Trading Hub Feedback

[Cinspawn]

@TJ09

 

I hope you don't mind me pinging you, I waited on purpose for your last message and it didn't address my question.

 

And that question is, can you please explain clearly why we cannot put references to the forum in the trade description box? Such as "PM [user] to split trade" and variants thereof.

Basically, this post:

 

19 hours ago, 49ER said:

I think TJ's job-related conflict has to do with not setting up a scroll to scroll communications system as I understand it.  But asking for people to PM you and your forum name is _____, should not be a conflict with his job.  

So I would ask that you reconsider that ruling.

and if your argument is that it is not a "want", while that might be true on a literal scale, I think that it really stunts the potential of the Trading Hub. I made a post about my reasonings here:

 

On 8/6/2018 at 12:33 PM, Cinspawn said:

I find it ridiculous we are not allowed to put "PM me on forums" or something similar in the box. I think what this game needs most is a better way to communicate, some sort of messaging system - but I have been told this is not possible because of TJ's irl work. Okay. Fair enough.

 

But to then forbid other messaging options? You're literally giving us a great addition to the site, the trading hub, reaching so many more people than we could before on the forums alone... only to build some sort of thick wall around it saying no, you are not allowed to communicate at all, everything has to stay within these strict perimeters.

Instead of being able to merge the two trading worlds, you made a new separate one.

 

Communication is so incredibly important in a game where there is no set worth of things... you have to be able to haggle, to bribe, to bargain, whatever. So many potential trades are now lost because we're not allowed to communicate. Imagine going to a marketplace and saying "I have a sheep, I want a cow." and the other person goes "I want a sheep, I have donkeys." End of conversation. Because their trade was not as simple as 1+1=2. If only they could have made a compromise, going between the offers...

 

I'm confused why trading on the forums is acceptable then, too. We're literally using the same game, we're trading, and talking and PM'ing about it, we just started at the other end of the equation. So I'm allowed to PM here with a user, then trade on the Dragoncave site, but I can't make a trade offer on the Dragoncave site and then work out the specifics here by PM. Doesn't that seem backwards to you? Why is one allowed and the other isn't? It's still merging offsite-communication and onsite-trading, isn't it?

 

I'm not going to pretend I know the exact reason why all of this isn't allowed. If TJ isn't allowed cause of his work, or if he simply doesn't WANT to, sure. Nothing we can do about that. But I do find it really absurd and questionable. I just can't imagine a scenario that makes sense, to be honest. Like I get that you're sometimes not allowed to make a competitor or something similar or whatever. But to forbid referencing a system that is already in use. HOW is that not okay...? Even in terms of work-related rules...

 

So what I'm asking for is, could you explain that rule, why we can't reference PM's or the forums, when it's clearly already a part of the game, and when it clearly stunts trading?

[Alrexwolf]

2 hours ago, TJ09 said:

The one thing in that post that is not already on the site is "haves," which I specifically called out as "this is an exception being granted until the feature supports it." Which is to say, it's not going to be codified in the rules, it's just going to be properly supported in the feature. A single glance at the trading hub will show you plenty of trades already including haves, so it seems to be pretty obvious to people that it's an okay thing to do.

 

 

To bring up my prompt from the help thread here as well: given the text "help others understand what types of offers you are looking for," can you please explain what how you find it unclear whether "want to accept - you're locked" does/does not "help others understand what types of offers you are looking for." In my interpretation, it does not give me any information about what to offer except maybe "don't offer; I'm going to ignore this trade because it's low signal/irrelevant to almost every single person who uses the trading hub." Similarly, the phrase "PM for wishlist" does not tell me what you're looking for, nor does the text "dragcave.net/group/1338" Those things only have meaning if someone goes and does something else.

 

If the fact that your wants must be standalone is the main thing would help explain that the text "PM for <x>" does not "help others understand what types of offers you are looking for," that's fairly easy to add.

 

And regardless of that, I have yet not banned anyone for linking to on-site groups, though I maintain it is indeed against the rules-as-written (per above).

 

[internal screaming] bolded for emphasis on what im actually going to address

 

1: Okay but like. If I went to the trading hub before, there would be plenty of people saying PM for Wishlist, linking to groups, etc, which you EXPLICITLY SAY is NOT OKAY TO DO! You can't tell people "follow the rule of monkey see, monkey do" then BAN THEM for doing exactly that! 

