Hmm. Consider Buy / Sell / Trade topic replies like:
- are those dings or scratches?
- any vibe on it?
- can you add a closer / different angle photo?
- hey, that’s a really great / rare / interesting yo-yo!
- would you consider deals for bundles?
- is this still for sale?
- when you say you are looking for {x} did you mean {y}?
- does it comes with extras?
These replies all seem helpful and useful to anyone that was interested enough to visit the Buy / Sell / Trade topic in the first place. They’re also natural, in that these are organically occuring conversational questions people would have about the thing that’s for sale (or trade).
Restricting it to the literal rule of
Please refrain from posting in other people’s BST threads. If you have a legitimate question about the BST it’s preferred that you ask through a direct message.
would …
- make the forum look dead(er), as a certain percentage of natural conversational marketplace messages have been arbitrarily forced underground, from public to private. Considering this forum was literally on death’s door (no seriously, I ain’t kidding, look at those dire stats), I’d… strongly advise against it for this reason alone. We need to look like a place that is alive to attract a community, and conversation is the lifeblood of forums.
- remove useful public information from the topic about the condition, status, and background of what’s for sale or trade – that every prospective buyer/trader would find helpful.
- attack a problem that, from my perspective as a person who reads everything here every day for the last 4 months, largely doesn’t exist, or if it does, it’s very much the exception to the rule.
To be clear, I definitely agree that
- excessive “random” conversation in Buy / Sell / Trade that isn’t strictly about what’s for sale or trade should be discouraged, but I personally feel this can be handled on an as-needed basis by posting in the topic and cleaning up versus setting up an overly broad rule that would have a chilling effect on the whole category.
- anything involving haggling, specific cash or trade offers, and absolutely mailing address info MUST be sent privately
I’m guessing this kind of rule made more sense when there was a lot more traffic here, and maybe a bigger audience of younger kids that had trouble following rules and wanted to treat the forum like a chat site?
This is something I do feel strongly about for the above reasons. And also because as an avid user of the category, it’d make Buy / Sell / Trade less useful, less effective, and less interesting.