Moderators (requests and notices)

Exactly

And you're talking to a tiger.

U mad bro?

Did someone request a seagull?

One seagull please, asked nobody, ever.

I can't see any abuse from him.

Neither can anybody else now that he has edited the homophobia out of this comment

.

Once you buy a bike, you're fully entitled to sell it on and I wouldn't discourage you from doing so.

We have several types of trader engaging with the community:

1. I've lots of spares, frames and whole bikes that I acquire from myriad sources around the country and I acquire them cheap and sell them for what the market pays. (Money is made by arbitraging the difference between acquisition cost and selling cost, the work is in recognising what people want to buy.)
   
2. I buy things at market prices, and I invest time and money into restoring or re-working the bikes until they leave my hands in much better condition than when I acquired them. (Money is made by doing the work others are too lazy to do but would pay for - i.e. taking an average bike and making it awesome.)
   
3. I buy things cheap and attempt to sell them high. (Money is made by selling to those too ignorant to know the real value.)
   
4. I import pieces of crap from Taiwan and try to off load them as something they're not.
   
   

We ban #4.

As to the others, which are you?

We love #1, are kinda fine with #2 (though we discourage a lack of transparency in what things cost and how to source and do things up - it's info that should be shared), and #3 we merrily troll as it's hardly in the spirit of a community.

If you're #2, you are welcome but don't try and hide information from customers.

If you're #3, you're going to be trolled constantly and you should fear for the reputation of your business. Be very careful.

Either way... #2 shouldn't care if prices are left up, and #3 is a messy path and you shouldn't have a say.

The community takes care of itself, I won't discourage a trader, but you've got fair warning that asking people to remove prices doesn't sound good to most people on here.

Neither can anybody else now that he has edited the homophobia out

Then I take that as a sign that the community is successfully moderating itself.

I would say I am #2 - not everyone knows how much work, sourcing of parts and expense goes into making something beautiful again. For example I buy a frame here travel to europe buy parts, pay for restoration etc. The potential buyer just sees £x and £y so they think you are making a fortune when in reality you are not and they don't always ask you why there is a price differential they just think you are expensive and are put off. So because of this I have asked people I buy from to take prices down.

BTW I haven't bought anything and resold it on the forum. And in this instance I bought the bike in Belgium not knowing it was on the forum, actually for a different price then it was advertised for.

I have noticed that in lots of cases where bikes have been sold the prices have been removed and it looks likes standard practice. If it is a rule that prices are left up then I definitely won't ask anyone to take the prices down but I think it needs to be clear to all buyers then they can decide if they want to buy here or not.

Nice post, Matt.

I agree you're #2, in which case show the original price and demonstrate what you offer... you've saved someone the unending time of scouring, having to travel to collect, researching the right parts, resolving compatibility issues, etc.

Trying to obscure the price at source isn't going to help you as they'll likely find an incorrect price via eBay and will value it incorrectly.

I'd switch the effort from trying to hide the price, to trying to communicate the value you offer. The people that manage this always sell at a good premium as their service is well appreciated by the buyers.

As for whether it's standard practice, it isn't. Some people edit out prices and as a community we haven't ruled against that because there are sometimes reasonable stances about why this would happen. But we do value the prices being left in, as then when we sell like items in the future we have a good idea about what a fair price was in the past. Far more people leave the price in, than edit out... so it's not an issue. It's felt to be an inconvenience to all, but a mild inconvenience isn't an issue.

I'll still not open an old advert and hide the price though. It stays as is now.

Ok thanks for clearing that up.

Something along the lines of 'I have changed the chain, freewheel, chainrings and brake blocks and rebuilt and re-cabled the derailleurs and brakes' would probably help your case.

Just out of interest, what are the forum's thoughts on 'I got lucky on Ebay/ found it in a bike jumble for £x but will sell for £y which is more like its real worth'.

No personal axe to grind, I've only sold one bike on here and that was at 'mates rates'.

No intention to cause offence. I felt entitled to ask you to judge yourself since you have posted on a public forum, asking for a service to be done for you that puts your business practices into a possible bad light.

Thread seems to have moved on, in a good way.

If £y is still a decent price I see no problem. Some people don't like this though and will call out other members for doing so.

where did t1608 go ?
did he leave ? or change his user name ?

Joined the ranks of the untypeables. @#Ⓣ I believe.

phew !
can't keep track of all the name changes
thanks 6pt

http://www.clickhole.com/article/anthropologists-are-verge-figuring-out-how-youre-s-1299?utm_campaign=default&utm_medium=ShareTools&utm_source=twitter

Just got what appears to be a Spam message from — @user49782

Asking for my contact details

@Velocio

yup just got that too

Can a mod please delete this thread please? https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/257896/#comment11931510

It's a duplicate and for some reason it's locked; no one can reply

@Velocio maybe?

Also just got spammed...

Needs help or something. I jumped in immediately to help!

It might cut down on all sorts of trouble if people were not allowed to post anything until they had changed their user name to something other than user[1-9]{5,6}