 

2: hey i really like your offer player X, I'd accept it, but you're locked. PM me and we'll work it out?

 

3: pm for wishlist means i want something on my wishlist. i can't link it because links are banned, so please pm me. how does that not help someone understand what the heck.

similarly how does "want X dragon unrelated to /group/000" not help. i want this type of dragon. not related to the dragons in group 000. what is not to understand about how that could be helpful.

 

4. THIS IS THE BIGGEST ISSUE. You CANNOT (well, I mean, you can, but it's a terrible leadership practice and leads to confusion and discord) lay out rules and just choose to ignore half of them but ban for the other half! It's ridiculous! The rules need to be clearly stated and, more importantly, consistently enforced. You can't tell people "oh breaking this rule is ok," meanwhile you're banning people on the side for equally innocuous actions, just because you deem one rule breaking more acceptable than another.

 

also can someone please explain to me why we can't have direct scroll to scroll messaging for trading but we can for events, like the valentine's day event last (?) year? iirc, you could even specifically send valentine's to friends' scrolls. what is the difference.

 

and i would like to say that I think the trading hub is next to useless without pagination. I often don't know what I want; I just like scrolling through the trades. The first page is the same bumped "want xenos/prizes/unbreedables/zyus/etc" alts and similar breeds. I would like to be able to scroll through and find trades for other breeds I don't even know I want yet; find an egg with a cool code here or there that's a common breed I never would've looked for on my own. That's the beauty of something like that, it's like window shopping, and it's usually what I like to use trade features for. It's impossible with this as it is, though. 

 

im sorry im just so frustrated i feel like a dog chasing its tail.

[49ER]

What about this?  This was mentioned by someone earlier but I wish to re-visit it.  

1)  Allow for someone to put something in their account settings like "Trade Hub PM's Permitted" along with option to put their forum name in another space, or "Trade Hub PM's not Permitted", that would work like the option that players use for whether or not they allow user aid, and shows up at the bottom of the dragon's view pages.  

2)  Then it would not show up in the Trade Hub as part of the wants in the player's trade listings, but if someone clicked on to the player's trade/teleport link page, there could be something at top or bottom of page saying whether or not the player permits forum pms or not and if so, what their forum name is.  

3)  If the player does not wish to accept pm's later, or they do wish to accept pm's later or whatever, they can go back and change it in their account settings.

 

I do not know how hard this would be to code, but I do not see how something like this violates any conflict with scroll to scroll communications,  

 

The other suggestion would be to have a separate space for "Have"  --that way, posting what you have in Want space would not violate any rule pertaining to that rule.

 

There still is more to be discussed about linking to groups or wishlists, and I think that should be discussed more, but I will just leave this suggestion as it is for now.

[HopeUnbroken]

13 minutes ago, 49ER said:

What about this?  This was mentioned by someone earlier but I wish to re-visit it.  

1)  Allow for someone to put something in their account settings like "Trade Hub PM's Permitted" along with option to put their forum name in another space, or "Trade Hub PM's not Permitted", that would work like the option that players use for whether or not they allow user aid, and shows up at the bottom of the dragon's view pages.  

2)  Then it would not show up in the Trade Hub as part of the wants in the player's trade listings, but if someone clicked on to the player's trade/teleport link page, there could be something at top or bottom of page saying whether or not the player permits forum pms or not and if so, what their forum name is.  

3)  If the player does not wish to accept pm's later, or they do wish to accept pm's later or whatever, they can go back and change it in their account settings.

 

I do not know how hard this would be to code, but I do not see how something like this violates any conflict with scroll to scroll communications,  

 

The other suggestion would be to have a separate space for "Have"  --that way, posting what you have in Want space would not violate any rule pertaining to that rule.

 

There still is more to be discussed about linking to groups or wishlists, and I think that should be discussed more, but I will just leave this suggestion as it is for now.

 

This seems like an incredible idea to me! I often find myself wanting to PM an individual about a trade, but am very hesitant to do so because I don't want to bother them if they don't want PMs. This would immediately solve that issue and, of course, there could still be the rule (spelled out somewhere on-site hopefully) of not mentioning PMing and taking up space in the Want box - you state what you want but if someone has a question they know whether or not they should PM you.

 

This would also be incredibly helpful for users such as myself whose forum name does not match their scroll name - even if it was permitted I wouldn't want to put my forum name in every trade, yet I almost always want an individual to PM me if they had a question or such, so that I don't miss out on a great offer.

