I’m posting this here so hopefully I don’t need to re-iterate them over private messages. I’m going to address some common concerns by members which have recently reached a boiling point.

Orlando, why can people delete their own comments? I haven’t been asked this one in about a month, but I should nevertheless give a public response. The Sign Post wasn’t put in for neutral commentary, it’s clearly (as an example, MySpace) a moderated spot in the user’s profile where friends can leave little notes. This is the user’s “personal space”, so to speak, which gives them free reign as to what they want displayed. Without the ability to delete comments a disgruntled trader (or any friend, for that matter) could come along and spam their Sign Post to their heart’s content. Quite frankly, I don’t want to be caught in the middle of a spat and have to expend time and effort into mediating something so trivial. It’s one of the reasons you don’t pay a cent to use this site. Commentary on how crappy of a trader the person is should be relegated to the Karma commentary page for that person. Which brings me to the next question…

If the person doesn’t mark their item as shipped then we can’t complete the trade. If we can’t complete the trade, I can’t leave Karma. What gives?! What’s a better solution? Allow Karma rating before an item even ships? That in no way remedies anything, it only makes things worse since you’re now blatantly given the ability to comment on a transaction that hasn’t even occurred yet. In the event that someone does leave the item in limbo at your expense, contact me about it and I’d be happy (maybe not happy, but I wouldn’t complain) to mark it so you can leave Karma. It takes me 3 clicks and doesn’t happen as often as you might think.

I want to be an admin/moderator so I can help. Can I? Valid point, that’s kind of you. The only problem is I don’t really have a centralized administration panel. I didn’t feel the need to build one in the beginning since it was just a couple of us fooling around. Now it’s just me and I’ve gotten used to digging into the database and manually doing what needs to be done. Right now, anyone tagged as an admin only has the power to edit/delete Rehashes, comments, forum posts, and questions/answers. By far the most common requests are for deleting trades past the point of no return, something I don’t have a quick little click interface for. If I get around to putting together a more elegant back-end for administrators I’ll contact those of you who wanted the gig. Last I checked it was about 4 of you.

I was swaplifted by so-and-so, what are you going to do about it? There’s nothing much I can do except give you their contact information if you don’t have it. Can I send them a sternly worded letter? Sure, though I don’t see much good in that. Can I get the police involved? That one I get asked repeatedly. Let’s pretend I had the resources and time to go after every swaplifter for a second.

You’re in New York. The swaplifter is in California. Rehash is in Florida. Whose jurisdiction is it in? If you guessed either of those three, you would be wrong. This now became a federal matter, and pursuing a federal misdemeanor for petty theft is like trying to get your money back from the Wayans brothers themselves for what you wasted on the movie “White Chicks.”

On the other hand, if you take it upon yourself to get the feds involved in an interstate commerce petty theft charge, I’ll try and provide you with any information you might need that can help on your case. I would say it’s not likely that much will come of it except a lot of your time (others have tried, I don’t know the outcome of said cases) but stranger things have happened.

Deleting swaplifters from the site does little to curb their influence. At least leaving their profiles with a notice, low Karma, bad Karma comments, etc. is a good way for others to know they’re scammers.

I’ve tried to come up with a way to try and stop swaplifters, but they’re crafty buggers. If a multi-billion dollar company like Ebay can’t completely eradicate them it’ll obviously pose a challenge for a little green site in Miami.

Why do you take so long to respond to my message!? To be fair, that doesn’t happen all the time. Mostly I’ll check a message and realize I’m currently too busy to read it entirely or give a full response so I’ll put it off for later. Eventually later I forget about it when I’m tending to other messages. I realize this a few days later and I apologize profusely.

You said you were going to do such-and-such. Why haven’t you done it yet? Time, time, time. This isn’t my day job; I don’t get paid for this. I created this site on an idea my sister [[anayma]] had and stayed up because a nice little community has grown around it organically. I intend to keep it going, regardless of how much I’ve paid out-of-pocket to keep it that way, for as long as I possibly can. When I get free time outside of my normal hobbies and friends, I dedicate it to Rehash by fixing things or adding features. I’m not complaining or giving excuses for sympathy, I’m just listing the facts.

I’ll get to everything I said I would do, it may just take time.

If you got paid for this, would you do more? Can I donate to Rehash? No and no. If you want to donate, go on Kiva.org and donate (loan, actually) that money to some people who are making what they’re doing their livelihood.

I think I’ve covered everything I want to cover for tonight. If you think I missed anything post it here and I’ll respond. Cheers!

BISCAYNE PARK, FL