I realise this is a hot button issue given recent language barrier disputes, but I would like to make a few suggestions of a related and yet different kind. I make these suggestions with the purest intent to preserve the content we create here on Assembler and I'm certainly not trying to blame any of the mods/admins for any recent actions. That being said... It seems like we have two fundamentally different kinds of users of the marketplace forum, but only one set of rules to govern both. On one hand, we have the mod installers/collectors that want to move a few extra consoles they've modded or sell off some part of their gaming collection. These are one off sales. It makes sense to require pictures with verification because each item is unique (in condition at the very least). The rules we have seem to protect buyers and sellers of this type fairly well. I've both bought and sold like this on these forums with nothing but good things to say about everyone I've worked with. On the other hand, we have hardware/accessory designers...people who make things. These people spend their time on our forums figuring out what retro gamers want and then figure out how to make it a reality. I'm talking about people like Helder who makes sure we have a supply of Nintendo multi outs for repairs and NESRGB installs. I'm talking about Superg who realized we're all sick of switching SCART cables and made the solution a reality. We have beharius's video transcoding devices, and Bad_Ad84/Zer0's Saturn chips, and the list just goes on and on. However, our current rules are not especially welcoming for the hardware/accessory designers. This is especially true if they start moving volume and want to use your own shopping cart to process payment and keep track of orders. Also, some of us don't want to (or flat out can't) accept PayPal anymore, so these storefront-like processing methods are more of a necessity than a preference. It is also unclear if the photo verification rule means you need to photograph each and every instance of an item you sell or if one of each kind suffices. Are you asking sellers to "prove" that they have each and every item they sell with a photo? Even if they are all the same? I realise this is only really an issues when say a designer does a batch run of an item and then offers them for sale here, but the rule could be much more clear. The posts that these hardware/accessory designers make are what keep me checking Assembler every day. I learn so much from them...about electrical engineering, about the history of the consoles, etc. I would hate to loose their interest in the site just because they're getting hassled by the marketplace rules. So, maybe the compromise is that our established members who make things (hardware/accessory designers) get their own subforum to plug their products. I realize that this was likely avoided from the start to keep the site free of online storefronts who only register to advertise their products. However, the threads that these hardware/accessory designers tend to make are more of an announcement/support thread nature. This is extremely valuable and should be promoted, not hassled with marketplace rules that were never designed for situations like this in the first place. TL;DR - How about we give established members who make things (like Superg, Helder, etc) a subforum to announce, sell, and support their retrogaming creations?
I can sort of see your point, I started selling my supercic board recently, but just added it to my sales thread as I didnt want to make an announcement thread due to the rules of only have x amount of threads. So people might not even know I'm selling it now, same with some other stuff I've added. I think it's going to be a hard decision as I don't think this was accounted for when the marketplace was created. But at the same time, I know a lot of people have registered just to buy stuff from me (maybe they stuck around? I don't keep track).
I think I understand your suggestion here. Sadly this is because others have ruined this. In the past some members have listed each item in different threads just to corner the first page. You do not need to take a photo of each item with your validation. A group photo clearly showing all items is fine, then if condition is important you can take close up shots. Another example would be if you're selling modchips, they will be identical so take a photo of them in a pile with validation will work just fine. Other methods of payment is fine, it's not in the rules that PayPal is required only. I don't know other methods of payment other than bank transfers so I cannot suggest anything for modchip sellers. Any modification in PayPal's eyes is piracy, even for systems not official support or sold any more.
