Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Should we have a semi-private vendor discussion thread?

Polverone - 26-5-2011 at 13:08

Many members are of course interested in finding reputable chemical suppliers (dealing with the public). But there is a risk that highlighted vendors will find themselves in trouble after selling to (e.g.) idiots who play with pipe bombs and upload the evidence to Youtube. There is a risk from not discussing vendors openly, too: in the absence of better information amateur chemists may try to order from crooked (but highly ranked in general search engine) dealers like sciencelab.com.

One suggestion I received is to move vendor discussion to a lightly protected part of the forum, like Whimsy. It would keep vendor information hidden from search engines, which is a two-edged sword since privacy tends to protect bad vendors from good customers as well as protecting good vendors from bad customers. It would not prevent word-of-mouth source sharing, but it would allow any interested member to find vendor information, since all you need to read Whimsy is a request after 30 days of membership.

Rogeryermaw - 26-5-2011 at 14:49

i, for one, am on board with this idea and would like to request my password whenever it is convenient for you. i think the concerns expressed are far more important than easy acquisition. also, the thought of losing any of the very few valuable resources we have curdles my milk.

gutter_ca - 26-5-2011 at 15:00

On that notion, can I get in to Whimsy?:D

plastics - 27-5-2011 at 13:47

Great idea - I would be more than happy to take part

quicksilver - 27-5-2011 at 14:18

There are some complications here I would like you fellows to consider. While the overwhelming majority of you may be extremely responsible; it only takes one serious inappropriate issue to ruin a company, completely "burn it down" from ever selling to the public, etc. I would ask that you consider working on a Personal Message level, if & when you believe that individual is appropriate to be intrusted with your vendor.
While pass-wording it would shield it from the "surfing world", it would exist in permanence - displayed for months down the line. Any alteration in that company's policy may not be updated in a timely fashion if the original post(er), etc.
Please examine all the ramifications in public display. Even PW protection won't stop what may occur in maturity level months down the line.

EDIT:
It also puts responsibility on the moderator to make that "maturity-call": how would the mod really KNOW who is who?

[Edited on 27-5-2011 by quicksilver]

Rogeryermaw - 27-5-2011 at 14:39

Quote: Originally posted by quicksilver  
There are some complications here I would like you fellows to consider. While the overwhelming majority of you may be extremely responsible; it only takes one serious inappropriate issue to ruin a company, completely "burn it down" from ever selling to the public, etc. I would ask that you consider working on a Personal Message level, if & when you believe that individual is appropriate to be intrusted with your vendor.
While pass-wording it would shield it from the "surfing world", it would exist in permanence - displayed for months down the line. Any alteration in that company's policy may not be updated in a timely fashion if the original post(er), etc.
Please examine all the ramifications in public display. Even PW protection won't stop what may occur in maturity level months down the line.

EDIT:
It also puts responsibility on the moderator to make that "maturity-call": how would the mod really KNOW who is who?

[Edited on 27-5-2011 by quicksilver]


very good points. honestly, most of us found our own resources. i knew about the majority of mine before i joined and did not find out about sciencelab.com and their dirty, underhanded scheming until after i joined. as much as i want to help expand and demystify amateur chemistry and reduce public mistrust of the home experimenter, learning how to adapt and find or make one's own sources is a good test to see if one has the patience, attention and dedication to be a scientist of any kind.

also, instead of the mad hunt to find and highlight small suppliers, it may be easier to make a thread about unscrupulous, dirty dealers so we at least have a good idea about which companies to stay away from, such as people who take your money or send the wrong item without honoring any sort of return policy and those who give or sell your information to other parties (ie L.E., D.E.A., or govt agencies).

quicksilver - 28-5-2011 at 05:44

On a personal level I happen to agree / you deeply on the "sciencelab issue". Yet one man's ceiling is another man's floor.
{I honestly don't want to be the person who is always a "fault finder" in any discussion; so please forgive my digression.}

You may deal with too many personal interpretations of lack of scruples, unethical behavior, etc unless you vet the posts fairly tough.....I belong to a music forum and we often talk about places like "Guitar Center" and how they push high end instruments on beginners, shield a faulty unit from scrutiny by simply returning it to a display even though it was returned for factory fault, etc, etc. - Yet Guitar Center has a very ethical return policy and it's a "buyer beware' world out there. So isn't it up to the individual how much they spend or how well they inspect the merchandise? - My point here is that on occasion a purchase can be fraught with questionable elements & the clerk simply doesn't want the headache or potential liability from a young person who buys (or attempts) a silly combination of items. Else you would be in the position of putting down what is essentially "self preservation" in this day & age. There's a great deal to consider

Let's say someone reading our discussion doesn't know about some of the ScienceLab issues..... that may be an interesting place to start.

