Lots of nice people with diverse kit here, might be another good place to buy/sell used stuff?
1 Like
Currently under active consideration. There are people on the Forum who could endlessly buy and sell to each other without a problem. But what if there is a problem ? Roon can’t involve itself in dispute resolution.
I think pretty much every site out there that offers a for sale type area has several clear disclaimers, such as
-Be safe - take care to make sure items/individual are genuine - cash on collection where possible.
-that Roon has no part in the sale and no ability to verify/arbitrate etc
-and some sort of forum minimum contributions so people can’t just turn up and (ab)use the forum for selling only, and/or scam.
-if the item’s too good a deal to be true, it often is.
Beyond that I think it’s always sensible to buy/sell from people you feel comfortable with based on forum interactions, and observe the same common sense precautions as you would buying and selling from anyone - as we would all hopefully do as grown-ups (well, maybe not based on all our posts).
On pink fish one must have 50 posts before one can sell, which has been a great way of ensuring scammers steer clear.
HOWEVER, I think as this is a ROON forum, I think it would be prudent of ROON not to have a for sale section as
“I bought an XXXXX on the ROON forum and it was faulty” - tainted by association, so why risk it?
A way around could possibly be a links to sales on other sites section. So if I had something for sale on CA or PFM etc I could alert people here to it, but the selling would not be in the Roon forum.
SJB
1 Like
Do people really think like that? Maybe I’m just different 
Sometimes I swear you read my mind SJB (as to advertising sales on other sites). Thank goodness for timestamps.
As I say, this is currently under active consideration by the devs (meaning @mike), and he’ll let us all know what the devs decide in due course.
@Carl and @ncpl have had some actual experience of trading on the Hitchhiker’s Forum, which puts them considerably in front of me.
Sensible people don’t. But that doesn’t include everyone.
Oh they do indeed and you’ve led a charmed life if you haven’t met any yet.
They way I see it Roon have nothing to gain by having a buy and sell section as I cannot see how it could gain them any extra business. Most of us are members of sites that do have a buy and sell section.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love one here as there would be Roon end points being swapped most likely, I’d love to be able to buy someone’s excess Pi solutions.
The last thing Roon want is a post on CA - Warning- scam on Roon Forum or some such.
SJB
1 Like
Agree with SJB. I’m admin on an AV forum and the biggest headache is that arising from deals gone bad etc. and forum mods and admins are inevitably drawn in to resolve. There are already many online places to flog kit.
3 Likes
On Hitchhikers we haven’t had too many horror stories, BUT, we do operate a couple of strict rules
e.g. user has to have >10 posts and “me too” and “+1” don’t count (at least as far as the forum software allows).
We don’t like product flippers using the forum and making out they are personally owned items, “one careful lady driver” type adds. A few pseudo-dealers typically hoovered up stock that folks couldn’t sell or wanted to get rid of as a job-lot. A week later the the same gear was back up for sale with no record of it being someone else’s gear. Nothing wrong with buying to sell-on but it did seem unethical to not be clear that it was the case.
That takes some work though and I think it is in the category of “to be looked at again” for the HH rules. Now that Joel is @ Roon we are slightly down on mods so minimising work is a good thing.
Many, many users on HH have bought and sold genuinely good gear from other users…myself included. The vast majority of interactions are really excellent but with heavy speakers and relatively expensive rack gear it would often be face-to-face. This removes a massive amount of risk and aggro. HH is a one-brand place though which makes it a bit easier.
For Roon and potentially “ANY” type of sales of any item, I am definitely in the “not worth it camp”. I just don’t know if it does add any value to Roon forum or the brand.
I do like the idea of links to other places though. It’s a bit of a half-way-house. Minimal moderation needed. However, you need to avoid spam though so I would suggest the >10 genuine posts rule so that a seller has to be a “contributing member” of the forum.
3 Likes
I don’t think it would be a good idea, for at least two reasons: a) it’s not Core Business for Roon and b) it’s not worth the hassle. As has been pointed out, there’s plenty of other places to buy/sell stuff.
I don’t know. What you usually see is that these for sale topics can derail quickly with price discussions, nerd police comments, etc…
Also since we are a fairly international bunch, selling gear has a few more challenges than as on a local forum (shipping, different voltages, international payments, etc…).
Implementing a trading page would require work by Roon (e.g. support for funds xfer, tracking trades, ratings, etc, etc, etc). I much rather see the Roon developers work on the Meta Data issues and opening up all meta data fields for user editing.
There are plenty of swap sites out there that do a good job. If you want to sell something and alert the Roon community then just provide the link to the item being offered.
1 Like
Boy, do I wish I never mentioned it 
2 Likes
I like this idea and think a sub forum where people could post links to other sites with the listing might work, but that does still require moderation and clear rules for spam. The fact that people who post here vary so much geographically also complicates things.
Keep it Roon. Plenty of other for sale forums out there with outdated ads. No need to create another.
3 Likes
We are going to give it a shot. We really value the community that’s sprung up here over the last 18 months, and we know that anywhere audiophiles and music collectors gather, there will be interest in trading and selling gear.
That said, this is something of an experiment. Myself, Roon staff, and our moderators will be keeping an eye on things just like we do elsewhere on the community site, but we will not be policing or arbitrating sales and trades between community members.
If policing the forthcoming Sales and Trades category starts sucking up bandwidth for Roon staff or moderators, or if people aren’t able to understand that trades and sales are strictly between members, we may decide this is a net negative for our community. But for now, we’re going to give it a shot, so start gathering your unused gear and keep an eye out in the near future.
I’ve seen many sales threads degenerate into discussions on prices and this or that…perhaps make it a one post thread, no replies, only pm to the seller or buyer in the case of wanted items
Bumping is maybe doable by edits I’m not sure if the system supports that