[Discussion] A Warning to the Community

[Smoot]

New trade forums rules were implemented April 4rth, and ive noticed many posters may not be aware of the changes. many bump / auction updates / # of active threads have been in violation over the past month.

Why this matters now is the new moderation system was just implemented May 12th (yesterday).

under the new system, only 4 violations gets you a 3 day ban.
10 bump / update / thread # violations gets you a perma-ban

The main changes that effect the rares forum:

Users may not bump a thread more than 1 time every 48 hours.

• Updates to a thread restart the 48 hour timer, for example if you update the bids in the initial post 8 hours after the thread was created, you must wait 48 hours from this point to bump the thread.
• Updates must be meaningful and/or considerable.
• No more than 2 updates in a 48 hour period.

No more than 3 active auctions/sales adverts in any one section of the Trade forums.


How beneficial these rules are to the community is not our decision, however I dont want to see users needlessly getting points and bans.

thankyou and happy rares collecting.

 

[Scribbles]

The updating rule should be changed. Specially in the last hours of an auction. Thanks for the info @Smoot i had not seen this yet.

 

[DJAd]

So where was the "community" vote about this? I thought Stratics was "back in the hands of the community" but looking at this they had ZERO input into these new rules?

So if I have a thread looking for items (which I do) you are telling me I can only bump it 10 times??!!

 

[Smoot]

So where was the "community" vote about this? I thought Stratics was "back in the hands of the community" but looking at this they had ZERO input into these new rules?

So if I have a thread looking for items (which I do) you are telling me I can only bump it 10 times??!!

its 10 violations for a perma-ban.

if you bumped it 10 times in 10 days, yes that would be a perma-ban. you would have violated the 48 hour rule 10 times.

 

[DJAd]

So where was the big popup when I logged in on the 12th to show me these new rules?!

 

[Chanel #1]

Users may not bump a thread more than 1 time every 48 hours.

What if other player's bump a thread? Let's say Smoot starts a thread, then I bump it, would I be in violation of the rules? Would both Smoot and I be in violation? What is considered a bump? Does this apply to auctions? If so, does "Auction bids updated" count as a bump?

 

[Archnight]

What if other player's bump a thread? Let's say Smoot starts a thread, then I bump it, would I be in violation of the rules? Would both Smoot and I be in violation? What is considered a bump? Does this apply to auctions? If so, does "Auction bids updated" count as a bump?

This book has all the answers on bumping lol

Maybe a Mod can confirm what would happen in this case... just to make sure we don`t get banned for bumping each other hehe

 

[Nexus]

What if other player's bump a thread? Let's say Smoot starts a thread, then I bump it, would I be in violation of the rules? Would both Smoot and I be in violation? What is considered a bump? Does this apply to auctions? If so, does "Auction bids updated" count as a bump?

To start with, the rules on the trade forums will be handled largely at the discretion of the Trade Forum Mod, but the idea for the rule changes were:

1. 48 hours was a revert to a previous rule, it wasn't changed to 24 hours until about a year and a half ago.A select few were running 8-10 auctions, dominating the front page, and finding every excuse to bump threads to push every one else below the fold this is unfair to every one else. 3 Active auction thread should suffice for the majority of people, and recycling a thread is fine as well. We've also noticed a number of our more active traders are basically exploiting our site, they sell items for gold here, then sell the gold for cash elsewhere. The Trade Forums are nothing more to them than a step in their supply chain. While we can't stop it, we don't plan to stream line the rules to benefit their capacity to do it.
2. Yes posting "Auction Bids Updated" would count,if it was less than 48 hours, people can read the thread for themselves or you could update the high bids in the initial post without a bump post.
   1. An example would be : Mythical Armor of Gibberish 500m price updated 5/13/2016
3. If someone posts something that bumps a thread and it is substantive to the thread that's fine. If we find people forming partnerships to bump each other it may become a problem.

We're looking to tweak them and better refine the rules, but we need solid data to go by. My suggestion use this thread as a place to get constructive feedback so we have can combine it with info we're gathering by watching threads as well.

