Proposed Changes in Swap Forum Rules

[David]

Originally Posted by fearn

So we've got a couple of conflicting desires at play here, it seems.
--the moderators want less work, and this seems to be primarily the work of chasing down questionable dealers.
--the senior members want to trade with each other, potentially to the exclusion of newbies. A newbie can see what's being traded, but unless they have something of equal value, they can't obtain it. The long term problem with this approach is that the group needs to continually recruit new members in order to survive.
--Other people want to sell their pieces, either by posting them directly or by linking to their own sites.
--Rules such as in the keris forum kill the trade. Nice for moderators (less work), but not terribly useful for anyone else.

Firstly i take offense to your stance that this issue is all about creating less work for the moderators and your statement that the Keris Swap rules are fine for the moderators, but terrible for anybody else. You seem to have either not read or not understood what was behind the rules for the Keris Swap and you also seem to have lost sight of the fact that while a moderator i am also an avid collector who would love to be able to see collectors trade or sell off parts of their collection on the Keris Swap. What i didn't like were the constant games and attempts at rip-offs. I spend a great deal of my own freely given time here moderating discussion and sorting this stuff out, yet i guess you seem to feel that we mods owe you even more of our freely given time. Nice!
Also sorry that you have a chip on your shoulder in regards to the larger collections of senior members, but i don't think there is any kind of exclusionary club going on here. I am also pretty convinced that the large majority of items that are put up for swap most often end up being let go for a cash sum in private messaging dealings. This is why i think it is probably best for trader/sellers to place a cash value even if their initial intention is to trade. That would also give someone who is unclear of the value of an item an idea of what would be a worth piece to offer in exchange.
And believe me Fearn, that we have driven unsavory, dishonest dealers off the Keris Swap is in no way "terrible for everyone else". Unless it is your desire to purchase a countless array of contemporary keris artificially aged and presented as Mataram or Mojophahit weapons. Then you are obviously missing out on being ripped off. Sorry if we interfered with that.
If you spend anytime on the actual keris forum though you might find that the discussions there are alive and deeply informative. And any collector who wants to pass on a weapon through the swap can do so without much trouble and without paying the percentages required for eBay and other online auctions. I would be interested in knowing exactly what rules the Keris Swap has that are preventing sales from happening.

Originally Posted by fearn

Obviously, the forum can't have all three characteristics.

I'd suggest two things:
1. Split off a swap forum. Create a place where money does not change hands and commercial activity is not tolerated. This will preserve the exchange that some members value, and the rules would be clear. Posts not following them would either be moved or deleted.
2. Have a buy/sell/trade forum for commerce. Caveat emptor should be the rule here, but potential purchasers should be free to comment (as a method of quality control). Actively malicious material should be removed, but otherwise, it would be more equivalent to the swap board of last year.

A separate Swap Only forum would solve nothing since as i pointed out the majority of swaps turn into cash sales anyway.
As for point #2, how do we decide what is actively malicious material? Who amongst us is knowledgeable enough in all fields of weapons to judge whether a comment is correct or just a smear? Who wants to give even more of their time to trying to sort all that out? And as i recall there was a great deal of trouble on last year's swap board when someone made an inaccurate comment the killed a very big deal for one of our members. I don't recall the exact details, but i am sure someone can fill you in. I think it might have been Gavin's reputation that got unjustly smeared. Forgive me if i am wrong on that Gav. This is why we installed the policy of not permitting members to make any comments of items that are put up for swap.