Jump to content
TJ09

Trading Hub Feedback

Message added by TJ09

Please report all bugs in the Help section. This thread is for discussion and feedback only.

Recommended Posts

Very few people even use the forum, as it is, so it makes sense that Trading Hub would 'replace' the forum trading.

Share this post


Link to post

And if I understand it correctly, making groups on your scroll, you can make them public links that says anyone with a link to it can see that group.  So if somebody makes a dedicated group of dragons they need mates for, or a grouping of dragons they like to hoard, it seems reasonable to expect that they could put in their group link and ask for something from that group.  I thought that was one of the uses for it.

Share this post


Link to post

Personally I will continue to use the forum for trading when I want to be able to list more 'wants' then I currently can in the hub... While I would *love* the character-limit in the Want box to be expanded, I'd still probably use the forum in certain cases. It's soooo much easier to use the forum for trading if I want people to know certain things (like *exactly* what I mean by 'messy lineage') or I want to point them to my sig for my full list of acceptable wants, which I'm sure even an expanded Want box wouldn't allow *all* of that... The hub will not completely replace forum trading for me, and honestly I don't think it should. If your trade *requires* direct communication, IOUs, and more complicated interactions, then the forum is the best place for it. 

 

And I really really don't care about the completely hypothetical 'tons of potential trades lost' because we don't have direct communication. I post a trade in the hub, I care first and foremost about a quick and simple trade. I don't want long drawn-out communications and waiting for someone to respond to said communication etc etc... If I wanted that I'd use the forums. 

Share this post


Link to post

To me it seems quite reasonable to use the forum for your more complicated trades. Where have you all been trading before the hub opened where you could find these thousands of potential trades that you are now losing because you can't post links in the hub? I don't see forum trading as clunky or outdated. It gives you a chance to fully describe what it is that you are offering and what it is that you want. Is that so bad?

Share this post


Link to post

Ok, so I wanna throw in my two cents here. 

 

As I see it, the rules governing the hub are extraordinarily vague, and inconsistent, and we have pages and pages of people attesting to that. If you can read the disclaimer and intuitively create a list of dos and don'ts, great, wonderful, but evidently that isn't the case for everyone. Just using myself as an example, because I only have 2 magi's I had a habit of posting 3-4 hatchies in one trade, saying "Want: Genderswaps, PM Aviatus to seperate." In my mind this was a completely justified use of the want box, as I'm clearly stating what I want in terms of offers, while also communicating that I'm willing to seperate my hatchies if someone only wants one or two. I just learned today that this constitutes misuse, which is fine, I won't argue about it. The point is, I could have easily been banned for breaking a rule I didn't know existed, and I could only know about after reading through 35 pages of a topic on a seperate forum. If that doesn't constitute a problem, I don't know what does.

 

The fact that so many people are independently coming up with scenarios that create gray zones in the current, one line set of rules, should be enough to tell you that there is a deal of subjectivity in what does and does not constitute misuse. While there's no set of rules you can come up with that will cover every abusive scenario, having a concrete set of guidelines that minimizes subjectivity protects the users by giving them reasonable forewarning before rule-breaking and protects mods by giving them a solid foundation to fall back on when they need to dole out punishments. 

Since TJ has asked what makes the current rules so unclear, I'll put it simply. Length. Having one line be the extent of your rules is not enough. As others have already demonstrated, it is possible to make cases for several of the banned forms of use, and they can be argued as legitimate under the current guidelines. Are some of those arguments pedantic? Yes. Are some of those arguments stretching? Yes. Does that matter? Not a single bit. Ambiguity is never a good thing when trying to enforce rules, and when there are varying interpretations of a single set of rules, that is a sign that the rules need to be strengthened 

 

To that end my suggestion is this, a dedicated "Trade hub Guidelines" page on site, with both general guidelines as well as a list of banned forms of communication, with examples. It's not going to be possible to make that list exhaustive, and I think most people know that, but it's a start. We can argue the specifics of the rules once we know what the rules actually are, until then, we can only throw around hypotheticals to try to find a line that, as of yet, hasn't been clearly drawn.

