The other thread on this was locked and I wanted to post there. I can certainly host a website and a sub domain on our network for this. I don't want to admin or monitor it but if someone else was willing and setup guidelines I'd host the site for free.

if you pose restrictions on membership based on vogons membership (as proposed in the other topic), then how are you going to prevent problems spilling back here and can you really state it is separate from vogons ?
Not to mention gathering the members through this forum.

It feels a bit fake like: you can talk on vogons but trade there. One could argue it is being creative with the rules of the forum, but maybe not really in a good way or maybe even call it flatout circumventing them.....

I like how trading is banned here. It keeps things more relaxed. The 'greed-gland' is already triggered too much these days.

How does Amibay resolve disputes?

Qbix wrote:

if you pose restrictions on membership based on vogons membership (as proposed in the other topic), then how are you going to prevent problems spilling back here and can you really state it is separate from vogons ?
Not to mention gathering the members through this forum.

It feels a bit fake like: you can talk on vogons but trade there. One could argue it is being creative with the rules of the forum, but maybe not really in a good way or maybe even call it flatout circumventing them.....

All certainly good questions and not something I have ideas on or know how to proceed. If people with those type of skills can figure it out with Vogon's admins or whatnot I can provide the platform for hosting.

George

I think it's important that as soon as the topic of trading comes up, all discussion should immediately exit this forum. That's why having an entirely separate platform is critical. And it wouldn't necessarily be a requirement that people be members on Vogons as the intention is to be selective for extending trust to membership.

Having prospective members be able to demonstrate their commitment to the hobby of vintage PC gaming and software is essentially what we want to do. This could be checked by reviewing posting histories on Vogons, VCF, the OCAU retro forum, or personal websites. I don't even think that a hard rule of 50 posts or whatever is required. It could be left up to the moderator based on the general principles and philosophy that the forum espouses.

gdjacobs wrote:

I think it's important that as soon as the topic of trading comes up, all discussion should immediately exit this forum. That's why having an entirely separate platform is critical. And it wouldn't necessarily be a requirement that people be members on Vogons as the intention is to be selective for extending trust to membership. Having prospective members be able to demonstrate somehow their commitment to vintage PC gaming and software is essentially what we'd want to do.

I would agree with that. Where do you suggest the discussion should take place?

Edit: Also would Vogon's admin's allow a post to point to where the discussion takes place?

gbeirn wrote:

I would agree with that. Where do you suggest the discussion should take place?

I was meaning specifically arbitrage.

gdjacobs wrote:

gbeirn wrote:

I would agree with that. Where do you suggest the discussion should take place?

I was meaning specifically arbitrage.

Understood. Well like I said, I am up for it. I have no interest in the day to day running of something like that but could provide the resources. I personally have tons of old stuff, especially CPU's that I would love to give to other members who would appreciate them.

Any one who wants to contact me feel free to do so via PM or my email (gbeirn@gmail.com).

George

gerwin wrote:

I like how trading is banned here. It keeps things more relaxed. The 'greed-gland' is already triggered too much these days.

+1.

The common complaint with Amibay seems to be that it's "euro centric". As opposed to what? US centric I guess. But Vogons seems to be a pretty internation sort of crowd anyway, so trying to link it to this community doesn't really make sense to me.

Personally I use a local forum (OCAU) for stuff in AU and when I get desparate, I hit up the international community at Amibay.

I remember another member already tried to create a trading forum geared towards Vogons members and it basically fizzled.... less than about half a dozen members signed up from here and it went nowhere.

Maybe the reason Amibay is seen as euro-centric is that there are more people into the hobby over there? I know Commodore/Amiga was much bigger in Europe than most other parts of the world.

Personally I use a local forum (OCAU) for stuff in AU and when I get desparate, I hit up the international community at Amibay.

Yep, this works well enough for me too.
I feel like adding another trading site will just further narrow your potential audience if you're a seller....

I see no point in linking it to VOGONS in any way! It would only cause problems.

What instead of "euro-centric"? Well, I was thinking US-centric, yeah, but only because that's where I live 🤣. But in reality you would have to define it more by the "genre" of hardware - i.e. PC stuff instead of Commodore/Amiga/etc. which is what most of the stuff on Amibay is.

keenmaster486 wrote:

I see no point in linking it to VOGONS in any way! It would only cause problems.

What instead of "euro-centric"? Well, I was thinking US-centric, yeah, but only because that's where I live 🤣. But in reality you would have to define it more by the "genre" of hardware - i.e. PC stuff instead of Commodore/Amiga/etc. which is what most of the stuff on Amibay is.

If Australia has a decent local forum then the U.S must have 50 - what's wrong with VCF? Active community and has a trading forum. Why reinvent the wheel?

Link to this vcf market place? I seen it posted regularly but can never find it.
As for amibay, I had an account there, but the site sucks for selling, no one over there can read a listing and expects the seller to do everything for free including giving them the parts.
I'm willing to bet a vogons oriented marketplace would be no better. I'll stick with mass dumping on eBay and trashing what does not sell in a week until someone makes a site that works
Atlest with eBay I have seller protection (I know how to get around buyer protection) and don't have to sell with people that can't read.

badmojo wrote:

If Australia has a decent local forum then the U.S must have 50 - what's wrong with VCF? Active community and has a trading forum. Why reinvent the wheel?

This is absolutely true. If you want to make a new thing it's important to identify the reasons the existing markets don't work and how you intend to change that.

The VCF market is here:
http://www.vcfed.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?7-Marketplace

This is more of an answer to the original question in the other thread where this discussion started so it's slightly off topic.

My approach to dealng with trading and "Ebay prices" is to pay what's asked if it's something I really want. If don't really want an item it's perhaps just as good that the prices are what they are otherwise I would have even more issues with filled up storage units! 😁

When I see a really good deal and think perhaps I need this in the future it's hard to resist the urge to buy, it's not really something I regret but storage becomes an issue.

My last Ebay purchase was an AMD 760 chipset Socket A motherboard costing $71 with shipping and alot more if it gets stuck in the customs net*. That's alot for a Socket A board! It's the same model of motherboard I'm going to use in my ultimate ULTIMATE! Year 2000 build and as I want spares of everything in my permanent builds I did not think twice about the price.

*It's from Russia so it will probably slip through.

The high selling prices on Ebay also helps with saving alot of nice old hardware that otherwise would be scrapped for gold.

Yeah... That would be me, trying to get at "mysterie package" thing going. It flat out hit the floor, as not even sending a package of unidentified give-away was recieved as a good thing. So I just abandoned getting that idea up and running.

gerwin wrote:

I like how trading is banned here. It keeps things more relaxed. The 'greed-gland' is already triggered too much these days.

^This

keenmaster486 wrote:

I see no point in linking it to VOGONS in any way! It would only cause problems.

What instead of "euro-centric"? Well, I was thinking US-centric, yeah, but only because that's where I live 🤣. But in reality you would have to define it more by the "genre" of hardware - i.e. PC stuff instead of Commodore/Amiga/etc. which is what most of the stuff on Amibay is.

Amibay won't be so Euro-centered if more people from outside of Europe join in 😉