crap

It seems you've put a lot of time and effort into this and have delivered a fantastically described guide.

I can definitely see this benefiting and assisting any newcomer alike.

Great job.

 

Thankyou Jeff. That mean's a lot
Do you think that I should add a table of contents with ctrl-F links?
I think it may just look cluttered.

 

lol everyone has taken my useful guides part

 

I got permission and I cited you though

 

its useful , I didn't know the part from Paypal scammers
thank you ;D

 

Bump.

 

thanks for the tips! great guide!

 

You're very welcome!
If you have any constructive input please don't hold back

 

Nice guide, most thing I allready now

 

Very good and informative guide. Will help a lot of sythes users!

 

Thankyou for your feedback guys!
If you have any ideas at all for additions, structure, improvements please don't hold back!

 

I read this guide, and I thought this was perfect for newbies/new marketers. Great job, it looked like you put in your time/effort, and it paid off. Also, hope you don't mind if I also link your guide in mine?

 

No problem! Thankyou for the feedback!

 

Still waiting for feedback from SuF, but kindly accepting any given advice. I'm constantly trying to improve this guide

 

I'ma lazy bum is all. My first impression is that the guide is really hard to sit down and read. There is inconsistent formatting throughout and a lot of whitespace that makes finding where your eyes should go hard. I really don't like the whole quoting the numbered bullets as the quote box distracts you from what you really should be looking at. Compare these:

1. The Player's Identity has been Confirmed
   To confirm the identity of the player, it is extremely important that you request a pm on Sythe from the player you are trading. NEVER conduct a trade without pm confirmation that you are discussing or conducting a trade.
2. You have conducted a survey regarding the safety of the seller
   Please refer to "Dissecting the Average Sythe User" at the end of this guide before conducting any trade.
3. All aspects of the trade have been agreed upon
   Make sure that the price, nature of the trade, etc. have been confirmed. Double check that you're talking to the right person!
4. A middleman had been contacted to help perform the trade
   Unless the user you are purchasing from is extremely trusted, a middleman is of utmost necessity. It will greatly reduce the likelihood of a scam, and make the trade smoother as a whole.

I really find the second one to be much smoother than the first so everything flows better. Secondly, instead of making the person jump around the guide or being limited to short sentences in small font about what each number means, you could do the list as more of a table of contents of this section and then proceed to explain more in depth right after the list. That way people can do a quick glance to make sure they've covered all their bases or they can read through the guide and learn it all easily.

You may also want to reorder the guide slightly so that it follows the path that a real trade would follow. Mainly, start with finding a trade (buying or selling) and then proceed to vetting the person, agreeing on terms, finding an MM, avoiding scams during the trade, and finally end with vouching the person or whatever. I just feel that preventing scams is one of the most important parts of any new market guide and those should be closer to the top instead of just stuck at the bottom.

One thing I really like is this:

Good Evidence:

• Videos of any sort regarding the trade
• Screenshots of MSN Conversations (not logs)
• Confirmation of the Delivery of Goods [Example]
• Confirmation of Payment
• Screenshots which show that the MSN of the scammer matches the MSN that the Sythe user gave you.

Bad Evidence

• MSN Chat Logs
• Edited Screenshots or Videos

Not really the content but the fact that it stands out very well and lists the important information in a clear concise. Doing something like this for the steps of avoiding a scam as a checklist for someone to use as they are trading would be great as it sticks right now and is a list... because its easy to follow lists... Just check stuff off and its easy to go back and see if your forgot anything.