 

It seems to me (with what little I know) that implementing this would eliminate any "need" for any sort of direct communication onsite and relegate it to the forums (which is what they exist for) while allowing everyone an easy way to opt-out if they aren't forum users or just don't want to be bothered.

[Shadowdrake]

I'll be frank. This is the most egregious issue of mods and admin not listening to the user base I have ever seen, because unlike any other issue we've had on forums this has real in-game consequences for a user and yet you all insist that "this box is for explaining what offers you want" actually says "this 100-character box is for explaining what offers you want at an immediate glance, no links to offer lists or requests for further offer negotiation allowed lest you be forever banned from a new and barely-tested site feature."

 

There has never been a site feature so central, so constricting and yet so vague in its demands. Descriptions have the privilege of getting a whole page of rules to themselves, even though the chances of an approved description being seen by others is slim to none. Names are vaguer in their restrictions (what is appropriate? kid-friendly or pg-13?) but also a very loose field without any restrictions on what makes a name, unlike the restriction of a wants field only being immediately readable wants no further steps allowed. And if one is actually punished for a problematic name or description (the usual "no sex, drugs or rock and roll violent/racist rhetoric") other than a dragon or two being killed the inability to use these things is mostly aesthetic. Not so for the trade hub.

 

And really, if all the other user-input fields we've ever had boiled down to "stay kid-friendly" is it so hard to believe that these extra restrictions have taken us users by surprise?

 

Of course we've had issues communicating with the higher ups before, but for the most part it's been about this or that dragon on-site which is mostly aesthetic, or otherwise problems on forum which affects no one on-site. So the fact that mods are banning people from trades because they can't decide on what to even communicate and refuse to consider that the rule (singular) that they're enforcing is both too vague and too narrow for users means the rest of the player base get punished for rules (plural) they can't possibly extrapolate or even chime in on.

 

How is anyone supposed to know that any mention of the official forums is forbidden on the game it was made for when the rule is both counterintuitive and incredibly restrictive? How many people do you think keep up on what the suggestions area says? Do you know how many people have been driven away from this area or even the forum itself and only use it for PMs or games? Because I know a bunch of active players who have their own chat group and yet were unaware that TJ even nixed in-cave communication due to his job until I linked it for them, and I guarantee 90% of active players will have no clue about the unwritten rules until they overstep.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Shadowdrake

[HeatherMarie]

6 hours ago, Dalek Raptor said:

We really need rules TJ on the hub. Because half the time all I see is: "free" or "free but offer any hatchi". If it's "free just offer a dummy" that's perfectly fine and understandable. But having to go to the forums to read the supposed rules is a hassle. Not everyone is going to want to go through the forums to read the rules. 

 

Another concern of mine is if User A has something I want but they don't have a forum account or has a different name from their scroll name (like me) how am I supposed to contact them to negotiate a trade?

 

I'm not sure why 'free offer such-and-such' would ever be against the rules? TJ seems clear that the want box is specifically for what offers you are looking for, and 'free offer such-and-such' does exactly that. I don't think we need to get bogged down in what individual users consider 'free' and not, or if it's truly 'free' if they ask for a hatchie.... They aren't asking for anything *specific*, so to me 'free' is fairly accurate. I really don't think policing people's choice of wording in the trade hub is going to be helpful at all.

 

I'm also not sure what the issue is with the second part of your post... If User A has something you want, offer on their trade. If you can't offer because you don't have what *they* want, then either find what they want and offer it or ignore that trade as 'can't happen'. There is no pressing *need* to contact someone directly about a trade.... If you have what they want, you offer. Heck, plenty of people offer on trades with things *other* then what is actually listed as wanted, you could always try that if you really really want what they are trading, it's possible they might accept anyways. There is no reason to 'negotiate a trade' in the Hub, the Hub is for simple direct trades (ie, no IOUs, etc). Someone posts a trade, someone offers, someone accepts. Simple. There doesn't *need* to be direct communication in that.

 

edit:

Quote

What about this?  This was mentioned by someone earlier but I wish to re-visit it.  

1)  Allow for someone to put something in their account settings like "Trade Hub PM's Permitted" along with option to put their forum name in another space, or "Trade Hub PM's not Permitted", that would work like the option that players use for whether or not they allow user aid, and shows up at the bottom of the dragon's view pages.  

