[Scooter]

“Would have been nice to have been asked first, but responding to a post requesting information seems okay to me - particularly if the product doesn't compete with products currently on the site. That is the general rule of thumb around here...

Thanks for looking out for us though! Please continue to bring suspect posts to my attention!

-Wayne”

This post was written in response to my attempt to help out this site, by informing a new poster of the “rules” about commercial posting in the used parts forum, when the new poster responded to a WTB post, telling the WTB poster to go to their website if they wanted to buy a used product. The post was blatantly commercial and appeared to have not been cleared through Wayne prior to posting (this was the very first post for this company). Wayne has stated, in part, his guidelines for posting to the used parts forum, including the following:
"I have created this forum as an area where our customers can buy, sell and trade used parts. As such, there are a couple of guidelines that you must follow if you consent to use this board:

Listing Guidelines:

- No commercial postings allowed, unless you specifically clear it with me first.”

I ask: Is this rule not correct? Is this rule outdated? Should this rule not be uniformly administered? We are asked as participants to this forum to “bring suspect post to their attention,” but why? Apparently, the rule now is that it is allowed to post commercially, so long as the “product doesn’t compete with the products on the site”. Are we forgetting about the commercial posts that compete with the recreational seller/buyer? What about the recreational seller that is selling his stock seats to purchase new Recaros from Pelican, but now he can’t because the commercial seller that is not “competing” with Pelican, sold the seats five minutes before the recreational seller could respond? Or the guy that is trying to sell his Fuchs to buy a new 930S steering wheel? You get the point.

My point of this post is that it appears that either the rule needs to be amended to include language referring to “competing products,” or it should be enforced in a less arbitrary manner. If this site is going to allow commercial posts in the used parts forum that do not compete with the host and is in fact “the general rule of thumb around here,” then merely change the rule to reflect this fact.

Wayne, I like your site, and like I said above, I try to help the moderators out where I can (i.e., self-regulation). But, I frankly don’t see any sign of my efforts and the efforts of others, helping in any way, when the rules are enforced indiscriminately.

Now, I know that it is likely that I will get flamed for this post, because so many of you are supportive/protective of Wayne. Hey, I am one of those who support this site and still am, but I feel this problem needs to be addressed. Thank you for reading my post.