New Classifieds ruling.

[Hedrus]

These rules I am sending to Timothy to implement and to post on the classifieds page.
Your contributions will be appreciated before making this ruling live on the classifieds.

BTW , the 10 post rule will then be falling away. So no more rubbish posts from classifieds hunters.
Here Goes:

New Classified Ruling.
All adds will be moderated if allowed or not. It shall take between 24 hours and 48 hours and weekends might take longer. If we take too long, just hang in there , it will be moderated, we do not have full time staff for this free service.
Only second hand goods might be advertised. New products or people using the Outdoorphoto website for their own financial gain will not be allowed.
All ads must conform to the rules.
Must be clear what is advertised.
Phone number and Email addresses must be given in full.
Person’s real name must appear in the advertisement.
These rulings are implemented to keep spammers at bay and to give the buyer certain sense of security.
It has happened in the past that advertisers received payment but never delivered to goods. Those persons will be acted upon and will be made motioned off in the forums as to warn other members.
The transactions are between buyers and sellers. Outdoorphoto provides this as a free platform but cannot get involved. We would like to warn sellers to not part with any goods unless payment is received in full. Beware of electronic transfers, if you are in doubt, phone your bank.
Another a word of warning: Buyers taking chances will also be exposed on the forum to warn our members.

Please delete your adds once the product is sold.
To Delete or Edit your own ad:
Go to the Blue text under the ad (when ad is open)
Click on Edit Ad and delete it or edit it .
When ads get 14 days old it will expire.
You may load it again of you wish.
We need to clear the clutter.
For now we shall delete old ads, But soon it the site wil lbe build to auto expire.

[Roberto]

All adds will be moderated if allowed or not. It shall take between 24 hours and 48 hours and weekends might take longer. If we take too long, just hang in there , it will be moderated, we do not have full time staff for this free service.

Many thanks in advance for this Hedrus and to the rest of the team!!!

[Harley]

Who's gonna be our Classifieds Moderator then?

[Andrew Roos]

New Classified Ruling.
All adds will be moderated if allowed or not. It shall take between 24 hours and 48 hours and weekends might take longer. If we take too long, just hang in there , it will be moderated, we do not have full time staff for this free service.
Only second hand goods might be advertised. New products or people using the Outdoorphoto website for their own financial gain will not be allowed.
All ads must conform to the rules.
Must be clear what is advertised.
Phone number and Email addresses must be given in full.
Person’s real name must appear in the advertisement.

I agree - unfortunately this is clearly necessary in order to preserve the integrity of the forum. Thanks for not simply allowing it to degenerate into another gumtree.

Andrew

[Anonymous]

I hope stringent measures are in place to ensure that the names/telephone numbers/email addresses are a) genuine and b) protected from being harvested.

[TheronFamily]

1. with ads being moderated, moderators will of course have the cherry pick of the "unseen / yet unpublished" ads. Thoughts?
2. Can you include a mandatory "actuations" field somewhere for camera bodies mbe pls?

[Robbie A]

1. with ads being moderated, moderators will of course have the cherry pick of the "unseen / yet unpublished" ads.

Where do I volunteer to become an admin?

[Hedrus]

For now moderation will be done inhouse, thanks for the kind offers.
There is no time to cherry pick, we have enough cherries around to full-fill our needs.

[Drew Cairncross]

Ok, before I reply, let me go and get my bullett proof vest...

Ah, that feels secure....

I am a moderator on a non photographic site, and it is a completely thankless task, for the most part. We see all the public attacks on mods, but what we don't see are all the PM's of disgruntlement, nor do we receive the calls of frustration.

I think the mods have all got decent equipment, but if the new rules mean they get first dibs on equipment placed in classifieds, I see it as a win - win - win.

The mods get some form of payback for their effort, and loyal ODP members wanting to both buy and sell, have a high level of confidence that they will not be taken for a ride. I would rather have this scenario, than on open selling platform, where I can "buy" something that I will never see.

Obviously this is my opinion, and I respect that of others as well.

[Russ]

Not that keen on the phone number bit from a spam point of view. Ive just had two spams for services I did not request or want and which Vodacom will charge my account unless I spend money and sms the sender that I dont want the service I never asked for. The rest of the rules are 100's.
I still think serial numbers (where applicable) should be compulsory as they will discourage trade in stolen goods.
Good move and thanks for the effort

[Anonymous]

1. with ads being moderated, moderators will of course have the cherry pick of the "unseen / yet unpublished" ads. Thoughts?
2. Can you include a mandatory "actuations" field somewhere for camera bodies mbe pls?

