Should there be an "Other" section in For Sale/Trade?

[Marco Milazzo]

The For Sale/Trade section of this forum is a great service to Large Format photographers. But there's so much activity there that a posted "ad" can vanish from the first page in a few hours, and from the second page in a day. One reason is that people love to comment on For Sale items. They endorse the seller, or write that they own a similar item and it's great, etc. IMO, that's all good, but items without comments sink like a stone.

But another reason is that there's a lot of non-LF stuff for sale, and those items also get their share of input. In fact, the non-LF items seem to be increasing.

So my question for Mods is "Should there be a separate "For Sale" section for non-LF items?

MM

[Ralph Barker]

We're discussing options.

[Gem Singer]

There are many websites with classified sections for items other than LF.

IMHO, items for sale on this forum should be limited to LF only.

[Pete Watkins]

It's a good idea. One section for LF and another for "the rest" but I can see problems with some items such as developing tanks that can be used for multiple formats, lenses that cover 4x5 but were not designed to.................
Gem's idea is well worth considering as well, it it's appropriate for LF keep it in.
Only trying to help,
Pete.

[rdenney]

Limiting it to LF would require too much policing, and be subject to a lot of gray area. Plus, the intent of the for-sale forum was to serve the members, many of whom legitimately work in multiple formats. I've certainly appreciated some of the medium-format stuff I've bought through the forum. So, I'm not sure that limiting it to LF is either easy or the best service to the members.

We are discussing options, one of which is to provide two for-sale sub-forums, one for LF stuff, and one for medium and small-format stuff. But saying that much, and even agreeing to it, doesn't mean it would solve the problem or even be workable. First, we have to decide there is a problem to be solved that affects enough people to be worth coming up with something.

So, let's continue to voice opinions, but let's keep it to how people use the for-sale forum. I see no point in saying that how others use it might be wrong. And ideas that require significant moderator activity will be a hard-sell.

Rick "in no rush" Denney

[Gem Singer]

How about separating the catagories:

Cameras
Lenses
Darkroom items

[Michael_4514]

Large Format, For sale
Large Format, Wanted to buy
Everything else.

[welly]

It'd probably be useful to separate darkroom items from cameras and lenses etc. but not sure we need to be selling TVs and cars and houses on here as well. But whatever, I don't suppose it matters that much. Perhaps an "Other" section would be good for everything else that isn't a large format camera or a lens - ie. 35mm gear, books, printers, scanners and so on.

[Roger Thoms]

I like it the way it is, nice and simple, if there were different categories or sections I'd miss stuff. Also never minded the non-large format stuff, heck I've even bought some of it.

Roger

[David A. Goldfarb]

We have an "other" section on APUG, and it does require some policing, but not too much, and it is possible to put any forum (except the administrative ones) on "ignore," so that if someone doesn't want non-analogue-photo classifieds in their feed, they can make it disappear. I don't know if you have that "ignore forum" function over here.