Trading Hub Feedback

[Ribombee]

13 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

I would not be happy with external links (people could  link to ANYTHING...) but @Ribombee - I just thought - as I am unlocked - I'd breed you something to cheer you up. I went to the wishlist in your profile, and - I just couldn't be bothered to look at everything I have to see if it was related to what you want - and in any case, it says to PM you to see if you'd already filled any individual need. This kind of issue will occur with every suggested solution. I think much more precisely targeted wants would work far better. Sure, you found loads of what you need in the hub - but YOU were doing the choosing. If you had posted "want - say - 3 g gold from lurker unrelated to (code)" I can happily check. If you post "want 3 g  gold from lurker unrelated to anything in this group" - to be blunt, I wouldn't bother.

 

Except that MOST of the ones I got were offers from people who HAD looked through my 'need mates' group rather than me looking through their groups.  Plenty of people were looking. I have that "PM me on the forums" names at the top still mostly as a leftover because I am lazy (I made a new group of mates growing to move any with mates in the works to, but I have yet to rename the reds I used as markers) and also for the trades I had not had enough room to put my PM info in. It was also a way for people who wanted to check about relatedness to contact me, but plenty of people just straight up offered without bothering to message me at all. Most of them I accepted. I think I had only one that was related to another of the same lineage, so I had to decline. Not that either of that matters now since I now know not to put group or PM in the text. I DO however think that having a larger textbox to enter wants, with said box automatically collapsed and able to be opened for anyone interested in the egg, would help quite a bit. Even if only the "have" portion was visible, that at least cuts down half the work. Only people interested in that specific have are going to bother clicking the "more" box to open and see the full list of wants.

[49ER]

14 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

I didn't find Dragon Market any more "helpful" than the Trading hub - though we desperately need pagination. Many times the other person never even responded, and sometimes I'd get "the owner has already accepted a trade" - things seemed to stay up there long after they had expired....

That is one advantage the Trading Hub has over dragon market (and the forum for that matter....you can't even fully delete your post from forum)....the trades WILL expire and disappear, once an offer is accepted, or something hatches or grows up.  But the dragon market did have the advantage of you being able to tell if something was CB without clicking it, and a way to put in contact information.  And the ones at bottom of dragon market page were usually people you could not contact, or had delusional wants, so were not worth the bother.

On an aside, I think once the Trade Hub things get ironed out, it is worth putting in a Forum Trade feedback thread to discuss options for making forum trading better.  I have a huge list of things I would say, lol

[Naughtrish]

Well, I just deleted a trade in the hub because someone alerted me that the text I put could get me banned (thank you, you know who you are 😘)

Of course I had no evil intentions, just a lack of information. I couldn't read through all the pages in this thread, so I'd ask for a pinned post detailing the things that you are not allowed to put as want in the trade hub. It would be useful in the help section of the scroll, for the people that does not have a forum account, or maybe as a small pop up when you click on the box to write your wants?

 

I really like the hub, it is a quicker way to trade than the forum. I also think pagination is very much needed.

And I guess I'll stick to the forum trading threads for more "complicated" trades.

[animatedrose]

@Naughtrish A lot of us have asked for all these "forum posted only" rules to be pinned somewhere public. Hopefully it will be done soon. Glad to hear you dodged a bullet that a few others haven't been able to.

 

So far, the only really concrete rules are Wants is for wants only. No communication with other players, no telling somebody they are egglocked, no links, nothing but what you have and what you want for it. Anything else will get you banned. And this is all from hunting the forums for these and what TJ himself has posted.

 

Yeah, the Hub seems to be for quick and simple trades. Anything complicated or lineaged-based is better off in the forums, where you can go into detail and message people.

 

[olympe]

Actually, TJ stated that he hasn't banned anyone (yet) for referencing an on-site group in their wants. Plus, he also said that, even though it's technically against the rule, it's acceptable to post Haves in that section until a "Have" feature is supported. Bolding by me.

On 8/7/2018 at 10:33 AM, TJ09 said:

The linked post that you say is not in the right place directly quotes exactly what's on the site. That is, the rules in that post are already where they should be.

 

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.

 

I will point out that the only case(s) where someone was banned for links in a description have pretty obvious evidence that the person knew what they were doing e.g. someone tried to submit a full link, saw their message was rejected, then went out of their way to remove the "http" to bypass that and submit a link anyways. 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).

 

 

Less than half a percent of people who have used the trading hub have been banned, and those who have were pretty obvious cases (e.g. multiple messages of "LOL" or "this is fun" and the like). There's a lot of "but what if it happens to me?" based on levels of pedantry that simply don't apply to the trading hub—if the rules were really that strict hundreds of people would've been banned by now just for posting "have: X" which is clearly not a "want."

