For Sale?

Are we allowed to sell items on here? I don’t see a Classifieds Category anywhere. I would like to buy/sale/trade if there is a proper outlet! :smiley:

Thanks!
Rick

Thanks for asking! We don’t have a “trading post” or “classifieds” section, on purpose.

Our general rule for commercial activity is spelled out in the Disclose Commercial Interest section of our FAQ. Only active contributing members may do things on this forum in which they have a financial interest, and it must be the substantial minority of what they post.

So if you are actively contributing in an area of the site, and in the context of that area want to mention that you want to sell something, and you do it rarely, and don’t misrepresent commercial interest, that’s OK. But you have to first be a contributing member. Jump in, help other people out, and then mentioning (once… :slight_smile:) that you have something you want to get rid of is fine. So after helping others out, saying “By the way, I’m upgrading from my Frobnitz 2000 to a Confabulator 3900+, if anyone is interested in a used Frobnitz 2000 drop me a note” is fine. Jumping into others threads to try to sell it wouldn’t be OK, by contrast.

If you are making business income, it’s also OK to talk about your products/business, but it must always be clear. For example, if you post “affiliate” links where you earn a commission from those who follow your links, you must disclose that, always and without exception. If you have a business that supports makers, you can (as a substantial minority of your posts) mention that, always being clear that it makes you money. For example, one of our administrators sells the Beam Buddy laser engraving head and is always clear when he mentions it that it’s a business. Any “trash talk” about competitors is strictly out of line here; we have active participants here who have business interests in competing product lines for makers, and we’re happy to have them all here and they don’t trash each others’ products here.

We’re very spam-averse here, and the moderators spend substantial time banning the occasional floods of spammers to keep this site full of content, not spam. First-time spammers are banned forever; there’s no “three strikes and you’re out” rule. Many members here came from Google+ and saw what happened on communities where moderators gave up on killing spam, and we don’t want that to happen here; it’s why the bulk of moderation that happens here is site-wide not per category.

Hope that helps!

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Wow, Phenomenal response, thank you for going so in-depth! I only meant private sales, while I do own a small business, I wouldn’t clutter up the forum with that nonsense haha I super appreciate your time, thank you very much! I know sometimes classifieds are a good things and other times it becomes a pool of pond scum, so I respect the position you guys have taken. :grin:

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