[APPROVED]removal of autobumping

No support.

"unfair" - no, everyone can use one. For free even.
"cluttered" - no, that's what bump timers and the new vouch rules are there for.

 

Support.

I really hate seeing a service provider adv'in his services when in fact he's not taking any orders/requests..

 

I'm writing this solely to flex my brains, I work on websites now for a long time and don't take forums on their own seriously anymore because of the administration's carelessness on the platform's important topics like these but I'll still contribute - maybe there'll be a change!

Bumping is too important of an issue to be treated as carelessly as it currently has been which has made most of the forums decline. It's the only tool which allows new players to enter the competition and keep the market fresh for customers.
The current system is the worst system possible, especially with the new decrease in bump timer to 4 hours. Right now everyone is losing - the customers, the big guys, the small guys and of course Sythe itself.

1. Auto-bumpers are figuratively a forced expenditure to everyone; the problem is that new entries in the market will not make such an investment as it's irrational to do so without any prior gains. If even I don't apply my own flexible self-developed auto-bumper in forums where I'm unsure if I'll make gains then what should the rookie think? The new entry will end up not having a realistic reflection of the market due to missing a major forum tool and will very likely leave the market.
1.1. Having less competition and new entries makes the services themselves lazy and provide worse quality of service which will make users leave the platform in search for a better service or not return to the platform when compared to other services on other platforms.
2. Customers have no point in leaving feedback because it gets flooded by bump posts spam which ends up having less engagement with the service and Sythe.
3. Customer don't ever see any feedback on the thread owner's work. Even if there's a spread of 50 pages of legitimate positive feedback it's never realized because again, it's flooded and the deeper it is the less likely it is to be found. The customer doesn't see any feedback and simply visits other forums - "Maybe these other forums have services where users do leave feedback in the threads?".
4. Thread owners have no point in asking for feedback because it gets flooded by bump posts spam - again, less engagement with the customer, less returning customers. If they don't spam bumps, they will lose customers by not having their thread on the first page.
5. In our postmodern world of insanity where mere virtual numbers measure your worth, post count and view count also belong in that theme. These numbers are relative though, meaning that if you represent what the average is, then your trust and worth is met with average expectations as well. The problem here is that the average on forums like Sythe is extremely inflated( even mine) which results in customers having a false perception of the service and services having a false image of their worth. The worth of the post count can be decreased by having a reputation system but as long as that doesn't exist, view count and post count take the charge.

ePvP and Epic though have declined drastically very visibly because of their greed on paid auto-bumpers and tools to a level where even for a reputable service like mine they aren't worth applying to( and definitely not for newcomers).

ePvP used to have a good system where you were personally allowed to bump only once every 24h and only customers were allowed to bump you by leaving feedback. This made all services care for every single customer and always ask for feedback. Bad services went out quick and good, well-rounded services rose up - the system flourished and the community was extremely active. Any sort of abuse in the system was punished and removed by the moderation. I still see this system still working extremely well in other healthy marketplace forums.
I very highly advocate for a system like that, the more you can make your customers and thread owners engage with your platform, the better it is for everyone.

 

Very interesting system, I'd like to see this implemented.. But how would account sale threads be bumped. Unfortunately accounts don't sell on the regular like gold.

 

What's the problem with accounts? I've sold plenty of accounts in that very same system in both shop and individual format with no problems whatsoever.
There could be an argument that individual account sellers are at a disadvantage in such system because they don't get to have any vouches or feedback in the thread but compared to the current spam in Sythe, auto-bumpers in ePvP and paid tools in EpicNPC, they were borderline privileged back then.

Feel free to browse my( or anyone else's) EPVP, EpicNPC and Sythe threads to see the regression of expression on each platform; ePvP truly is a desert now in that respect.

 

So if a thread is bumped and they aren't active then who gets infracted? The person bumping or the owner of the thread?

@sypherz autobumper bumpin tons of randos threads rn

 

If an auto bumper is used, the owner of the thread will get infracted if the user wasn't online at the time.

 

Who polices this / how is it policed? It seems impossible in my opinion unless there was some form of auto-detection built into the forum (which I’m doubting there is?).

 

That's the problem. People within the section has to keep track of who bumps illegally, which basically means the community are doing moderators' jobs. Imo we need more mods and clearer rules if we're going to stick with how it is rn.

 

The thread would be closed if there are no posts / bumps made within 2 or 4 weeks, this is common in all respectable forums already.
There would not be people inactive and bumping because there will be no autobumpers, you would have only people bumping for trolling but I doubt that provides much entertainment to anyone.

It's very obvious if there's auto-bumping.
Fake-vouching already is against the rule, so can fake-bumping be against the rules. This is not that hard to moderate as if it's against the rules, people will not risk getting banned / infracted for something as minor as a bump.
There can be a bump cap of once every 4 hours as it is right now. It can simply function as if someone posts feedback before the 4 hour cap, the thread simply won't be bumped but the comment will still be posted.

 

It’s obvious that the presence of auto-bumping is obvious. That’s not the issue. Being able to police whether a user was online when the auto bump was made is next to impossible. Not only that, but a user in question could just claim they were browsing with the “show online status” feature disabled (this is assuming they were ever even actually caught).
Therefore it’s of virtually no risk for the person who is requesting the service. Saying that people won’t “risk it” is delusional. That’s like saying people won’t go 60MPH in a 55MPH speed zone.

 

Yes, it is very possible to still auto-bump and look absolutely innocent but the solution already exists above in my larger text by adapting a different system.
The problem is not the moral philosophy of auto-bumps but the visual, objective deterioration which it brings with it which I already brought up above.
And 60MPH in 55MPH won't be punished, because it's a non-issue exactly like if you'd auto-bump in a fashion which does not give you any additional opportunities over other thread owners would not be punished either - demanding presence every 4 hours is impossible for a sane person, 24h not so much.

There's plenty which can be done on the technical side as well if the morals truly bother someone.

 

Half of your post doesn't make sense and the other half contradicts your previous one. I'm not going to turn this into a witch-hunt argument - I really don't care that much.

I support this.

 

We have approved this change, the abuse was simply too great to be enforced