It is impossible for many/most of the average canon-toting-Joes to tell how many actuations their camera has.

[Henk Coetzee]

I still think serial numbers (where applicable) should be compulsory as they will discourage trade in stolen goods.

I would be uncomfortable with this as serial numbers can be lifted off a site and used to fraudulently report non-existent cameras as stolen.

[Hedrus]

Nope serial numbers exposed is not on, I understand the reasoning, but it does make the door open to fraud.
I am comfortable in making the email and phone number thingy optional.
But keep in mind, you may not want to publish your own when advertising, but when buying, it might then again give you some form security that you have the persons email and number. It allows you to get quicker to the seller too.
I think if you are a responsible advertiser, you can put on your contact details, sell quickly and then CLOSE YOUR AD.Job done.
I had it a few times that members of this site,has sold things and never delivered. People phone me to help them. I cannot help.
Lets leave the numbers and emails as a option.

Drew, its your choice to trust my integrity.

[Russ]

serial numbers can be lifted off a site and used to fraudulently report non-existent cameras as stolen

I dont see this as a problem for people buying and selling legitimate equipment. I could, if I wanted, quite easily take down the serial numbers from equipment on public display at Dakro/Mion and other high end stores.
I know that my insurance company insisted on me supplying a full description, value and serial numbers of all my equipment BEFORE they would insure them. On the one occasion I had to claim they insisted that I handed in the manual and the extras that came with the equipment (no complaints from me as they paid in full for a complete new item). I would also be very hesitant to supply a bogus serial number for a false insurance claim when the insurance company knows my ID number, banking details and home address. Also dont be suprised to see insurance investigators checking the serial numbers submited with the agents.
Perhaps the option to lodge the phone number/contact details with OPD, but not display them in the add
PS Hedrus beat me to the post

[Hedrus]

a Serial number registry has been part of our long term plan,
But admittedly , we never really got to it.

As a side note. We are currently spending lot of time and effort on various other projects.
But we will one day.... have a better classified section.
We are employing new rules and procedures as a sort of interim to see us through the next year before we can give attention to further development.

What sparked this off course was the 10 post rule that agitated most of us. Something else that was quite disturbing to me was that I had phone calls from people that bought goods from members (with a few hundred post to their name) and never received the goods. And not one sale but at least 3 known of from same advertiser ( he is now banned by the way). Quite upsetting I must say.

How to protect the seller is extremely hard, there are so many scamsters out there. maybe if we do develop a new system one can have sellers and buyer register and give blood samples, but we are not ready for that yet.

[PhotoMad]

The classified either here, on any other forum, newspaper or any classifieds website, generally carries the comon sence "let the trader beware". Unfortunately buying or selling to an unknown other is a risky business & one has to weigh up the risks vs. the benefit of the price or convienience.
Dispite all the good will in the world, no matter what measure are put in place, the scammers will find a way around them.
At the end of the day, it's your choice whether or not to complete the transaction and consequently your risk.
Personally, I use classified for all sorts of things, from TV's, bikes, camera kit etc. but my personal rule is that over a certain value, "unknown other" risk out wieghs any benefit. e.g. over R1000, I'll pass up even what seems to be a really good deal/ offer if the distance is such that I cannot meet with the buyer/ seller personally in a public place & deal in cash. I'd rather wait for the item to appear in an area closer to me or buy new.
It's a simple rule to set, I take ownership for my own risk & can't blame anyone else. The fact that sites etc do offer classified is just a benefit to me, I can't expect the "classifieds" owner to accept ownership of risk on my reckless behaviour as well.

It's your choice.

[N.M.]

Sounds great
Something which may also reinforce buyer confidence, is a time lapse after the sale e.g. a SOLD flash across the ad/item sold,
for a period of say 14+ days. It's a decent way to let buyers know they can trust the seller,
and scoring him/her a few brownie points for future sales/purchases

[Jacques de Klerk]

Just to make sure, if i want to place an add, do i still follow the same procedure and it gets moderated there or should it get sent somewhere else first.Sorry dont want to upload old way and is wrong. Thanks in advance

[Hedrus]

You should upload as normal it will take a while before it shows,
It will be approved by us.

[dFe]

How about adding a usergroup for members with more than x posts and member longer than y can bypass, it will also make the approval queue shorter.