Advertising rule redefined/current gold market

I know I'm going to get a lot of shit for this from other gold sellers, but this is a suggestion I would definitely make if I wasn't a gold website owner, so I'm going to pretend for a second that I have nothing to do with RSUltimate and write a few sentences.

In 2008, the gold market was basically individuals selling their gold, with a few small shops.

This then evolved to market giants creating websites, hiring workers, and basically using Sythe as free advertising for their products on their websites. I definitely don't think this was the original intentions of the gold market. Sythe isn't PlayerAuctions, and Sythe isn't the place for blatant advertisements. It's the craigslist of virtual goods, and just as craigslist has a bunch of car dealers and apartment companies abusing the point of craigslist by using it as free advertising (in most area), Sythe is also being abused. Think of it this way: how would Sythe members feel if other gold websites such as Gold4Fun and USFine began having Sythe threads?

The way it is, I see a few solutions (pick all or some):

Set up a classification for what would be considered a gold shop, rather than an individual: having a website and/or having workers, and then based this classification

1. Implement a filter where people can block viewing threads by businesses

2. Require a certain amount of monetary support to the community to help improve servers and the general wellness of Sythe

3. Give priority exposure to those who are individuals, and not businesses, by allowing either: (a) faster bump rates for individuals or slower bump rates for businesses, (b) only permitting the owner of the thread, and not workers, reply to customers and/or bump the thread, (c) reduced thread titles for businesses, (d) bold thread titles for individuals, or something of a similar manner.

4. Enforcing advertising rules more strictly, and prohibiting direct links to gold websites, even in selling threads.


I'm better off as a business without the implementation of this suggestion, but I just want to show my support if the community thinks it's good progress toward a better Sythe.​

 

If you've built a business up from scratch and it retains to the main purpose of the site there should be no penalties for promoting your business.

View Sythe as a merchant; Walmart. It advertises for multiple gold companies as Walmart, the merchant, does for other food distributors; Tyson food.

Sythe servers the purpose as a promoter to the supplier, the users are the demanding.

There should be no filter as entrepreneurs should not be punished. YOU should not be punished nor filtered for being successful, essentially all gold sellers have the ability to build a company as you did. If they choose not to expand and grow that's no ones fault but their own.

 

The only thing that I would personally agree with would be the only allowing the owner of the thread to bump. When you have several workers coming in and bumping your thread every other post you don't get unstuck from the top of the forum. It would also eliminate things like 'Forum Managers' that some people seem to think are completely okay. So in some respects I support this, even though I don't have a stake in the market.

 

This would be part of the DNS list I believe, but that does not mean it should be left unchallenged.

In a market economy there are no limitations set by any government, and buyers/sellers are free to do what they want. The reason we have no perfect market economies in the world is because it would never work out. For example, in a market economy we would have monopolies for everything. There would be one place where you could buy your clothes, and one place where you could buy food, and one place where you could buy phones, because that's how the economy works. A successful business will continue to grow and expand until it has complete control. Luckily, we have government intervention. The government prevents any corporations from becoming a monopoly.

I think it's time Sythe steps away from a pure market economy.

All of the successful gold sellers are starting to dominate the market, which turns off other people from trying. This indirectly (or directly in some cases) leads to scamming (people just want to make a quick buck because they see no possibility of a long term profit), and it leads to the weakening of sythe.org as a whole. We lose users all the time because their gold business flops in the face of the giants, or because they want to make a quick buck. If the playing field was more equal, then people could see a chance to become established on sythe, and would be more likely to stick around longer. Plus, more people in the gold market would improve the market as a whole, and therefore would increase it's sustainability.

So in conclusion, sometimes limits are necessary for the greater good of the people, and I fully support what grave is suggesting.

 

Everyone builds their business from scratch, basically. Do you mean from scratch on Sythe? Then that would exclude everyone else who comes from, let's say, powerbot.

That's a terrible analogy. If Sythe has it's slogan as the craigslist of virtual goods, then we should treat it as such. Craiglist is a place where people list their goods for sale, and Craigslist separates businesses from individuals pretty well.

Yes, but by permitting gold websites to basically use Sythe as a hub for most of their traffic, they have the opportunity to leech from the community and not give back to it. The problem with that is though, it makes it much harder for individuals to trade with eachother. They are instead forced to sell to these huge websites, and then buy from them, with the websites becoming forced middlemen.

Fair enough. I think that would at least help level the playing ground for medium sellers and huge sites.

 

I mean from a basic gold seller (few mills at a time) to a dignified distributor; Rsu, R2p, 2147, etc.

No, Sythe itself is not selling anything, it's used as a promotion center basically. The only separation WalMart has from Sythe is that it profits from the suppliers. In a way, Sythe does too (gold sellers donating).

