Well my little experiment was apparently not well received.

I received an email from Mike this afternoon, letting me know he has received some emails about my sale post. There was some confusion about how offers were to be made, which is to be expected as this was the first time something like this has been tried. To the couple of people who did email me about it I explained what I intended.

Mike said I could continue this sale but asked me not to sell this way in the future. He said that "people are already raising concerns about being cheated and feel it opens the door to possible problems."

I have to admit I am upset by this. Not by the request not to sell this way but because I posted in the regular board asking people to respond with what they thought about this way of selling and apparently rather than do this and facilitate a conversation among the group, some people felt it was necessary to complain to Mike privately and thus anonymously. But even more than this, the statement about concerns of being cheated impugns my integrity and is not all right with me. I have sold on the board before and have had no complaints. No one has been cheated.

I have decided to remove this item from sale and thus end the controversy. I thought it was a nice way to sell only to the members of TSC, rather than put it on eBay, and to give more people a chance at something they might like to own rather than having to be lucky enough to be the first person to see a post. It could have also been a nice option for the seller, in this case me, to eBay. But it was not to be.

I'm still interested in hearing what people thought of this idea if anyone wants to post and participate in a conversation about it.