I'm all for having a specific place for start-up cottage industry type postings, for custom orders or whatever they are making. I guess the main problem, with regards to the thread that's currently taking heat, is that some people (potential customers for those people) wouldn't think to look in here for something like that. I usually pass up this subforum entirely thinking that it's just postings about coupon codes, sales, and special offers on individual products. Actually there's only 3 subforums I really read the most and those are G Spot, Gear Swap, and Lightweight BPing Discussion. Sometimes I'll stray into Fishing, hoping there's some new posts, or MYOG to see the latest uses for cuben fiber, but that's it for me. I only have so much time in the day… Ideally, something like "New Posts Since Last Visit" would be the best way to view the site, but since post titles are not set in stone, it's hard to know what thread a post relates to, if it was a thread I wanted to follow, etc.
I agree that the Gear Swap is not an ideal place for "storefront" type threads, but what I'm saying is, the Gear Deals might not be either, as these type of threads might not get the attention they deserve in here (particularly if there's only one or two of them). Maybe there could be an all new subforum for start-up cottage industry threads? Now something like that could be interesting. It could even inspire some of our resident MYOGers to post their prototypes for sale and encourage some of them to take custom orders (something I know there's interest in here, as I have been contacted once about a modification I did to a Golite pack, by somebody wanting me to make the same mod to their backpack). In a subforum like that, there could be FS/custom order threads and even WTB/custom order threads so if it started out with only one cottage industry "storefront" thread in the subforum, it wouldn't necessarily be all alone in there.