 

It's pretty clear that a lot of the fear could be assuaged by more verbose rules, and they're going to be updated. Finding the right wording requires first understanding what people aren't reading about the current text.

Edited August 11, 2018 by olympe

[49ER]

But it seems like the person who was banned that posted in forum was only banned for linking her wishlist.  And people have been "bypassing" the link thing by posting user group without the https:// thingy.  I assumed that the trade hub did not support hyperlinks and for groups or forum wishlists, I don't think people would need the hyperlink thing to know how to type it in.  I don't think it was an intentional bypass, just my opinion.

Also I think she may have mentioned she left off the https because of lack of space.  So it is possible she entered it without that in the first place.  A perma ban, rather than just a warning not to do it again, or a short ban, seems unduly harsh.  This is why people are worried.

Edited August 11, 2018 by 49ER

[DarkEternity]

59 minutes ago, 49ER said:

But it seems like the person who was banned that posted in forum was only banned for linking her wishlist.  And people have been "bypassing" the link thing by posting user group without the https:// thingy.  I assumed that the trade hub did not support hyperlinks and for groups or forum wishlists, I don't think people would need the hyperlink thing to know how to type it in.  I don't think it was an intentional bypass, just my opinion.

Also I think she may have mentioned she left off the https because of lack of space.  So it is possible she entered it without that in the first place.  A perma ban, rather than just a warning not to do it again, or a short ban, seems unduly harsh.  This is why people are worried.

There's been at least three people including that perp banned and for like 3 different reasons. Song lyrics perp, tried to communicate with another user perp and I'm not sure what forum perp got banned for. And I also heard that at least one of them were additionally banned from being able to name their dragons and not just from using the trading hub. 

[49ER]

But other than the dragon naming thing (don't know what that is about), the other things like song lyrics and communications were being done a lot in the hub.  The only thing that changed was a report button, which led to the bans happening, without the rules being put up in hub.  

[GhostMouse]

I did a search and didn't see this mentioned. A nice clear warning that an egg in a trade is currently sick would be really nice. Particularly because by default you are linked to the lineage view and not the dragon's page. (Although, yes, it is my fault for not checking.)

[Fuzzbucket]

8 hours ago, 49ER said:

But it seems like the person who was banned that posted in forum was only banned for linking her wishlist.

 

Which was offsite. And offsite links are NOT OK - I can totally accept that.

[Aalbiel]

28 minutes ago, Fuzzbucket said:

 

Which was offsite. And offsite links are NOT OK - I can totally accept that.

 

Sure, I can accept it too. Except it wasn't written anywhere that this was forbidden. Now, all of us who have been following this hellbeast of a thread know for sure not to do this, and many of us have communicated it to other players, but again, this is a problem of rule visibility, not of the rule itself.

[Fuzzbucket]

The post by TJ does suggest there was more to it.

 

Quote

I will point out that the only case(s) where someone was banned for links in a description have pretty obvious evidence that the person knew what they were doing e.g. someone tried to submit a full link, saw their message was rejected, then went out of their way to remove the "http" to bypass that and submit a link anyways. 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). 

 

Just to be accurate. And he is working on some rules to make it all ultra-clear.

 

It's easy to go for TJ and the mods over this stuff when we don't know it all, and when something is new and being de-bugged as we speak.

[49ER]

That is because they are banning people as we speak.  I am fine with working out the bugs, tweaking things and figuring out the rules for it, but people are getting banned over it, while this is going on.

 

Edit:  On another note, as I understand it, only TJ can delete trades and/or issue bans.  That seems a lot to be put on one busy administrator, especially if he is tasked with lifting temp ones at the proper time.  So I propose allowing Trade Hub mods access to delete illegal/questionable trades with a notification saying trade was deleted by mod, please PM them if you have questions.  And also allow them access to lift bans if they are temporary.

Edited August 12, 2018 by 49ER

[Fuzzbucket]

Vanishingly few. And not for really little things. ANYONE knows not to ask for cookies or post song lyrics, when that is clearly not indicating details of your wants.

 

Common sense is all that's needed. Have x; want y. It isn't rocket science.

[49ER]

Yes, in the beta testing of the Hub, there were some things that I am sure the staff did not anticipate, like people just having fun with it, and posting song lyrics, communications, etc.  I am guilty of some of that myself.  But there were no rules then, nothing to say people could not do it.  Once the report button came into play, and people were posting on feedback that they found it annoying and TJ put additional note on want box, then a lot of that was curtailed.  I never did song lyrics, but I personally found it amusing, and assumed it was a humorous message that the trade is a giveaway.  

However:  As people are stating here, asking for PMs to get an idea of what you want, or posting you want mate to this group or something from your wishlist, whether it is offsite list, forum list or group, IS stating what you want.  And not every person reads this entire thread or reads forum at all.  So a few perma bans is too many, until this beta testing is finished and clear rules are given on the the Trade Hub page itself or in notifications.