Also:

Learn​

to​

use​

indentation.​

It makes it VERY clear what belongs in which section so its very easy to figure out what section your are reading and easy to find the section you are looking for. Example: http://sythe.org/showthread.php?t=1230245

Compare:

Layout:

The way in which your information appears on the page will make or break your guide. I’m just going to list some suggestions since layout could be a guide in itself:

Do not center anything but your title:

This is mainly a personal preference, but centering text makes it extremely hard to read. The lines start at different places and end at different places which has a jarring effect when there is more than one line. If you do choose to center your guide anyways, do not use bullets. Bulleting and centering do not play nice together and it looks stupid when people do it, so don’t.​

Make your headings stand out:

Underline them, make them bigger, change the color, change the font, do whatever. There needs to be an indication to the reader that something is a header and not more body text. However, do not go extreme with the headings. Do something subtle and just enough to get the point across. Large, underlined, bright pink headings just look ugly.​

Use indentation:

If you are left justifying your guide, indent your body text under your headings. It makes it easier to read your headings, which makes them stand out better and it just looks nice.
​

Use whitespace:

Whitespace is just any character that is invisible (tab, enter, space, etc). Use whitespace to break up your guide into reasonable sections. This makes it easier to navigate as well as read.​

To:

What to watch out for: Scamming and Common Methods of Scamming


Be scared of Paypal. Be very Scared. : There are many different methods of payment on Sythe, with Paypal being undoubtedly the largest. Be extremely cautious when accepting paypal from a player though. Paypal does not support the trade of virtual goods so the buyer can many times request his money back! Only accept paypal from members who you deem trusted.

Teamviewer Scams: It is suggested that you never let another player control your computer through teamviewer for any reason. He has the potential to drop all of your valuable items before you trade!

The "Rushed" Trader: Many times a potential trader will you offer a very good deal but explain that they are very rushed and you must trade them soon or lose their offer. If this is a scammer, he or she will be trying to make you frantic, getting you to trade first. Be very cautious around these types of trades. Remember, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

The Imposter: This is probably the most common method of trapping a player into a scam, and is the easiest to prevent. Many times a player will create a msn address that is extremely similar to that of a trusted member. Their goal is to trick you into thinking that they are actually the trusted member. This can be prevented by carefully comparing the msn of who you are talking to and ALWAYS asking for a private message on Sythe before you conduct any trade.

To:

Some Common Scams to Watch For

Paypal Scams:

Paypal is NOT safe. Although there are many different methods of payment on Sythe Paypal is undoubtedly the largest. However, be extremely cautious when accepting paypal from a player. Paypal does NOT support the trade of virtual goods so the buyer can many times request his money back! Only accept paypal from members who you deem trusted. ​

Teamviewer Scams:

It is suggested that you never let another player control your computer through teamviewer for any reason. He has the potential to drop all of your valuable items before you trade!
​

The "Rushed" Trader:

Many times a potential trader will you offer a very good deal but explain that they are very rushed and you must trade them soon or lose their offer. If this is a scammer, he or she will be trying to make you frantic, getting you to trade first. Be very cautious around these types of trades. Remember, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.​

The Imposter:

This is probably the most common method of trapping a player into a scam, and is the easiest to prevent. Many times a player will create a msn address that is extremely similar to that of a trusted member. Their goal is to trick you into thinking that they are actually the trusted member. This can be prevented by carefully comparing the msn of who you are talking to and ALWAYS asking for a private message on Sythe before you conduct any trade.​

Now, I've taken like 9000 liberties with that section but right off the bat it looks better. I've bolded the section title so that they stand out from the normal text more. I've changed the names of the titles to make the point very clear. I've indented the sections to make it easy to tell what is in what and makes the text separate from the titles. I've also added a sentence to the Paypal title that states right off the bat that Paypal isn't safe. You've got to assume the reader won't actually read everything and you need to get their attention and give them the most important information (aka Paypal isn't safe) right off the bat so that they will finish reading the whole section. You may even want to change the section title to tell the reader that Paypal isn't safe.

I think that's a good start for some improvements.

 

Wow. Thankyou very much for your feedback SuF. I'm going to get right on this.
Your work isn't going unnoticed

 

thanks

 

Very detailed guide. I was thinking about recording all of my trades, however I don't know what would be the best programme for that. What would you guys suggest? I tried Fraps, but I didn't really like it.

 

Darn, I forget the name of the program that I use. when I get my laptop back I'll send you a message and maybe add some download links. Thanks for the feedback!

Still getting around to incorporating SuF's feedback.

 

I have trasferred some of SuF's direct edits to the OP. I'm working on making the whole thing a bit more organized and easier to read.

I'm working on Suf's ideas and am still open for any input!