The For Sale/ Wanted boards - update from M Towers and post your ideas/thoughts here

[JustineMumsnet]

As you may know we have in mind a complete overhaul of the For sale/ wanted boards as they seem to be making many folks' lives (ours especially) a misery.

Clearly it makes sense for us to have classified ads - why not re-cycled used stuff? That should in theory be good for buyers and sellers alike (and it's very green too). But equally clearly, at the risk of understatement, it is not functioning well at the moment.

However, complete overhaul is going to have to wait a wee while as Tech's got quite a lot on... (We are hopefully bringing you improved local listings, blogs and more in the next few weeks and months).

In the meantime do give us your ideas for how you'd ultimately like to see For sale/ wanted working. (I know some of you have already posted some sensible (and not so sensible thoughts around and abou but we'd be super grateful if you'd re-post the best of them here so everyone can see, discuss and refine.)

So... what rules would be fair/enforcable and assist in the smooth working of the thing? (nb we are never going to enforce a no huns policy I'm afraid, so do be realistic - MN is for all parents even those with poor grammar and spelling.)

Should we re-house somewhere off Talk? And will it be used/useful if we do? Can we make it work on Talk if not? What would make it easier to use/ more functional?

Should we charge and if so how. What would you pay to use and how would you like to pay it?

Which other boards do this successfully and what are the best ideas/functionality should we pinch?

To ease the pain of waiting for overhaul, next week we will introduce a couple of quick fixes that might hopefully smooth the operation a little, namely we're going to insist that everyone who posts a for sale notice pays a CAT and we'll break down the boards into categories so things are more easily searchable.

In the meantime, please hang on in there and if it all gets too much there's always the hide thread/topic option .

Thanks for your input and your patience.

Peace and love,

Mumsnet Towers

my first thought is, can you make this a sticky?

TBH, i vote to get rid and keep the FFP place personally. It wouldn't matter so much (note so much ) if someone didn't recieve an item then.

LOL at Peace and love! Ever hopeful aren't you!

I think taking it off Talk would help. I hide them as only go on Threads I am On and Active Convos but have realised that I may be missing stuff my doing that and have started Last hour etc and they come up there. So a separate section completely might help.

Not sure why people get so worked up about it. I've disappeared all its topics from my Active Convos and the only time it reaches my consciousness is when someone starts a thread in Chat or Site Stuff to complain about it.

We can hide it, but it is still apparent to new visitors to the site and I'm sorry, I think the way it is currently working is a source of frequent embarrassment to Mumsnet's overall ethos and to a lot of regular posters.

I think you either close it and let professional traders go elsewhere, or you match e.g. e-Bay's charges and terms and conditions

If you plan to keep it you have to moderate it much more actively.

I think for what it brings to the site overall it is more trouble than it is worth

I do wish you could find an effective way of enabling regular posters to the discussion boards, sell or pass on, items without subjecting them to all of the above, that seems a shame to lose

I got the impression from yesterday's threads that a vocal minority of professional sellers are taking MNHQ for a ride and revelling in it

Are impressive hit/traffic figures really worth this sort of nasty stuff Justine? I think a lot of us think not.

hmm, how about:

free / FFP stuff only on chat (likely therefore to be seen by regulars) and a separate for sale section, with a maximum number of new threads per user per site? If people are selling their own stuff, as opposed to trading, I wouldn't have thought that they'd need to post more than say two threads a month. obviously there's room for abuse, in that people could use different underlying email addresses, but I would have thought that the hassle acted as a disincentive?

If people want to sell/buy then there are sites out there specifically for that purpose so why "make your lives a misery" (as you put it in your OP) by trying to police sellers who are taking advantage of your kind nature, allowing them to sell things without incurring a fee.

I totally agree that recycling is a good thing so why not just have a FFP section for those that genuinely want to help out others , save the planet etc by passing things on for free.

and, as Buda says, if we keep sales in any form, I'd vote to take it off Talk, as I generally browse using "last hour" or "last 15 mins", and the threads aren't hidden when you use those functions.

