I'm not sure I understand this change. Has there been a running problem with fraud? As a moderator on a very large forum, I've grappled with similar suggestions, but looking at the forum stats-- an open classifieds section drives a lot of traffic to a site. Many users will only come to sell or buy, but a number of users will stay and end up contributing to general forums. A restricted classified section will have fewer buyers and sellers--making it more difficult to buy and sell equipment--which I think is a minus for long time members. Taking the classifieds out of the unified view is a real inconvenience and will further starve off the classifieds.
I came here as a new user and ended up buying a lot of gear from long time members. Isn't that a positive thing? It was good for them and good for me. I can more easily understand a rule to keep classifieds to primarily large format and large format-related gear. I realize it's a gray area and it does take some moderation to run the classified ad forum. I'd be happy to help moderate if you need extra help.
We already have a good fraud deterrent-- having the post count visible. This is a very reliable gauge for trustworthiness. The actual level of fraud is usually very low, but some people will take the extra precaution of not dealing with low post-count users.
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