Introducing Panjo, a new Classifieds section

[Laura N]

Um...no. I may be a luddite. Thank you Dan for the forum and the ability to sell here.

As a seller I see no upside to this. If you want money, ask.

As a buyer reading through their terms it appears they are passing the responsibility onto paypal. I have not quoted the relevant bits because you should read it yourselves.

I agree that the benefits to sellers aren't as great. The automatic Paypal payment will probably be appreciated by some sellers because they don't have to deal with all the PMs back and forth, or with buyers who are slow payers. But it seems like there's a benefit for Fountain Pen Geeks, and that's enough for me.

I do a lot of fundraising as a volunteer. "All you have to do is ask" doesn't always work. First, many people aren't comfortable saying "please contribute." Second, a surprising number of people just ignore such a request anyway. And others are too busy, or put it off till later, or assume it's not needed. Asking for money works best in person and when there's a little benefit for it, two things that are harder to accomplish on a free website.

Also, no matter what, some people will never contribute. For those people, a small selling fee is probably much more acceptable.

This was a nice reminder to me to make a contribution, which I'd thought I'd already done. Another problem with asking for money -- people think they've already contributed.