So where was the "community" vote about this? I thought Stratics was "back in the hands of the community" but looking at this they had ZERO input into these new rules?

Let me explain how this works step by step.

1. Be a good community member and follow the rules
2. Apply to become Staff (Staff can't have an expansive warning history)
3. Give Feedback on proposed rule changes.

Every individual on staff now was drawn directly from the Community, we are community members as well. If we put everything up to democratic vote, nothing would ever get done, instead we use a Representative system, where staff members drawn from the community represent the community when debating things.

*** PS ***
Just some FYI, the moderation revision took us 3 weeks from initial drafting and passing it back and forth with staff members.

 

[leet]

Thanks for the heads up. Was bumping once per 24 hours because anything else wouldn't make sense.

 

[Archnight]

To start with, the rules on the trade forums will be handled largely at the discretion of the Trade Forum Mod, but the idea for the rule changes were:

1. 48 hours was a revert to a previous rule, it wasn't changed to 24 hours until about a year and a half ago.A select few were running 8-10 auctions, dominating the front page, and finding every excuse to bump threads to push every one else below the fold this is unfair to every one else. 3 Active auction thread should suffice for the majority of people, and recycling a thread is fine as well. We've also noticed a number of our more active traders are basically exploiting our site, they sell items for gold here, then sell the gold for cash elsewhere. The Trade Forums are nothing more to them than a step in their supply chain. While we can't stop it, we don't plan to stream line the rules to benefit their capacity to do it.
2. Yes posting "Auction Bids Updated" would count,if it was less than 48 hours, people can read the thread for themselves or you could update the high bids in the initial post without a bump post.
   1. An example would be : Mythical Armor of Gibberish 500m price updated 5/13/2016
3. If someone posts something that bumps a thread and it is substantive to the thread that's fine. If we find people forming partnerships to bump each other it may become a problem.

We're looking to tweak them and better refine the rules, but we need solid data to go by. My suggestion use this thread as a place to get constructive feedback so we have can combine it with info we're gathering by watching threads as well.

I`m pretty sure though the individuals your referring to don`t have an auction end date to their thread, it`s just left open and they`re continuously bumping every 24 hours to keep it on top. I think something should be added if the auction has a specific end date, like 4-6 hours before the end they can update bidders on the main page or bump at least once with X hours left until it ends... cuz it will get confusing, especally during big auctions. Unless i`m not reading rule 2 clearly...

 

[Nexus]

I`m pretty sure though the individuals your referring to don`t have an auction end date to their thread, it`s just left open and they`re continuously bumping every 24 hours to keep it on top. I think something should be added if the auction has a specific end date, like 4-6 hours before the end they can update bidders on the main page or bump at least once with X hours left until it ends... cuz it will get confusing, especally during big auctions. Unless i`m not reading rule 2 clearly...

That's something we can look at.

Thanks for the heads up. Was bumping once per 24 hours because anything else wouldn't make sense.

I didn't make the change, so I can't answer that. I can only comment on what we were seeing while it was at 24 hours. People were using the "Bids Updated" to effectively bump their auctions 2x per day. The "bump" and then the bid update. This was very common, and the idea was to slow it down a bit so more people could have their auctions exposed.

 

[Chanel #1]

I didn't make the change, so I can't answer that. I can only comment on what we were seeing while it was at 24 hours. People were using the "Bids Updated" to effectively bump their auctions 2x per day. The "bump" and then the bid update. This was very common, and the idea was to slow it down a bit so more people could have their auctions exposed.

That makes sense. Thanks, Nexus.

I also appreciate the consolidation of sale threads, so each individual item sold isn't in its own post and no longer takes up the entire first page.

 

[Kolka]

1. Yes posting "Auction Bids Updated" would count,if it was less than 48 hours, people can read the thread for themselves or you could update the high bids in the initial post without a bump post.
   1. An example would be : Mythical Armor of Gibberish 500m

I've never auctioned anything, but participate as a buyer. I actually like the "bids updated" posts. They let me know that I only need to check the first page for the current price, as opposed to paging through everything. Especially on the last day of the auction when activity can get pretty heavy. Perhaps an exception for the last 24hrs? Since the thread is getting bumped up by the bidding anyway?

