Unfortunate rule change on the Exchange Forums

Ironic

Ironic

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Joined
Jan 1, 2011
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482
At this writing, “Father and Son Traditional Sharpening” has 8 sale threads running on the first page of the Busse Exchange Forum, and under the new rules he’s allowed to do that. But that means seven members’ sale threads have been knocked off page one, who would still be there under the old rules, so he can display his knives there. This is the same situation Liu Kang took advantage of before the old rule change, knocking large numbers of traders off page one to advertise his stuff there.

Again, anyone is within his rights to do this under current rules, but lots of people are getting short-changed on page-one display time because of it. I’m not complaining about the person who’s doing it. I’m complaining about the rule. Does anyone else here have a problem with this situation besides me? (And yes I realize the number of threads per display page is adjustable. That’s not the point. The ratios have remained the same over several months.)

All it would take would be a couple more members doing this and we’d have only two or three members’ knives represented on page one.

Thank you for your thoughts,
Will
 
Seems to me that "Father & Son Traditional Sharpening" should change their membership level to "Dealer" and start posting in there.

They post so many items for sale in the FS by Individuals subforum that it has always seemed like a business to me.

Here is the definition from the Knife Exchange rules. Italics are mine:

"DEALER / MATERIALS PROVIDER - Dealers are defined as anyone who purchases at wholesale pricing, or purchases items with the intent to resell (flipping). Other terms for dealers include purveyor, broker, reseller, etc. Materials Providers offer raw materials such as steel, handle materials, or other items related to knifemaking in general as typical stock for sale to the forum members or to the general public via their own store front or website. We reserve the right to make the final determination as to what constitutes a "dealer".

Just my $0.2
 
Beowolf Agate said:
Seems to me that "Father & Son Traditional Sharpening" should change their membership level to "Dealer" and start posting in there.

They post so many items for sale in the FS by Individuals subforum that it has always seemed like a business to me.

Here is the definition from the Knife Exchange rules. Italics are mine:

"DEALER / MATERIALS PROVIDER - Dealers are defined as anyone who purchases at wholesale pricing, or purchases items with the intent to resell (flipping). Other terms for dealers include purveyor, broker, reseller, etc. Materials Providers offer raw materials such as steel, handle materials, or other items related to knifemaking in general as typical stock for sale to the forum members or to the general public via their own store front or website. We reserve the right to make the final determination as to what constitutes a "dealer".

Just my $0.2
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Don't mean to stir the pot here further, but I have dealt with Father & Son Traditional Sharpening Father & Son Traditional Sharpening several times, I considered his prices fair (compared to - say - dealer prices on ebay) and everything went very well; I don't consider him a dealer.

I'm a Busse fan; that being said, it's obvious that most of the contents of any blind grab bag will be resold (not "flipped"). It's part of the business model, IMO. Very different from somebody re-selling, say, a DEMKO AD20 or GEC at > 100% profit. I don't feel it fair to expose F&S TS like this.
 
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Some seem to be missing the point of my original post. I’m not calling out FSTS for selling his knives on the Exchange at whatever price he can get for them or for selling too many knives on the Exchange.

My point was that before the Exchange rules were last changed, if you wanted to post multiple knives for sale within any 2-week period, you had to include them all in one thread. Now, since the rule change, one seller can post as many sale threads as he likes, even if each thread contains only one or two knives. And even if that means less room on page one for other sellers. My reference to FSTS was only an illustration of what happens when one seller starts generating sale threads “in bulk” and knocking other sellers off page one in the process. Under the new rule, he’s perfectly within his rights to do that.

I just think it’s a bad rule and wondered how many here felt the same way.
 
Typically, in the past, if you had many knives to sell, you would post them all in one thread. I haven't really paid attention to numbers, but I wonder if there already is some sort of rule as to how much you sell per year. For example, I will binge sell in a two month period, maybe six knives, but then I won't sell again for 5-6 months. And I may buy a few in that time. But if you are buying with the strict intent to flip and you are selling a large number per month, then in my opinion you should be a dealer. Not sure what that number should be. You would think mods would already have that figured out.
 
