Small Scale Military Headquarters

mecanico23 wrote:I am a new member and six months has passed since I registered on the site, I can post something?

Yeah you should be good to go, but you may want aferguson's permission to make sure.

I’m not 100% sure on this. I posted something about this in my Spitfire for sale thread. One of the big problems I have always had is that many new members simply join just to hit the BST area. Because of this they will get membership, make a handful of posts and start trading once the 6 months are up. One of the stipulations stated are that you must wait 6 moths and be an active member. I’m not sure 8 posts constitutes active. I would expect to see between 30 and 50 posts in this period of time.

I think the term active needs to be defined better here. Most forums I have belonged to have a specific number of posts plus probation time that new users must hit. I think we should adopt that same rule or at least clarify the term active. As for me personally, from here on out I will not trade with people that have less than 30 posts under their belt. My reason for this is that people who actively post tend to be more invested. They are real and you can see what they are like and all about. Sure, this in no way proves that you won’t get screwed but it greatly reduces the chances of it.

Mersanico23, this is in no way a direct personal strike toward you. Your timing and situation just highlights the potential issue I’m worried about. Sorry to use you as a guinea pig here. I’m sure you’re a straight up person and appreciate you posting for permission in advance.

well, no system is fool proof anyway. The six month rule is simply to discourage would-be thieves since most crooks are impatient and want to get the loot fast and take off; not wanting to have to plan ahead for six months.

The active member part was put in to further discourage, as now they would have to post on a semi regular basis, making thieving here too much effort (hopefully) and they move on to somewhere else instead.

But the biggest proviso added to the rule was that anyone dealing with someone, after 6 months is up, has to use their own common sense and excersise proper caution. So if they see someone on the b/s/t as soon as 6 months is up, with very few posts, maybe that should be a warning signal?

But, even than isn't fool proof, since even long term, trusted members can go sour...Steelbonnet is proof of that.

The rule is simply a deterrent and like all deterrents, it's not 100% foolproof by any means; but it is effective.

That’s true, there really is no substitute for common sense.

And frankly there ain't that much to talk about so making someone post often seems pointless...

well, when i instituted the rule, several years ago, it did make a lot of sense. It was to avoid the possibility of crooks creating an account here and then coming back in 6 months and scamming. If you have to post and participate on a regular basis, it would be so much trouble that most crooks wouldn't bother.

Forgive me digger if things have changed in the last 6 years..

I think the best way to solve the potential fraud problem is to have anyone that wants to do buying or trade, fill out a form with contact info and then a password gets snailed mailed to that address which would allow them into a special forum. Therefore if there is any fraud you now have real contact info. Just a thought.