Petition for the HWZ Garage Sales Forum to be reopened

Since the inception of the HardwareZone forums half a decade ago, the Garage Sales forum has been an integral part of the community. Forum members who would like to sell things off for other purposes would be able to post in the Garage Sales forum and expect a prompt response.

Besides that, other members will be aware of the sellers or buyers karma, as other members would then chip in and indicate that he/her is a good/bad seller/buyer. This also encourages the buyer/seller to be honest and thus have a good reputation in the GS forum.

In the middle of July, an administrator of the HardwareZone forums announced that the Garage Sales had been closed for clean-up. However, by August, it was apparent that the Garage Sales forum would be gone forever. Forum members, especially those who have signed up for a deluxe membership just for the GS forum, are naturally feeling very upset and appalled at the administration of HWZ. Not only were we not given any notifications, but the administrator was clearly lying by trying to cover-up the situation that the GS forum will not be back up, saying that it had been closed for clean-up.

Sure, HWZ administrators could point us to the Classified Ads, however, there is a general lack of transparency there. It is just like any other Classifieds sections in the newspapers.

If a member wants to purchase something but does not clearly have an idea what he wants to buy, he could just pop over to the Garage Sales forum and take a quick look. However, in the Classified Ads section, he would have to browse several sections, which is time-consuming.

Also, members can easily organize Mass Orderings through the GS forums, but this is almost impossible with the Classified Ads section. People who want to sell several items will also find it extremely difficult through the Classified Ads section, especially with the one item per day (five if user is a deluxe member) ruling.

We understand that HardwareZone is expensive to operate and run, and closure of the GS would save server resources. However, are the ads that we have tolerated with useless? In that case, why are the ads still there? The administration has not given us a satisfactory answer as of yet.

The GS forum is an integral part of the community, the members need it. We hereby petition for the Garage Sales forum to be reopened. If you support our cause, please sign the petition.