Beat the scammers. Swap the gear.
There have been some issues arising from scammers on the board, some more overt than others (examples 1, 2, 3, 4). If we put our heads together I think it will be easy to create a solution to this problem. Right now I have several pending transactions with newer folks here and have been worried about getting scammed myself. To protect myself I asked these folks if there were any board members with more history that could vouch for them or if they had executed past transactions through the board with other maggots with more history that could do the same. I imagine lots of other people are doing this as well. It would be much more efficient if this information was easy to access so you could skim the reputation of a buyer or seller without having to send a bunch of reference check emails. The "Props to..." thread has the right information but is hard to sort through (and will get harder as it gets longer). If we take the same information and include it within peoples' profiles it could scale up better over time.
Potential Solution: Use the profile message space (which is publicly viewable) to aggregate buyer/seller reputation information. If you successfully engage in a transaction, leave feedback in the other party's profile about the transaction and ask them to leave feedback for you (e.g. "great seller - quick shipping, gear as described", etc). If you're new to the board, get one of your friends that has been on for a while to vouch for you in your profile so people won't wonder if you are some dude in Nigeria when you try to buy their skis. Users cannot edit but they can delete messages in their public profile, so this will have to be based on positive feedback (safe to assume negative feedback will be deleted). There are other solutions that can take care of this if it becomes clear down the road that a way to record negative feedback is necessary. You could also add to the "Props to..." thread but this might be a bit more efficient and easy to use.
Examples of Potential Solution:
1. My brother is kings run east. He has been on the board for a long time but recently changed his handle. His new handle only has 20 posts but if he tried to buy or sell gear here, a potential transaction partner could check his profile and see that I have vouched for him there and that he is not some dude in Nigeria.
2. I bought a pair of skis from Skideeppow a while back. Great transaction, gear as described, prompt shipping. Today I left this feedback in his profile for others to see.
I'll happily leave positive feedback for people I engage in successful transactions. I will also happily vouch for people I know personally and will leave feedback for people I have done business with in the past if they need references.
Thoughts?