Edited by Aviatus

Share this post


Link to post
16 minutes ago, purplehaze said:

To me it seems quite reasonable to use the forum for your more complicated trades. Where have you all been trading before the hub opened where you could find these thousands of potential trades that you are now losing because you can't post links in the hub? I don't see forum trading as clunky or outdated. It gives you a chance to fully describe what it is that you are offering and what it is that you want. Is that so bad?

No, it's not bad. But you still can't argue with the facts that some people aren't just going to up and create and forum account because they don't want to use the forums. Simple as that 

Share this post


Link to post
1 hour ago, Dalek Raptor said:

No, it's not bad. But you still can't argue with the facts that some people aren't just going to up and create and forum account because they don't want to use the forums. Simple as that 

 

Is that a bad thing though? I mean, now that we have the trading hub we have the option to trade on the forums, or if someone doesn't want to make a forum account they can trade in the hub. Best of both worlds. I'm not sure I understand why 'some people won't make a forum account' is a bad thing here. Before the hub if they didn't make a forum account there was really no way to trade with them, unless it was through some place like EATW's marketplace thing. Now you can trade whether or not someone has a forum account.

Share this post


Link to post

The forum trading does have a lot of issues that are way too numerous to list here, and not the topic for it. But forum trading has been really bad for me.  The  Trade Hub could really be a good thing with a few fixes and clearly stated rules on the trade hub or notifications, especially if the staff takes into account some of the suggestions made here in this thread.

Share this post


Link to post

Now, the Trading Hub felt like a breath of fresh air to me at first (the forums have been kinda dead and without EATW trading's been so difficult), but with all these rules...wow, seems like a huge waste of potential :unsure:

 

I'm one of the ppl who could have easily been banned for using the feature in a way that had no malicious intentions but was wrong anyway according to these "rules". I posted quite a few trades with links to images with wishlists or shortened links to my forum trade posts, and with notes that mentioned my forum username for PM's. That info in posts seemed perfectly fine to me and I wasn't even giving it a second thought until I stumbled upon a notification saying my trades had "banned words" (when some filters were added I guess). I honestly would have no idea that all those things weren't okay if I hadn't gone to the forums to read feedback.

 

I have to say I find the limitations absolutely ridiculous and counterintuitive! If the Trading Hub has to have them for legal reasons or whatever, okay, fine, no point in arguing about them then, obviously - but in this case they have to be clearly listed! It's just common sense, come on :wacko: Why has this even been a topic of debate, lol.

 

I rly hope the rules can be developed more and posted at some visible spot on-site. But all in all, to be honest, now that I see the real picture, a future launch of some decent off-site market, where ppl are free to actually trade normally, remains my only hope despite the on-site platform... XD Sad.

Share this post


Link to post
20 minutes ago, Tears in Rain said:

 

I rly hope the rules can be developed more and posted at some visible spot on-site. But all in all, to be honest, now that I see the real picture, a future launch of some decent off-site market, where ppl are free to actually trade normally, remains my only hope despite the on-site platform... XD Sad.

 

Are you saying that you can't trade without a link to PM, or a link to a wishlist? Can you not put your actual wants in the Want box? What if the character-limit for the Want box is expanded so you can put more wants in it? What exactly is it about the trading hub right now that makes it so totally unusable that an off-site thing is your 'only hope'? 

 

Genuine questions, not trying to be mean or anything, I'd just like to better understand. Because for me the trading hub has been awesome and I've made *tons* of successful trades through it, with no PMs or linking to anything. While I definitely think it would help things a lot if the Want box was able to hold more text, I honestly don't understand this idea that the trading hub is so useless if you can't include links or PM info. Maybe I'm just not trading for the right things?? 

Share this post


Link to post

Of course it's not useless. I think most people posting here, even the ones arguing all the changes, are VERY happy with the trade hub. It's just that this is a suggestion thread so I'm suggesting things that will improve it. 

