Okay, I finally got around to looking in Suggestions Forum, and found the following
thread link.
Seems DavidW and the Moderators have denied a FEEDBACK FORUM to CPF over concerns about potential liability of esp. accusations of fraud (esp. against vendors).
I think this is a mistake, and have a couple of comments:
1) I think the
absence of a feedback forum actually
increases CPF's liability if/when people are ripped off (thankfully, occurrences of this type are seemingly few and far between). The feedback forum vacuum is actually beneficial to wrongdoers.
2) Make a Liability Disclaimer on the Feedback Forum, and ban the use of the word "fraud", and any accusations thereof. It's that simple. Moderators can easily enforce this. People can still relay negative experiences without accusation of fraud.
3) Both Bladeforums.com, Knifeforums.com and UsualSuspect.net have all very
successfully implemented feedback forums. The numbers of transactions on those forums (esp. BF and KF) dwarfs the number of transactions on CPF, and while negative feedbacks thread definitely proliferate (thankfully a very, very small %) I've not heard of any liability issues for the forum owners.
Anyway, just my $0.02...