Hi, I have not launched my forums yet, but I already have a market place set up with iTrader that is functional. I am just wondering if it is a good idea to have a marketing place or not. I am thinking of the legal issues when it comes to people frauding in that part of the forums and if people do get burned from it, then I have a feeling I will keep getting emails and PM's where people will be asking what they should do, can I pay compensate them back, etc. Do you think all the hassle having a market place is worth it or is there not really any hassle for having one. If you have one then what are your experiences? I don't know whether to launch the forums with it or if I should take it of before launch. I prefer to do all this before hand and not to have it and then delete everything once it gets busy as people would be in the middle of deals and things and it will only get to my users wick if I suddenly deleted that forum or close it.
Keep it there for now, make it clear to your users that YOU are in no way responsible for specific trades, and that it's up to the users to protect themselves... Don't worry about possibly having to shut it down - if you do decide to eventually go this route, just put up an announcement for users to wrap things up and that it would be shutting down in exactly xx number of days so they all have advance notice.
The thing is that once it is shut down then it will not look good having a load of open forums and that one shut down that is still on the site. It will be like having a load of nice shops next to a shop that is boarded up sort of thing. I guess that the iTrader may come in handy though as I am planing on selling subscriptions, which I may use in the buy, sell & trade area so that I can get more business.