 

[DJ Diddles]

To start with, the rules on the trade forums will be handled largely at the discretion of the Trade Forum Mod . . .
Just some FYI, the moderation revision took us 3 weeks from initial drafting and passing it back and forth with staff members.

Wow, that is some interesting info. So @Captn Norrington, the prodigal son of the trade forums, returns to Stratics within the last twenty-four hours, and this policy took three weeks to draft? So the trade forum moderator had very limited input in the policy, yet the rules will be handled at his discretion?

This new policy (which I think is chock-full of problems, and is not sustainable nor appropriate for the users of this dying forum) reeks of a complete disconnect to its user base

Users may not bump a thread more than 1 time every 48 hours.

Well, that seems pretty arbitrary. The old 24 hour rule made a lot of sense- people only need to see your thread once per day. But for 48 hours, what possible justification can there be for this in lieu of the old, tried-and-true 24 hour system?

Updates to a thread restart the 48 hour timer, for example if you update the bids in the initial post 8 hours after the thread was created, you must wait 48 hours from this point to bump the thread.

Ah, this is also nice and arbitrary, and horrifically bad for both auction runners, and auction buyers. Often times I already find myself making an entry on my personal calendar for the end-times of auctions I care about- solely as a result of the strict bumping rules. With this rule being literally doubled, I'm further discouraged from participating or holding any auction, as any auction that doesn't receive bumps in the form of bids is out of luck. Unless it seems prudent enough to break the 48 hour rule, receiving a strike, as one strike is worth your auction being seen and as a result money being made.

Updates must be meaningful and/or considerable.

Have I said the word arbitrary enough, yet? This may be the worst offender. I'm glad there are clear guidelines as to what the moderators find meaningful or considerable.

No more than 3 active auctions/sales adverts in any one section of the Trade forums.

Wow, an actually reasonable change, albeit that it was targeted at single-digit users, this is probably a good change. Except for people like Brian Freud (a staff member who just yesterday said he plans to make more auction threads, instead of less, to reduce the clutter and 100+ item overload as seen in his previous auctions) and Lord Nabin who often run many large auction threads simultaneously.

But once again, even with this generally decent rule change, we're left with an obvious question- what on earth does "active" mean? Active as in posts being made, or active in terms of meaningful or considerable updates/bumps/edits made by the thread's OP?

In essence, these rule changes act as if the board is inundated with so many threads, auctions, updates, and bumps, that the forum moderators cannot keep up with the deluge of posts that are taking time away from other forum activities, in which their time would be better spent. But that's not the case. Trader's Hall has something like 50 active sellers/buyers (I'm being generous with that number, with active qualifying as someone that posts once a week in actually selling or buying something, not just bids), and the Rares Collector forum has probably half of that number.

In the few weeks that Norrington was gone from the trade forum, which I assume left these forums with an interim moderator (from which I saw no posts), I never once had the need to report any post or thread for rule-breaking. With much stricter rules, what would my necessity of reporting be- a negative number?

Perhaps take a moment to self-examine, and realize that these forums represent a skeleton crew of active players, not some bustling hub for thousands of traders.

The things these new rules incentivize are:

• Posting on alternative accounts on a VPN to bump your posts more frequently, with posts disguised as questions, inquiries, etc.
• When an item sells, getting the buyer to post a meaningless post in your thread with something like "Thanks " in order to get your thread to the top, as there has been an update in the items for sale, but you the buyer are not allowed to make a new post informing prospective buyers of that, given you are likely already on a 48 hour cooldown.
• Sellers replying in-thread to posts to could easily be addressed via PMs, ICQs, etc., giving themselves another defacto bump.

 

[Lord Nabin]

In regards to auctions.....

It is important to update the original post with the current bidders a couple of times a day if you have time. I usually try in the morning and afternoon.

