Community Standards

How reports are handled

A person reviews it. Not a queue that nobody drains, and not an automated decision.

You will be told what happened. When your report is reviewed you will hear back: whether we acted, and broadly what we did — that we removed a listing, or took action on an account, or that we looked and found no violation. We will not tell you the specific penalty applied to another person; that is their business, and telling you would invite people to use reports to keep score.

What we can see when we review your report. If you report a conversation, a moderator can read the reported messages and enough of the surrounding conversation to judge them. Every such read is permanently recorded — see the Privacy Policy.

If we act against you, you can argue with it. A removed listing or a suspended account can be appealed, and an appeal goes back into the same queue as its own item, to be read by a person. You will find what was decided, and the button to appeal it, on your account page.

What suspension means. Your listings are hidden, and while the suspension lasts you cannot post a listing, edit one, start a conversation, or send a message. Everything you could READ before, you can still read: your own listings, and every conversation you were part of — which stay readable to the people you were talking to as well. You can still sign in, and you can appeal. A suspension has an end date and lifts by itself when it is reached.

What a ban means. The same restrictions, with no end date, and you cannot sign in. Because of that last part, a banned account appeals by email: write to appeals@classifiedmp.com from the address on the account.

What you may not do here

These are the rules. Most of them are checked when you post, and a listing that breaks one is refused with the reason shown, so you can reword it and try again.

Do not arrange a transfer that avoids a licensed dealer. Every private-party firearm transfer in California must be completed in person at a licensed dealer who processes DROS — Penal Code § 27545. A listing that proposes meeting privately to hand over a firearm, skipping the background check, or avoiding the paperwork is refused.

Do not arrange to ship a firearm to another private party. It has to change hands in person at a licensed dealer, so a listing offering to post or courier a firearm directly to a buyer is refused. Shipping an accessory that is not a firearm is fine.

Do not list an item that cannot lawfully be sold or transferred in California. That includes machine guns and anything that converts a firearm to automatic fire, bump stocks, short-barrelled rifles and shotguns, suppressors, destructive devices, explosives, armour-piercing ammunition, and undetectable firearms. Penal Code § 32625, § 33210, and § 30600 and following.

Some categories are paused, and that is not the same thing. Ammunition, magazines and firearm parts cannot be listed here at present — not because they are unlawful, but because the law governing them in California is being actively litigated, and we would rather pause a category than give you confident guidance that turns out to be wrong.

Do not misrepresent what you are selling. Condition, model, calibre, what is included — if it would change a buyer’s mind, it belongs in the listing. Nothing automated checks this one: it is enforced when somebody reports it, which is the main reason the report button exists.

Do not pay or take payment outside a meeting at the dealer. We never handle money, so we cannot help you recover any that goes missing, and a request to send a deposit before you have met is the most common way people are cheated on a board like this one.

Messages are treated differently from listings, deliberately. A listing is an advertisement, and refusing one costs nothing but a rewrite. A conversation is not a document, and a message stopped mid-sentence between two people discussing something entirely legitimate would only send them somewhere with no record at all. So a message that appears to break one of these rules is DELIVERED and recorded, not withheld — and that record is what a moderator reads if it is reported. The Privacy Policy explains exactly what can be seen, and when.

Keeping a conversation here is a suggestion, not a rule. If a message looks like it contains a phone number or an email address we will say so, because a conversation on this site leaves a record of what was agreed and one that moves to a text thread does not. You are free to ignore that.