 

I also think a lot of people expected the trading hub as an improvement over the forum trading, and like Tears in Rain said, so much potential! But instead we're given some sort of Forum Trading 2.0 with a different batch of viewers but all sorts of restrictions in place we a) didn't expect and b) reduce the new trading hub to just a simple exchange machine where you maybe catch the eye of people you wouldn't have caught on the forums. 

 

I frigging love every new little thing TJ puts into this site and I'm very grateful he doesn't simply give up this site that started so small so many years ago. But I feel like he also wants actual feedback, so I'm trying to give it. I'm aiming for the stars. What's the point of a feedback thread if all the points we say are getting deflected with 'well, you could just use the forums'? We can, but that's not the point. We're trying to make something better here. I'm honestly not sure why people want to keep forum trading and the trading hub so separate. 

Share this post


Link to post
11 minutes ago, HeatherMarie said:

 

Are you saying that you can't trade without a link to PM, or a link to a wishlist? Can you not put your actual wants in the Want box? What if the character-limit for the Want box is expanded so you can put more wants in it? What exactly is it about the trading hub right now that makes it so totally unusable that an off-site thing is your 'only hope'? 

 

Genuine questions, not trying to be mean or anything, I'd just like to better understand. Because for me the trading hub has been awesome and I've made *tons* of successful trades through it, with no PMs or linking to anything. While I definitely think it would help things a lot if the Want box was able to hold more text, I honestly don't understand this idea that the trading hub is so useless if you can't include links or PM info. Maybe I'm just not trading for the right things?? 

 

I feel like only being free to list immediate wanted dragons - with no window to elaborate on wishes, display very long lists (which I am in no way demanding space for on-site, so this would be through links), show lineage examples, communicate, arrange IOU's (which is an integral part of trading for a lot of players no matter how you put it, but feel free to ignore this point) and other flexible deals - is not enough at all for efficient, healthy trading. Active traders would usually go to the forums to perform trades from what I understabd, and it used to be enough to me, but this platform has been getting less active and less helpful for finding trades lately, in my opinion and according to my impression at least. Trading has been rather difficult, more difficult than when I joined. So when the Trading Hub appeared, I thought, "Hey, that's cool! Now more people can be involved, trades get more exposure, it's basically like the forums or EATW or whatnot, but even better because everyone who plays is in!" Except not really, we can barely do anything there, and it only works for a very narrow portion of trades. The feature seems extremely limiting to me.

 

Now, you could say, "Go to the forums if you wanna do more complicated trades!" And that's what I have been doing, sure, but the forums have been getting worse and worse at this purpose. In a way, I've been losing a platform for quality trades, and the new platform is rather useless as an alternative.


There you go, hope this answer suffices :) 

Share this post


Link to post

Maybe it looks like 99% of trade posts are perfectly fine to mods because the majority of people remain unaware an offending trade even breaks any rules and thus the majority of "bad trades" happens to go unreported? So a vague rule ends up half useless for quality control anyway.

Share this post


Link to post

Well I for one, do not plan on reporting any in the future unless it is a blatant abusive thing.  Otherwise, I don't want to see anyone banned for making a mistake.  At most I would just want them to be warned to stop it, like what would be done on forum for minor trade violations.  I really believe most users on the trade hub are following the rules the best they know of them (which may be little to none).

Share this post


Link to post
6 minutes ago, Shadowdrake said:

Maybe it looks like 99% of trade posts are perfectly fine to mods because the majority of people remain unaware an offending trade even breaks any rules and thus the majority of "bad trades" happens to go unreported? So a vague rule ends up half useless for quality control anyway.

 

We use the hub too. We see more than just reports... obviously we will never be able to catch everything, but between all of us, we see a lot...

 

6 hours 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.

+1 This. All of this. I also don't think the trade hub bans should be permanent tbh, and kinda hope it gets changed to timed, like on the forums.

