BitWrangler wrote on 2022-08-06, 12:53:

Well the spammer, scammer and troll problem tends to explode as soon as you have a classified section and it takes a LOT of moderation. Also there tends to be spillover into regular forums of trading vendettas etc... so it needs a really close eye. I quite understand if they want to avoid all that mess.

However, I think it would be really cool, if there could be a semi-official "we're not responsible but..." partnership with heatware.com or Tindie flea market as the officially unofficial Vogon's trading site.

You can cut down on the Spam and Trolling by simply having the buy/sell/trade forum locked for new members/guests/spiders, if you want access to it then say 6 months on the forum with good standing nets you limited access to it where you can view posts and PM sellers but cant post there, 12 months on here with a good standing would net you full access to it.

Many here might disagree with that but I have seen that work on other forums as a way to limit spam and trolls and fake posts and it works really well as Trolls and Spammers wont bother with the wait times and Fake sellers would be found out pretty damn fast and lose access to it.

It also helps the Mods as they know that the only people posting there are members in good standing so wont need as much moderation.

I think the advocates wanting a buy/sell section are living in fantasy land. Everyone here is a Boy Scout only wanting to sell to a fellow enthusiast at heartwarming prices.

Otherwise, and call me cynical, does anyone really think a forum here for buy/sell would mean the stupid sellers who have no idea what they have, and for some reason, visit Vogons regularly to boot (but they are still stupid), would come out of the wood work to sell at prices not seen since never?

If anything it will be the opposite. Less protection, more sellers who know exactly what should be charged, and prices pretty much inline with eBay, if not slightly, SLIGHTLY, cheaper… maybe.

I suppose absolute crap the sellers can’t sell for much will sell for cheap here because the eBay cut is too much for items nobody wants. But someone here might want it, so that’s a plus. We’ll see a lot of $1 network cards and 64-bit OEM VisionTek Radeon 7000 VE’s.

Then there’s prices listed, which don’t include the PayPal fees; so here’s the beginnings of an argument if the seller isn’t 100% clear, and the buyer isn’t 100% stupid.

Don’t forget the anguish of the sellers who take ages to ship, usually their grandma died, or the gas station was too far away, or everyone in the house came down with tuberculosis, or the most common nonsense: “oh, it’s crazy around here I didn’t have time; I work 36 hours per day, the 20 kids have to go to school, and my wife’s car broke down..” and you better not get remind them of the deal, because they are itching to explode.

What about the quality of the listings? Most will be either a nondescript line like with “56k modem. No plug. PM me for details,” or a wall of disorganized text with listings of items already SOLD sandwiched in between the rest of the junk nobody from even Vogons wants.

And then you’ll have sellers listing without displaying the price. You PM them with an offer, and this goes on for days, and they wait for the most desperate buyer before selling.

It’s not all roses and wine for the sellers, either. Whiney buyers, chargebacks, even less selling protection, and buyers badmouthing you because you forgot to describe a small speck of dust between the pins of the 3dfx TexelFX chip. Or maybe you said something which insulted their brother’s friend’s mother’s cow’s calf.

I won’t even begin to describe the item not working or misunderstanding of the sale scenario on a forum… everyone knows how this goes all too well.

Don’t forget the owners here are adamant on staying out of copyright and bootleg concerns, which is great. How long before phony copies of Doom on floppy disk in printed boxes show up?

What a headache…

Worst case scenario’s happen more often then not to justify the aggravation. I don’t see a benefit overall, even with one more place to buy/sell, which is not eBay.

Meatball wrote on 2022-08-06, 13:33:

I think the advocates wanting a buy/sell section are living in fantasy land. Everyone here is a Boy Scout only wanting to sell t […]
Show full quote

I think the advocates wanting a buy/sell section are living in fantasy land. Everyone here is a Boy Scout only wanting to sell to a fellow enthusiast at heartwarming prices.

Otherwise, and call me cynical, does anyone really think a forum here for buy/sell would mean the stupid sellers who have no idea what they have, and for some reason, visit Vogons regularly to boot (but they are still stupid), would come out of the wood work to sell at prices not seen since never?

If anything it will be the opposite. Less protection, more sellers who know exactly what should be charged, and prices pretty much inline with eBay, if not slightly, SLIGHTLY, cheaper… maybe.

I suppose absolute crap the sellers can’t sell for much will sell for cheap here because the eBay cut is too much for items nobody wants. But someone here might want it, so that’s a plus. We’ll see a lot of $1 network cards and 64-bit OEM VisionTek Radeon 7000 VE’s.

Then there’s prices listed, which don’t include the PayPal fees; so here’s the beginnings of an argument if the seller isn’t 100% clear, and the buyer isn’t 100% stupid.

Don’t forget the anguish of the sellers who take ages to ship, usually their grandma died, or the gas station was too far away, or everyone in the house came down with tuberculosis.

And then you’ll have sellers listing without displaying the price. You PM them with an offer, and this goes on for days, and they wait for the most desperate buyer before selling.