2)  Then it would not show up in the Trade Hub as part of the wants in the player's trade listings, but if someone clicked on to the player's trade/teleport link page, there could be something at top or bottom of page saying whether or not the player permits forum pms or not and if so, what their forum name is.  

3)  If the player does not wish to accept pm's later, or they do wish to accept pm's later or whatever, they can go back and change it in their account settings.

 

I do not know how hard this would be to code, but I do not see how something like this violates any conflict with scroll to scroll communications,  

 

The other suggestion would be to have a separate space for "Have"  --that way, posting what you have in Want space would not violate any rule pertaining to that rule.

 

There still is more to be discussed about linking to groups or wishlists, and I think that should be discussed more, but I will just leave this suggestion as it is for now.

 

I do not want *any* communication about trades I've posted in the Hub, and 'PMs not permitted' is simply not good enough in this scenario. A *TON* of players can attest to the fact that the 'don't allow aid' message is completely ignored most of the time, because so many people don't see it as serious, or 'oh well they just don't know any better' and 'they are new I'll just help them once' etc etc. I don't personally understand this huge *need* to communicate directly with people regarding trades in the hub when you can very easily complete hub trades with no communication at all, but whatever happens I just want to make sure people understand that a simple message like the 'no aid' message is not going to do any good either way.

Edited August 7, 2018 by HeatherMarie

[49ER]

By the same token, not having ANYTHING about pms or not, would still result in people getting pms.  But if it said on the TP link that the user does not permit pm's for trade hub and someone pm's them anyway, then they could be reported.

And "Free" should mean you don't expect to gain something from giving it, it is a gift.  Obviously if several people put up AP eggs and one of them happens to be one you like above others, then I expect that is the one you would take.  But when you start saying Free, for best offers or most CB hatchies, it is NOT free, it is a trade.

[HopeUnbroken]

If people are getting PMs when they don't want to (and I have also seen some people saying how they don't want to use the trading hub because they don't want people to have their name to access their scrolls) then maybe names don't even need to be publicly attached to trades. If this was the case, then rather than an opt-in "I don't want PMs" statement there could be an opt-in to show your forum name and a generic "I accept PMs regarding trades" statement somewhere on the page once you click on a trade. Thus, no one except mods would know who was offering trades/be able to contact them if they didn't so desire. I do think the optional ability to provide a PM contact would be a useful feature, but it's also definitely far from the most urgent update needed to the hub (clear rules, pagination, etc.).

 

Edit: Obviously if a user didn't have their scroll name hidden on their dragons' pages than not showing it on the trading hub wouldn't make too much of a difference but it would still not be so immediately apparent.

Edited August 7, 2018 by HopeUnbroken

[49ER]

I have found PM's both sent and received have resulted in me getting more trades.  if one does not want PM's then they just limit the potential they can get in trades, but that is their choice. It is not the most urgent update, I agree, but since the powers that be have decided saying PM me, or No PM's is a violation to put in the Have Box, I was just suggesting an alternative to keeping it out of there but still allowing a way to be contacted, if you should want to be.

[olympe]

1 hour ago, HeatherMarie said:

I do not want *any* communication about trades I've posted in the Hub, and 'PMs not permitted' is simply not good enough in this scenario. A *TON* of players can attest to the fact that the 'don't allow aid' message is completely ignored most of the time, because so many people don't see it as serious, or 'oh well they just don't know any better' and 'they are new I'll just help them once' etc etc. I don't personally understand this huge *need* to communicate directly with people regarding trades in the hub when you can very easily complete hub trades with no communication at all, but whatever happens I just want to make sure people understand that a simple message like the 'no aid' message is not going to do any good either way.

Since I came up  with this suggestion, let me explain. I wish there was a feature to link our forum account profile (and nothing but!) to our DC account if we so choose. This would go along with permission to PM us for trades. Default would be no link, no permission, which could or could not be explicitly stated. (For example, if I wanted to disucss a trade with you, I'd PM you here if I knew - at least if I could. However, if I saw that you do not welcome PMs, I'd shrug it off and not PM you. I think that at least some people would react the same way. In any case, it would not give you more undesired PMs than before, and has the potential to even reduce the amount. Not to mention that you can easily avoid unsolicited PMs by changing your user name here so it's different from your scroll name.)