Share this post


Link to post

Okay, so, in order to make the trading hub more useful, there should:

- be a way to show examples of what you want (like specific lineages and such)

- display longer and/or more detailed wants

- have the ability for IOUs

- have the ability for direct communication

- have clear and specific rules on what is and isn't allowed

- be able to accept only part of an offer

- be able to put more then 4 things up for trade

- be able to notify an offerer that they are locked so you can't accept their offer

- be more notifications, like when your offer gets declined or the trade is canceled

 

Just trying to make a little list of what I've seen talked about lately. More for my own benefit, I guess, 'cause it's hard to remember everything, but if anyone wants to add points feel free! I do not agree with all of those points, I've been fairly clear about that, and I think that some of them being implemented might negate the need for some others (linking to a wishlist, for example, may not be needed if we had more room in the want box, or vice versa...). 

Share this post


Link to post

I'm agreeing with Aviatus and plenty of others here. If I wasn't forum skimming, over half of al these new rules regarding the Trading Hub would be unknown to me. Thankfully, I don't think I'd have ever broken them, since I have no care for lineages, mate hunting, or use for forum trading...but it's very plain to me how such "misuse" can happen. Somebody needs to pull together a list of all these scattered rules pronto and pin them somewhere.

 

Preferably on the main site. You know, where everyone is. Where it should be.

Share this post


Link to post
17 minutes ago, Kaini said:

+1 This. All of this. I also don't think the trade hub bans should be permanent tbh, and kinda hope it gets changed to timed, like on the forums.

 

I'm hoping this gets changed too. While I do find some of the things we've had to ban for going against the rules, I do not think all of them deserve permabans. We are aware of this, and are actively discussing this trying to find a solution. I've also been reading this thread to see what members want to see changed, because your feedback helps. This is a brand-new feature which, as is typical, did not have a smooth rollout. This is what's going to improve it, airing these (legitimate!) grievances so we can have more ideas to work with. 

 

The rules need work. The fact that there's this much confusion means they're not working. At the very least, consequences should be more explicit, along with what "misuse" is.

 

Sorry for my lack of posting earlier, I've been slammed with work, but I've been trying to read this thread and catch up on everything.

 

1 hour ago, 49ER said:

The forum trading does have a lot of issues that are way too numerous to list here, and not the topic for it. But forum trading has been really bad for me.  The  Trade Hub could really be a good thing with a few fixes and clearly stated rules on the trade hub or notifications, especially if the staff takes into account some of the suggestions made here in this thread.

 

I personally find the trading threads in the forum overbearing since we have so many. It can get confusing, especially to new members, which thread to post your trade in. Heck, have to review threads when I'm reviewing reports to make sure I'm recommending the right thread to post a trade! It's an unwieldy mess. 

 

I really like the idea of DMs on the site itself! That would eliminate the need for much of the off-topic text we see in the Wants box! 

 

 

Share this post


Link to post

Everyone saying "just use the forums if you need to do anything remotely complicated" is disregarding the serious issues it has for trading.

1. Lower traffic, so it's harder to get what you want.

2. No filtering (search shows past trades, wants and haves and not just one of  those, gifting threads...).

3. Past trades stay up, cluttering search results etc.

4. Sometimes trade is split across multiple threads - you have to check and post on several.

5. It's awful on mobile. The editor won't do styling, doesn't allow me to remove quotes and stuff without clearing, and is just generally unintuitive.

6. No standard formatting convention, making looking through many trades a bit more annoying.

 

It's probably only still used because of the ridiculously draconian-yet-somehow-vague trade hub rules, ability to support stuff like IOUs and direct negotiations, and pagination.

Share this post


Link to post
6 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

Okay, so, in order to make the trading hub more useful, there should:

- be a way to show examples of what you want (like specific lineages and such)

- display longer and/or more detailed wants

- have the ability for IOUs

- have the ability for direct communication

- have clear and specific rules on what is and isn't allowed

- be able to accept only part of an offer

- be able to put more then 4 things up for trade

- be able to notify an offerer that they are locked so you can't accept their offer

- be more notifications, like when your offer gets declined or the trade is canceled

 

Just trying to make a little list of what I've seen talked about lately. More for my own benefit, I guess, 'cause it's hard to remember everything, but if anyone wants to add points feel free! I do not agree with all of those points, I've been fairly clear about that, and I think that some of them being implemented might negate the need for some others (linking to a wishlist, for example, may not be needed if we had more room in the want box, or vice versa...). 

