Our new forum, Caveat Emptor

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Over the last few years many members and staff have asked for a way to share their knowledge and experience about marine-related vendors with the club. With the ever-changing web it can often be difficult to know if who you're dealing with is reputable. This becomes especially important when you're spending a significant amount of money on a critter or piece of equipment.

We listened to this request and thought long about how to enable members to share information without discussions turning into typical flame-laced threads you see elsewhere. We think that our new forum achieves this. Caveat Emptor, the principle that the buyer alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of goods before a purchase is made, seemed an appropriate name for the forum. It provides a central location where you and your fellow ARC'ers can share your opinions about Vendors via polls. Please note that these are "poll only" threads, commenting is not enabled. Likewise, new threads in this forum can only be created by an ARC staff member. The poll format is intended to keep things factual yet informative. The overall goal is to share information while minimizing the number of "What is your experience/opinion of vendor X" threads that tend to pop up in the Reefkeeping forum.

PLEASE REMEMBER that positive reviews are just as helpful if not more helpful to your fellow members. I don't ask friends for advice of places not to shop at, I ask for advice of places to shop at.

If you have a vendor you would like added to the list, please PM me or another staff member and we'll work to get a thread started. The preliminary thought was to address vendors, but we could likewise add sub-categories for equipment and particular products if you feel this is helpful. Both local and online vendors are eligible, as would be regular sellers with stores on commercial sites (Amazon, eBay) excluding things like Craigslist.

The new forum is located here (http://www.austinreefclub.com/forum/236-caveat-emptor/).

Take a look and let us know what you think.