Hugh Jazz Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 (edited) In response to the new Geocoin Forum policies concerning the (now prohibited) selling of personal non-trackable coins, and in my desire to see Groundspeak succeed wildly as a business, here is my proposal, offered free of charge and without obligation: Groundspeak to create a Paid Classified Ad forum. Set the payment scale as you will, I would propose as an example, a fixed fee to start: something on the order of $25-$50 for one ad, to run for one month. Possibly could have two rates of service, one for individual sellers (just a guy selling off his excess limited edition coins), doesn't have his own commercial website or anything, and one for businesses (coin makers with their own dedicated websites, etc.). The individual-seller ads could be maybe limited to 300 bytes, and the business ads could get maybe 1K bytes and a 400x300 image. Who would place an ad in the Paid Classified Ad forum? *Sellers of personal non-trackable geocoins *Sellers of Trackable Geocoins *Companies that mint geocoins, to Advertise their Services *Sellers of Geocaching related Supplies and Equipment *Providers of Services related to Geocaching ...and many more. I would limit the screen-size of the ads (either byte count or image size) so that someone couldn't monopolize the whole page with excessively lengthy posts. Ads would be posted in a first-in-first-out manner, posting to be done only by a Groundspeak moderator, and there'd be no ability for anyone to reply or BUMP the ad back to the top. Potential buyers (pretty much everyone with forum access) would have free access to read the forum, but posting to the forum would be done by a Groundspeak moderator and only after payment was received in advance. With the establishment of this new Paid Classified Ad forum, a very strict policy of no commercial postings or linkings could be enforced in the rest of the forums, with each forum moderator kindly pointing violators to the Paid Classified Ad forum. The establishment of this forum would not require any new software. A dedicated moderator would do all the ad-checking and posting, after payment had been received. It is my hope that the establishment of this forum would 1) allow the geocaching community to have a place to transact their geocaching-related business and 2) end the 'free ride' of the forums by commercial forces at Groundspeak's expense and 3) compensate Groundspeak for the use of their forums for commercial purposes. -HJ Edited January 20, 2006 by Hugh Jazz Link to comment
+Hula Bum Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 I didn't read the whole post, but I agree with the idea, I actually posted that thought on the geocoin thread yesterday! Don't know if it helps to show support or not, but seems like it can't hurt! Link to comment
+Hula Bum Posted January 20, 2006 Share Posted January 20, 2006 Perhaps a fee schedule dictated by the amount of coins being sold? x amount for 1-100 coins y amount for 101-200 and so on. Link to comment
Recommended Posts