The definition of a "rare" has always been fluid. There was a time when we had huge debates in here about whether EM drops would be allowed or considered "rares". What never has been questioned, however, were "server birth rares", "monthly rares", "weekly rares", "daily rares", "return home rares", "spawning rares" (glacial staffs, daemon bone armor, etc) - though there was often debate about which items were which type, or whether some (return home rares, for example) even existed.
Over the course of many auctions, I've had more than a few items where folks attacked me in PM and ICQ, reported my auctions, posted off-topic debates in the auction, etc, because in all honestly they're looking for anything to complain about with my auctions. Why, I don't know. But I do know that it's happened repeatedly, from the same few people, and the claims often don't even make sense. A few examples:
* event books with undyable hues being claimed to be common and completely reproducable
* sigil metal and leather items being not rare because we have purple natural dyes
* costumes being claimed to all still be spawning as common drops in the Abyss
* Christmas and Halloween items from years ago not being rare because they drop every Christmas/Halloween (making the assumption that the same items drop/are gifted every year)
I'm tired of it. Stratics has decided that "spawning" rares shouldn't be in this forum anymore. Ok, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but ok. ...But that also means no sales here of, for example, the current round of global crystals. They were being widely sold here by many after only 2 shards had had the event; they're "still spawning" until every last shard has had the event. As for things that actually aren't spawning, with regards to my auctions at least, if you have a question about something spawning or not, how about try a PM or ICQ, and we can figure it out, rather than the incorrect reports and off-topic posts in the auction.
In the most recent series of auctions, I kept anything spawning, rare or not, out of all auctions in the rares forum except for the last auction. That auction, 14i, was the "cleanup" auction. After every auction I run, invariably there's posts from folks looking to buy the unsold items. Plus, I had a few bags of items I'd missed listing. So I ran 14i to give all those items a quick place to auction off, rather than have all the auction threads keep getting bumped. After 14h (the commodities and spawning rares auction) ended last night, I moved any unsolds over to 14i, like with all of the other auctions. I'd specifically already stated "Please forgive me for any spawning rares here; I didn't want to run 2 cleanup auctions". That auction ends at 9 tonight. Those items will have been listed for auction here, in this forum, for less than 23 hours. Yet, within the first 12 hours of those items being listed here, less than 5 people had already filed over 20 reports about that auction, trying to force it into being removed (and on the last day of bidding for the entire auction, no less). Really folks?
I keep hearing complaints from people saying they aren't able to sell their EM drops and other rares. All I know is, so far, there's 48 different people who've happily bought items in this auction series, and the same was true last time around. But I'm sick and tired of getting attacked for running the auctions. I even get reported or "over bumping threads" when I reply to answer questions asked in the auctions. The question being asked here, and the poll is meaningless; Stratics will set its own policy regardless what the result is. But perhaps, rather than worry about me, my auctions, Stratics policy, or the rest, simply stop trying to bite other folks in the back , and instead worry about finding that rare you want, or a price that people are willing to pay for that rare you have for sale.
We get maybe half a page of new posts a day anymore, on a good drop day... I miss the days of coming to Stratics a decade ago, and finding 10 pages of new threads to check out in each of the forums I follow.