Posted by -LOCKED - Community Input on Challenge/Paperclip Trades

Katze (#3)

Heavenly
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Posted on
2022-08-12 09:33:32
Hi, everyone!

As mentioned within August 12th's Community Update news, we are aware that part of the community dislikes challenge/paperclip trades appearing in the Trading Center. One particular topic has had a fair bit of discussion from both sides:
* ⚔️TwoSwordsClash⚔️ (#122111), "Outlaw "joke" trades of 1 SB"

Our stance has generally been that the Trading Center is a player-run "free market". Part of the reason for this is that you, the players, determine the value that items and other assets hold over time. Players are free to try to sell or trade their assets at whatever value they choose, and other players are free to decide whether or not they accept that value.

When it comes to moderating challenge/paperclip trades, the main question is: where do we draw the line? At what value does a trade become more than just a paperclip trade? If an arbitrary value is set, then trades will simply be created at a value just above that. If it becomes a matter of simply disallowing any trades entitled "What can I get for _____?", then we essentially remove open-ended offer-based trades.

We understand that a big concern is how they flood the Trading Center and push legitimate trades out of view, though we have never moderated the amount of trades any one player can post at one time, or how many of a certain type of trade can exist at the same time.

As you can see, moderating these trades isn't a cut-and-dried solution, much as we wish it were.

Potential Solutions
* We could add the ability to conveniently and instantly hide trades under the "Recent Trades" and "Search Results" listings for trades, without needing to click to view the actual trade, and without needing to block the trade's creator. An additional "Hidden Trades" section could be added to the Trading Center interface in case a trade is hidden by mistake.
* There could be an additional option to "Hide All Trades By This Player", as well. This could act as a "soft block" which only prevents you from seeing certain trades, and still allows you to interact with the trade creator.
* We could implement a new Stockpile subforum category for "Challenge Trades", where players would be encouraged to advertise their challenges. Players could then set up private trades if they end up receiving a buyer for their trade, rather than publicly listing their trades in the Trading Center beforehand. The downside of this option is then moderating what does and does not belong within that subforum, needing to cancel/remove any publicly-listed challenge trades, and determining what falls under a challenge trade to begin with.

We would ideally like to hear whether or not this is something you think might provide added value for you when using the Trading Center. Additionally, if you have thoughts on other possible (manageable) solutions or suggestions on how this type of system could be improved, we're open to hearing these as well. Keep in mind that any solutions tied to moderation would require hard-set definitions that not all players may see eye to eye on.

To further clarify: We want your input on how exactly we rule this type of trade - where is the line? Why isn't my 1 SB trade open for any offers allowed? It's a legitimate trade, I am offering something in exchange for an offer. Why would it be considered begging or a challenge/paperclip trade? What if it was 5 SB instead of 1? 10 instead of 5? Who determines whether I'm asking to trade up by offering 1 SB for a Large Leaf?

In order to moderate things like this efficiently, we need a concrete determined set of rules about what constitutes a challenge trade. That's what we need your help with.

If we implement the second Trading Center idea that some people are suggesting, how do we determine that a trade in the "regular" Trading Center isn't just a misplaced challenge trade? This is the conundrum we're having.

This topic will remain open for two weeks, and will be locked on Friday, August 26th, 2022. Once it is locked, our admin team will review it for potential ideas and solutions. We will post an update on the situation as soon as we are able to work one out, if one can be worked out at all—and if we decide not to pursue these trades, we will announce this as well.



This suggestion has 519 supports and 40 NO supports.



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Edited on 12/08/22 @ 10:03:48 by Katze (#3)

FoxyFabulous123 (#162340)


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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:23:51
Why not just have a section in the trading center for challenge posts?

Like how there's private vs public trades there could be an extra button when uploading a trade that says "challenge" that would put it in the challenge section of the trading center. Then in when searching you can have a button that has "exclude challenges" so that when you're searching you don't have the challenges show up?

That way people are still able to post their challenges to the trading center where people can find them; and the people who don't like seeing the challenges wont have to ^^



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Rufus (#208144)

Usual
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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:24:13
Admin Response:
If someone were to break the rules and post in the trading center instead of on the forums, how do we determine it's actually one of these types of trades?


