I see where you coming from Marius. politics.
If I understand correctly it will just be that you are endorsed by the forum, basically like the review thread, but you just paying for it.

Valid point though.

Certainly if we are going to do this, there are responsibilities involved and if a breeder startes to get negative complaints then it's up to the rest of the approved breeders or a breeding panel, to remove him/her from the list and they will lose their breeder number and profile on the site. I'm hoping that if one is an approved breeder, Dimitri can overlay or add the logo somehow to the breeder's profile. and be able to add or remove the "Approved breeder logo" from their profile if they get booted.

The aim is to provide some sort of platform for responsible breeding, not to be the be all and end all of breeder problems.

However I don't think the "soft managing" will be something to feel negative about. After all, being an approved breeder will probably mean the breeder will develop a client base that will always support him/her. It's still up to the buyer to decide who he/she wants to buy from - approved breeder or not.

My only worry is that i dont want this website to come across as a regulator and upset people. The idea is for a good cause and helping the hobby not destroying it or this sites reputation.

I agree.

However, we will not be regulating anyone... merely suggesting reputable breeders that are known from this website to potential buyers.

People must always be free to do what they want.

Allow me to put my 10c in please, for me as a collector I really think this is a great idea, I for one will never breed, but when I am looking for a certain T to add to my collection and I know there are approved breeders on the forum, it would be great because the breeder can inform me about the T I am looking for and I am 100% certain, when I show off my T's to my friends and they want to look into the hobby as well I can refer them to an approved breeder that I got mine from.

Yes there will be politics, in everything there will always be politics, but at the end of the day we have pure bred species that we can buy from a trusted resource. I have been reading through a lot of the posts the past two months and some of the things "breeders" has done just to make a buck out of a person who does not have a great knowledge of T's is scary, I know I don't want to be fooled like that at all.

I voted against the idea and I would like to explain why:

1. Are we so naive/vain as to think that anyone who buys or owns a tarantula are on this website? It would be great if a card to register on tarantulas.co.za was issued with every purchase of a T as there would be a virtual place to monitor trends,feelings and regulate the buying,selling and breeding of all species of T's. This however will never happen and to establish a "Approved Breeders" list, while thousands of buyers and couple of breeders never come on the website, will be very close to useless.

2. One will have to be considered "in the loop" to be registered as an approved breeder. This will mean that the breeders that get approved will be either friends or known contacts of the breeder panel. The problem I have with this is the following- I have quietly bred H.formosus(with Francois from tarantulatrader.co.za) and H.incei this year on my own. However no one on this forum even knows about it because I am not constantly on the website and if I am I don't post to often. So I will quite possibly be turned down when applying for my approved breeder stamp,seal or whatever purely because you do not know me?? Is this in any way fair?

I just wanted to explain my negative vote and as I said, I am not constantly on the website so I am not going to debate this.