Betty - fab idea

Ah, yes good point about new visitors marina.

the main objections i have are to

sellers who do not use the rest of Mumsnet and become defensive and aggresive when challenged about the rules/philosophy/spirit of mumsnet

and

those who have clearly found Mumsnet a cheap/ free alternative to ebay and are running businesses or selling a lot of BNWT stuff

the CAT idea definitely good,perhaps for those who are selling a lot, they could be encouraged to take out a small business ad or pay a bigger subscription fee.

and breaking it down into categories also good

peace and love ... we live in hope

would someone care to pay my CAT sub for me so I can post a For Sale thread next week

On a (slightly) more serious note - I've noticed quite a few people "abusing" the WANTED board by doing things such as

"Wanted - someone to take x,y,z off my hands" (ie selling stuff using "Wanted" instead of For Sale........not sure how to get round that one? Are posts on Wanted also going to pay their CAT??

yes I think get rid of it altogther and just have ffp
they can sell on ebay, selling doesn't really seem to be what Mumsnet is for

I don't think it should be got rid of altogether. Some of the prices that people sell their stuff for is so low that to sell it on E-bay and similar sites wouldn't be worth it. But it's worth it for the person selling (and the person buying it too!) so that they can get just a few £'s (or even pence) for their things.

I think you should do away with it all together.
Just have FFP (don't know what that stands for ?) is it free for postage?

glad you arent going to ban hunnis

x

i think it should go off talk altogether

cos although i have it hidden when you log on from random places like college where mumsnet is actually banned as an ebvil social networking site and the it guy pops up a wondow anmd says you are accessing a forbidden site please log off immediately..then active cons looks shite as it is all for sale

i think it should go off mn altogether actually as i think it is a liability and a parasite and would ber loads of work to make it work

as a resource for the community rather than a cheapskate parasitic ebay

Get rid of it I say - totally agree with the FFP stuff though - that's green and does someone a favour - but the For Sale boards are just a rip off - specially when people only use those boards and rip people off before disappearing.

Those who want to sell can ebay !

I don't think we should get rid of it completely. I think wanted should stay as wanted not 'Wanted a buyer for my XXX'. But then who polices this on an hourly basis - I say hourly because they move that quick that you could not check this on a daily basis. Wanted will be difficuly with the CAT as the person who can fill that want will be classed as a seller - so have they paid there CAT.

Continual bumping is a pain and think that maybe before you want to sell something it has to be moderated through MNHQ.

What surprises me is the amount of stuff that is not parent-related, on a parenting site

if there was a way of choosing 'View second hand children's stuff' I would probably choose that tbh; even more so if it was grouped into age range (ie baby, toddler, 4-5, etc) so I wouldn't have to wade through pram crap now that my children are too old for them

but I don't want to read about necklaces and odd stuff that don't seem related to my being on a parenting site

could there be separate boards for people selling used children's stuff for a reasonable amount, or for free, or for offers, and then another for other people selling mountains of -tat-- other items

So I think what I am working round to saying is that I think lots of headings would help so that we could choose ones that were relevant to us.

I think it is sad that this is happening. I only found out the other day that The Nappy Lady has closed its classified section because of unscrupulous sellers. It is a shame that boards like this are under threat because of people not respecting them.

I agree with all that Marina says.

On one of the threads yesterday several For Salers mentioned that they had ended up on Mumsnet because it was recommended on various other sites as a good place to trade.

It seems to me that this is part of the 'problem' - it is seen by this tranche of users as a trading site, whereas many/most (?) other posters see this as a site to glean/give help and advice, as well as enjoy general chat and silliness.

The principle of buying/selling amongst MNetters is not at issue, as far as I can see but it is the way in which it is being abused by those perceived as non-MNetters.

I would suggest that in order to be allowed to sell anything on MN that you have to either pay a £significant fee up front or make a minimum of x number of posts per week on other boards. I have no idea how this would be managed/monitored (sorry MNHQ/Tech!), but this would then discourage all but those who are determined to trade to continue to trade (and generate some revenue for MN) as well as allowing regular MNetters to buy/sell amongst each other.

I think alot of the buyers and sellers are doing it as a hobby and a way to interact which is just as valuable as the other sections.

I enjoy the diversity of mumsnet and would be disgusted if the buyers and sellers were excluded.

I enjoys glancing at the for sale titles on my way past, it feels like walking through a lively market place and I have bought a couple of things.

agree with marina

anyone who wants to geuinely offload stuff for free can use eg freecycle, which I know some MNers do

didn't it used to be off-board, a hundred years ago?

I think Betty has made an excellent point.

There are plenty of boards to buy and sell things and if MN just did a FFP scetion (maybe off Talk?) then it would show that we are just a bit different. Although would that mean people would get it for free and then sell it on ebay?

I agree with Marina's post 100%.

Obviously I started that thread yesterday, but just for you guys at MNHQ, I'll go copy and paste my OP here for you