Well, let me throw this idea out here so you can all beat it into a bloody pulp....
And, btw, no I haven't thought through all of the ramifications of the details, so upon some deeper thought, it may be a bigger mouthful to chew on than I am willing to bite off. Tax season is HERE, breeding season is coming up. Time will be an issue.....
Anyway, here it goes.....
How about making this a more "closed loop" kind of system? Anyone permitted to post classified ads would have to be a paid member AND willing to participate in the Good Guy Certification Program? Anyone who gets voted OUT of that program loses their membership here as well as their capability of participating in posting classified ads.
That will do a couple of things. First off, it transforms the GGC into more of a BOI light with simple thumbsup or thumbsdown voting. It also keeps the decision of who is a good guy or a bad guy in YOUR hands and not in MINE. There will be a direct link on every advertisers website (as per the requirements of participating here in this program, which anyone can easily use to reference their status.
I may have to ask someone to take over this program, as it most certainly will take much more time than I will have to allocate to the management of it. As it is now, I am certain there are several members in the GGC certification program who have either let their memberships lapse, or failed to meet the requirements of having the GGC banner on their website. I just can't follow up on all of that. Heck, I have a few applicants already in the queue until I can get around to making up more of those GGC banners!
So poke some holes in the idea...............
As for search links, any programmer will tell you the weaknesses in that proposal. Intelligent fuzzy searches CAN be implemented but that are prone to a lot of errors. And you would still need to have your own brain power utilized to make the search effective. No program is really going to know everything YOU do about who you are searching for. So YOU will still be the one who needs to fill in the blanks.