You always need to put a "all bids updated" post so both you and the bidders know when the last update to the OP was made.

That is pretty much common sense

 

[Promathia]

What does this mean?

Each of the following warnings will result in 1 point applied to the user's account.

• Sale Duration Violation

What is a Sale duration violation?

 

[Finley Grant]

Wow. If even the native speaker dont really get this fancy rules then I most likely will get perma banned soon due to not understanding them with my noobish ebglish. Well so be it...

I would be happy if someone ICQ me if he/she knows an alternative to stratics so i can sell my items without need to run multiple Timers on my phone to find out when I am allowed to update my posts.

And now dear mods give me my first Bad mark

 

[Kylie Kinslayer]

What does this mean?

Each of the following warnings will result in 1 point applied to the user's account.

• Sale Duration Violation

What is a Sale duration violation?

I took that to mean it could not violate this:

All auctions or sale listings must have an end date of no more than 30 days. (taken from here: http://stratics.com/help/Trade/ )

 

[Lord Nabin]

So every sale post has to have an end date at which the item has to sell by?

Rediculous

Some items sell quick others don't why do we need an end of sale date?

On an auction sure. I can't think of an auction that went 30 days...

 

[Longtooths]

So every sale post has to have an end date at which the item has to sell by?

Rediculous

Some items sell quick others don't why do we need an end of sale date?

On an auction sure. I can't think of an auction that went 30 days...

Relax Nabin,

Every individual on staff now was drawn directly from the Community, we are community members as well. If we put everything up to democratic vote, nothing would ever get done, instead we use a Representative system, where staff members drawn from the community represent the community when debating things.

They are from the Community and they know what is best for us.

 

[DJAd]

What is a Sale duration violation?

Sounds like something a police officer would hand out on Black Friday.

 

[BrianFreud]

To start with, the rules on the trade forums will be handled largely at the discretion of the Trade Forum Mod, but the idea for the rule changes were:

1. 48 hours was a revert to a previous rule, it wasn't changed to 24 hours until about a year and a half ago.A select few were running 8-10 auctions, dominating the front page, and finding every excuse to bump threads to push every one else below the fold this is unfair to every one else. 3 Active auction thread should suffice for the majority of people, and recycling a thread is fine as well. We've also noticed a number of our more active traders are basically exploiting our site, they sell items for gold here, then sell the gold for cash elsewhere. The Trade Forums are nothing more to them than a step in their supply chain. While we can't stop it, we don't plan to stream line the rules to benefit their capacity to do it.
2. Yes posting "Auction Bids Updated" would count,if it was less than 48 hours, people can read the thread for themselves or you could update the high bids in the initial post without a bump post.
   1. An example would be : Mythical Armor of Gibberish 500m price updated 5/13/2016
3. If someone posts something that bumps a thread and it is substantive to the thread that's fine. If we find people forming partnerships to bump each other it may become a problem.

We're looking to tweak them and better refine the rules, but we need solid data to go by. My suggestion use this thread as a place to get constructive feedback so we have can combine it with info we're gathering by watching threads as well.

Nexus, I have to agree, these are a bit overkill. 3 auctions per section definitely affects me. Additionally, for those here who post an auction for a single drop, and who get multiple drops over a weekend, they can only reasonably auction 3 of them at a time, or else post several lots in a single post (and thus, it's not a single-item auction). I'd suggest that perhaps allowing unlimited numbers of single-item auctions would be fine. As for non-single item auctions, like I run, perhaps restrict them such that only one per section can close in a single night? So if I post 7 auctions, one ending Fri, one Sat, one Sun, etc, it's ok - they'll filter through just fine.

