[Lew]

Originally Posted by fearn

Hi Lew and all,




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.

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.

Sorry Fearn it is not a question of more work and this is a nonprofit forum none of the moderators are paid it is solely done on a volunteer basis and we do not sell space for advertising. So your point on needing new members to survive makes no sense. As far as newbies not being able to trade because they have small or no collections to offer for trade well that is one of the hurdles one must face when starting a hobby. How do you think we all started here? My dad did not leave me a collection I started with a kris and a barong and built up from there. Btw only about 1-5 percent of my collection was obtained through the swap on this forum all my other stuff was purchased via ebay,shows or through dealers websites.