View Full Version : Announcement Trading Post Access
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Over the past few months the trading post has been under close scrutiny, all of the forums there. Aria do wish to help people sell the kit they are upgrading from when they make an Aria purchase, but it has become apparent that a number of users are joining with the prime intention of entering the trading post. We have seen some members go on some very intense posting efforts to get into the trading post. This is fine, we understand why, but Aria is a business and the business is selling the very items that people are joining to purchase from the Trading Post.
In an attempt to deal with this situation, and to retain the trading post, it has been felt necessary to add an additional restriction to the UserGroup Promotion strategy. This decision may be altered, nothing is set in stone, we are trying to get some balance between the posting of members joining purely to see the Trading Post, protecting the Trading Post users and ensuring that Traders are not operating within the Aria, which is against the best interests of AriaPC Technology Ltd.
So to confirm the full details.
The Usergroup Promotions Script still runs at 25 minutes past the hour
Users with 100 posts AND 90+ days of membership will be promoted to the usergroup that allows access to the Trading Post.
There may be a valid reason you wish to have earlier access to the trading post, in this case contact a member of the mod+admin team and we can review your situation and reasoning and decide whether you warrant access to the trading post.
DT.
Makes sense from aria's point of view, and im not complaining :p!
What about the people who don't fall in that category, but already have access?
If you have been promoted into the usergroup which can access the TP, I think you should still have access - but if not contact one of the mods/admins :thumb:
Sounds good, stops peeps spamming their way to 100 and trading in two days.
if you already have access, there is no demotion strategy, you will retain your access unless the moderator&admin team feel you were possibly one of the reason for this amendment.
DT.
90 days seems quite alot, but overall I can see the good in this.
I know when I joined I felt part of the community within 6 weeks, but I like to think of myself as not being a spammer, and I think it took me nearly 2 months to get to 100 posts anyway.
Edit: as nipnip says below, at almost exactly the same time as me.
I can agree with why you have done this but is 90 days not a long time? I would have thought 45ish (approx 6 weeks) would have been more appropriate. If members are around that long then I would see them as a member of the community.
SilveR_172
07-05-11, 11:39
Sorry i dont agree with the 90day + Push back , I mean 45 Days i think is reasonable which makes for a Easy climb to reach to 100 Post mark , as there are alot of helpfull topics on here , So the unlock will come within time,
I think after all this "scrutiny" over the tradeing post i wont be useing it much no more seems Admin are coosing with the best intections of they're own worries and not any of the users of the aria forum ,
why not pass this one past the users and see what they think first instead of choosing and then dealing with angry users later ?
Much more hassle and then it starts to feel like a forum that involves everyone rather than just feeling like Admin have the main say
The forum is for EVERYONE to Enjoy not just for admin to make barriers and pick and choose rules when they feel it suits
This forum is the one i predominanly stay on as many are dead, so i say Fix up a constant rule that sticks and not one you can play around with and if any user seems to take the P**s then you give them a PM and ask theyre reasons or ban them from the Sale section if it proceeds
I think 90 days is just right. 45 days - people would stick around no probs, 90 days - kind of puts spammers off a bit and if someone does it only to get access to the trading area, it'll put them off
90 days is a little excessive though effective.
But it's quarter of a year pretty much :|
I am in favour of 90 days :thumb:.
the 90 days is likely to stay, but we shall see how many individual requests for access we get and at what membership age. This is exactly why I added that part that individual requests would be looked at. 90days is a lot shorter than some wanted.
Aria forums is hosted, provided and looked after by a business, as much as I'd personally love to assist running it as a democratic community where decisions are made by the users, this one is so close to the core business activity that the change was one that needed to be done. It took a lot to get the TradingPost added to the forums, and the last thing I want is for it to be easily shown that it is affecting the cashflow of the business, because I think we know what would happen then.
DT.
I respect the mods' decision here, they have access to the various stats on users' posting trends so I'm sure they've weighed up the options :)
the 90 days is likely to stay, but we shall see how many individual requests for access we get and at what membership age. This is exactly why I added that part that individual requests would be looked at. 90days is a lot shorter than some wanted.
Aria forums is hosted, provided and looked after by a business, as much as I'd personally love to assist running it as a democratic community where decisions are made by the users, this one is so close to the core business activity that the change was one that needed to be done. It took a lot to get the TradingPost added to the forums, and the last thing I want is for it to be easily shown that it is affecting the cashflow of the business, because I think we know what would happen then.
DT.
