Advertisements

[john]

Due to numerous complaints regarding fraudulent sales of animals in the Advertisements section, the powers that be have agreed a new system for regulating the advertising of animals for sale or trade on the site.

I'm currently implementing the new system but the most important new aspects of it are:

1. In order to post in the "For Sale or Trade" section you must have special user approval set on your Caudata.org account. If you are a Caudata.org Donor, Site Contributor or Moderator then you already have this special approval set on your account so you can now read number 2 below.
   Anyone who does not fall into any of these categories will need to fill in an application (this will be linked in the Advertisement section of the topics page) and agree to the conditions listed on the application. Your application will then be sent to the Administrators (Nate and John) for approval or rejection. Now read number 2. <LI>Those with the special approval necessary for posting are still subject to an advert-by-advert approval scheme. When you post your advert it will be sent for approval to the moderators on the site. If they OK it then it will show up in the appropriate Advertisements section. There should be a relatively short wait for this (a few hours at most). They may also reject your advert.

If someone is deemed to have broken the conditions to which they agreed at the application stage, they may be subject to removal from the forum completely. This is at the discretion of the moderators. There won't be any second chances.

The conditions include:

1. You will not offer wild caught stock for sale or trade. <LI>If you attempt to sell "long-term captive" stock, the approval of your advertisement is totally at the discretion of the moderator to whom it goes for approval. <LI>You agree to ask a "fair" price for your stock. Any advertisement judged by the moderator to whom it goes for approval as a deliberate attempt to exploit a species' rarity will be rejected and the advertiser in question will lose their status as an approved advertiser. <LI>You will tell the truth in your advertisements. This means that age, description/identification and any other pertinent info will be accurate, to the best of your knowledge. Again, the advertiser in question may lose their status as an approved advertiser, at the discretion of the moderator to whom the advertisement goes for approval. <LI>You will comply with international and local laws regarding the species in question. Those judged to be flouting such laws will have their approval to advertise revoked and their account subject to banishment from the site. <LI>We the moderators of Caudata.org will try to treat each person fairly but we reserve the right to act at our own discretion in each situation.

(Message edited by john on October 18, 2004)

 

[john]

I'm thinking of adding an exception clause to individual commercial advertisers on a case by case basis. For example, someone who breeds axolotls commercially - i.e. they are highly unlikely to be wild-caught stock. Any thoughts?

Also, I'm going to delete all of the old advertisements this evening as soon as I'm sure the new system is in place.

 

[ira]

is the wanted list going to be approval only too?

 

[david]

Is it OK to sell Wild Caught T-shirts?

 

[john]

Ira - Not right now, we'll see how it goes though.

 

[john]

The new advertisement system has been implemented.

 

[jameswei]

Hi there,

I think the advertisment system would be better if there was some form of comment or feedback section about the seller for potential buyers to be aware of who they are entrusting their money to. This would work for the modder's, as well, because they can use this information to help differentiate the bad questionable sellers from the good ones.

just my two cents

(Message edited by newtron on October 18, 2004)

 

[john]

There is such a facility - in the donor section. I've seen such things elsewhere but most of the horror stories are down to deals with commercial/for profit sellers. There's only one such seller on this site that I would ever allow to post in the for sale section and that's Michael Shrom.

 

[sergé]

GREAT!!! I can only give you and the powers that be compliments on this. It will greatly improve the quality of the site, which else would become more a trade site than an info site. And we still want to be taken seriously, right?

 

[philipp]

Hi John, hi all
At first: Thanks very much for such a good work.
Still believing in the big chance of such a site, becoming a discussion board for "all-good", enthusiastic people, may be just a dream, but why should one care about people, laughing at us?
I think this is a big effort in avoiding international sell-out.
Greetings,
Philipp

 

[yago]

I do support the idea. Moreover, any trading through caudata generates some benefits. So it is more than reasonable that only caudata donors will have this service available. If anybody wants to take advantage of this service they should donate something every year. And may be they should have a certain amount of post as well which represents their contribution to the knowledge and info of the site.
This could be a good back up for caudata.org costs as well.
Greetings
Yago

 

[greg]

It will be interesting to see how many fewer ads there are. But maybe it would be worthwhile to have a commercial vendor section separate from private collector/breeder section in the ads. Perhaps some people would rather deal with an individual than a business. Or vice-versa. Maybe commercial vendors could pay an ad fee?

Or maybe we just let the commercial posts go to kingsnake.com anyway and otherwise not deal with it here.

greg

 

[shaun]

Well said Greg - I was originally put off by this idea, but I've come to like it. How often do commercial dealers post ads here? Almost never, and someone always links the newt and salamander ads on kingsnake, whether it's to belittle their greed and stupidity, or to let fellow hobbyists know about potentially good animals.

 

[jesper]

Yeah, a good example of this was the chenggongensis thread I posted....
I linked to Probreeder merely because I was curious whether the animals were truly chenggongensis or not....Turned out I supported the sales of these variants of cyanurus.....
The point being that we have to able to discuss such matters, don't we? Unfortunately that equals spreading the hype......Whatever was said it seemed to be in Probreeder's favour in the end and that is sad.

 

[TJ]

Just my humble opinion, but the advertisement section, as it is currently displayed on the forum page, is a tad too prominent for my liking

If there is space available on that page, I'd much prefer to see the Common Name, Family, Genus and Species tree highlighted with a brighter color and opened up to display its contents than to see the advertisement section graced in bold pink and the three categories of advertisements shown there. Alternatively, the advertisements section could be moved all the way to the bottom of the page (out of site on most screens).

This site is more about discussions about salamanders than trading/selling them, so shouldn't the "look" reflect this? I'm not necessarily for doing away totally with the advertisements, but I think we could be a bit more subtle in accommodating them...

(Message edited by TJ on October 26, 2004)

 

[al]

I believe the original intent of the adverts. section was intended for the individual keepers that are breeding their species and for trading. Breeding requires diligent husbandry and allows other members an opportunity to share offspring or aquire different species.

I've stopped collecting wild species for various reasons, and would not feel right about selling them on any market either. I'm not opposed to helping others out with collecting common local species (non-protected) to enhance their keeping/breeding projects. This would only be on a individual by individual basis. Starting out 6 years ago with this hobby, It was difficult to obtain non-native species that were common in trade and required me offering local wild caught species for trade (legally). Back then, It seemed there were less breeders offering offspring to get one started. I have made some mistakes though and tried to learn from them.

Another question would be, what about Ambystoma sp. that are local to some parts and not others in the country (USA)? This is not a captive bred species and requires wild populations to obtain from. For some one to keep any ambystomide (other than Axolotl), it would require wild caught (species or eggs). I do see the problem with the ridiculous wild collecting of various native species by newbies that are trying to generate some sort of "trade" situation. If I had some A. maculatum larva/offspring and wanted to share (eggs obtained in the wild/garden ponds) then how would I be able to advertise this? I'm guessing the moderators would use some discretion with each case?

It brings me to another issue. Ethics concerning this hobby. It would be helpful and educational to have a section on ethics on various topics of the hobby ie: collecting (wild), or environmental issues of releasing back into the wild. We have touched upon this on the forum with some discussions (usually when someone crossed the line), but it would be nice to see it in a guideline format (kind of like "best practices")It may prevent newbies falling into the same pitfalls when they are starting out. There needs to be a balance between what is fact and opinion though. There are many opinions and feelings toward wild collecting. I know some of our current Moderators have shed light on this (in a positive way) many times over and have some good fundamental practices.
just some thoughts,