I’ve been a member here since November 2021 and have always tried to engage positively when posting, sharing useful info where I can. Unfortunately, I don’t have the time to read hundreds of posts, give/receive lots of likes, or reply across many topics regularly.
I understand the need for protections against scams in the Community Market, but the current trust level thresholds (visiting 15+ days, reading 100+ posts, 60 minutes spent, etc.) seem to go beyond filtering bad actors. It effectively locks out long-time members like me who aren’t super active daily, which feels like gatekeeping and favoritism toward only the most engaged users.
I’m disappointed, as I’d like to sell some parts from my recent upgrade. I’ll look elsewhere, but it’s a shame to lose reasons to access this community.
No need for suggestions on alternatives - thanks.
Agree that people who have been members long enough should have access. What “long enough” is, I don’t know, but 2021 sure would qualify to me. If one was here before the Community Market even existed… yeah, I think you should get in. 
But I don’t think the thresholds reflect favoritism or otherwise an intent to go beyond filtering bad actors, rather I think it’s just a combination of the need to keep the burden on mods down, and limitations of the Discourse forum software. I’m guessing there probably just isn’t an option to assign trust-levels based on either / or criteria, as would be needed to implement either meeting the current criteria OR being a member in good standing for long enough.
But the fact that some formerly trust-level-only permissions can be assigned based on user-groups, brings the question for me, can a combination of trust-level and user-groups be used to create either / or criteria for the Community Market? 
If Community Market access could be granted to, say, a 1yr+ group. And if groups can be assigned automatically, then that combination could work to create either / or Community Market criteria.
Perhaps there is someone who knows more about user-groups who could answer if that would be possible.
This is not a good solution on so many levels. If a fraudster wants to make a level 2 account, he can script 200 of those and then after 15 days he will be in the game! Getting one like is not so much of a problem either. And with this restriction known the bad actor would get even higher default level of trust. Online community like this cannot be automatically protected from abusers, it doesn’t have the functionality for it. There are common basic rules to protect yourself in used purchase transactions and outside of a pinned post to point them out, there is nothing else that can be expected here. I am not blindly buying from even the most “active“ member and neither should anyone else. It will just kill the community market, that’s all. If it can’t be maintained it would be better to remove it completely and not piss people off.
On the user groups idea, yes, I checked it and it is possible to do it in multiple ways.
- Using scripting via the Discorse API to Fetch users users with certain age and then put in a group via PUT /admin/groups/{group_id}/members with JSON payload of usernames.
- With a Rails console Ruby script even simpler.
Many communities use group-based “grandfathering” for long-time members.
But my point stands. People should be careful, because outside a good number of successful deals, there is nothing to guarantee you will not be cheated and there is no way to track those here and even then its a bad criteria as most people here are not pros, they would sell 2 times for 10 years.
It’s certainly not a great solution, maybe not even a good solution, but it might be enough for the moment, to prevent most people from problems.
Most door locks, cabinet locks, padlock, are not at all a good solution. Rather, they are just adequate, some of the time. And I’m not talking about, because one good kick, a hammer, or bolt cutters gets you in. I mean, most locks make little attempt to be secure, at all. See youtube. Way too many, including the ones on most people’s front doors and back doors can be opened in seconds with virtually no skill & leaving no evidence. But no one would suggest removing the locks from your home, because what they offer is some resistance, and “keeps honest people honest” / doesn’t tempt the easily temptable people.
Certainly true about locks. Even the good ones can be defeated by a dedicated thief. Although there are serious locks and layered security / monitoring systems that can stop most wannabe criminals 
But what seems we are doing here is having a lock that tends to jam and keeps the key holder on the street 
This is something that would encourage bad actors to just use bots to meet these requirements.
i signed up early on and largely don’t use the forum much as I can NOT AFFORD to buy a NEW computer and would like to be able to buy USED PARTS and build one to join the framework family
but the requirements make it unlikely at all to happen anytime soon
will add about the easy to pick/bypass locks ANY LOCK changes the charges from trespass to break and entering even a plastic security seal