The offers and requests forum here is a great resource for buying, selling, and trading webhosting related goods, but it is plagued by fraudsters and scam artists. This hurts both the buyers who get ripped off and the honest sellers whom everyone is afraid to buy from.

I think that this problem could be greatly reduced by installing a vbulletin mod for an ebay style user feedback system (similar to this: http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?&threadid=52188 )

Each rating should require a link to the WHT thread in which the deal was made to be entered, so that fraudulent ratings can be reviewed and removed.

NOTE: I'm not suggesting that this system be used to rate webhosts, but just to rate the honesty of individual users who buy and sell in the advertising forums.

What do you think?

It is based on the honor system since there is no way to truly tell if they did engage in a transaction. That is the only problem I see with it. People with a grudge could lower the ratings of an honest seller, or vice versa...

It's a great idea though, it would be nice to try and have a little accountability for that forum.

Originally posted by Watcher_TVI
That is the only problem I see with it. People with a grudge could lower the ratings of an honest seller, or vice versa...


That's why I think users should be required to include a link to the thread where the sale was made when rating someone. Then any contested ratings could be checked into and removed if necissary, and the user giving the fraudulent rating could possibly have his rating privileges revoked.

I think that's a great idea and would love for it to be implemented. :D

Ditto - seems liek an interested idea. A car forum I visit uses this, looks pretty neat.

I agree. Lets go for it! :)

We'll have to wait for one of the moderator's opinions, and then WebDev's opinion.

Originally posted by Westech
The offers and requests forum here is a great resource for buying, selling, and trading webhosting related goods, but it is plagued by fraudsters and scam artists. This hurts both the buyers who get ripped off and the honest sellers whom everyone is afraid to buy from.
There is a thread warning of this. If you are buying or selling, safeguard yourself. It is like buying or selling at ebay, you might get scammed there too. The problem with trying to police this, we might be aware of a few knows scammers, but if they sign up in new names, they are hard to detect unless there is an element of suspicion.

That's exactly what this thread is about anon-e-mouse. If we had this feedback/rating system then you would more than likely be able to spot scammers. Some would be selling things with 0 trade rating and a very low post count, or have lots of bad ratings.

Exactly. Nothing can eliminate scammers altogether, but I believe that this would help to make life harder for them and easier on the rest of us.

It's not an official moderator position on this issue, but personally I would like to see this put in place.

Alternatively, regardless of what people say about post counts, under the old system here where posts in the ad forums didn't count towards the post count, the higher the post count lent more credibity towards the poster than with few posts. The reason why is because those people really did contribute something to WHT in one way or another... the fact that they had been around a while and/or had quite a few posts at least gave the impression that they could at least play by the rules and were here to do more than just advertise their company for a couple of bucks for 50 GB.

Not that I have any pull here anyway... :bawling: :D