250 Post Rule?

Adam_E I hope you are right! I may just give it a try on the "Trade" forum. But this is what the rules say: "You must have at least 250 quality* posts and have been a member for at least 90 days to post anything for sale or trade. This applies to any forum at all, not just the Buy/Sell/Trade forums. You must have at least 50 quality* posts and have been a member for at least 14 days to buy or respond to a trade."

Isn't it the other way around? You can respond to a trade but you cannot initiate one yet.

Exactly, we used to have a 50 post limit but issues still occurred. It is also the purpose of "quality posts". In the past, I have seen new members join, make 50 posts in a day or two, then immediately start listing stuff for sale and spamming ebay auctions.

In fact a large portion of my 1329 posts have been responses to the posts of others, including this one. It is not a hard tack to accomplish and the rules are in place for very good reasons and I do not see them being changed. Just hang in there in and you will have the required number of posts in no time.

I agree completely with the original poster and although I understand the underlying intent, I think the post threshold is excessive. Then again, if those are the rules... So since you guys own the basketball, I guess I have to play HORSE, even if I'd prefer PIG. The trouble is, I find myself unable to meet MY quality post standards very often. To me, this is not one. Regarding grading posts, well, I learn a heck of a lot more reading the consensus of others in private than venturing my own guess in public and I shiver to think of the responses if I say VF for something that's G (I've seen many posts that are not exactly tolerant of novices or controversial posts). So here's my challenge to all: put 50/100 to a vote. The new year is a good time and democracy is a good thing. BTW, I'm not looking to sell anything.

Well where to start? Lets see, I can remember when we didn't have a BST forum, we didn't have an error coin forum,we didn't have a metal detecting forum, when the BST first went in we had a 25 post threshold, everything was ok for awhile and then we had our first problems, those problems were linked to the BST being so readily available to people we did not know very well, had put no time into the forum, did not have a stake in the forum so we changed it a bit and went to a 50 post threshold and added if I remember right a 10 day period of time, well that worked ok for awhile but you know some people are fairly patient especially if it profits them at the cost of a few days and a few posts to get to where they could take advantage of the trusting nature of our membership and they did just that took advantage of a few members took their profits and left.

The staff fielded complaints, but in the end there is no real recourse, we cannot make anyone do anything especially if they dissappear, don't care if they ever post again here or any combination of variables which can be thought of.

So we responded by increasing the post count, and the time which a member must be active on the forum, we found that with time and posts the members develope somewhat of a relationship, people become involved, they become online friends, they develope and grow with the the people here and we have far less problems with spammers,rip offs and unsavory characters sticking around to cheat our members.

So to make a long story short, we have been where you are thinking we need to be, we have grown by experiance and believe it or not through input from our membership as to what they want as a whole, you know somewhat democratically even though the forum cannot operate as a complete democracy we do our best to involve our members, stick around long enough and you will see that.

I'm quite happy with the standards and strictures of this forum. If I wasn't, I'd walk. Which is exactly what I did on another forum which had problems with personal attacks and such, and the administrator refused to listen to my suggestions and those from others to institute stronger control measures.

Stick around, learn, and make your own observations, odentheviking. As others have stated, it won't take you long to pass the 250 mark. Just don't expect to get any "quality" posts out of the "never-ending story" forum, lol.