FSTS lists a lot of cool knives for sale. Whether he’s classified as a dealer or nor doesn’t matter to me, except that I wouldn’t want to have to start looking elsewhere on the forums to find his Bussekin blades for sale. I LIKE seeing his knives. I just think he’s exposed a flaw in the rules that should be corrected.
 
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I don't sell much but a quick look at the exchange rules and I still see it clearly stated to consolidate into one thread not to have multiple sale threads open at the same time. Am I missing something? Just seems like a common curiosity to consolidate like items. But again I don't sell a lot. I think the mods do a pretty good job with little thanks on the forums so I imagine they will address it if they think it's necessary.
 
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I don’t see that JJ. One thread per day is allowed. Mods will consolidate if you list multiple knives same day on separate threads. Da rules:
“Or you can do different threads on different days. You are only allowed 1 sales thread, per day, per forum.”
 
JJ_Colt45 said:
I don't sell much but a quick look at the exchange rules and I still see it clearly stated to consolidate into one thread not to have multiple sale threads open at the same time. Am I missing something? Just seems like a common curiosity to consolidate like items. But again I don't sell a lot. I think the mods do a pretty good job with little thanks on the forums so I imagine they address it if they think it's necessary.
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You’d think it would be clear enough, but in the Exchange Rules under Section 2, paragraph 9, where it does state to consolidate items in a single thread, a sentence was added (I believe last year?) as follows:

“You are only allowed 1 sales thread, per day, per forum.”

Apparently, intentionally or not, that can also be read to mean sellers can post a new sale thread every day in the same forum. I think this opened the loophole which prompted a few sellers to take advantage.
 
If my interpretation of the rules was incorrect, I stand corrected, but I understood the rules to say what I expressed above and all the other sales threads I observed appeared to honor the rule as outlined above until I encountered FSTS’s multi-thread strategy late last year. When I checked the rules at that time, the provision stating one thread per day per forum was unfamiliar to me, and appeared to me to be a rule change allowing FSTS’s approach. Never since the previous rule change on sale thread consolidation had I seen this kind of domination of a sale forum by one seller.

To me, any method used by one seller that elevates his exposure to the market over other sellers, and that potentially diminishes market exposure for other sellers, should be prohibited.
 
This is not about posting a sale thread every day. It's about a pattern of selling lots of knives, which makes one a Dealer. I just did a quick search on FSTS and they have had 5 full pages of threads since January. At 20 threads per page that's 100 threads. That's at least 100 knives. That's a business. I like that they are a resource to purchase, but individuals don't typically sell 100 knives per year. Potentially, the solution is to limit the number of sale threads for individuals to two per week. And also limit the total sales of knives to a certain amount monthly or annually or both for individuals. Maybe a max of 13 knives in any month and no more than 65 knives in a calendar year. Or something along those lines. Any more than that and you need to be a dealer.
 
To me, that’s a separate issue. If FSTS had consolidated his sale knives into a few threads instead of purposely dribbling his threads onto the sale forum in such great numbers, his sales wouldn’t have had the cumulative effect of overwhelming the forum and I’d have no issue with it.
 
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Ironic said:
Some seem to be missing the point of my original post. I’m not calling out FSTS for selling his knives on the Exchange at whatever price he can get for them or for selling too many knives on the Exchange.

My point was that before the Exchange rules were last changed, if you wanted to post multiple knives for sale within any 2-week period, you had to include them all in one thread. Now, since the rule change, one seller can post as many sale threads as he likes, even if each thread contains only one or two knives. And even if that means less room on page one for other sellers. My reference to FSTS was only an illustration of what happens when one seller starts generating sale threads “in bulk” and knocking other sellers off page one in the process. Under the new rule, he’s perfectly within his rights to do that.

I just think it’s a bad rule and wondered how many here felt the same way.
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Ironic Ironic

In bold is what I was referring to up above. That’s never been a rule as far as I can remember. For clarification, I didn’t want you to think I was being negative towards you.
 
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Thank you. Still, the thrust of my description did seem to me to be how seller members interpreted the rule up until I encountered FSTS’s unconsolidated multi-thread approach.

So what was the correct interpretation?
 
Ironic Ironic

He is in compliance with the rules as long as his threads are 24 hours apart. Saying that since speaking with him yesterday I think he understands why monopolizing even if currently within the rules can be seen negatively.
 
Thank you for addressing this, Rycen.
 
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