A request for a clarification on a forum rule

[Basilisk]

Obviously this isn't a hot deal, but it is solely concerned with this forum so I'll post my question here:

A thread was locked because it gave an EBay link.

This forum's policy states: "No links to auction sites. We do not consider auctions to be Hot Deals. Posting a link to your own auction offer may be reason to lock your account."

• Auctions are not Deals, for obvious reasons.
  
• Buy It Now's [BiN's] of single units aren't worth noting here -- well, maybe if it was a Lear Jet, or such 😉.
  
• And marketing items for personal gain is forbidden in this forum. It's been pretty well policed in the past, as typically the items aren't deal-priced.

But I'm not grasping the logic of locking all BiN sales on auction sites, and I'm curious what the reasoning is. I can guess, but I shouldn't have to: the reasoning should be stated in the Rules. I apologize if it was given and I missed it.

My guess is that this is, again, to reduce marketing for personal gain in this forum. But that's hard to identify whether an Auction site or an obscure dot-com is used if the offer is clearly A Deal -- and the above-linked BiN definitely was deal-priced. And it wasn't for a single item: the seller -- now two sellers of the same product -- are offering multiple units.

So... I'd be interested in The Official Explanation, and I'd suggest it be added to the Rules post.

Thanks!


Then why post it here?
Moved to PFI where it BELONGS
AT Mod
Gillbot

 

[alaricljs]

Similarly there's a deal on ebay BiN from Beach Camera. They're a real retailer and they happen to clearance stuff through ebay. It's $100 cheaper on ebay for the current deal they're running vs buying it from their site.

 

[SunnyD]

There's a forum to discuss things such as this.

 

[Gillbot]

Obviously this isn't a hot deal

Then why post it here?
Moved to PFI where it BELONGS
AT Mod
Gillbot

 

[esquared]

We need to ban all eBay links as deals because of the possibilities of self promotion along with most items being a single deal and by that definition, is not a hot deal.

I hear what you say about online retailers, such as Beach Camera, who are selling their wares on eBay. This does seem to eliminate a portion of hot deals available. The problem is, we don't have the manpower or time to start looking at all the eBay BIN deals from online retailers who are selling on eBay.

Buy.com, Beach, etc would be easy to figure out. But what about the little stores, retailers who no one has heard of? How do we determine if they are legitimate or not. Could they be someone's own store pushing self-promotion? Maybe, maybe not. Problem is, if we allowed Beach Camera, etc we have to allow others and the others would not be as easily to determine as the big stores for legitimacy.

Again, there is a lack of mod time to actually go through all of this and if we did allow it, the time needed to be spent on checking these stores out would is not possible.

Therefore we have to exclude all eBay links as hot deals.

 

[mnewsham]

We need to ban all eBay links as deals because of the possibilities of self promotion along with most items being a single deal and by that definition, is not a hot deal.

I hear what you say about online retailers, such as Beach Camera, who are selling their wares on eBay. This does seem to eliminate a portion of hot deals available. The problem is, we don't have the manpower or time to start looking at all the eBay BIN deals from online retailers who are selling on eBay.

Buy.com, Beach, etc would be easy to figure out. But what about the little stores, retailers who no one has heard of? How do we determine if they are legitimate or not. Could they be someone's own store pushing self-promotion? Maybe, maybe not. Problem is, if we allowed Beach Camera, etc we have to allow others and the others would not be as easily to determine as the big stores for legitimacy.

Again, there is a lack of mod time to actually go through all of this and if we did allow it, the time needed to be spent on checking these stores out would is not possible.

Therefore we have to exclude all eBay links as hot deals.

Open up positions for some new Hot deals mods?

 

[olds]

Open up positions for some new Hot deals mods?

It would still be too time consuming and a PITA trying to determine which store were legit and which were not.