The bump rule is simply unworkable. Yes, you don't want needless *bump* posts. But that post is a marker for me and for the bidders as to where the last update stops. It's literally an essential post, especially when you're trying to figure out what the current bid on something is. "price updated 5/13/2016" is useless. It'd be more like "price updated 5/13/2016 8:49 pm EST". As someone who deals with this quite often, not only is that rather a lot of extra text in the listings, but the width of the screen is a limiter. Look at any of my auctions. Once you get the name of the item, the shard, the drop count, the season, the current bidder, the current bid, AND the names of anyone who's been outbid, you're already pushing it. Line wrapping quickly comes into play.... and lot lists with a lot of wrapping are difficult to read. Add in all that extra text about when the last update happened, and you're wrapping all over the place, as well as making it that much harder to update quickly in the last hour of an auction.

Also, people do ask questions in auctions. If I post to answer, does that count as a bump? If 4 different people ask questions, separated out by multiple bids in between, I can't simply answer as I update, but I have to set them all for a multi-reply? That's simply an unworkable workflow.

As for "We've also noticed a number of our more active traders are basically exploiting our site, they sell items for gold here, then sell the gold for cash elsewhere. The Trade Forums are nothing more to them than a step in their supply chain. While we can't stop it, we don't plan to stream line the rules to benefit their capacity to do it." My two cents... Stratics needs to worry about what happens on Stratics. If people are selling gold elsewhere, as long as they're not advertising RMT on Stratics, then it's really none of Stratics' business what they do with their gold. I run open auctions for anyone who wants to submit items. They give me the items, I auction them, I collect payments and deliver items, and I deliver the gold to the sellers. It's none of my business what they do with that gold afterwards, nor should it be Stratics', just like it's not my business to tell people what to do with items after they've paid.

 

[BrianFreud]

"Updates to a thread restart the 48 hour timer, for example if you update the bids in the initial post 8 hours after the thread was created, you must wait 48 hours from this point to bump the thread."

This bit is simply rediculous and entirely unworkable. If I update the bids, I specifically am not allowed to post "All bids updated"? I've run at least a hundred large auctions on Stratics. This rule alone is a serious problem.

Call me crazy, but I remember a time, a decade or so past, when every forum was way busier. Just Chesapeake used to get 4 or 5 pages of posts a day, minimum... and we were all still able to keep up.

 

[DJAd]

Could one of the people who made these rules please link me to one of their previous auctions so I can see how it should be done correctly from now on as I'm very confused about this.

It's like the rules were made by somebody who never buys/sells stuff via this very forum.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Hiya everyone,

The staff members most involved with the trade forums (including me) are planning to have a discussion about this soon, possibly within the next day or two. We will be going over the rules as a group to see what changes should be made.

I do want to clarify on something though, a lot of people seem to have forgotten that the bump rule was one bump every 48 hours for about 10+ years. I know this because I am the one who created the 24 hour bump rule. About a year and a half ago when I was a new moderator, the sites owner asked me to re-write the trade forum rules because he knew I understood the trade community. All of the trade forum rules we have been using for the last year and a half were written by me, we just decided that it would be better for the owner himself to post them to make it more "official" which is why the stickies with rules were posted by Ron Bron, he just copy/pasted what I sent him and made the threads.

The old rules were written in like 2004 when Stratics was a lot more active, so I did not see any reason for it to be kept at 48 hours since there were a lot fewer threads being made compared to 2004. I lowered it to one bump every 24 hours and it just works better that way in my opinion.

I do agree that one bump every 24 hours and letting people update their auction with the current bids makes sense, and is the best option for the trade community. The unfortunate thing is that certain people were abusing that and were posting "updated" multiple times a day, every day, for months straight with multiple threads to get around the 1 bump per day rule. Most of the time they either didn't change anything at all, or added literally one word to their original post. We have had difficulty dealing with that because we all knew they were doing it on purpose to evade the bump rule and mess with other posters, but we couldn't warn them for it because it was "technically" within the rules. That is why the discussion about changing the bump rule was started. It is true that I had extremely limited input into the current bump rule, and have been gone for the last 3 weeks.