It’s not all roses and wine for the sellers, either. Whiney buyers, chargebacks, even less selling protection, and buyers badmouthing you because you forgot to describe a small speck of dust between the pins of the 3dfx TexelFX chip. Or maybe you said something which insulted their brother’s friend’s mother’s cow’s calf.

I won’t even begin to describe the item not working or misunderstanding of the sale scenario on a forum… everyone knows how this goes all too well.

Don’t forget the owners here are adamant on staying out of copyright and bootleg concerns, which is great. How long before phony copies of Doom on floppy disk in printed boxes show up?

What a headache…

Worst case scenario’s happen more often then not to justify the aggravation. I don’t see a benefit overall, even with one more place to buy/sell, which is not eBay.

All of this is why I suggested a time limit on access, sure it'll be mostly long term members here but that may not be a bad thing since I'm sure we all have part that we would like to trade but dont want to bother with Evilbay. Could even just limit it to trades and giveaway/donations and leave the selling/buying to ebay. So really its just a place for forum members in good standing to safely trade/giveaway stuff to other members without it being displayed publicly for all to see.

I honestly wouldnt use a public Buy/Trade/Sell forum here if it was open to everyone and I can fully understand the owners/mods never wanting such a shit show either.

VCFED has a marketplace section and it runs without issue

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-08-06, 13:52:

VCFED has a marketplace section and it runs without issue

Yeah right. Do you run it? eBay also runs without issue…. 😀

And I’ve been there. I didn’t see any $100 Voodoo5 cards. Prices are in line with EBay. Great if it works, though. You have to look just as hard for great deals as any place - which is fine.

Why isn't everyone in this thread buying and selling there instead of wanting a place here?

TrashPanda wrote on 2022-08-06, 13:00:

You can cut down on the Spam and Trolling by simply having the buy/sell/trade forum locked for new members/guests/spiders, if yo […]
Show full quote

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-08-06, 12:53:

Well the spammer, scammer and troll problem tends to explode as soon as you have a classified section and it takes a LOT of moderation. Also there tends to be spillover into regular forums of trading vendettas etc... so it needs a really close eye. I quite understand if they want to avoid all that mess.

However, I think it would be really cool, if there could be a semi-official "we're not responsible but..." partnership with heatware.com or Tindie flea market as the officially unofficial Vogon's trading site.

You can cut down on the Spam and Trolling by simply having the buy/sell/trade forum locked for new members/guests/spiders, if you want access to it then say 6 months on the forum with good standing nets you limited access to it where you can view posts and PM sellers but cant post there, 12 months on here with a good standing would net you full access to it.

Many here might disagree with that but I have seen that work on other forums as a way to limit spam and trolls and fake posts and it works really well as Trolls and Spammers wont bother with the wait times and Fake sellers would be found out pretty damn fast and lose access to it.

It also helps the Mods as they know that the only people posting there are members in good standing so wont need as much moderation.

I think that will take more moderation. That's a lot of work for people who own this site to manage... and take not a cut? That's not fair. Why don't you make your own site? Show these guys here at Vogons how it's done. Believe me, I would be more than happy to shop there.

Everyone wants everyone else to "do something." Don't get me wrong, none of these are attacks coming from an aggressive posture. I'm playing out all the scenarios, except the positive ones because it's a given; a positive experience, in general, is what everyone's after and is admirable.

Imagine everybody could put links to shady private selling sites and other stuff in his signature. That would be a huge mess.

DerBaum wrote on 2022-08-06, 14:16:

Imagine everybody could put links to shady private selling sites and other stuff in his signature. That would be a huge mess.

>>
<<

Shhhhh

Meatball wrote on 2022-08-06, 13:56:

Yeah right. Do you run it? eBay also runs without issue…. :) […]
Show full quote

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-08-06, 13:52:

VCFED has a marketplace section and it runs without issue

Yeah right. Do you run it? eBay also runs without issue…. 😀

And I’ve been there. I didn’t see any $100 Voodoo5 cards. Prices are in line with EBay. Great if it works, though. You have to look just as hard for great deals as any place - which is fine.

Why isn't everyone in this thread buying and selling there instead of wanting a place here?

Notice I didn't say anything about your pricing claims - because on that point I generally agree with you, absence of ebay's 12% cut notwithstanding

Where I disagree is your crying and complaining about how horrible it is to host a trading platform

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-08-06, 14:51:

Meatball wrote on 2022-08-06, 13:56:

Yeah right. Do you run it? eBay also runs without issue…. :) […]
Show full quote

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-08-06, 13:52:

VCFED has a marketplace section and it runs without issue

Yeah right. Do you run it? eBay also runs without issue…. 😀

And I’ve been there. I didn’t see any $100 Voodoo5 cards. Prices are in line with EBay. Great if it works, though. You have to look just as hard for great deals as any place - which is fine.

Why isn't everyone in this thread buying and selling there instead of wanting a place here?

Notice I didn't say anything about your pricing claims - because on that point I generally agree with you, absence of ebay's 12% cut notwithstanding

Where I disagree is your crying and complaining about how horrible it is to host a trading platform

You didn't say anything at all, other than to make an unsubstantiated claim it runs fine. Of course, you have to resort to personal attacks to make your point. Or you're mindreading - which you failed at both.

