pat8you
Aquarium Advice Addict
Not sure if this is really the place for this threat but i wanted to start it somewhere that it would be seen. Mods feel free to move it to a more appropriate location.
My brother (Jimbo7) and I have been tossing around ideas of putting up a frag swap web site. We are constantly looking for good frags and it always seems like the best coral come from other hobbyists and the smaller operations in some person's basement that collects rare or high quality coral. The problem is these people don't have a web site or their web sites are difficult to find / not always maintained and up to date. So this is not to try and replace frag swaps but more have one central location for WYSIWYG frags that any scale propagation operation from small to big can easily use.
So the basic outline of the idea is as follows. Vendors would be able to register with the site in order to obtain a "frag table". They would have a control panel that would allow them to upload pictures of their frags and populate some information fields about the corals. (common name, type of coral, size, ect.) This would not be an auction site like ebay and frags can stay up as long or short at time as desired. Along with the table i would like to have each vendor get a information page. This would include a space to tell everyone about them selves and their tanks. Information about what equipment/lighting they running for the frags. A place to upload pictures of their frag system, their personal tanks, themselves, or any saltwater/coral related photos they would like. Most importantly i would like each vendor information page to include a discussion board for people to socialize with them, ask questions about their set up, and just in general "talk saltwater".
Buyers would be required to register as well and all transactions would be run through paypal to remain secure. They would be able to search by coral, vendor, or location. I vendor rating system would be put in place in order to build up a good reputation and weed out any undesirable vendors. For obvious reasons rules would have to be set up about things like shipping requirements and photo manipulation.
This is a pretty broad overview there would be quite a few other things involved in the site that we have thought out but is beyond the scope of the discussion i would like for this thread. I am looking for general opinions of the idea. Do you all think this would be a useful tool?
My brother (Jimbo7) and I have been tossing around ideas of putting up a frag swap web site. We are constantly looking for good frags and it always seems like the best coral come from other hobbyists and the smaller operations in some person's basement that collects rare or high quality coral. The problem is these people don't have a web site or their web sites are difficult to find / not always maintained and up to date. So this is not to try and replace frag swaps but more have one central location for WYSIWYG frags that any scale propagation operation from small to big can easily use.
So the basic outline of the idea is as follows. Vendors would be able to register with the site in order to obtain a "frag table". They would have a control panel that would allow them to upload pictures of their frags and populate some information fields about the corals. (common name, type of coral, size, ect.) This would not be an auction site like ebay and frags can stay up as long or short at time as desired. Along with the table i would like to have each vendor get a information page. This would include a space to tell everyone about them selves and their tanks. Information about what equipment/lighting they running for the frags. A place to upload pictures of their frag system, their personal tanks, themselves, or any saltwater/coral related photos they would like. Most importantly i would like each vendor information page to include a discussion board for people to socialize with them, ask questions about their set up, and just in general "talk saltwater".
Buyers would be required to register as well and all transactions would be run through paypal to remain secure. They would be able to search by coral, vendor, or location. I vendor rating system would be put in place in order to build up a good reputation and weed out any undesirable vendors. For obvious reasons rules would have to be set up about things like shipping requirements and photo manipulation.
This is a pretty broad overview there would be quite a few other things involved in the site that we have thought out but is beyond the scope of the discussion i would like for this thread. I am looking for general opinions of the idea. Do you all think this would be a useful tool?