We will be discussing it soon like I said, so if anyone has any suggestions please post them here and I will make sure your suggestions are brought up during the meeting

 

[Smoot]

48 hour bump seems reasonable
3 active threads / auctions seems reasonable.

allowing unlimited updates to auction bids within the last hour of the auction

only tricky part is other updates.

for example, if its a heavy event night. say 4 events. im going to add each of those items to a sales thread and want people to know it. If thats limited, its better just to make a seperate post, which creates more bulk for the forums. i think that only makes sense

we just need to avoid a few people dominating the forums with a 5 to 10 posts / aucitons. in this scenerio, im going to do everything possible and within the rules to get my threads to the top, so it becomes a spiral effect. this is what we want to avoid. ill admit i did this in the past just to compete with walls of 10 auctions or items for sale burying my 2 to 3 selling threads all the time.

Also, the "thankyou" posts after an auction, while polite i guess, needlessly spam an outdated auction to the top. again not sure how to handle this, its just another thing to consider if the staff does decide to adjust the rules.

 

[Nails Warstein]

Is their a forum mechanism for a player who creates their thread to add information to that thread that sends out a notification to all watchers and posters on that thread without actually bumping the thread to the top of the forum?

Also would it be possible for players to create a profile / store page that players could favorite to watch for notifications? Maybe this feature could be apart of some paid subscription to generate money for the site.

 

[BrianFreud]

Also would it be possible for players to create a profile / store page that players could favorite to watch for notifications? Maybe this feature could be apart of some paid subscription to generate money for the site.

If I follow what you're describing, that's already in place. On your profile page, you can post a status update. People who follow you will get a notification about the new status post... I think.

 

[Lord Arm]

rules seem reasonable to me as long as a notification is given out to warn us of the violation so we don't get too many lol.

 

[Captn Norrington]

Also would it be possible for players to create a profile / store page that players could favorite to watch for notifications? Maybe this feature could be apart of some paid subscription to generate money for the site.

That technically already exists. If you make a Stratics guild anyone who joins it can set it so that they get a notification every time anything is posted on the guild discussion board. You could make a guild, set it to open recruitment (which means anyone on Stratics can add themselves to it without you having to approve it) and then post whatever stuff you have for sale on the guild discussion board. It would send notifications to all the members every time you or anyone else posts.

 

[Nails Warstein]

That technically already exists. If you make a Stratics guild anyone who joins it can set it so that they get a notification every time anything is posted on the guild discussion board. You could make a guild, set it to open recruitment (which means anyone on Stratics can add themselves to it without you having to approve it) and then post whatever stuff you have for sale on the guild discussion board. It would send notifications to all the members every time you or anyone else posts.

Can a player join more than one guild? If not, this wouldn't benefit everyone. However if you did set it up so that people could join as many of this type of guild or new renamed store module as they want, without endless ribbons, you may be on to something.

 

[Nails Warstein]

If I follow what you're describing, that's already in place. On your profile page, you can post a status update. People who follow you will get a notification about the new status post... I think.

Can you add photos without a short character limit?

 

[BrianFreud]

I've never tried

 

[Captn Norrington]

Can a player join more than one guild? If not, this wouldn't benefit everyone. However if you did set it up so that people could join as many of this type of guild or new renamed store module as they want, without endless ribbons, you may be on to something.

Yes, a player can join as many guilds as they want. I was in 8 on this account at one point. They can only activate the ribbon for one at a time too, so it wouldn't create a ribbon issue.

Here is proof, screenshot of my current "guilds you have joined" page. I'm in two but only have the ribbon from one of them.

 

[claudia-fjp]

So every sale post has to have an end date at which the item has to sell by?

Rediculous

Some items sell quick others don't why do we need an end of sale date?

On an auction sure. I can't think of an auction that went 30 days...

I bet if the items don't sell by the time limit then they become property of Stratics Inc. LLC! Don't worry, you still own it, you're part of the community*!










*Items confiscated due to not selling no longer belong to you. Any complaints made will result in 1/10th of a perma-ban. Offer of belonging to the community are not valid outside of Alaska Hawaii or Puerto Rico.



All joking aside auctions being forced to have end dates makes sense. General selling does not. I can see what they are TRYING to do but I think it's more of a problem of the forum system being a bad format for buying and selling items in the first place.