After this explination I can better see why it was 90 days now. Thank you for the follow up DT
superlattice09
07-05-11, 12:38
I think that is justified. We are here for the forum, to help and get helped, to learn and to show off, (and the excitement of competitions :p). The trading post is a bonus and so I see no harm for site owner to set a few rules to put off people abusing this and give some protections to genuine members.
I think this is a nice amendment although I'd be swaying towards limiting how many items you can sell within a set timespan. lets say, you have sell 2 items a week. I think this would put traders of more than having to be registered for 90 days.
As someone who falls under this, I don't mind it. If I somehow manage to require to sell something before I can ill just pm a admin.
superlattice09
07-05-11, 12:47
I think this is a nice amendment although I'd be swaying towards limiting how many items you can sell within a set timespan. lets say, you have sell 2 items a week. I think this would put traders of more than having to be registered for 90 days.
Or both?
I think this is a nice amendment although I'd be swaying towards limiting how many items you can sell within a set timespan. lets say, you have sell 2 items a week. I think this would put traders of more than having to be registered for 90 days.
But then what if you are trying to sell a bundle and people want it split?
Can we get something like this for comps? :D :P
I think because initially it was a bundle, this would still count as one item. It's easily noticeable when a user is trying to shift large quantities of items and is a completely different ball park to spilting a bundle such as an ready built system or parts of a borked item, laptop, w/e.
Can we get something like this for comps? :D :P
Defeast the purpose, lol.
Although... 4k post comps sound nice.
Trouble is while that might stop a bit of sale spamming it's only going to increase the work for the mods...
90 days seems fine to me because the trading post is not the main reason for these forums existence, trading post is a nice perk to membership and should been seen as a reward for loyalty.
90 days will undoubtedly deter these people who sign up just to access the trading post. So I approve :thumb:
Its very difficult to police a trading post type forum 100% there are always people who try to circumvent or abuse it fortunately it is the exception rather than the rule and its would be a shame for it to closed like it similar have been on other forums.
+1 DT time spent is more worthwhile than the amount of posts one has.
I completely agree with the 90 day rule. Good call from the Aria Mods and Admins.
There have been a few 'hit and runs' in there in the past, as I am personally aware. By 'hit and run' I mean someone comes along sticks around for a few weeks or even a few months, gets access to the Trading Area and puts up quite a few things for sale, sells a few items to get their Rep up. Then puts more items up only to pocket the money and run. It doesn't matter whether it's £1 or £100, it's still other people's money.
Once again, thanks for the Admins and Mods for putting this in place. Hopefully it'll tighten things up and, in-turn, lead to a safer trading area for forum members.
90 day's isn't really that long. Other forums have a similar length of time before you can view the trading section.
Anyway, good job Mods and Admins.
I think this is a nice amendment although I'd be swaying towards limiting how many items you can sell within a set timespan. lets say, you have sell 2 items a week. I think this would put traders of more than having to be registered for 90 days.
That's a crap idea :p
That's a crap idea :p
lol... I like my idea :D
Raise the post count to 200 as well? 200 posts in 90 days is nothing really.
that was discussed, but to go inline with free delivery making it 150 in 90 days. We'll see how it goes with this state, 100 posts is enough for a new member to make easily, as we've seen in the past few weeks. There will be legimate requests for access, the scenario being a new customer, spends money with Aria and wants to sell on the old kit. Raising the post count to much more would have serious impact on that, I think that is likely to be one of the things looked at by the requests outside the automatic promotion. Obviously it's in the best interests to allow users access if it will directly result in an Aria sale.
DT.
If they've got to make more posts to get onto the members market, won't they stay on the forums longer, seeing the deals etc?
The longer they're on the forum, ideally the more exposure the Aria deals get.
indeed, it's a careful balance that I have no doubt will get reviewed again, just as everything is for a business. Return on investment is very difficult to quantify for the forums though :)
DT.
This is a good step.... I do get a little pee'd off with all the spam posting just to trade....if they need it that bad go to eBay.... Or grant early access for a charge lol....
InvaderGIR
07-05-11, 15:34
Can we get something like this for comps? :D :P
I'd agree with this to be honest. So many people join via places like HUKD where the comps are listed with the answers, post in the comp thread and then are never heard from again.
The comps were started to reward members for contributing (well, that is how they were meant to be when I joined up iirc anyway), now though they just seem to be a way to stat pad the number of members/sign-ups for the forum.
A time/post limit (even if just a few days and like 10 posts) would lessen the number of essentially spam entries. :)
Anyway, that is way off topic.
