Increasing STH Scrutiny of New Users (especially in ForSale/Trade forum)

Notice: Page may contain affiliate links for which we may earn a small commission through services like Amazon Affiliates or Skimlinks.

eduncan911

The New James Dean
Jul 27, 2015
648
506
93
eduncan911.com
Lately, I have witnessed first hand and been part of 4 transactions that were ... shall we say, a little risky or had zero rep/trust in the community(ies) - requiring a larger effort to research and vet the individuals independently, and in one case I used escrow before I would trust the transaction. I'm more than happy to share these stories publicly (without naming names) if it will help.

One case required a Jamaican passport photo, and a picture of that individual outside their house showing the address in Jersey before I would trust them - yeah, vetting guys. That person had zero posts here, and PM'd me directly. Another one came down to the only level of trust I could find - them providing me with 3 recent ebay sellers who they bought from (which 2 vouched for the buyer in good standing) - and I had to list it on eBay and incur the hefty 12.5% FEE !! Yowser.

I feel the vast majority, if not all of these cases could have been avoided if STH had some stricter requirements in the For Sale/Trades section, and maybe a few more requirements in the forums overall that would vet the user's first and weed out the flakes. Thereby increasing the level of trust.

I don't like to list another forum; but, there is one that had a set of rules I think are reasonable defaults (unlike other forums that go too far in requirements). forums.evga.com is the one I would like to outline what they do overall.
  • 10 "approved" posts before you can send a Private Message
    • First 10 posts must be manually approved by mods/admins
  • 30 posts before you can embed a link
I can't recall if STH approves new user's posts or not. That management overhead could be by-passed by just requiring 10 and 30 posts, if we don't want to block them.

As for their Marketplace, their rules are:
  • Their Marketplace is hidden from anonymous/new users. (Google doesn't have access to index, not sure how STH members would feel about loosing 'searching landings' on their FS posts)
  • After you have 50 posts, then it becomes visible to "Join" the Markplace
  • After you click Join, an administrator must review your account/postings/standing, and then manually approve you.
Again, may be too much management overhead - and actually would require some forums coding for that last part.

For STH management, to keep it lightweight on the admins, I suggest just putting in some basic post count requirements:
  • 10 posts, and account age for 30/60 days, before you can PM
  • 30 posts, and account age for 30/60 days, before you can embed a link
  • 50 posts, and account age for 30/60 days, before you can post to Marketplace / Great Deals
Thinking back on my personal experiences, these rules would have added sufficient "trust" and eliminated all but 1 transaction I had to apply additional scrutiny towards.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Rock and ari2asem

Wasmachineman_NL

Wittgenstein the Supercomputer FTW!
Aug 7, 2019
1,871
617
113
STH isn't responsible what happens in the BST area.

Oh, and EVGA's forums are garbage, look how much PII they want, blergh.
 

i386

Well-Known Member
Mar 18, 2016
4,217
1,540
113
34
Germany
How about a filter for at least 175 likes before people can submit a suggestion? ;)

Some of the threads in the "For Sale/ For Trade/ Want to Buy" section have great off topic posts (and not just bumps) that can help other user to make decisions easier (eg one user sold micron sata ssds that got pretty hot and underperformed in certain workloads).

For "safety" reasons I would always use a dedicated platform that protects everybody involved in a transaction.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: T_Minus

BlueFox

Legendary Member Spam Hunter Extraordinaire
Oct 26, 2015
2,059
1,478
113
You could also just be more selective about who you do business with.

I don't think the administrators want to have the appearance that by putting controls in place that individuals are inherently more trustworthy. It could be viewed that they are taking on some of the liability as to what transpires in the FS section as a result.
 

T_Minus

Build. Break. Fix. Repeat
Feb 15, 2015
7,625
2,043
113
If you don't want to deal with risky buyers then don't??? You are somewhat coming across desperate to sell and thus are taking on more risk than you really should. I wouldn't jump through those hoops you did to sell that's for sure.
 

eduncan911

The New James Dean
Jul 27, 2015
648
506
93
eduncan911.com
Honestly guys, I didn't do my due diligence before I agreed to sell, or purchased - and then, was hit with the "wait, they have no posts. who is this person? They are asking for $100 for shipping, humm."

They were all 100% successful deals in the end. And, I'm aware that there would not have been those deals with the proposed rules in the OP.

However, the suggestion in the OP was just to put in a few road-blocks to help protect a few. Also, there has been some spammers and hit-n-runs that the moderates eventually took care/banned (most didn't seem the, i reported a few over the years). The rules would have taken care of those as well.