RULES

[TooStonedToType]

I thought this page in Philzone.com is pretty good.  Maybe could be adapted for our purposes.

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[Stonehenge]

Toostoned, that would cover it but is kind of vague and could be used in any way the admins or mods felt like using it. It also bans any trading, or selling. Parts of it look good but I'm not sure if we are ready to ban everything right now.

How about a min of 1 year on the board and 100 posts to be able to offer for sale anything for cash?

We can work on other rules later if there are more suggestions.

[TooStonedToType]

Yea, that was just their rules, I was thinking we could modify them.

I like the year/50 post idea for selling anything for cash or posting about a retail outlet etc.  

As for it being vague.  It's hard to post specific behaivous for every situation and the moderators and adminstrator's of course need to use some discression.

[cenacle]

the cash thing really bugs me...i'm not against it totally, but we REALLY have to watch it...cyberspace gets sticky when money gets involved...if we let people sell on our site, we are endorsing them...are we ready to deal with this? i think there should be a filter, some kind of request to mods/admins to post products, we vet the site for legality, then approve, and this after the year/100 posts thing...i know this seems cumbersome but we have GOT to make sure we are protecting andy in particular, mods/admins, and the community as a whole...it's not like it's ads with a gain for community...bushpig was willing to buy an ad, why are we not going that route with all profit businesses? we can make them cheap to help out vendors but still protect the community...i thought trade of legal things (acc to country) was cool, but i am really shaky about commercial advertisements...i'm assuming we're not just talking of signatures...i think it's good we're discussing this at length, a residual benefit is how we are working together on this all

[Stonehenge]

Yes, I tend to agree with cenacle's view on this matter. We just had a character show up and brazenly offer to sell plants like this was ebay but without the fees. We don't know who someone is when they just show up. They could be out and out ripoffs and make a new name when they get caught doing stuff. That would lead to a bad reputation for SPF. We are in a sense endorsing them when we allow someone to sell on the site.

We could say 1 year and 50 posts for posting a link, something like that. The link would of course be subject to approval by SPF staff. There is a difference between posting a link to a place you think is good and offering to sell on the site. For that, 1 year and 100 posts is not much. It may not be enough to ensure they are honorable but it's a start. I think it would be good to require approval from an administrator before posting anything for sale or to have a link to a commercial site. Someone could say I got a good deal at bouncing bear and that's fine. But, if they start putting a link out there, they should clear it with someone first.

Advertisements are another area that can be tricky. We will at some point need to offer banners or paid ads. I don't mind someone like Frac or Bush offering things to sell and they have not taken advantage of the situation but perhaps there should be a limit on free ads even for the long time members? I'd say if a member asks where to get something, a long time member can answer as many of those as they like. To post a list of things for sale is an ad and should be limited to no more than once a month or some other time period.

How about:

*One year and 50 posts to post a link
*One year and 100 posts to post an ad
*All ads muct be approved by admin and links can be approved by a mod.

We've been fairly laid back about posting links in the past. Sooner or later we will get taken advantage of. Best to have a policy in place to deal with it.

[winder]

I am far more comfortable with links here than ads, but ads do have their place.  If we sell ades that is a source of revenue but does involve us more than permitting a link.

The two-tiered approach is very reasonable.  Go for it.

[TooStonedToType]

"We will at some point need to offer banners or paid ads."

This doens't have to be true.

We have done good so far staying away from commericialzation.  I'm thinking the right approach is to stay away from cash, vendors, etc.  BeJeBus wouldn't  allowed money changers in the temple.  Why should we?

[cenacle]

well as long as andy is able to host us for free, we don't need to sell ads...that frees us to avoid the matter for now...we could have fundraisers for t-shirts, mugs, etc...i would love a nice spf shirt hehe...

but back to the point: links seem ok, we all agree...and none of  us seem much cool with posts that sell stuff...and ads we're sort of not sure on...

mostly, i think we don't want someone showing up with who knows what in hand for sale...this is a community where door-to-door salesmen are not welcome...

do we need a statement people agree to before entering site, or at least before joining? do we have one? i forget

[Avery L. Breath]

Suggestions?  75 is an arbitrary number of course.  100 sound better?

[TooStonedToType]

75 sounds good.  It's enough that we can see what kind of person we are dealing with.  Now if they post 75 crappy posts we can deal with that then.

[cenacle]

agreed...it would take a special kind of defect to post THAT many bullshit posts just to get sales posting privileges...er...emm...nm :twisted: