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Underground > Policy & Help >

Selling comics and other things on the board

  
 
Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo
04:42 / 01.10.03
I have to admit I was a bit shocked when the sale of some Flex Mentallo became a bit of a tempest. It was pretty clear to me that it wasn't a wholesale "spamming" of the board, the comics were ones that people have said they are missing, are by Morrison and after looking at the thread, I OKed it, with the note that once they were sold, I'd delete the thread.

I wouldn't want someone to post a list of 50 titles and prices, but with all the tape trading and the like, I didn't think it would be an issue. Like I said, if it was a post turning the board into eBay, that would be one thing...but even I have my original Invisible issues I'll prolly get rid of now that I have all the trade paperbacks, and what better place to do so than on a board founded as a bit of a fansite?

Are there limits on what is sellable? Can we still do trades if no money is involved? If someone says they are looking for a comic or two, can we ship them ours? Are these things OK if no money is involved, and if so, why does money make it wrong on the board?

Any guidelines for me?
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
07:15 / 01.10.03
I've advertised rooms in my flat here before, and, must admit, was a bit dubious about doing so for the very reasons you've outlined. No-one seemed to complain, I got some great Barbeloid flatmates out of it, and the threads disappeared pretty quickly afterwards (Conversation) due to nobody posting again. Which, I figured, was how it should be.

Selling stuff... that's a tricky one. Maybe a kind of "Multicoloured Swap Shop" forum would be a solution.
 
 
Ganesh
07:38 / 01.10.03
Didn't one of Barbelith's old incarnations actually include a 'Market Place'? I remember giving away all my comics there...
 
 
Tom Coates
07:44 / 01.10.03
I think we did have a marketplace, yes.
 
 
Jack Fear
11:13 / 01.10.03
Yes, we did. I was the moderator and I think (although my memory grows fuzzy with my encroaching decrepitude) that the thing was my idea to begin with. The Market proceeded from the notion that barbelith was a community, and every community has a bazaar.

Two important things about the way the Market was run, though:

(a) It was primarily informational, i.e. for advertising of goods and services available. The actual deal-making and setting of prices was to be done off-board, via e-mail. This helped to cut down on clutter and also abcsolved the board's management of any responsibility for deals gone sour.

(b) In keeping with the utopian/anti-capitalist ideals of the early board, users were strongly encouraged to use the Market for barter or outright giveaways, as opposed to actual sales. Mix tapes were my favored / suggested form of currency: Ganesh gave away a bunch of comics in exchange for good karma, as I recall.

Bringing money into the equation—as in most areas of life—complicates the situation tremendously. It makes the board a party to a commercial transaction, and there are legal ramifications to that which make me uncomfortable.

I reckon that selling-stuff threads need not be deleted, but should be locked after the initial post; they require no reples on-board, since they are not an invitation to discourse but rather a one-time notice. That way, the list of products available and the seller's contact information are both public, but the actual haggling and deal-making ill have to be handled by PM or e-mail. Which is as it should be.
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
16:23 / 01.10.03
I like Jack's idea, except that if posted in the Convo, a thread with no replies will vanish VERY quickly. I like the marketplace idea, though... no cash involved with the site, obviously (PMs and emails), but swapsies and hook-ups for off-board financial transactions alone?
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:33 / 01.10.03
(a) It was primarily informational, i.e. for advertising of goods and services available. The actual deal-making and setting of prices was to be done off-board, via e-mail. This helped to cut down on clutter and also abcsolved the board's management of any responsibility for deals gone sour.

(b) In keeping with the utopian/anti-capitalist ideals of the early board, users were strongly encouraged to use the Market for barter or outright giveaways, as opposed to actual sales. Mix tapes were my favored / suggested form of currency: Ganesh gave away a bunch of comics in exchange for good karma, as I recall.

This all seems reasonable. Likewise Maominstoat using Barbelith to meet people whom he may like and may subsequently invite to share a flat with him. Very different thing. Likewise some members being given web space to advertsie their own products for sale, without those products being sold through Barbelith.

My sugested action was based on a couple of basic precepts:

1) Threads selling things, as in exchange of cash authorised through Barbelith, are not encouraged - see the FAQ.

2) Again, see the FAQ - if you want to sell something, try to have been a contributing member of Barbelith for a while.

3) Let's say the sale goes wrong. The comics are made of cheese or the money is made of bread. Right now, the injured party could go to Tom and demand that they make the details of the supposedly injuring party available, and, since Barbelith has no official T&Cs, the issue would become rather awkward. Unfortunate over $20, rather more so over, say, a hi-fi.

4) Barbelith is not a mercantile board. eBay or Amazon have mechanisms by which products can be sold for a set price, and a link thereto would harm nobody. Both have legal and technical provisions to protect buyer and seller, which Barbelith does not.

5) Right smack bang this moment, suits with very few posts to their name setting up a situation where they get the postal and personal details of another poster make my teeth itch. Personal thing.

6) Appeals to the fact that the board was set up as a fansite for another Grant Morrison comic have been laughed out of court before, and will I hope continue to be so. We have evolved. Grant Morrison may be weeping tears of blood over it, although I doubt it, but this is not a Grant Morrison bulletin board. I have no doubt that such things exist, and would be great places to sell back issues.

7) Where should this stop, exactly? I can say with absolute confidence that I would not be happy as things stand to see a thread trying to hawk second-hand copies of "The Open Society and its Enemies" in the Head Shop, and would move to have such a thread deleted. I imagine the Films, TV and Theatre mods may not be delighted if the forum was clogged with people trying to sell DVDs. As far as I know, the Comic Books forum is for discussion of comic books, rather than the selling of comic books.

It seems that none of these arguments is strong enough to prevent another moderator vetoing the suggestion, which is how it should be. Nor will I agitate for the deletion of the thread subsequently, as again it should be. However, I do not believe my action was unwarranted.

So, if people want to use Barbelith as a marketplace, then I would suggest that:

a) We set up a "Marketplace" forum.
b) We establish a set of terms and conditions that any user of the site has to agree to in order to log in, one of which indemnifies Barbelith and its owners from the adverse consequences of any mercantile transaction that takes place on it, and protects the right of Barbelith's administrators (ie Tom and Cal) from beign compelled either to make good any shortfalls or reveal personal details of any of Barbelith's members in the pursuit of reparations.

or

c) Queer Granny *becomes* a marketplace - a separate site unconnected with Barbelith where wares can be sold. You'd have to ask the ownners of the site about that.


That should cover it off nicely.
 
 
Persephone
22:49 / 01.10.03
c) Queer Granny *becomes* a marketplace - a separate site unconnected with Barbelith where wares can be sold. You'd have to ask the ownners of the site about that.

No!

My God.
 
 
Persephone
22:59 / 01.10.03
But I would stick links up to other people's stores.
 
 
Persephone
00:42 / 02.10.03
Ah, I see... I just read the Flex Mentallo thread. I didn't realize that I had been cited. I have to admit that I didn't think through the entire Queer Granny operation from the beginning. To me, though, the real spirit of the site is the free distribution aspect --the t-shirt designs, and most of the comics. All profits save three dollars have gone back to Barbelith. But it hasn't been more than fifty dollars, just so people get the scale of this thing.

That said, I have a plan in the works to evolve the site & this will be less connected to Barbelith than now --e.g., the Queer Granny Update thread in Creation will be discontinued. Apologies for any unintended impact thereof, but hopefully it was small.
 
 
bio k9
04:59 / 02.10.03
Here is a link to the Flex Mentallo for sale!!! thread where this all started. Its up for deletion now that the comics have been sold.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
21:39 / 02.10.03
I'd like to hear what Distended Mass and Solitaire Rose think about the discussion on this thread. I would also like to suggest that, from the other thread on why somebody might get a friendlier hearing if they have a few more posts to their name:

But I think that's a risky supposition, Haus. First, I won't argue that the possiblity existed at one time for strangers to sign up to the board, post a spamming message, collect their reaped funds and skeddadle out of town. But since the gateway into the board has grown smaller and smaller, that seems less likely. No one just 'pops in' anymore.

is....well, I am obviously not a safe witness. Would anyone else like to have a look at this rather Arcadian view? Suit numbers 992, 1038, and any current sexless backpacker suits may be used in your answer.
 
 
Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo
04:25 / 03.10.03
I think it's good to have the discussion, Haus. I posted my question because I honestly didn't understand what the problem could be, and now I can see why some people would have problem with it. I can even agree with parts of it, but I do think a "trading post" portion of the board might be something to look into if we expand and enough people think it might be something to look into.

I come in to the board from the comic collector's end of things, and on all of the discussion lists I'm on (mostly about Silver and bronze age comics, including their artists), the only rule is that you don't spam the group with endless listings, but if a lister who wants to sell off some of his old Jack Kirby books, it's OK because it is a group that is discussing Jack Kirby books. We also do "packages" of comics and photocopies that are sent to one lister who then reads them and sends them on to the next.

Now, if the user had listed 20 books with prices, I woudl think differently, but I felt it was psted in a way that didn't seem like spamming.

But, as with any community, I'll go along with whatever other people decide. I have no strong feelings on the matter...but when I dig up my "Invisibles" comics to get rid of because I have the trades, I'd rather the people here get them than putting them on eBay, because the people here mean a bit more to me, and I'd rather they get the books. Does that make sense, or am I being a Captialist pig?
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
15:18 / 04.10.03
Some time ago in the previous incarnation of the board we had an advert for a gamestation of some kind via amazon. This in itself bought about a lot of discusion.

There were various sides taken and a lot of which as been repeated in the above posts in terms of the commercial aspects. However, there could be some benefical elements to creating a trading space here on barbelith.

Firstly, the option of advertising and link related purchasing could create some revenue for the board, which I don't think could be construed as a bad thin. Afterall, this site does cost money and if a company would like to give us some for pretty much something that we want to do anyway then why should we not make use of an available process. I can understand the arguments of commercialism perverting the nature of barbelith but I do think that these are overblown.

Secondly, the option of suit to suit business interaction could be managed in a sensible and secure way. If we were to run a marketplace option here then this could and should be done with a binding T&C option that would protect Tom and anyone advertising a service or goods. The fact that business interactions have already taken place between people here without hitch or hinderance is a clear indicator that it could be done using the board. In fact I think that a trading space could aid developing barbelith as a community.

I personally support doing this and as such a thing would require moderation I would be happy to put myself forward as a mod for this providing no objections were raised.
 
 
Saveloy
16:01 / 06.10.03
Apologies if this has been suggested already, but how about a Marketplace thread in the convo forum? A small-ads version of the Random Q & A thread. It could be stipulated in the initial post and in the summary that all actual deals are to be arranged and made off-board.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
17:18 / 06.10.03
Could work - although I'm not sure you can do an "opt-in" like that - that is, that by posting to a thread you have a legally binding agreement to abide by the stipulations in the topic abstract. That would need some research.

Certainly, if we're not going to have a new forum, and we're having selling on the board, the Conversation is the logical place to do it. Perhaps with a "FOR SALE" legend in the title. That doesn't get around the Ts and Cs issue, though...
 
 
pointless and uncalled for
17:58 / 06.10.03
I think that a thread in the Convo would suffer a painful amount of rottage and in such a high noise to signal ratio environment would prove to be very difficult to moderate in a manner that would make it user friendly. If placed in a seperate and more serious section then it becomes more of a viable option an can cover the T&C issue far better.
 
  
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