The issues lies where you may not be able to. The user's intention may just be to find the worth of their trade, but it's just 'labelled wrong'. such as 'what can i get for my Gon?' - this would count as a 'what can i get for 1sb' trade to the community in a sense, but it's a gon, no one would care; that's the issue that lies beneath imo.

You can't determine what a trade is, it can only be determined by the trader themselves, outlawing certain phrases would mean a lot more extra work over the next week or so having to get everyone used to it [e.g '[currency] to [currency]', [what can i get for [currency]']



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NSH (G1 Goldenrod
RLC) (#14870)

Lone Wanderer
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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:25:08
Speaking objectively, they should be placed into a sub category. If you want to ban it outright then you just might as well axe ALL gifting/wishlisting/tradeup/"what can I get for x" from the site because they could all be seen as begging depending on who you're talking to. Sub category is simply the cleanest option due there being a big enough presence to warrant having one. This solves problems on both ends, with the people who don't want to see the trades not having to and making it easier for the people that want to participate in the challenge to find.



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Edited on 12/08/22 @ 10:26:16 by Frumpkin (#14870)

Fading Angel (G2 2k)
[Frozen] (#81854)

Holy
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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:25:26
@Lily, that's not totally true. There's a handful of items that are less then 20sb :)
And has someone mentioned monkey business. Monkey business is only going to offer you 1-3sb for a lot of items. Bg I think it's 75sb. Decor I'm unsure. But lower then bg I would assume.

So if someone planned to toss to the monkey anyways. Offering 1-3sb would be fine because they are getting the same amount. Often time more then what the monkey would



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Khajiit {G1 Leonid
Splash} (#68800)

Cursed
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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:25:53
As I do not know how to reply to admin reply:
"I think the issue here is if we're saying that they must have a minimum of 100SB, if members are still able to create trades under that, what's to stop them just not naming it a challenge trade? If we don't allow trades to be created with lower than 100SB, what about people who legitimately want to trade for a low value item?"

I never said to not allow the trades with less than 100sb. It's not that hard to go "Hey, I am looking for x, offering x amount of sb", because this actually shows WHAT they are looking for and how much they are offering for said thing. Most people, including me, have a problem with the 1sb/paperclip challenge because it's a "I don't know, offer equal or higher value" which, in my humble opinion, falls under veiled begging. I saw people set trades with 1sb, 5sb, 10sb specifically saying what exactly they are buying, which means that someone who has the thing, be it trash item, cub, ncl or anything else - can easily offer and both sides will be happy.
With paperclip challenge you do not really have it. And people can still be their generous selves on the subforum dedicated to such thing, or in giveaways chat/forums, or in their clans, or other places. Without someone toeing the line of begging by hiding behind "but I offered 1sb/it's a challenge".



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Casey (Quitting) (#52546)


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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:25:58
I personally think that there should be a subforum for these types of trades or a different type of trading center, like "challenge trading center" or something. These challenge trades are honestly so annoying, they clog the trading center and push down trades I'm actually interested in seeing. Not to mention they're just veiled begging considering most only accept offers that are worth more than what is being offered. Having to "soft block" so many people really isn't an ideal situation either. What if they have trades that I'm actually interested in too, but are also participating in this challenge nonsense? I would hate to miss out on something like that, all the while going out of my way to soft block potentially dozens (hundreds?) of people... like that's really not something I want to have to spend hours doing personally.



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Edited on 12/08/22 @ 10:27:42 by Casey|G2 13BO Incense Felis (#52546)

Rufus (#208144)

Usual
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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:28:11
I like the idea of a more jokery TC, [like how the raffles are separate], as suggested in the thread, but what about sales chat? people complain about it all being on there, so are you planning on stopping people mentioning it there, or allowing them to keep it there in the long-run?

A joke trade is still a trade, and should remain in the sales chat if there is even a consideration of making another chat for it.



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Khajiit {G1 Leonid
Splash} (#68800)

Cursed
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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:30:20
To be honest the moment they get their own forum they should stay in said forum, just like clans are. Which to me is sad, alas that is a different can of worms.
Or give them their own subforum AND chat channel.



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Rubypaw (#294904)

Harbinger
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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:30:53
I had another thought on this. What about implementing a tagging system or the like on trades? If multiple users flag a trade for challenge or begging or what have you, then the trade gets hidden automatically unless users tick a box to show the flagged category? Say 10 or 20 users tag the same trade. There would still be room for abuse but overall it would let the community moderate the issue themselves.



