A Proposal for Thread-sh*tters: temporary ban - Page 3

I don't think it has a lot of effect. Regardless of how much someone may try to lowball, negotiate, convince the seller the item is worth less, etc, if the price is good then someone else will buy it right out from under the person who hesitated. The main effect I see it having is that maybe someone who isn't very knowledgeable might be dissuaded from buying an overpriced item. Somehow that doesn't bother me a lot. What bothers me more is when I see a seller claim something like "Item X usually goes for $Y" where Y is an outright fabrication that isn't even remotely close to the normal selling price. In the case where a seller has just overpriced something, that's probably better handled by PM, but where the seller is making false claims about the item's worth/normal selling price I think addressing it in the thread is fine.

Again, putting aside the crap in whnay's thread if your merchandise is attractive and appropriately price IMO it will sell and comments will be ignored. Why the need to censor price info?



IIRC his offer was accepted and then he pulled out of the deal and then tried to raise the price, no?

Have you tried notifying on the post? B&S is very, very busy and I doubt mods have time to review every thread. Notify, explain why you're notifying citing j's rule and see if there's any action after a day or so. You may have tried this already, but if not, I'd suggest it. I should note that I haven't ever bothered to do so, but if you're complaining about lack of enforcement, give them a chance first.

Personally... well, as a fairly regular seller, I absolutely hate it when someone complains about the price in thread. Pretty obvious why: I don't disguise that I make a profit on my sales (though that is generally then ploughed back into buying clothes for myself; it's how I fund my "little habit" ).

Now, making a PM offer, citing past examples? That's understable & to be applauded for the research. But saying it in public without even trying to buy the item yourself? Not cool in my book (along with "I got such and such for less last month on massivediscountwholesaler.com").

And even if no-one comments, the market decides the price, not the the seller. Items that are priced too high, just will not sell. The bump rule prevents sellers just dominating space with items fixed at too high a price. Now, if all the sellers here were operating as a cartel, and fixing prices at too high a level, then I could understand public complaints about price. But it's a pretty competitive marketplace for many items. I mean, think about the number of RL suits or shirts sold over the years here by many, many sellers for instance! Price an item too high, and it just won't sell, regardless of negative OR positive commentary.

Price of anything is always subjective. What I believe to be overpriced may be acceptable for someone else.

Besides, commenting on something being overpriced only pushes the post to the top of the list.

How can anyone claim to support a B&S Free Market and then try to limit the flow of information?

The rule in place deliberately leaves a lot of room for moderator's discretion. There is no prescribed punishment for any offense. We look at the immediate situation, assess a posters history on the forum (I usually read a bunch of old posts to assess whether we are dealing with an ordinarily reasonable, helpful guy, or a habitual asshole), and decide what to do. You could get a slap on the wrist, or you could be spamminated. The moral of the story is that being an asshole can catch up with you.

Ideally, we wouldn't need any rules at all, and everyone would behave reasonably, but since an unfortunate side-effect of more traffic is more idiots, we have been forced to enact some general rules for this place.

I don't think any sellers here have suggested limiting flow of information on SF. Any potential buyer could start a thread in, for example, Men's Clothing, asking what would be a reasonable price for generic item X. Or they could search past sales to find the average past sale price. MC is full of "what's a good price for an RLBL suit" threads, for instance.

All that's being limited is messing with specific "for sale" posts. I don't think that's unfair, though of course, I've already admitted my bias here. At the end of the day, even if the price is what I think is very fair, occasionally items don't sell, or take forever to do so. That's the market deciding. Fair enough.

There are some false analogies at work in this thread. I will readily concede that one doesn't go to a B&M and complain to the owner about the high prices. But one can and does discuss bargains and fair pricing with one's friends, acquaintances, sometimes even strangers who are fellow shoppers. It seems like B&S would like to be totally immune to that sort of discussion and to exist in a bubble where the seller is in control of 100% of the information provided. It amounts to duping the customer about the 'true' value of the item. In the real world, we have the press, market guides, and our friends as alternate sources of information about good and bad deals. It seems to me that there has to be some balance between thread shitting and a place to talk about these things in the open. PMs don't cut it, for obvious reasons.

Exactly. Sellers will always want policies that will increase their sales, however it will always come at the expense of the buyer that does not know any better. If a price is truly fair, the buyer will realize that there is little validity to the shitter's comments. To say that information should be blocked to make the sale while claiming that anything that sales is a fair price (because of the Free Market) is very deceptive.

There's endless discussion of it in MC. No one's suggesting forumites shouldn't talk about the value of merch, just that an individual sales thread isn't the place for it. The people most likely to post in such threads are going to complain about the price. Maybe it's sour grapes or maybe it's because they hope to drive the price down. But you're not likely to get a well-rounded, well-reasoned discussion in a sales thread. They always devolve into petty arguing and name calling.

Part of the problem is that desirability varies so greatly depending on size, brand and condition. I will pay more for stuff in my size than our larger forumites often have to. That's because we have a ton of small guys here. That's just how it is. What one guy paid for a size 46 suit is entirely irrelevant to how much the same suit in my size is worth to me.

Besides, it's entirely random when someone will come along and crap on a thread. Tends to happen a lot more to new sellers, or to those who don't sell often. I imagine it happens rarely to someone like Ed, who might later have stuff the crappers will want to purchase. People are less interested in making enemies when they have a stake in the pot.

Except, imagine what it would be like if everyone who wanted to get a price check on an item made a thread about it on the MC. The thread is the logical place for such discussions, if the seller disagrees with the shitter's assesment than he should refute his claims. The buyer should decide who he believes. Let's not forget that such a ban rule would be impossible to enforce. After all, what deserves a ban? What if somebody didn't shit on your thread but just sharted, half a day ban? How would the moderators check every post to make sure it's shit proof? Just let the B&S do it's thing. Sellers complain too much. P.S I have also sold some stuff in the B&S btw.

Right, buyers should decide for themselves. There seems to be this bizarre concern for the clueless, that someone accidentally might pay more than the absolute lowest price available anywhere, but that's ridiculous. This isn't a charity; sellers don't need to offer the lowest possible price, despite what some here apparently would like. Sellers need only ask for the price they want. They either get it or they don't. I've passed up a ton of nice merch because it was more than I wanted to pay. But who am I to decide if it's more than someone else should pay? If my opinions were everyone's opinions, you'd all be wearing Corneliani.

It's interesting that you put the burden on the seller to "refute" price complaints. Refute how? Most everything in B&S is already substantially less than retail. It's really a question of how much of a discount you're getting. Buyers are perfectly capable of making that decision themselves.

If you don't want to pay the price, don't pay it. But this notion that we need noble knights coming along to set things right, or that B&S is an exercise in SF fellowship, is silly.

I'm not in favour of posting in sale threads, but I think something like the B&S feedback thread, except to discuss fair market value for items, might be useful. Especially if stickied.

I'm down for a yes. As a buyer, I find it to be truly annoying when the same thread gets bumped up to the front because there's a shit-storm about what the price of something should be. If you don't like the price, keep your mouth shut & don't buy; it's that simple.

We always get tons of requests for stickies. I will consider it, though my initial reaction is that buyers ought to do their homework (and not by shitting up the main forum either.) Don't shit up other people's For Sale threads please. It's just common courtesy. Would you stand in the lobby of a boutique or in front of someone's flea market stall and tell all comers "The prices here are ridiculous?" On the other hand, if someone feels the need to support this cause celebre, feel free to paypal $50/week to styeforum.net@gmail.com, and I'll pin the thread until the money runs out.