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Want to Trade Trade ratings, IP tracking, and scammers/shady characters - an open letter to the administration of Arboristsite.

Wesspur
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HumBurner

HumBurner

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Admins,

I have offered suggestions several times on this matter, including when the new admin took over and was OPENLY ASKING FOR ADVICE ON HOW TO IMPROVE THE SITE within the last year or so. So far my suggestions have been dismissed.


There have been a barrage of scammers and seemingly repeat users with new accounts attempting to take advantage of members on this forum.

The administration could resolve this with a few easy implementations. First and foremost is a trade rating/feedback system which rates, on 1-to-5 or 1-to-10 the quality of a trade undertaken. There would also be a short comment section to include details if desired.

Second, is an IP tracker. When one a member has proven themselves worthy of a ban or suspension, especially in relation to trades, they should not be allowed to so easily create a new, "puppet" account to continue their previous actions. This forum's administration should have the tool to check and verify the newly created account with a list of known bad IP addresses to prevent return-scammers and dirtbags.

While IP addresses can be spoofed, some tracker tools assess other aspects associated with an individual's specific "fingerprint" on the internet.


Personally, I like the format of this site better than some of the others. It's what leads me to post here more than the other two or three main forestry/chainsaw forums. However, I'm nearing my end with the trading post here. It's a weekly or more often occurrence people are getting burned on this site. The administration could take a speck of care and interest and tidy up some of the leaks, making this a better, stronger forum. I hope this time they don't immediately crap on the ideas.


Cheers!


Tim
 
HumBurner said:
Ideas
Click to expand...
Dougnuts?... just a guess.
Hate me 😉
My stuff doesn't sell here but it's not about the administration here. It's next door at the other place. Here I've got no issues with the administration and your point makes sense. When I tried to sign back in after getting the boot over there he checked the IP address, my IP address and declined it as new member there. That was to avoid the truth like his past behavior. Now I'm back here and issues have come up about my membership brought up by me. Over there it's all run by one person but not so here. Here everyone does some lifting. You should start a pole about this topic and not just a thread. Post links to it everywhere to get more feedback. People like to be anonymous it seems. Sadly I might be gone soon but did nothing wrong.
 
HumBurner said:
Admins,

I have offered suggestions several times on this matter, including when the new admin took over and was OPENLY ASKING FOR ADVICE ON HOW TO IMPROVE THE SITE within the last year or so. So far my suggestions have been dismissed.


There have been a barrage of scammers and seemingly repeat users with new accounts attempting to take advantage of members on this forum.

The administration could resolve this with a few easy implementations. First and foremost is a trade rating/feedback system which rates, on 1-to-5 or 1-to-10 the quality of a trade undertaken. There would also be a short comment section to include details if desired.

Second, is an IP tracker. When one a member has proven themselves worthy of a ban or suspension, especially in relation to trades, they should not be allowed to so easily create a new, "puppet" account to continue their previous actions. This forum's administration should have the tool to check and verify the newly created account with a list of known bad IP addresses to prevent return-scammers and dirtbags.

While IP addresses can be spoofed, some tracker tools assess other aspects associated with an individual's specific "fingerprint" on the internet.


Personally, I like the format of this site better than some of the others. It's what leads me to post here more than the other two or three main forestry/chainsaw forums. However, I'm nearing my end with the trading post here. It's a weekly or more often occurrence people are getting burned on this site. The administration could take a speck of care and interest and tidy up some of the leaks, making this a better, stronger forum. I hope this time they don't immediately crap on the ideas.


Cheers!


Tim
Click to expand...
I am a nobody on this forum, but I will throw my thoughts in the ring.
I am a moderator on another non-forestry realted forum, and based off of my experience there, the staff here probably has access to quite a bit of info about those of us posting here such as IP addresses. If they wanted to at least make an effort to ban shell accounts, they probably could, but it takes a lot of time and effort to do so, and I seriously doubt that the moderators here care to do too much of that, especially if they are unpaid staff.
I personally appreciate the fact that this forum isn't overmoderated like some of the others I am active on. If you can't handle folks being a little forward, what are you doing communicating online?
Sure the trading board can be a little like the wild west, but that is where being an adult and only taking risks that you are willing to accept comes in. I know if I see something for sale that looks shady, I don't try to buy it. I also didn't try to go pick a girl up for a first date at a shady looking apartment complex or in a back alley in my single days, and never got mugged. Caveat emptor.
 
HumBurner said:
Admins,

I have offered suggestions several times on this matter, including when the new admin took over and was OPENLY ASKING FOR ADVICE ON HOW TO IMPROVE THE SITE within the last year or so. So far my suggestions have been dismissed.