Well, there's actually a word for people who make things and have their own web store with a payment processor - it's called a BUSINESS. And what you're describing is the difference between a gamer / collector having a spring clean (not buying more of the same item after selling it) and a business (who sells for profit, then restocks the same items). By the way, a mod installer is a business. I've actually suggested before that we could have a forum for these business listings on a subscription basis, which benefits the site by helping pay for the running costs (without a small handful of the same people always having to donate large amounts) and benefits the businesses because they would have a much smaller forum (or possibly even an alternative system altogether) which would be less cluttered, so their listings would be quite prominent. Guess how many business-type users responded that they would be more than happy to have such a system. Yup... zero. We've never forced people who sell to contribute to the site donations - it's a free service. The only stipulation is that you have contributed to the forum with 50 posts over 3 months. That helps you, too - as any potential buyers will have had the opportunity to build a rapport and will hopefully trust you. Sadly, there have been business-type users who list perpetual stock or vast amounts of items like betas but haven't donated to the site. They value us as a free advertising / listing platform, but I guess not enough to chip into the site fund. Oh well. What's quite shocking, though, is that a small number of these users have been unwilling to obey the site rules. One beta seller had over $20,000 worth of games listed without a single photo. They were all sold as seen, no idea if they're different from retail and no, he wouldn't put it in a console and show you. And he moaned when asked to provide validation. A modder, who more often than not used the site to self-promote, took exception to a member of staff pointing out he'd incorrectly posted in the Marketplace, and said the site has outgrown his usefulness. Neither user had contributed in recent years, if at all. The rules are indeed written for everyone. We've often stated that if you offer a modification service, it's OK to show that item, but provide a photo of the modification to show off your handiwork. If you have 10 of an item for sale, take a photo of the pile to show you have 10 of them. Technically yes, if you sell another item, you should photograph it. Would you be happy buying a console off eBay, only to find it was more scuffed than the photo showed, because the seller hadn't taken another? If you do a batch run of something, then you'd have no trouble taking a photo of the entire run neatly stacked in your storage facility
This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. You have a single marketplace thread where you're selling mod kits for a wide variety of things without the ability to even change the title to show what's new. I keep checking your thread just to see if you haven't silently added something interesting. Between the limitations on bumping and title changes, there's no good way to know. Today's changes to the rules seem to be a step in the wrong direction for this kind of use. The current rules now limit each user to only a single thread. Now not only is Bad_Ad84 going to have to keep putting all of newly designed modchip kits into the same thread, he's going to have to put whatever else he wants to sell (like premodded consoles or random gaming crap) into that same thread. The title can no longer be representative of the content it contains. People will have to start opening all of the threads while asking themselves "I wonder if this user has anything cool for sale this week?". That seems a little silly. That's pretty much my point. The rules were never created with people like you in mind. I don't really see a problem with people registering just to purchase things here. If anything, you are essentially drawing in new members to the site. Sure, some won't stay, but some will. This is an example of how the marketplace here creates the community we have. I'm sure there has been abuse of this in the past. Board listing space is precious and should be treated as such. However, it's not quite that precious that we should force each other to illogically conjoin discussions of wildly different things. To keep using Bad_Ad84 as an example, I shouldn't have to talk about his upcoming Dreamcast mods in a thread where he's selling premodded PS2s. I'm aware. Some of us have been processing credit/debit cards through Stripe. However, PayPal is historically how everyone expects to send/receive payment for these kinds of transactions. If PayPal is going to keep limiting/banning accounts of people who want to trade modified game systems, then the convention is going to have to change. Like you say, they prohibit the trade of items that are not even remotely related to piracy (such as RGB/HDMI mods). With Stripe, I can't just say "send payment to my email address". I need to have some external site to take in the credit card info and process the amount. I individually invoice people with links to the processor, but if I was selling the exact same thing 50 times, I'd surely just set up a shopping cart. Not exactly. There's a further distinction to be made here. For the sake of discussion, I'll adopt your term "business". There are businesses who's business is to buy and resell existing products. For example (and I mean no harm, I myself am a customer), there's Stone Age Gamer. To my knowledge, they haven't designed or manufactured anything. They resell products like Krikzz's flash carts and third party controllers. I see why you wouldn't want such an entity to just set up shop on the marketplace forums with a full catalog of products. However, if Krikzz himself wanted to start sales/support threads for his flash carts, I think he should be able to. Krikzz saw that the retrogaming community wanted a better flash cart and turned it into a reality. Granted, he also turned it into a nice little cottage industry, but this is still a fundamentally different kind of "business". Back when Krikzz was just starting off, Assembler must have thought so too. He even got his own set of subforums for support of each device he made. I'm not suggesting that every product designed or manufactured by a forum member should get his own subform for support/sales/advertising his product, but a single separate thread would make sense. Buying and selling anything can be considered a business. The point I'm trying to make is that a mod installer didn't create or manufacture anything. You wouldn't discuss potential changes for a new revision of a mod with someone who was only an installer. You wouldn't even really discuss installation tips...especially for premodded systems. A mod installer is essentially just trying to sell his labor. This is still a valuable commodity in the marketplace. I just don't think the current rules are much of a problem for the mod installer. I see where you're coming from. I see the reluctance to letting any kind of business make (potentially serious) money through visibility on the forums without collecting a percentage...especially when the site has bills to pay. However, the balance is delicate here. Assembler needs the members that these sales threads bring in to stay fresh and vibrant. The mechanics of your idea seem solid and essentially what I'm suggesting. If you design or manufacture something for the retrogaming community, you get one thread in a separate subforum per product you make. Seems simple enough! I haven't fully thought out the consequences of making this a paid option yet. I'm thinking of it more as a user who's sick of not being able to sort the "new product threads" from the "garage sale / installer" threads. When it comes to donations, I don't feel particularly bad about a small group paying the bills. Every time I've seen a site fundraising thread here, it seems like that small group is more than willing to cover the costs. By the time I've seen the thread, the goal is almost always met. If this was more of a struggle, I'm sure others would step up to the plate. I can't imagine that the usual marketplace sellers would seriously let the site go down due to unpaid server bills. I haven't donated here much, but I certainly wouldn't. You're right...these "businesses" certainly need AssemblerGames, but AssemberGames is only the vibrant forum that it is because these businesses attract the best minds for discussion and trade.