And you proved my point. One can't even make a claim without someone thinking the other is "crying or complaining." If running a trading platform were not horrible (or easy to put in gentler terms), everyone would be doing it.

My point was there is no difference. Everyone here is looking for a place where the buyer can buy something for absolutely unheard-of prices at 0 risk. If I'm not wrong, no one is asking for yet one more place to buy/sell. What benefit would this Vogons place have over eBay or VCFED if the prices are the same, but the hassle and risk has increased?

You didn't address my question, either. Why isn't everyone shopping at VCFEC? What are they not doing you wish Vogons could do instead?

I'm a user there and the UX is good, that's the only substantiation I care to provide.

Why do you, a member for less than one year, have such a vested opinion on this anyway? The admins are going to do whatever they choose with or without you white knighting. Also note I never asked them to do anything.

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-08-06, 15:06:

I'm a user there and the UX is good, that's the only substantiation I care to provide.

Why do you, a member for less than one year, have such a vested opinion on this anyway? The admins are going to do whatever they choose with or without you white knighting

Oh, geez.. Strawman arguments, personal attacks, and holier than though attitude.

My opinion is no more vested than yours, but I'm not suffering from cognitive dissonance.

Let's just say that any threads on here that get anywhere near the topic of money, ebay, general trading, or hardware value tend to go south. Like above.

swaaye wrote on 2022-08-06, 15:25:

Let's just say that any threads on here that get anywhere near the topic of money, ebay, general trading, or hardware value tend to go south. Like above.

Mhm This is why we cant have nice things, to many people disagreeing over opinions.

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-08-06, 13:52:

VCFED has a marketplace section and it runs without issue

I tried for months to actually be able to do anything on VCFED. New members have to have every post moderated and then you have to have a certain number of posts before you can actually have a post show up within 3 months of trying to post it.

I gave up after quite a few months because apparently the mods go MIA for an eternity.

maxtherabbit wrote on 2022-08-06, 13:52:

VCFED has a marketplace section and it runs without issue

X2

Here's a listing I was watching. It was for a new, in box VisionTek socket 3 upgrade interposer. I've never seen one of these before. When I think of VisionTek, it reminds me of those mid-to-late 2000's video upgrade companies that used mainstream Nvidia and AMD/ATI graphic units with their own cheaper PCBs. I had guessed that such an uncommon 486 upgrade would have sold for more, but it went for $66.

I looked up one of those sold Yamaha SW60XG ISA listings mentioned by another poster. Sold for $255. https://www.ebay.com/itm/165536506610 What is the benefit of this kind of sound card? Is it like a genuine OPL3 with an XR385 built-in? Sorry, I'm not an audiophile, so this is perhaps a newb question.

feipoa wrote on 2022-08-08, 04:19:

I looked up one of those sold Yamaha SW60XG ISA listings mentioned by another poster. Sold for $255. https://www.ebay.com/itm/165536506610 What is the benefit of this kind of sound card? Is it like a genuine OPL3 with an XR385 built-in? Sorry, I'm not an audiophile, so this is perhaps a newb question.

It's just a DB50XG MIDI daughterboard on a standalone ISA card.

I guess people *really* like their General MIDI music in Doom and Duke Nukem 3D? 😁

IMHO I'm not sure it's really for audiophiles, it seems that the output is really noisy. Probably much better (and cheaper too) to just use an external MIDI module.

As always when it comes to retro items, much of the price is just from perceived rarity rather than usefulness.

the "noisy" output is part of the charme, I wouldn't call myself an audiophile by any metrics, but I do like my audio, and noise is a rather unimportant metric in my opinion, there's so many other things that make something sound "good" which is a mostly subjective matter anyways ^^
I elaborated this in another thread, but I vastly prefer how my old noisy CT1740 sounds like compared to a lot of supposedly "clean" sounding cards with no noise, some of them just sound sterile to me, while the CT1740 has a great sound characteristic that I really enjoy listening to.

GM stuff is fun, I really enjoy listening to all the different renditions of MIDI sound, my goal is never really to just go for the "best" sounding one if there is anything like that, I enjoy variety, it's fun.

now if I'd get a SW60XG for cheap sure I'd put it in the collection, but just for using it it doesn't make much sense for me at least to spend big on it as I already have a DB50XG and external MU modules that are a lot more versatile.

Meatball wrote on 2022-08-06, 13:33:

I think the advocates wanting a buy/sell section are living in fantasy land. Everyone here is a Boy Scout only wanting to sell to a fellow enthusiast at heartwarming prices.

I'm not.

I have an inventory around 5% of the size of Computer Reset (I have roughly 1400 square feet filled) and would be glad to sell off a chunk of it.

The issue is organizing, shipping and inventory control. It's a pain to sort through hundreds of milk crates and boxes filled with random stuff, testing everything, marking it and putting it away. I do it bit by bit here and there when I have free time, but more items continue to come in. Sourcing and accumulating is far more fun to me than selling is.

Once in a while I hire someone local who's interested in doing manual labor in exchange for hardware, but there's not many such folks in my area.