scam then it's the users own fault for proceeding with the sale, nothing anyone can do about that. I'm talking about mainly new/young/inexperienced users that may see a website for sale and think that's looks great, only to realise afterwards that its not. This is why there needs to be feedback, to assist users like this. Not everybody has the same knowledge when it comes to buying online and staff here need to look at this from the point of view of a newbie.
Banning the scammer is certainly not the solution either, preventing the scammer for scamming is the solution. There's no 100% prevention method, but there's ways to reduce the risk and that's what I'm pushing for.