A couple things needed to be added to this list of mentioned wishes.  

1-Being able to put if you do or not accept forum PM's, either on your profile to show up on your teleport link (this way, no violation of the Want box

2--A separate Have box (so no violation of the wants box)

3--A space for the offerer to add a note with their offer, such as "this hatchie is influenced/precog'd the gender you wanted" etc

4.  A way for someone to link forum wishlist or direct someone to it, and/or scroll group for ideas what to offer (as of now, it is considered a violation of Wants Box)

5--And most of all.................PAGINATION!  I am pretty sure everyone agrees with this one

 

I am sure there are others I have missed, but these are ones I could think of off the top that have been talked about.

 

On an aside, it seems it has been said absolutely that scroll to scroll communication cannot be implemented due to TJ's job conflict, but not clear if there would be conflict if you put forum contact information, or had in profile whether you accept Forum pm's, or provide contact information.

 

Share this post


Link to post

Don’t forget ability to edit a trade.

 

And using a dragon name to say “am x on forums” is fine. You could possibly use that as a way of indicating whether or not you wanted to communicate on some things.

Share this post


Link to post
2 hours ago, Sextonator said:

Don’t forget ability to edit a trade.

 

And using a dragon name to say “am x on forums” is fine. You could possibly use that as a way of indicating whether or not you wanted to communicate on some things.

Don't advertise it too loudly, or the rules will change. XD 

 

12 hours ago, HeatherMarie said:

Is that a bad thing though? I mean, now that we have the trading hub we have the option to trade on the forums, or if someone doesn't want to make a forum account they can trade in the hub. Best of both worlds. I'm not sure I understand why 'some people won't make a forum account' is a bad thing here. Before the hub if they didn't make a forum account there was really no way to trade with them, unless it was through some place like EATW's marketplace thing. Now you can trade whether or not someone has a forum account.

The bad thing about this isn't that some people don't have a forum account, it's that some people get excluded from some features that many of us consider essential - like extended want lists, wishlists, links to groups...

Also, you didn't have to have a forum account here in order to trade. I used to trade with my daughter a lot, long before she had a forum account. With another friend, I often traded through chats or emails. I've heard of places (=forums) where lots of DC players are and trade, too.

 

Personally, I think that, at the very least, we should be able to link to our own groups on DC. Because, as long as the link stays on the main site itself, it can be taken care of if somehow inappropriate.

Share this post


Link to post

I hope we get pagination before Halloween. Otherwise holiday egg trades may become completely un-viewable in minutes. 

Share this post


Link to post
5 minutes ago, Toyo said:

I hope we get pagination before Halloween. Otherwise holiday egg trades may become completely un-viewable in minutes. 

 

Oh goodness I didn't even think about holidays with no pagination! Wow that'd be horrible. 

 

 

2 hours ago, olympe said:

 

Personally, I think that, at the very least, we should be able to link to our own groups on DC. Because, as long as the link stays on the main site itself, it can be taken care of if somehow inappropriate.

 

I'd like this. I know nothing about coding and such but I'm *pretty* sure I've seen on other sites where they can allow internal links and disallow external links (like, external links just wouldn't go through or whatever). I'd love to be able to link to my messies group as a 'this is the kind of lineage I'm looking for' type of thing, because even my current '10th-gen+ preferred, *really* messy lineage' sometimes doesn't seem to be clear enough lol.

Share this post


Link to post
1 hour ago, Toyo said:

I hope we get pagination before Halloween. Otherwise holiday egg trades may become completely un-viewable in minutes. 

Oh, the horror! *shudders* How... fitting for Halloween. XD 

Share this post


Link to post
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.


  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.