Allowed use of tradeskill forums?

Wow.. didn't think I'd ever use 'tradeskill' outside of EQ2 and WoW... but it does apply, since people make businesses (Including me ^^) out of building, scripting, and texturing.. anyway, on to the question!

I know that LL has a page that show businesses available to be hired to do various services (Though I don't know how you even get on there...) however, it seems only to be the larger businesses... so..

Would it be an allowed use of the '**** Tips' forum to have a thread with 'Small Businesses' listed in it so people could simply check there and see if anyone does the kind of work they are looking for or something? I think it'd be nice to have.. maybe I'm crazy

People mostly do that in the "Services" forum. Personally, I'm not terribly thrilled by this idea... every piece of advice, every script, etc. in the "tips" forum is free.

I know you can post your availability there, but there is no 'list' of businesses for a specific job, and thats what I'm talking about... a list of businesses for various projects, so that you can go to one place.

'Services' forum threads are quickly buried, or often titled obscurely, and so not always so useful

And they are wonderful... but people (This was brought to mind by a recent post in the building forum btw) seem to look there first if they arent used to the forums. I'm not saying like.. sharing tips and such for money, but letting the businesses be known.. or maybe this kinda list post would belong somewhere else.. in any case I think such a thread would be useful to both businesses and consumers.

Hmmm. Small business registry sounds like a great blog/website to me.

Just because I would think you would want more flexibility in how the listings are managed than a forum offers. For example, wouldn't you want separate listings for skin-makers than for people who make buildings? Also, if it was a website, it would be a great place for the people posting now in Services to market themselves TO the business owners.

However, if you wanted to stay in the forums area, perhaps the "Products" area, which already offers segmentation into various types of products, would be a better place to put such a thread?

Hmmm,... I like the blog/site idea... I think I'll start building one when I get home ^^

And.. probably is something kinda similar, but I'd do my best to keep it up-to-date and well organized. For now if anyone wants their business listed, send me a PM =P

Yes. Please don't do this. There are already lots of forums for classifieds and offers of services; the tips forums are specifically for people asking advice about techniques. Somebody should be able to come to them and look around and see, well, tips. (I know that one thread wouldn't stop that, but it would doubtless snowball if one was allowed.)

People certainly _do_ post product wanted threads in the tips forums, but they get in the way - if I see a thread called, oh, "sim-wide lighting system", and the post is actually "hi I want a lighting system for my sim controlled by menus, I don't know anything about scripting, please sell me one" I have wasted my time clicking on that thread.

Probably true, and an external site would be a good place to put it. Or in fact I'm sure that one of the commercial forums could benefit from a big thread where people could post if they were offering their services - I'm sure it wouldn't be against the rules to start one.

I'm not going to use forums for this idea, going to make a website as suggested.. even posted in the services forum to let it be known though it hasn't been built yet.

But.. at the same time, it might not be a waste of time.. if you're a business owner who does full-sim lighting, and happen to be there to offer tips, but see it, that is a business opportunity.. though I know what you mean ^^

Well, speaking for Scripting Tips certainly, while a lot of the serious contributors may well have businesses, they tend to pick their clients and scripts carefully, and use the Tips forum as a chance to both teach people things and discuss scripting themselves, hopefully learning something from both.

I think it's perfectly acceptable for people to mention in passing that they have a business selling that sort of thing or would take contracts, as long as it's not simply spam and the post also has some content useful for others who aren't interesting in buying or hiring the person.

(Actually there's been a bit of an exodus from Scripting Tips due to BBCode being disabled and it being an utter pain to post scripts or read scripts that have been posted... but that's another, bitter, story.)

exodus? Lol seems more active then building or texturing.... then again it seems more complex as well to me..

Scripting is one of those areas that is much more easy to explain in text than, say, building, where you rather have to see what somebody is doing. Also, scripters tend in my experience to be quite didactic. But a lot of people have stopped contributing due to frustration. I'm, oh, perhaps 5% as active here as I used to be a year ago.