joining a board is a cheap way to sell. unlike ebay or etsy, there is little or no competition, so your prices can be a little higher, as can your shipping. also, ebay and etsy take a cut, whatever it is, of your sales. not so here unless you have an agreement with the big cahuna. aditionally, here you have a captive buying market, so to speak. if you're selling sewing or craft items, boy, you have really zeroed in on a concentrated market. how do we know if these sellers have joined other sewing/quilting/crafts forums as well, doing the same thing. why not? we're a free venue for this kind of thing.

The point I'm trying to make is that the people who are posting are regular members. Maybe they don't have post counts in the thousands, but if they have post counts in the dozens, post on other threads, and have been here for a few months, doesn't that make them a "regular" member? The OP said that he's seeing a lot of "brand-new" members posting items -- as I pointed out, I looked through several of the postings, and didn't really see anyone that I would classify as "brand-new" (i.e. only a couple of posts). Just about all the posts I looked at were from members with at least a few dozen posts, who had been active elsewhere on the forum.

If you want to define a "regular" member as someone that has several hundred posts and/or has been here for more than a year, then of course, that's your prerogative. I would argue that doing so is non-inclusive of those who are only somewhat active, but are still contributing members to the forum. Just my opinion, of course :)

That's what we are currently discussing with Patrice.

It won't be based on a "post count of thousands".

WITHOUT pointing a finger, i saw, with my own eyes, a seller who made 15 posts. 13 were to sell things. i would not consider that a regular poster, and after this conversation, it would surprise me to see this person again. this was a new member, meaning within one fiscal month. do you consider that a regular member?

I'm confused. I looked at the profile of the person that you posted. They had over 180 messages, and they had an account that was created back in September. True, they had only created 15 topics in the time that they had been there, and 13 of those were selling posts, but focusing only on threads is rather unfair. The person you linked to had over 150 posts that were related to quilting on other sections of the site.

I would wholeheartedly agree that someone who joined in the last week or two, and only has a couple of posts is a brand-new member. The person you linked to before was not that. I'm really not trying to be contentious, but I think that it's only fair to be looking at the person's whole activity on the site, not just their topics created.

If the person you linked to before is not whom you're talking about, then it's a different matter.

maybe be a member for at least six months? that's fair.

Here we go again.

What are we becoming here? How are we deciding who is allowed to post?

My opinion for what it is worth is this-If you want to buy from a fellow quilter look in the classifieds. If you are unhappy with the classifieds don't bother with them. We all have the choice to do what we want to-one of those great things we have in this country. If you don't want to-don't. If you do, then do so.
Hugs
April

When I look at the classifieds and don't know the name I always look at the joining date. I have only bought a couple of things here and so far so good. I would not buy from a newbie and I think some of the things posted lately have been priced way too high.