Amen!
Originally Posted by Jac@stafford.net
Amen!
--- Steve from Missouri ---
Hmmm. Some day you'll be known as the "Vivian Meier of the desert." Someone will buy a pickup truck full of your negs for fifty bucks and sell prints from them for thousands. There will be a movie made about you starring George Clooney. You will become a household name, sort of like Ansel. And I'll be on the forums telling everyone, "Hey I used to know that guy!"
Kent in SD
In contento ed allegria
Notte e di vogliam passar!
When I'm looking to buy something, it's always specific. It's never just scanning the latest FS and impulsively buying. When wanting to buy something I just do a forum search.
Kent in SD
In contento ed allegria
Notte e di vogliam passar!
Way back when, Jim's for sale posts could be quite fun. A lot of back-and-forth, stories, etc. that also kept his sale threads on top and many of us entertained. Same with other sellers -- comments made, questions asked with some quite informative. There were positives in the old system. However the classifieds are not archived, so any useful info given on the for sale threads are not saved, thus lost to the community as a whole. They created a lot of other negatives, also, and the weight of the negatives caused the moderators to change the system.
"Landscapes exist in the material world yet soar in the realms of the spirit..." Tsung Ping, 5th Century China
Vaughn, the threads are all still there, if one has patience to slog through the returns from vBulletin's brain-dead search tool or trawl laboriously through the FS subforum index.
That's right.
Going for Michael Disfarmer of the desert. But thanks for your gracious words, all of you.
Shoot Jim, I have always loved your posts and what you do (and sell). Keep on keeping on, just don't stop!
Jim, I’m confused. I don’t see how the changes that have been made affect your ability to sell stuff at all. If you have stuff people want at a price they are willing to pay, nothing we have done will keep them from buying it.
In the past, there was a problem with sellers like you, who some accused of being a commercial concern, which we used to prohibit. You were a specific example among several that was the basis for allowing small commercial sellers, simply to avoid drawing a line that would put people like you on the other side of it. As a result, your type of commercial operation is now fully blessed.
In the past, sellers often had to endure public questions about why they were selling stuff, as if a person needs a better reason than “I’d rather have the money.” We put an end to that. Or, they would argue about the details of what was being sold or how it was described. Sellers like you complained about that, too, and we fixed it.
If frequent bumping is the only way to perceive product being moved, perhaps the market for vintage and antique lenses has softened.
One thing is for sure, the complaints we are seeing now are from a few sellers. We don’t get as many complaints from buyers. But we sure used to. A buyer can now look down the FS forum pages pages and see what’s on offer from everyone, not just from the most bump-happy few.
Perhaps there are better ways to stand out than bumping.
One thing is for sure: We tried the free-for-all with the don’t-complain-to-us-if-you-get-ripped-off disclaimer, and the problems of that little classifieds section grossly dominated the whole management of the forum. Hard feelings and not a few huffy departures were the result. Other forums are run by those wanting to make the forum a business, and so they have a proprietary interest. An audio forum requires a subscription fee to access the sales area, for example, as part of how the forum owner seeks rent. That is not the vision our owner has expressed, or that the moderators have any interest in pursuing.
In some forums, the hobby under discussion is one of acquisition. Other forums focus on usage. We’d like to be the latter, but recognize that the former is part of it.
Rick “who also likes playing with cameras, and whose heirs are also going to find a body of work nobody will much care about” Denney
Jim, everyone who pursues an expensive hobby such as LF for many years has to do what you do, unless they're independently wealthy and can afford to buy the best of everything and stick it on a shelf until they die. We may have one or two members here in that category, but the rest of us either limit ourselves to small kits that work or indulge our buying habits by selling. Politics has nothing to do with it, it's a question of economics. Not even capitalism, since I don't think your goal was to build a lf empire that you could hand down to your children's children's children for them to continue profiting from.
I was skeptical when the For Sale forum rules were changed. mostly because I thought the mods gave themselves more work policing it for no reason other than making a vocal minority of the community STFU. But I don't go around complaining about it because it's the seller's job to find ways of getting his wares to market. I don't complain about eBay turning itself into a giant flea market full of counterfeit Chinese goods and scammers, because no good thing lasts forever and if I want to sell, it's my job to find the buyer. I now sell more at camera fairs than eBay, and virtually nothing here. Besides, I enjoy the face-to-face that I get when some kid eager to explore lf asks me questions about the lenses and gear on my table. When they say they're buying something they can't afford or really shouldn't buy, I tell them 'how do you think I got all these lenses?'
I'm considering making a very cheesy, amateur website with a bunch of my photos, and a list of the lenses I have for sale with their price and condition. Using the name I use to sell on eBay. I know others have tried Etsy and the like, I don't know how much success they have but every time I follow a link there the lens has already sold. That could just be marketing. I guess I could find out by listing a bunch of rare soft focus lenses on my website at bargain prices, then crossing them out and marking 'sold'. I have a healthy respect for successful salespeople, it's an art.
FYI, I'm Canadian, so not a Republican, but for the first time in my entire life last year, a candidate that I voted for won an election. I'm still in shock.
This may be Jim Galli's first post. https://www.largeformatphotography.i...ll=1#post21074
This is just an old FS item by Jim.
https://www.largeformatphotography.i...l=1#post305543
Tin Can
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