We are thinking of changing the requirements of the BST. We can hide the BST from users until they reach 100 post. This means they will not be able to see the forum at all. The upside is people will have to contribute before they can buy or sell in the BST. The downside is people will have to contribute before they can buy or sell in the BST

I don't care what is decided, either way works for me. The board gets two votes, the S7 staff gets one vote, Flynn gets one vote, and the other admins and mods get one vote. (and you thought the electoral college was crazy). I will post the other votes once I know what they are.

Please post your thought and comments here. The voting will end on Oct 1st, earlier if there is an overwhelming favorite. You should be able to change your vote up until the poll closes.

If you think this is a good idea choose "Vote for Change" if you think it is a bad idea choose "More of the Same". You

The polls show 100% support for change!
I dunno, I think that of the people that just want to come here to sell more of them will move along without joining than those that will post 100 lame posts just so they can sell. Also, if they can't even see that there's a "sale" board maybe they won't be aware of their ability to access it after 100 posts. And lastly, the way we call out BS someone will learn the rules within 100 posts which should keep them from being a crappy seller/flipper...or not.
Okay, the polls are changing quickly...

i think if you are going to sell to the community, you have to be a part of it. 100 post count works for me. My one question, does it have to be 100 posts of text? What if someone comes in with 100 posts?

Is time of membership plus number of posts an adequate guard then? Could it be 2 months and 100 posts. You have to have both to start selling?

more of the same.
if you are going to buy from a noobdouche with 5 posts who has some relatively new 'grails' then i think you are partially responsible if you get urzaed.

in fairness to the noobs, the BST is where most collections start. i know when i was new here i got some cool stuff from people selling shit. but back then i didnt have to worry about some douchebag ripping me off.

buyer beware.

More of the same definitely.
You have to remember the 100 posts both apply to BUYING and SELLING.
I think it would really suck for new members that couldn't buy.

date joined and post count is too complicated for us to manage.

I voted more of the same.

I think the BST is a great place for a new member to be able to get some really cool items they wouldn't be able to get elsewhere.

There are a lot of reasons the BST shouldn't be open for new members to sell, but really use your judgement. Just because I see some jackass selling a 1/5 piece of Play-Doh crap doesn't mean I'm going to buy it.

All good points.
My concern is that noobs buying from noobs (regardless of getting ripped off or not) will in essence create a "flippers paradise". Generally noobs are the ones that pay way too much for newly released figures. I don't particularly care because I won't be getting ripped off, but it's just lame to watch dumb people pay 2x retail on a figure that was just released.
I guess instead of changing the rules we could all just become more outspoken assholes and shit all over lame sales threads. That would be kinda fun.

i'm with hms on this...

when i first joined (pre-100 posts),,a large portion of my collection grew from buying off the bst...newbs buying keeps everything moving..i am sure a large portion of sales in the bst go to newer collections..

if i had been shut out from buying in the start (it took a good 6 months or so to get 100posts),,there is a good chance that i would not have discovered new things...and would have been more tempted to buy from flippers (and they do not need any more encouragement)...

definitely on the other side of the debate,,buyers beware!!

self-policing & common sense seem to work pretty good around here up to now...

Good points on both sides.

Personally, not keen on the thought of new members aggressively boosting their post counts so they can buy/sell ASAP. There are a few simple rules in place for the BST that seem to work for the most part.

Leave things as they are and add a line to the BST description saying, buy from noobs at your own risk.

I was on the board well over a year before I had 100 posts. The change wouldn't be good for people who participate but keep quiet overall.

An example would be:
http://www.skullbrain.org/bb/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=206

Yall are making me rethink my stance.
Would it be possible to view, but not post in the BST for a period of time or certain post count? I don't know that this would work well, but at least noobs could see what there is to buy and PM people about it, but it would keep them from being able to sell. Of course this may flood the board with "+1" posts to reach the post-count necessary to sell as people have pointed out.

You man we haven't been doing this? Guess I need to try harder!

This changed my mind.

Great conversation and great points. My collection definitely took off with BST and continues to. Also, boosting post counts would suck. Keep it the same.

I don't want to allow viewing with no posting. I think it is too confusing and will cause to many noobs to pm asking "why can't I post in the BST".

luckily I have never had a problem with buying anything so I'm gonna roll with more of the same...

just be smart about what you are doing and get to know the seller a little bit before jumping into bed with them right away...

sometimes the excitement of obtaining a killer piece can blur ones vision...

Keep it the same. Maybe some people will listen when fucking scammers get called instead of jumping to their rescue.

More the same.

I think a lot of people who find their way here will somehow already know that there is a bst forum from other friends or other posts regardless if it's hidden or not.

I think over the course of a year, I've seen only a small handful of times when things got shady but most of those seemed to work out eventually.
It's definitely unfortunate that it happens but I think it's fine the way it is.

I think though that the bst rules need to be updated though. I think there are some things that could be added into that sticky that Josh has . The "wanted" rules is extremely outdated as well.

any BST is the same no matter what kind of post restriction you put on the users. buy at your own risk. in the year that i've been on here, i've only had 2 packages get lost in the mail. one guy felt bad and sent me a small token. the other guy just doesn't care so i'll never buy from him. at that time, i had a pretty low post count but i also think that i was posting stuff with a lot more content than just an emote or a one-liner so i was taken a back a bit when that boardie said he would send something. sure it was no where near the value of what i bought but the gesture says a lot about the person. the other guy...well...people say he's cool and all but all i know is that he never responded and didn't say a word to me at SDCC....and that says a lot as well.

buy at your own risk. post restrictions might help but as you can see from the board right now, there are people that are just putting up one-liners to pad their post count and make them look like they are part of the community...and my current streak of cranky-ness will continue. noobs are fine, but dumb-ass noobs will always be that. no matter how many times they post.
i'm going home now

I initially went for change (call it a habit) but after reading the arguments, i voted more of the same.
I definitely think it's a case of buyer beware.
But I do think that there should be some way of sharing gripes because it isn't all buyer beware it's also occasionally lack of seller courtesy. Which is equally as frustrating.

I voted more of the same.

I was a new user once, and purchased items from other members on the board to slowly start building a collection.

What's wrong with one liners?

I begin to ask myself, what does it really mean to be part of a community?

Does it equate to long, articulate, informative, posts only?What about members who are equally passionate but choose to be in the sidelights because they are not as vocal and confident as the other members? Or is SB an exclusive community boards to individuals mentioned above.

What about people who wanted to be part of this community, who are also passionate in learning but prefers to listen and read from older member's' posts?

I think there are members here who seldom post but are way too cool, honest and honorable---these people I definitely respect. In some cases, some members prefer to 'pm' to communicate and converese with fellow members, there are no pm counts, are there?

Contribution to a community board can take in many forms---not just posts or post counts.

More of the same as it applies to this topic only...

The majority of us on here are adults and should be responsible on both sides of any transaction. The recent event that I suspect prompted this post is a truly fucked deal, but it definitely is not the norm. A little communication can go a long way in solving any questions that someone might have about a seller or buyer, and (as has been said a million times) the search function is your friend---check out someone's post history and see a little bit about who you might be dealing with, if you don't already know them.

There are a lot of great people here and I think that we can maintain a level of trust that is acceptable to just about everyone. Can't make HMS happy, of course, but that is another topic!

Ah hah hah hah....that's not nice Jeb....