Arthur Dent - 30-5-2011 at 05:43

Yeah, i'm a little bit hesitant to share good sources openly because of the points outlined above, it is indeed very easy to spoil a good source if a dumb little kewl hurts himself with the material acquired from said source.

I'd say that simply by judging the level of seriousness of a poster by his questions, his language and his fields of interest is a good place to start to "include" posters in an exclusive "club" where members abide by a certain code of conduct, about accident prevention, basic lab security precautions, fields of interest and a certain discretion about our resources to keep these good.

It's sad that we have to come up to this, but home chemistry has become an endangered species, and as much as I understand the paranoia caused by meth cooks and blown-up kewls, we can't avoid the frequent infestation of youngsters on this board whose interest in chemistry is only limited to exploding stuff to impress their friends. The total sum of the IQ of a group of teen boys is often less than the IQ of the individuals sadly.

And even worse are the cooks that have basic knowledge in chemistry, enough to ask pertinent questions that might go unoticed until they ask specific question about synthetizing "precursors" to the real bad stuff.

It's incredibly hard to weed out these folks, so I feel that we should be discrete about our sources and share them only with a few trusted people. We know who they are and I am very comfortable with the fact that folks on this board HAVE TO earn out trust before we start giving them our most prized resources.

Robert


[Edited on 30-5-2011 by Arthur Dent]

Eliteforum - 14-6-2011 at 04:10

I voted no. Commonly found chemicals won't stay commonly found chemicals if too many nubs fuck up and kill themselfs. Do your own research and you'll come up with the goods.

quicksilver - 14-6-2011 at 05:27

It doesn't even have to be a purposeful blunder or overt act of stupidity. That is my main point. And I really DO think it can take only one seriously bad transgression.

I really don't want to be the "spoiler" in this discussion; so please understand that I'm simply pointing out what MAY occur. There are some people who have worked very long and hard to build up a group of suppliers for various reasons; a big one being price. Additionally some people don't do their homework and that can be a frightening thing for a vendor that may believe that as an issue of potential litigation.
Whatever the outcome, I'd like to make people aware that sources can be lost through unintentional mistakes. I'm very concerned with that issue. As I don't believe that someone would set out to ruin a good thing. But one sentence misspoken can have serious consequences.


Please read this enclosed (DATED) list of watch chemicals from a US Gov't agency. Notice the verbiage in assessing the need to examine the purchasing mechanism. NOTE: this is dated material.
My point is NOT to interject paranoia for a productive idea; but rather to broaden the scope of the discussion. So that in understanding the issues at hand we see the need to grasp it's demand for maturity.



Attachment: Dated-list_Watched Chemicals.pdf (204kB)
This file has been downloaded 2485 times

[Edited on 14-6-2011 by quicksilver]

weldit - 25-7-2011 at 17:39

I don't think that this forum should get involved with suppliing chemicals. Most of the members are good people, but then there are the others. The drug cooks and the explosive morons that have no idea what they are doing. They think chemistry is nothing more than reading a Betty Crocker Cook Book. Let's not forget about the ones that have enough knowledge to be dangerous. If the site sells to one of these individualls, the site will be brought under the magnifiing glass. Keep the site the way it is. Those of us here that need chemicals know how to get them, even the grey-issue chemicals.
I have been enjoying this site for years and I have hate to loose it.
If you do decide to do it I would think that strict controlls are needed. Orders needed to be examined for content, purchaser needs to have picture id on file and shipment can only go th that address, no PO Box

[Edited on 26-7-2011 by weldit]

UKnowNotWatUDo - 25-7-2011 at 19:06

I think you may be misunderstanding the discussion here. We are not talking about selling chemicals on this site. We are talking about whether or not to have a thread, possibly a private one, where we can share sources for buying chemicals elsewhere.