Question re public boards

[Chromis]

The swap board has always been public. I have in the past asked if people would prefer the seasonal swaps to be in the meet up section, which is more restricted, but it was pointed out that would not have allowed some of the swappers to have participated and seemed to be a pretty unpopular opinion. I am still open to the idea personally. I feel it is a bit different than our normal buying and selling threads. We are discussing this in the modcave, but are interested to hear others chime in, especially if you actually have done one of these swaps yourself.

As to the rest of the swap board, it was explained to me when I asked in the past that we get quite a number of new members who join mostly because they would like to use the swap board and if we made that section private, we would likely find the friendship board suddenly getting a bunch of these posts from people who didn't know there was somewhere else they are supposed to use for that.

[Kat]

I agree with swap board not being public, also. I'm not really sure if we want people joining only to be able to buy things, and I'm not sure if sellers would be comfortable doing a transaction with someone who just wandered in randomly from the internet and doesn't have an existing presence/reputation here?

[Chromis]

I agree with swap board not being public, also. I'm not really sure if we want people joining only to be able to buy things, and I'm not sure if sellers would be comfortable doing a transaction with someone who just wandered in randomly from the internet and doesn't have an existing presence/reputation here?

That is up to the seller to decide. No one is obligated to sell to someone if they don't want to. All transactions on the swap board are at your own risk.

[jane_marie]

I'm currently participating in my first swap so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

I'm a bit on the fence about it. I can see why people would want to protect things like email addresses but I also think that maybe we could just use the LHC message system to send swap info. I also tend to think that people can be a bit over cautious about some data. I think there are a lot of people out there that think websites keep all of the meta data that comes with photos etc but in reality most sites scrub that information because extra data takes up space and more space costs money.

I think it would be reasonable to move the exchanges to the friendship board but I think the swaps should stay public. From what I'm reading that's not up for debate anyway.

[Kat]

That is up to the seller to decide. No one is obligated to sell to someone if they don't want to. All transactions on the swap board are at your own risk.

Right, but I would still think it would be annoying. I just don't see the harm in selling only to members. What is the reasoning for wanting to sell to the public and have them creating accounts and such?

[neko_kawaii]

Right, but I would still think it would be annoying. I just don't see the harm in selling only to members. What is the reasoning for wanting to sell to the public and have them creating accounts and such?

As to the rest of the swap board, it was explained to me when I asked in the past that we get quite a number of new members who join mostly because they would like to use the swap board and if we made that section private, we would likely find the friendship board suddenly getting a bunch of these posts from people who didn't know there was somewhere else they are supposed to use for that.

I think what Chromis means here is that the decision to make the swap board "public" was based on a history of "new members" posting about wanting to buy items to the Friendship Board because they didn't know that the Swap Board existed since it was invisible to them when only available to "members". Not everyone delves deep enough into the workings of LHC to come across the permissions list or read it carefully enough. We see this weekly with issues of "new members" complaining that they can't see their profile.

I think it would be reasonable to move the exchanges to the friendship board but I think the swaps should stay public. From what I'm reading that's not up for debate anyway.

We are quite interested in hearing what other people think!

[jane_marie]

We are quite interested in hearing what other people think!

I know that. Please don't misunderstand. I only meant that it seems like most people are comfortable with the buy/sell being public and so that isn't likely to change.

Personally, I think it's great that people looking to start into using hair toys can turn up results for LHC. I mean, different people come here for different reasons. Some people (like me) get results for LHC while researching henna, other people probably find it because they are looking for styles and some... I assume might type "hair fork" into google. If you want to keep a community alive you need a stream of new people. So, it makes sense that buy/sell is visible... just my opinion of course.

[Chromis]

I think what Chromis means here is that the decision to make the swap board "public" was based on a history of "new members" posting about wanting to buy items to the Friendship Board because they didn't know that the Swap Board existed since it was invisible to them when only available to "members". Not everyone delves deep enough into the workings of LHC to come across the permissions list or read it carefully enough. We see this weekly with issues of "new members" complaining that they can't see their profile.



We are quite interested in hearing what other people think!

Yes, this! Also we get inquiries and such from vendors frequently and having the swap board open allows them to actually see our vendor guidelines much more easily in the case of legit shops who then know better than to try spamming the board. (We get plenty of spam-spam to fight and I doubt any rules will change that, we do our best to keep them from slipping in, although having to manually approve new registrations is certainly a large task for us!)

[lapushka]

I participated in a few swaps (bought from people every time), and had no clue the swap board was public at the time. I had no problem, since the sellers, I think, asked to be PM'd but I'm unsure now if I did respond in the thread as well.

I am for making this private, just because... I mean, there's no point doing this public if people have to register, and to have people register just to buy something, if their post count is 0? Then there's the issue of what seller would accept that or it might even give them issues should they accept and trust too much (but that's on them, I know). Still, it's a bit odd to say the least. So for those reasons, I would love to see it private.

[Kat]

I think what Chromis means here is that the decision to make the swap board "public" was based on a history of "new members" posting about wanting to buy items to the Friendship Board because they didn't know that the Swap Board existed since it was invisible to them when only available to "members". Not everyone delves deep enough into the workings of LHC to come across the permissions list or read it carefully enough. We see this weekly with issues of "new members" complaining that they can't see their profile.



We are quite interested in hearing what other people think!

Yes, but why can't the new members then be told the same thing they're told when they want to see/post pictures, etc.-- "when you have X number of posts, you will have access to this feature of the site"? It's not like they never get access... they do, eventually.

I am for making this private, just because... I mean, there's no point doing this public if people have to register, and to have people register just to buy something, if their post count is 0?

That was my thinking. Anyone could register just to buy things, which will then give them access to the parts of the site we keep non-public for the very reason that we don't want just anyone seeing them.