I like the new Trading Post rule additions, very good idea. I've seen a few people lately trying to get access with in a few days. I actually thought there was a 30day or something limit, until I looked up the rules and saw it was just 100 posts. Step in the right direction though guys, keep up the good modding work. :thumb:
BringTheRain
07-05-11, 16:14
Sounds like a good idea to me!
+1 here, also think this is a good idea DT
Sounds good to me too! 90 days is a fine amount to stop people joining just to sell.
its a very fair ammendment, i've yet to use the trade forums but as said above they are a bonus considering its what the company deals in so anything to protect them and the forums can only be a good thing.
Although... 4k post comps sound nice.
http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS89TVijt2ZJcVlKjYL5LfaX_HO15C3R jHX9SZNgS9fMiMsyO8JOg&t=1
I think this is perfectly fine :)
The comps were started to reward members for contributing (well, that is how they were meant to be when I joined up iirc anyway :thumb:
I made that point once and was shouted at for being greedy and ungrateful etc, was told the comps were started to encourage new members to the forums, not to reward existing members who get to enter anyway.
However, i very rarely enter comps personally these days, ive won 2/3 so am happy at that.
As for these new rules, i couldnt agree more, good work team :)
InvaderGIR
08-05-11, 18:19
I made that point once and was shouted at for being greedy and ungrateful etc, was told the comps were started to encourage new members to the forums, not to reward existing members who get to enter anyway.
However, i very rarely enter comps personally these days, ive won 2/3 so am happy at that.
As for these new rules, i couldnt agree more, good work team :)
I'm getting old and my memory isn't what it used to be. :p
I'm sure it was a bit of both, but certainly to encourage people to stay, not to be one hit wonders with entering the comps which is all it is now. Means genuine entrants have less of a chance. :(
Gunslinger
08-05-11, 22:16
the 90 days is likely to stay, but we shall see how many individual requests for access we get and at what membership age. This is exactly why I added that part that individual requests would be looked at. 90days is a lot shorter than some wanted.
<snip>
DT.
I could see why some would want longer. 90 days seems to work for me, i'd have pushed the post count to 180 though (working on the same 2 posts per day kind of thing the monthly free shipping works on)
Can we get something like this for comps? :D :P
:lol::lol:
Limiting sales threads per week is a headache to manage/setup.
Items as well is a problem, i had 2 wifi adapters and a router to sell, i got the extra adapter to encourage the set to sell as a package, someone bought the router, and now i have the 2 adaptors left... not really my fault, but you ant limit to a number of items.
On the whole i think this is a good move, the general level of spamming can get daft in some areas
The Usergroup Promotions Script still runs at 25 minutes past the hour
Users with 100 posts AND 90+ days of membership will be promoted to the usergroup that allows access to the Trading Post.
Shucks, does that mean I don't have access? No biggy, I've only really browsed through it a couple of times anyway :p
Prefer to get my kit brand new so I know it's still in warranty...
A Ginger Sheep
08-05-11, 22:59
existing members with access won't have it revoked, its only for those who havn't gained access yet or are yet to sign up to the forums that it applies to
if you already have access, there is no demotion strategy, you will retain your access unless the moderator&admin team feel you were possibly one of the reason for this amendment.
DT.
existing members with access won't have it revoked, its only for those who havn't gained access yet or are yet to sign up to the forums that it applies to
Not entirely true, see above quote.
DT.
A Ginger Sheep
08-05-11, 23:41
Not entirely true, see above quote.
DT.
well close enough :D
Sounds like a good idea...
Nice one - you can't please everyone but I think that this will really help reduce spam!
superlattice09
09-05-11, 12:16
Nice one - you can't please everyone but I think that this will really help reduce spam!
Absolutely right. Anyway, the rule has been put into action. Hope it does reduce the spam, unless they are determined :lol: then it would have delayed them for 3 months. :chuckle:
more than happy to wait 90 days and in no hurry to make 100 posts . I'd rather people got to know a bit about me on the forum before i have access to the trading post . Love this forum more by the day .
Easily 90 days worth of browsing material to go through anyway :)
Lol . just realised i've delved deep in to the crypt and dragged this thread back from the dead . sorry
I feel this is aimed at me... Hehe, I only wanted in to buy a temp 2nd hand low end gpu...
And as for my post count... I just like the forums ;)
almighty15
12-12-11, 22:40
Completely understandable guys, You guys have to protect yourself s and the genuine sellers on her
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