 

1 hour ago, HopeUnbroken said:

If people are getting PMs when they don't want to (and I have also seen some people saying how they don't want to use the trading hub because they don't want people to have their name to access their scrolls) then maybe names don't even need to be publicly attached to trades. If this was the case, then rather than an opt-in "I don't want PMs" statement there could be an opt-in to show your forum name and a generic "I accept PMs regarding trades" statement somewhere on the page once you click on a trade. Thus, no one except mods would know who was offering trades/be able to contact them if they didn't so desire. I do think the optional ability to provide a PM contact would be a useful feature, but it's also definitely far from the most urgent update needed to the hub (clear rules, pagination, etc.).

That is, in fact, a pretty good idea. Why not make it depend on whether you show your scroll name on your dragons' view pages or not? If you don't display your scroll name there, it doesn't get shown on the trading hub, either.

[49ER]

But the scrollname would show up on TP links and people offering wouldn't it?  Right now they do, even if someone does not display scrollname on their dragons.

[olympe]

That's what I hope will change. "An unnamed user's trade" would be ideal for the anonymous people. (And it would be a nice reference to agar.io, too...)

[49ER]

2 minutes ago, olympe said:

That's what I hope will change. "An unnamed user's trade" would be ideal for the anonymous people. (And it would be a nice reference to agar.io, too...)

Personally I would not like that to change.  There are people who I definitely do not want to trade with, and there are some who I am more likely to trade with.  For example if I ask for a M and F Pair of something, if I get an offer of an ungendered set, if I know this person to be very reputable, I would know they would not put them up if they did not know them to be influenced/precog'd opposite.  And I think some know the same about me.

[HeatherMarie]

10 minutes ago, olympe said:

That's what I hope will change. "An unnamed user's trade" would be ideal for the anonymous people. (And it would be a nice reference to agar.io, too...)

 

I would love that, honestly. I don't necessarily care about people seeing my username (I do always have it linked in my sig....) but it would definitely be wonderful if there was an *option* to conduct trades anonymously. Especially because of the existence of things like revenge-viewbombing, if you don't pick someone's offer (that can and does happen!). There are a couple people I don't wish to trade with, but in that case I'd simply ignore all anonymous trades or decide it's worth it to take my chances. 

 

edit: Of course names should be visible to TJ/mods/whatever, so if an anonymous trade is reported for some reason they can accurately look into it.

Edited August 7, 2018 by HeatherMarie

[olympe]

6 minutes ago, 49ER said:

Personally I would not like that to change.  There are people who I definitely do not want to trade with, and there are some who I am more likely to trade with.  For example if I ask for a M and F Pair of something, if I get an offer of an ungendered set, if I know this person to be very reputable, I would know they would not put them up if they did not know them to be influenced/precog'd opposite.  And I think some know the same about me.

In a case like this, I'd consider an unnamed user to be unreliable. End of story. Because I very much agree with HeatherMarie's stance on this.

1 minute ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

I would love that, honestly. I don't necessarily care about people seeing my username (I do always have it linked in my sig....) but it would definitely be wonderful if there was an *option* to conduct trades anonymously. Especially because of the existence of things like revenge-viewbombing, if you don't pick someone's offer (that can and does happen!). There are a couple people I don't wish to trade with, but in that case I'd simply ignore all anonymous trades or decide it's worth it to take my chances. 

 

[HeatherMarie]

On the issue of non-gendered hatchlings, there have been people who get rather upset when asking for a specific gender and accepting a non-gendered and then it turns into the wrong gender.... The thing is, that's not always done maliciously. I mean, even if you 'know' a certain username, it's completely possible they didn't think to precog it, and there are a *lot* of hub users who aren't on the forums and don't understand why things like that are so important and might offer something honestly not even *realizing* that it could gender wrong or that that would be an issue. If you really need a specific gender I'd stick to strictly accepting only gendered hatchlings. 

[olympe]

Very true, too. Although, in most cases, it shouldn't be too hard to get a gender swap. Not with the trading hub, I think.

[49ER]

Gender swaps are difficult unless you are swapping for the latest release.  And so far, if I trade with people I know to be reputable, I have not gotten the wrong gender.  

But my view on this still stands.  I do not want TP trade names or people offering to be anonymous.  

[olympe]

@TJ09 - Because this is a different issue I just spotted and not part of the ongoing discussion:

This be a thing.  (Tried to make it anonymous, so names are cropped as far as possible.)

Btw, what I'm talking about is the group of 4 eggs merging with the next trader's name, thus obscuring it to some extent.

 

Edited August 7, 2018 by olympe
Edited *again* because I totally failed at spelling...