Edited August 12, 2018 by 49ER

[purplehaze]

Everyone keeps talking of perma-bans, but do we even know that? I have not seen TJ say that it is permanent and the mods don't seem to know.

[49ER]

Yes I have been told they are for the time being. 

[Fuzzbucket]

56 minutes ago, 49ER said:

Yes, in the beta testing of the Hub, there were some things that I am sure the staff did not anticipate, like people just having fun with it, and posting song lyrics, communications, etc.  I am guilty of some of that myself.  But there were no rules then, nothing to say people could not do it.  Once the report button came into play, and people were posting on feedback that they found it annoying and TJ put additional note on want box, then a lot of that was curtailed.  I never did song lyrics, but I personally found it amusing, and assumed it was a humorous message that the trade is a giveaway.  

However:  As people are stating here, asking for PMs to get an idea of what you want, or posting you want mate to this group or something from your wishlist, whether it is offsite list, forum list or group, IS stating what you want.  And not every person reads this entire thread or reads forum at all.  So a few perma bans is too many, until this beta testing is finished and clear rules are given on the the Trade Hub page itself or in notifications.

 

That isn't actually technically "stating what you want". Stating what you want is "A mate for *code*" or "Two siyat hatchies".  (I'm not sure where "surprise me" fits...!)

 

What has been made pretty clear(here so far, but will be made clear in cave when the rules are thrashed out) is that nothing making people go off-cave is OK. Putting a group number is a grey area; anything saying go to the forums (or anywhere else) is not OK. And I doubt very much if anyone who just had an accident will be perma-banned. I suspect a few of those who repeatedly posted lyrics may be - but they pretty obviously  knew what they were doing - many of them posted about it here and on discord. There is no way that stuff could fit within ANY parameter of "want".

[49ER]

I won't defend people's rights to post song lyrics, but I will say there are a lot of things that don't fit in the parameters of Want.  Just glancing through the trades in hub right now, I see ones that say "Offer. I use decline"  OR "Interesting offers" OR "Not sure I want to trade this, I will probably keep it" 

All of these are legal right now, and yet they give me NO clue what the person wants.  And referencing forum wishlist, or even google docs one is as clear if not more clear than the ones mentioned above.  

[Fuzzbucket]

That last I'm pretty sure isn't. "Interesting offers" I'd say was fair enough. I have got a few really good trades in the last couple of days by breeding sometime I thought would be interesting - and it was accepted.

 

"Equal value" is trickier - I saw one INCREDIBLY messy gold shimmer the other day marker "egg of equal value." I thought about it - but...

 

[49ER]

LOL.  i have thought about those too.

[osmarks]

2 hours ago, Fuzzbucket said:

Vanishingly few. And not for really little things. ANYONE knows not to ask for cookies or post song lyrics, when that is clearly not indicating details of your wants.

 

Common sense is all that's needed. Have x; want y. It isn't rocket science.

It is not at all common sense. Have is not actually valid as defined by that useless one sentence and many things which help with wants are bannable - see other posts here. Even if you could understand it perfectly (I doubt it) and extrapolate to the moderators' hazy hard to find rules, doesn't mean everyone else does

 

[Starscream]

12 hours ago, DarkEternity said:

There's been at least three people including that perp banned and for like 3 different reasons. Song lyrics perp, tried to communicate with another user perp and I'm not sure what forum perp got banned for. And I also heard that at least one of them were additionally banned from being able to name their dragons and not just from using the trading hub. 

The name issue is an entirely different animal -  and is only done for the most severe of infractions. The name issue has nothing to do with the trading hub - and it coul dbe two individual reports were open at the same time and were dealt with at the same time or at differing times - I don't know.

 

@49ER They don't even know what they want. They want an offer. I almost always ask for an offer. its an open invitation. Often I post things myself without the full intent to trade. Unless someone's offer really grabs me.

 

Edited August 12, 2018 by Starscream

[Fuzzbucket]

It has been fleshed out here at least; TJ has said that "have" is OK till that is sorted; the rest is clearly WANT. And we now know (here) that links are banned. The rest is easy enough - you say what you want. And if you have a really COMPLICATED want, you do it here instead. OK some people can't come here - but I would bet that most of the players who don't come here don't have a wishlist because those are mostly here - or on outside sites. I gather we can put the number of a group as long as it isn't a link.

 

And yes @Starscreamabout the name issue - the person involved has posted here about it, and has said fair cop and apologised. I saw some of the names afterwards using the wayback machine; I would have reported them myself if I'd come across them while playing. Nasty stuff.

[49ER]

I understand they want offers and don't really know what they want, I am just saying those are not any clearer than some of the things that are deemed to be not legal.  Personally I steer clear of those trades, unless it is something I REALLY want and I want to go to the bother of putting up things and hoping something sticks.