There have been a barrage of scammers and seemingly repeat users with new accounts attempting to take advantage of members on this forum.

The administration could resolve this with a few easy implementations. First and foremost is a trade rating/feedback system which rates, on 1-to-5 or 1-to-10 the quality of a trade undertaken. There would also be a short comment section to include details if desired.

Second, is an IP tracker. When one a member has proven themselves worthy of a ban or suspension, especially in relation to trades, they should not be allowed to so easily create a new, "puppet" account to continue their previous actions. This forum's administration should have the tool to check and verify the newly created account with a list of known bad IP addresses to prevent return-scammers and dirtbags.

While IP addresses can be spoofed, some tracker tools assess other aspects associated with an individual's specific "fingerprint" on the internet.


Personally, I like the format of this site better than some of the others. It's what leads me to post here more than the other two or three main forestry/chainsaw forums. However, I'm nearing my end with the trading post here. It's a weekly or more often occurrence people are getting burned on this site. The administration could take a speck of care and interest and tidy up some of the leaks, making this a better, stronger forum. I hope this time they don't immediately crap on the ideas.


Cheers!


Tim
Click to expand...
This is human nature,this is what humans do! "Nice specie" indeed!
It may work what you said above! Pdql could be the "problem solver"! 😁
 
HumBurner said:
Admins,

I have offered suggestions several times on this matter, including when the new admin took over and was OPENLY ASKING FOR ADVICE ON HOW TO IMPROVE THE SITE within the last year or so. So far my suggestions have been dismissed.


There have been a barrage of scammers and seemingly repeat users with new accounts attempting to take advantage of members on this forum.

The administration could resolve this with a few easy implementations. First and foremost is a trade rating/feedback system which rates, on 1-to-5 or 1-to-10 the quality of a trade undertaken. There would also be a short comment section to include details if desired.

Second, is an IP tracker. When one a member has proven themselves worthy of a ban or suspension, especially in relation to trades, they should not be allowed to so easily create a new, "puppet" account to continue their previous actions. This forum's administration should have the tool to check and verify the newly created account with a list of known bad IP addresses to prevent return-scammers and dirtbags.

While IP addresses can be spoofed, some tracker tools assess other aspects associated with an individual's specific "fingerprint" on the internet.


Personally, I like the format of this site better than some of the others. It's what leads me to post here more than the other two or three main forestry/chainsaw forums. However, I'm nearing my end with the trading post here. It's a weekly or more often occurrence people are getting burned on this site. The administration could take a speck of care and interest and tidy up some of the leaks, making this a better, stronger forum. I hope this time they don't immediately crap on the ideas.


Cheers!


Tim
Click to expand...
Chainsaws must be bought NEW from an authorised dealer,not from shady individuals piece of *****...
 
The owners and former owners have done a pretty damm good job.

This is probably not the location for this discussion and I am betting in the morning it will be locked as it should be.
 
I only have a few comments on this, as moderation doesn't really regulate memberships, nor can I speak for the administration, that often has a much different perspective than my own.

The issue seems to be this comment:
HumBurner said:
This forum's administration should have the tool to check and verify the newly created account with a list of known bad IP addresses to prevent return-scammers and dirtbags.
Click to expand...
We have those tools, and they get used for every membership. We are constantly checking members for multiple memberships, and we do compare IP addresses. Frequently, And other stuff, too. Checking IP addresses is NOT as reliable as you seem to think it is. I just checked my own IP address, and got about 100 different IP addresses, shared with about 5000 different members. These numbers are NOT as unique as you seem to think they are.

On the other hand, we are currently looking suspiciously at two memberships who are almost certainly one member, and they both have the same, singular IP address. Can we just ban one of those members? No. What if it is just two guys that use the same computer at work? See! It's just not as easy as you think.

2nd. regarding scammers? I'm pretty sure that trying to identify any scammers is outside the purvue of this website. There are cautionary notes at the tops of the trading posts as to exercising caution doing trades. This website isn't like eBay, where we are handling the transaction and getting a cut of the action. We provide a website that lets you guys find each other, and that is as far as we are involved. It is completely unfair of you to even ask us to try to find and regulate all the scammers in this world.

I do know that running this website is a lot of work for the administration, and they take scammers and multiple memberships very seriously. My personal suggestion is to give it a rest, because now they are going to be obliged to fritter away more time looking at this thread and deciding what to do with it. Time is a valuable commodity when you are in charge of many thousands of memberships.
 

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