[Raion]

Recently I had to for the first time put two users on the do not buy list, which is a group that disables access to the marketplace. This was not done lightly, I gave each of them plenty of time to leave feedback and follow our rules but they chose not to. However one user did get back to me and after discussing it further with him I did lift it because he agreed with my mission and suggested that I share it with all of you so that you can understand our goals.

1. The primary goal with the marketplace is to replace eBay for the community. This is for a variety of reasons but not limited to their inflated prices and money laundering schemes that are driving up the prices of our systems and due to excessive fees. Long-term the main objective is to avoid this and to convert a significant number of our users to using it. I will probably eventually add something similar to eBay to the site and it'll have a corresponding forum related system for this. At that point when we actually have some form of organization for it I'm going to probably disallow sharing off-site auctions unless this proves highly unpopular/the other staff object to it which is possible since I haven't run it by them. 

2. Every transaction that has feedback left on it gets put into our database and at a later date I plan to break out that data into a separate app/website that gives average and median values for sale prices on these systems based on a variety of categories and condition markers. This is because currently we don't allow price driving which is defined quite simply as what Amibay does, e.g. we don't permit users to ask how much their systems are worth and we don't allow users to share eBay or other off-site links to these things outside of the specific forum.

3. The old craigslist/kijiji/gumtree style with classifieds wasn't working. I'm well aware of that people generally prefer discord and informalities but this ultimately leaves dozens of dead threads around and constant replies of bumps and this is still available type crap and that's a maintenance nightmare for someone like us and it still currently is in our current iteration. 

4. I want to make it a place where vintage computers can be sold, not just SGI, but other stuff that can be bootstrapped and copied by other people in order to take away the power from eBay and other companies. 

Also I detest crap like OfferUp and Facebook marketplace, I'm sure that some people prefer those but the only people I know nowadays that are using Facebook are those who have family that also use it or that are social media addicted; thats not to say that anybody here who uses it is that specifically it's just my personal experience. You won't find FB or Twitter for me. 

Anyways this is just a clarification post and if anybody has any questions you can post a question below. If you're not already familiar with our rules for the marketplace:

http://wiki.irixnet.org/Marketplace-Rules

[weblacky]

Thanks for letting us know about these developments. Having used the marketplace several times myself, I've not had to hound people. But I have had to gently remind them, to finish the process to leave feedback and direct them how to leave feedback (links to click).

I think the process actually speaks highly about a user/seller. If you're unwilling to perform 10 minutes (total) of updates and feedback for your transaction then what does that say about your commitment and follow through?

I understand these purchases may not be the center of people's lives, but a commitment is a commitment and it's not that huge. To me it's a red flag when people won't finish the process.

Thanks for providing the marketplace and thanks for keeping tabs on it!