A thought...

[Kubo]

I often see a lot of griping about the Beckett message boards, and how trades over there are very loosely monitored (ie, NOT monitored or tracked).

Now, the Beckett message boards by far have the most amount of traffic and posts of all of the other trading sites. I believe it is possible to bring that traffic over to this site with this idea:

Site Merger.

I am active in a few different trading card forums. The problem with each is that there is not enough activity to be able to truly get your wants completed, or to have lively discussions. I think if all the respectable outlying sites came together and could discuss terms for a merger, it would create and incredible environment that would at first challenge the Beckett message boards, then render the Beckett message boards useless as the traders on Beckett begin to migrate away to the conglomorate forum with just as many participants, better moderators, more security, and better features.

This goes out to the moderation crew and the site owner -- has this type of thing ever been discussed? Imagine it -- pool the top 5 non-BMB forums together and you'd have an incredible user base, which I'm sure would then be able to quickly convert the BMB user base.

[Bonderman FANatic]

I personally don't like that idea. Just like I wouldn't like it if Taco Bell and McDonalds merged to create the Fillet O Fish Taco. In my opinion "variety is the spice of life".

[Gkeenan]

I honestly think it is very interesting. I for one am afraid of trading on Beckett...love the traffic over there though and also love the selection of cards to trade for. HOWEVER, the people over there are pushy and rude (traders) I'd hate to be forced to deal with these types simply because there was no place else to go.

G

[pr0phet]

Although the idea is quite interesting I am going to ask you a question to rethink your process.

Look at all the major sites with activity. How many of those big sites have "unique members"

Unique member = somebody on just that site, MAYBE a second one((there are quite a few members in EVERY trade site))

The unique memberships are what can make or break a site in due time.

Jay

[rayny1]

I`m sure 90% of those over at beckett already know of this place as well as other sites. If they wanted to be here, they would. As a matter of fact, I believe I found this site from lurking over there.

I don`t like too much traffic though. Threads get buried under pages quite fast that way. I don`t mind a thread of mine getting pushed under a page or two in a few hours, but getting buried under 10 pages in one day is not what I would like. The more people, the more problems. Why do you think the beckett board is so unpopular at this time. Expansion in moderation is best.

[MichiganMan]

All I know is that I have been a member of several other boards, and the reason I left was because of the people. Get the point...

-Robert

[asujbl]

if you combined SCF and SCS (and possibly like TC or whatever it is) you'd be as big as beckett. I'm not saying do it...I'm just saying it wouldn't take that many sites to combine.

[supplystud]

I agree. I have used Sports Card Sheriff and Beckett from time to time. This is the only site that I repeatedly return to and track. It is the people. I would like to think that we do have a better group of people here at SCF than the average site. I would like to keep it that way. This site is policed well. When we get a person that is just burning up space and time with silly threads a stop is put to it. That would not be possible with the amount of people on Beckett.

[sivjosh]

render the Beckett message boards useless

From what I know, it seems like Beckett is doing a good enough job of that itself.

I would guess that each of the other sites are run by people more interested in acheiving their personal vision for a trading & discussion environment than in having the largest site with the most members, posts, trades.

[pr0phet]

I don`t like too much traffic though. Threads get buried under pages quite fast that way. I don`t mind a thread of mine getting pushed under a page or two in a few hours, but getting buried under 10 pages in one day is not what I would like. The more people, the more problems. Why do you think the beckett board is so unpopular at this time. Expansion in moderation is best.

If your happy with this site then its about at its limit. With no disrespect towards ANY other trading site, just look at there new thread totals per day compared to ours. Again, I mean no disprespect towards any other site or preference of a member for which site they trade on. There are sites that tromp us current active users as well.

Jay