I know this has been kicked around a few times, but I couldn't find a solid discussion around it and reasoning behind keeping this feature available to all. I've only seen a handful of threads that don't appear to be scammy by nature using either of these features in the Marketplace. When I say locked topics I'm only referring to being able to toggle the feature for bumping. I'm not even proposing an outright elimination of the feature, this could be a feature some users could be whitelisted for by Admins or Marketplace Mods. A good example of a whitelistable account might be brokers maintaining a large amount of items in 1 thread.

Maybe I'm missing something but it seems the bad far outweighs the good by keeping these features available for everyone, considering it's the go to move for Newbie accounts looking for a quick score. The few users who feel their topic will be spammed or they may be harassed can make use of the "report to moderator" function. The rest of the threads will be open to have reasonable questions asked and discussion to take place on this forum, considering this is where the Ads are placed. It will still depend on members to ask the right questions but I think there are plenty out there that patrol and will do just that.

There have in the past been concerns as well around these features empowering and protecting the potential scams themselves. They can spread false information about escrows gear and anything they really want with little recourse available. There is no way apart from leaving feedback and hoping people believe it or are not convinced it's frivolous through whatever means of contact these people use. I get it that it's still up to people to do their due diligence and they should catch these tricks, but unfortunately a lot of us learn the hard way. It's an unfortunate by product of the protections certain banks and cards have afforded us.

With the recent steps to display a warning based on DT trust to logged out users. I'm hoping we can take further steps to improve the Marketplace through transparency, functionality and safety.