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Anne (BO Sidereal)
🇵🇸 (#61013)

Deathlord of the Jungle
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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:31:39
To the admin response to my post....

If it's for some "challenge" which technically according to lioden rules would fall under games forum, then yes it is too less. And I'd rather not see it in tc. If you all can be so strict with other begging rules in chat, forums, etc, this can be fixed too.

It just shouldn't be in tc at all. And players should be allowed to flag trades if they hint at the challenge. I get that someone would offer say...10 SB for a jacana leg or 1 SB for a hyrax skull for the snake quest. Those are valid trades. But seeing things like 1 SB to a gon? Or say 100 SB to a gon? Or 1 GB to a gon? What part of it sounds like oh it's a fair challenge without the lurking fear of getting scammed? Why does this challenge have to exist if it can somewhat encourage scamming? And what good does it do for players who just want a normal TC without this nonsense? Will players like their forums clogged with this too? If say you do move it there ...?



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Fading Angel (G2 2k)
[Frozen] (#81854)

Holy
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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:32:29
I feel if it got its own forum/chat... it'll die out even faster. Which wouldn't be a bad thing really. Because only people going to be in those are those looking to get more value for what they have and if they all are working towards that goal.. they all aren't going to trade with each other because they allw ant to build up.



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Rufus (#208144)

Usual
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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:32:38
@Kha totally agree! While you can still advertise clans on a forum page [e.g a mutie giveaway clan can have a forum with a link to said clan and it being allowed], you can also advertise the raffles in the sales chat [direct link to clan].

But also, what do the admins intend on doing if the 'jokery TC' ends up going dead like the clan chat did? Will you get rid of it like the clan chat, and what happens when it becomes popular again [like clans]?



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Mad Hyena (#29080)

Necromancer
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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:33:59
I think the following would be the best option:

1) Minimum of 10 SB offered in trade - just like there is minimum ticket price for raffles or minimum studding price. There's simply nothing worth less than 10 SB, so that would be a good minimum!
2) Like people suggest, consider the "X to Y paperclip" kind of trades to be Forum Games. So they'd not be allowed to be posted as open trades - just as private trades between people participating in the Forum Game, through the forums. Paperclip is a game more than a trade.
3) Make a subforum for Paperclip Games and make it not show up on the Recent Activity board (like the bug reports dont show up). So that it doesnt flood the forum! Only people interested in playing it will see the topics when they go to the subforum; people not interested wont have to see it.

So I feel the line would be good at this:

"What can I get for X" - is fine, people might get 10 SB value junk for their 10 SB or not, depends on the trader. They're not directly ASKING for something more than that value, and there are several various things worth 10 SB, junk items, NCLs, potato cubs, etc. So they can ask to see what they can get.

But this:
"10 SB to a Leopon!" - not fine, the part hinting a huge value something they want to get starting from 10 SB is indicating clearly they want increasingly higher value things for their trade, thus its a game and not a trade.



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Edited on 12/08/22 @ 10:37:49 by Mad Hyena (#29080)

Mandrill 🥭 (#102505)


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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:34:39
I'm not convinced that many people engage in these 'paperclip challenges'. As soon as their is a forum or a section somewhere dedicated to it, I feel it is a lot of effort, work and hassle to manage for the staff whilst we all know it is a (being generous here) bit of "fun" which will die on the vine time and time again as new players come and go.

I feel like the blocking trades is an excellent one as it has utility for more than just this issue and will hopefully encourage players to be more considerate and mindful of their trades and actions.

Being harmlessly obnoxious is fine, let kids be kids! But it would be very nice if we can block or hide trades made by specific players and on an individual trade by trade basis to save a lot of headache for other players.



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Khajiit {G1 Leonid
Splash} (#68800)

Cursed
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Posted on
2022-08-12 10:34:52
Well, to be honest I think they should've left the clan chat alone and not get rid of it, even if it became slightly dead, because it was a given it would pick up again with the influx of new players. The same for the "jokery TC" or the subforum with the channel - let it be, people will use it. Sometimes it will be slow/dead, sometimes it will be booming. The same fluctuation happens with RP and art chat, and yet those are still around.



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