The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

My apologies for linking this site in an ebay ad. I honestly did not see the warning.
As an owner of a few Matsumoku-built Washburn guitars, I've been referring to this site for quite some time. I've never seen the warning re commercial use. In fact, as I'm a musician and not a store or a salesman, I don't know that I would have considered that "commercial" use anyway - although is technically is of course.
I have placed a Washburn (ser# 3336) B-20 bass for sale on ebay, and (I thought) quite naturally placed a link to this site, so that the info contained herein was available to a potential buyer.
I was suprised when I clicked the link on my ad, which brought me to this site, with the notice that I, as an ebay seller, was pretty much a dishonest crook. I was certainly suprised! I have a feedback rating of 500+ with one negative! - (retaliatory from a non-paying bidder).
I think that once someone is familiar with a site, they stop reading the fine print, at least I did. I'm of reasonable intelligence, just missed the warning, that's all.
Obviously, the better way would be for everyone to read every word - even the little ones, but can everyone here honestly say they've done that?
Anyway, my apologies. There's a lot of good info here for everyone interested, but to tag someone as dishonest because they linked to it? I thought I should post this as a benefit to others.
Hmmmm - Jeff

You've unfortunately followed in the footsteps of a few folks that WERE dishonest crooks. I believe that this site is also privately funded, and the bandwidth is paid for out-of-pocket, which could also explain why E-Bay links would be discouraged (this forum then pays for something that someone else profits from).

Thanks for posting and espressing/explaining yourself, I'm not one of the policy-makers, but hopefully I've given you some insight - someone will correct me if my information is incorrect.

Feel free to stick around, hopefully we'll hear from you again.

Welcome,

je

The strong language there was intended as a deterrent to ALL with regards to the site's Terms Of Use. It was not aimed specifically at you.

The main reason those server rules were put in place is because at one time eBay listings accounted for as much as 70% of the site's bandwidth. Your listing alone would have been only a drop in the bucket. It cost as much as an additional $20 a month until the rules were put in place. $20 that did not come back to the guy paying the hosting bills.

To give you some idea of how often eBay listings link to this site not in accordance with the site's TOU, the warning page itself is about 40K. But, monthly (at last check) this accounted for as much as 10 meg in bandwidth. That means the page is served to improperly linked listings as often as 250 times a month! Before the rules were put in place, the bandwidth was much much higher than this.

Considering this site has never taken a donation, is completely NFP, and ad free as well maybe you can see why strict rules had to be put in place and the warning page as harsh as it is.

Just like a speeding ticket gets the attention of people who don't notice the speed limit signs, that page gets eBay lister's attention when they miss (or in other cases, ignore) the line and link to eBay sellers at the bottom of nearly all the pages on the site.

Points taken and well-received, Gentlemen.

I'm sure that others appreciate the lack of ads on the site - especially the absence of adware & spybots that invariably become part of website advertisements. I certainly do.

I believe the site operators might reclaim some of that lost bandwidth by making the statement regarding commercial usage just a bit more obvious. Most visitors are eager to follow the rules, and even the more callous users of the site would rather avoid the negative consequences of linking.

It's easy to miss the fine print when distracted by finding exactly the info that one was searching for. At least it was for me anyway - not so much anymore.

thnx - Jeff