Howdy Folks,
Since it's the start of a new year I thought  I would check with everyone about the state of our forum.
-Are the tacked threads working? I'm trying to use them more as "current issues" instead of wasted space.
-Does the Important Info link at the top of the page have all the info that ya'll would like in it? Does it make sense?
-Why are there so many missing members here?
-We need an alternative Carolina group that could be used for Carolina only items (specifically the possibility of running a table at local gun shows). "Cackalacky Carbines" is the only one so far that sort of sticks.
Feel free to post here or IM me instead if you like.

The Staff at ARF have given me a set of rules that I must enforce. I have not had to lock many threads and I have  IM'd the poster with the reason. Here are the hometown rules.
-There is no selling in hometown, we have an excellent EE forum here and a link just for searching local deals.
-Local paid matches must be posted in the tacked  Local Matches thread.
-Everything included in the Code of Conduct

I enjoy being a part of this community and hope to meet and shoot with more of you in the next 365 days.

FlatFrogFlyer - We are allowed one group buy in hometown. I am thinking about trying to do  a small one first to get the hang of it.

UnusSupra1 - There is no selling for anyone in the hometown forums. The staff did allow one vendor to sell hometown merchandise in one thread of each hometown.

Quoted: Quoted: UnusSupra1 - There is no selling for anyone in the hometown forums. The staff did allow one vendor to sell hometown merchandise in one thread of each hometown. Ya, I know the staff or more like the owners of the site approved the sale. Change the rules when it suites you, any thing to make a $! This site operators just like the North Carolina state government. It might be just 1 now, but what will it be down the road. Old EE rules were no btt till 72hrs of till your ad hit page 3. that was for everybody, now some vendor’s btt every 12 or 24 hrs, example- http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=7&f=21&t=313880 But for members and team members it is still 72hrs. http://www.ar15.com/forums/forum.html?b=7&f=22 Just watch how quickly a guy’s (be it member or team member) ad gets buried by the vendors in a matter of a couple of hours. ok rant is off have a nice day

Yes there are different rules in the EE for dealers. Dealers are allowed to BTT there adds before the 72hr deadline that everyone else has to follow. It is one of the benefits we give dealers for their support of the site. It is not done in anyway to discriminate against non-dealers. These rules were put into place because of members that took advantage of the situation. If BTTs were allowed, there would be members that just spent their time BTT their adds. It would turn into a BTT war in the EE. Since the Mods and Staff have enough to do in the EE, it was decided to put an end to the BTT type posts.

As far as the HTFs go, u352 is correct in that there are no sales allowed in the them; with just a couple of exceptions. These are Staff approved Group Buys, and Industry Partners are allowed to post from time to time. We also allowed the HTF gear. Obviously it was better for HTF gear to be listed in the HTFs.

As to the original topic of this thread, you're doing a great job Johnny. Keep up the good work!

I agree that the AR based forum has a lot of dealers. This is one of the reasons we aren't accepting any new dealers on the site. While we have a lot of dealers, and their adds to take up a lot of space, these are long running threads. Most of the members have seen the adds, and just bypass them while looking for other deals.

I don't know about everyone else, but I usually check the first few pages of adds, just to see what is up for sale. Unfortunately, I the good deals are usually gone before I get there.