[Fiona]

In my opinion, if you want something specific as from a particular list you go to the forum to trade. The threads there allow very specific wants. So there's no need for a "PM me" type thing in our Wants box, nor any kind of links to wishlists or dragon groups. If you have to be that specific then I don't think the hub is the place for your trade. I don't think there should ever be a case where we direct a trade offer to a specific person, no matter what, so putting "X, you're egglocked" seems to me that it should be against the rules, which it is. The trading hub is designed to be straight forward "I have this thing, I want something for it." It should be open to whoever wants to make an offer.

 

That said, I don't think bans from the hub should be permanent at this point unless the user has been blatant in their misuse. Things like posting porn links or filter evasions, yeah. Ban 'em. Things like people posting things like wish list links, while it was clear to me that wasn't allowed may not have been as clear to others so a short time of adjustment seems reasonable.

 

The only things I want added to the hub are things TJ has already said should be added. That is, pagination and a dedicated "Have" box.

 

I think maybe part of the issue here is that people are trying to treat the hub as another form of trading like the forum, and it isn't. It wasn't intended to be and I don't think that's its proper role.

[Cinspawn]

19 minutes ago, Fiona said:

In my opinion, if you want something specific as from a particular list you go to the forum to trade. The threads there allow very specific wants. So there's no need for a "PM me" type thing in our Wants box, nor any kind of links to wishlists or dragon groups. If you have to be that specific then I don't think the hub is the place for your trade. 

 

So... No IOUs, no asking if someone can split a trade because you simply don't have the space for that extra egg, no offering more than 4 hatchlings because maybe the 4 isn't enough but 6 definitely would be - none of that. 

Just simple trading. I want this, you have it? Great. You don't have this EXACT thing? Thousands of potential trades lost because someone decided we shouldn't have any means to communicate when trading things with no set value. 

 

 

And I think that the problem lies indeed in that people expect more of the trade hub than others. It has a HUGE potential, to be really well functioning and streamlined, but instead we're given the option to either do very simple, closed off trades with no nuance at all, or use an outdated, clunky forum that is seen by less people. 

 

And I'm just wondering.. 

Why, if we could have the best of both worlds. 

[Fiona]

We know the reason for no IOUs, and that speaks to the issue with no "6 hatchling" offers too. Unless TJ were to change the teleport system to allow more than 4 growing things in a tp I don't see any change to that.

[Moonlight_Eevee]

1 hour ago, Fiona said:

In my opinion, if you want something specific as from a particular list you go to the forum to trade. The threads there allow very specific wants. So there's no need for a "PM me" type thing in our Wants box, nor any kind of links to wishlists or dragon groups. If you have to be that specific then I don't think the hub is the place for your trade. I don't think there should ever be a case where we direct a trade offer to a specific person, no matter what, so putting "X, you're egglocked" seems to me that it should be against the rules, which it is. The trading hub is designed to be straight forward "I have this thing, I want something for it." It should be open to whoever wants to make an offer.

 

That said, I don't think bans from the hub should be permanent at this point unless the user has been blatant in their misuse. Things like posting porn links or filter evasions, yeah. Ban 'em. Things like people posting things like wish list links, while it was clear to me that wasn't allowed may not have been as clear to others so a short time of adjustment seems reasonable.

 

The only things I want added to the hub are things TJ has already said should be added. That is, pagination and a dedicated "Have" box.

 

I think maybe part of the issue here is that people are trying to treat the hub as another form of trading like the forum, and it isn't. It wasn't intended to be and I don't think that's its proper role.

But you can't ignore the fact that there are some people who don't want to use the forums to find very specific things. I no longer use the forums anymore because my wants are simple and easy. There maybe others who want to have specific stuff without wanting to turn to the forums for help finding that 

[Fiona]

What you are saying is that in essence you want the trading hub to be able to replace the forum trading system.

[49ER]

I would be great with it replacing the forum system.  Trying to trade on the forum, even for the most straight-forward trades has been an exercise in futility for me.  I have had waaaay more success using the trade hub, as I did using the fansite dragonmarket, which no longer exists.  But saying PM me, or saying I want a sibling to this, not related to that is not allowed on hub.  And as some have rightfully said before, most people have thought this WAS the dragonmaket alternative, or the same rules applied as on forum.  

Although I don't think song lyrics were ever posted on forum trades before (and if so, they would likely get warning, without a permanent ban), I think most of these has been someone doing something that is permitted on forum or dragonmarket.