I'd estimate that most of my sales are not to existing assemblergames members, but new ones that were sent here from modding tutorials, YouTube videos etc to my sales thread. So I think you are quite right that it helps bring users into the site (even if only a few continue to post). New rules don't help, I'll be looking to setup a webstore for my modding parts and get the links changed on guides. So then I can use the 1 market place post I get for consoles and other stuff I'm clearing out.
Nope. Anything that the tax man would be interested in is a business. If you're clearing out your spare room and selling stuff you've had for years, that's not a problem (as I said, not replenishing the same items). If you are making something and selling it, selling a service or reselling a product (i.e. you buy and sell for profit, then probably restock - unless it's non-replenishables like betas), you are a business in the eyes of the tax man - regardless of whether you have a website with a shopping cart and make thousands or are Joe Bloggs selling the odd modded console as and when. It's up to you to declare your income - we're not eBay or Etsy or Guru demanding that you subscribe to a business account or show us your tax forms. If you make a profit from selling products or services, you should declare it (unless there's an income level below which you aren't taxed and don't have to declare such earnings in your country, of course). Stone Age Gamer is a member here and is welcome to sell, within site rules Stone Age Gamer, or any such shop, would not be any less welcome to sell products than Krikzz or Bad_Ad84. Likewise, Bad_Ad84 and Krikzz are not more welcome to sell products just because they designed them. It's not even about a percentage - it would just be appreciated, but never expected, if a trader (better word for you? means the same though lol) who makes money from the site might consider a small contribution towards site costs. No listing fees, no final value fees, merely a pay-what-you-want as a token of appreciation. With respect, ASSEMblergames had been running for over a decade when you joined. Successfully. For a long time, there were no Krikzzs, no Bad_Ad84s (he joined a year before you), no Supergs. The original website was a museum for development hardware and rarities. There was a forum. Eventually, there was a Marketplace. Many years later, some enterprising users - the Krikzzs and Bad_Ad84s, came here. They saw a market for certain products, had the idea and went with it. Nothing wrong with that. No disrespect to them at all - of course their threads have drawn interest to the forum. However, the website was always primarily about game development - SCART blocks aren't much use for that, mod chips are perhaps a bit more useful and Everdrives are pretty useful. So some of them were really on the same wavelength as the original purpose of the website, whilst others were perhaps more thinking "hey, these people are gamers - let's see if they'd like this!" Again, that's fine and indeed will bring people to the site who may not have visited before. Whether they stay is another matter, of course! The focus of the site has shifted to encompass gaming in general over the years, so it's all good! I'm not saying all the traders need us to survive - of course not. They'd do fine without us. Maybe they might have to advertise a bit more... maybe advertising a bit more would be beneficial to them anyway. Maybe some of them could easily take the leap from selling on a few forums to having their own website and run a nice business out of it (wasn't your post a "temporary measure" to test the water in 2012 that you were thinking about turning into a web store, @Bad_Ad84 ? lol). We'd be over the moon to see that happen. And if we've helped them out, great! I could see you hadn't thought about a paid option - that was obvious, and it's why I commented. Bottom line - why should we bend over backwards for traders if they don't want to give us anything in return? I would never dream of going to one of those traders and saying "I need a modchip - give me one as you're advertising on the site for free!" We welcome anyone who wants to sell on the forums, but there's only so much we can do for them without a little bit back in return. I don't think it would be unreasonable to say if they want a nice, uncluttered space of their own, they need to subscribe to it. This would most definitely include modders as well as traders. And I'm not sure about a thread per product. Perhaps a reasonable limit / compromise there! So referrals by existing users, then? lol
