Thoughts of: For sale/trade has come up in several posts.
Recent thread
Another similar one

What do you think?

As long as TechSpot itself will not be held responsible for any transaction, nor should TS have any responsability or liability for any of it's members actions.
If people get stung, it is by a subscriber to TS, NOT by TS itself!
As long as people are aware of that, by all means, go ahead.

I posted a poll because I'm borderline on it as well.
I don't like the risks involved. There's alot more to it than I first reliased.
If it could work like a good ol fashioned cork bullitinboard at the super
market or classified want ads in the newspaper I'd be more into it.
If a deal goes bad you don't burn down the store or newspaper office.

Craigslist works pretty well I wonder if we could get a copy and trim to fit?
I would even be willing to host it on my web server.
I geuss some good ideas are best destined to stay good ideas....

There are a couple of very popular forums with sections like these and there aren't too much problems.

Those don't have problems probably because they have someone constantly keeping an eye on it. We already have enough work cut out with the way the forums are right now & I'm sure that if someone started scamming people via this "for sale" section, TS would still be guilty of letting that person operate freely.

TS has much more to lose then to gain with such a forum.

I'm in favor of an ebay alternative. A bulletin board edition is just fine. However postings should be limited to one per item. You don't want commercial sellers or curbstoners.

I would suggest that people use the existing F/S forums on other sites. I've had no issues with www.Hardforum.com or Anandtech forums.

People need to be smart and be VERY careful when trading/selling/buying.

Now that the poll is closed,
The Nay's

What if we had a place to do this that was not affiliated to TS?

I've put together a site that is private for TS members,
forum based, where it's up to the individuals to make a deal.
I host up to 2 images per listing

I'm offering this free to TS members.
I've dedicated a non-public domain to it with it in mind as a test site just to see if it will fly.

I'd like some feed back & approval from Staff, before posting the url.
I don't want to over step myself.

The only thing is that if it is not getting the active expsure to TS members, then it defeats the purpose.

if its not affiliated with TS then we may as well in fact post at anandtech or hardforum.

You wont be able a true interest until its actually up and running on TS.

I'm putting 50 bux it won't work.

I think its a good idea as long as the rules of trading are drummed into all users.

I would also be willing to help and put some of my time into it.

It would be ok as long as its newspaper style. You post here so people can see the item. Then you contact them via email/messenger and do the rest from there.

I dont think it will work here and plus i am against it. TS wont be TS no more. There will be plenty of unhappy customers. However i do agree we need a better alternative to eBay.

I'm thinking this thread needs to be deleted.
As it is not helping.
I'm trying not to be pretentiuos with this at all.
I believe this could work, howerver, as part of TS, I believe it could be problematic to TS as such I would not want to do it.

Funny thing is I do have a working non-affiliated site waiting for approval.
So due to no response (the worst death), I'm thinking this thread needs to be deleted.

I've seen your work SOcRatEs, perhaps it would be well to build your site into a larger sort of "computers and electronics" buy/sell/trade site. Similar to the aforementioned newspaper ads or bulletin board.

I don't think it will work that well as a forum, per say, because when trying to sell parts, there needs to be organized searching and browsing for example. Instead of reading a forum titled "motherboards" or whatever, you would search through a motherboards category for current sales. If you follow me.
In a forum, you got "new" posts taking over the "older" posts. But categorically, you just say, "hmm, want a motherboard *click*, needs to be AMD, *click*" and there is the listings. Same with putting up an item to sell. And a different sort of section for trading.

Problem with those sites is that you need a LOT of traffic right away! You need a "private" way for a serious buying to contact a seller in a "real" way, not like posting a public response in a thread. There are certain types of things you would have to enforce sellers and buyers to do, such as making sure to give shipping info perhaps, or policies on bad checks or whatever.
If a person were to anonymously sell some item, using paypal, then send a defunct item, he dissapears and nobody knows where.

As you can see, good idea, needs a lot of thought, that's my vote. A lot of thought in the sense that, if it doesn't launch as a very good system, it won't last anyway. So it needs to cover as many angles as possible.

Don't give up, though, just keep thinking about it, getting advice, building the site, etc..."if you build it, they will come"

Well here it goes.
WWW.My-YardSale.Org
Should this work, Please reg with same nick as you have on TS.
This is intend as a test.

All you have to do is model the forum similar to anandtech. I have had about 500 trades on these type of forums, i am a member of about a dozen of them.
They work fine and you should strongly consider this. I would be happy to help as a mod. As i say, i know how these work and i have a very good reputation as a trader.

Needs modification.

Care to elaborate?