Give back how? Every major gold seller here, from what i've seen, has a donator rank.

 

Walmart isn't an advertising center. Your analogy isn't correct. Walmart is a retailer where they buy products directly from the producers and retail them to third party consumers. Not even close to what Sythe is. Sythe is a marketplace where you are able to come in and setup a shop, more akin to a mall or a flea market type thing.

Also he is referring to businesses like Gold4Fun and USFine when he is talking about giving back. They come in, set-up shop, and give nothing to the community and usually end up scamming members but there isn't really anything the site can do about it.

On that note, I don't think promoting individuals in the market place is a good thing. I believe that possibly making more advertising spots available in just the gold market somehow and charging for them would be beneficial.

 

Wrong. It's because powerful people are greedy.

How do you come to this conclusion? Free markets lead to competition which leads to lower prices; not monopolies.

Competition.

The government is part of the problem. Larger companies get tax exempts, and can afford to hire lawyers to find loopholes. That's another conversation though.

Essentially what you're saying is, let's limit some people so we can have more people; which doesn't make sense.

 

Lol, almost, but no.

Walmart is a merchant, almost the same principle as Sythe because there is still a method of feedback (donation center).

Walmart - Sythe > Kellogg - RSU > Soccer mom - gold buyers

Sythe is used to advertise businesses as Walmart does Kellogg, they both receive something from it, Sythe - donations, Walmart - supplier tax. Although Sythe is non-profiting, it still profits in a sense.

You can call me wrong and argue this all you want but by evidence this is correct.

 

You apparently don't realize how retail works. Store buys bulk items from supplier at low cost, retails to third party consumers at a retail price and thus churns a profit. Sythe is an unbiased third party that has no hand in the market unlike walmart. It isn't even close to what Walmart is and you are somehow failing to see that.

A merchant by legal definition is an entity that sales product(s). Sythe sales no product and only provides a medium or meeting place to make trades, walmart actively engages consumers to sell product. There is no supplier tax, it isn't like walmart is a consignment shop for supplier/companies.

Ontopic:

I believe that the advertising rule could be reinterpreted to be put into a fairer light, but as I am not in the gold market actively I am not 100% sure how it applies in that particular market.

 

What you just said makes no sense. You basically told me wrongful definitions of how a free market works, and therefore I have nothing to argue against. I am pretty sure you just made all of that up..

 

Someone doesn't, it's a merchant not a vending machine. Your claim is that all major brands come from the same place? I haven't seen pepsicoke trucks yet

You need this; http://lmgtfy.com/?q=non+profit+merchant

Craigslist by example is a non profit merchant. You're arguing against facts. I'm arguing for no reason.

 

I think that the fact that many individuals, like yourself for example, have moved to website have reduced the activity of Sythe forums itself, and rather than participating as a trader of Sythe.org, you are just advertising your website and at the same time forcing buyers to go first.

I would love to see restrictions implemented.

 

I like this suggestion

Enforcing advertising rules more strictly, and prohibiting direct links to gold websites, even in selling threads.

The rest I don't see happening, considering how Sythe staff like keeping market as fair as possible, its unfair to limit one persons ability to promote on a forum simply because they are more successful.

Looking right now at the adv for R2p where it says F= gold, this is false advertising because they aren't actually offering this and it shouldn't be allowed unless they are holding up to their end of the advertisement.

 

I'd be fairly happy in just ruling all gold shops as advertising (therefore removed/punished) unless paid monthly.

 

Do you mean off-site Gold Shops, such as RSUltimate, R2Pleasent and RSSource? In this case aren't they already required to purchase the links to be able to advertise their store?

 

No.

I'm kind of confused here.. Why would you want to penalize people for having websites? Most websites (start ups, not r2p, rsu, etc) are made for hubs to take payments securely. If you eliminate that, grave is winning, because there's much less competition for him. I wouldn't dare sell retail without a website, because it's impossible to accept PayPal profitably without one (the biggest payment processor).

I could go through each and every one of Grave's points and show how he's manipulating everybody.

As for the advertising one though, I think that's beyond stupid. There's a reason why R2p, Gold4Fun, Brosale, etc are advertising on the front page.. Their paying insanely to do so. That should be enough to keep the servers running. They took that option, which was I'm sure was available to anybody who wanted to grab it (Grave, you know this for fact).

Also, to the worker quote, how is that fair? If somebody is hiring people for 24/7 activity because they simply aren't on, why shouldn't they be able to communicate between customers? Doesn't this kind of interfere with why Kevin & Jevon had to join up into shops?

Nice job, Grave. You're trying to blindside everybody, like always.

 

yeah thats what i meant, sorry, and not that I know of.

I think its entirely fair to suggest a monthly rate per month for off-site shops, they are essentially using sythe for free advertising

 

When I see huge gold sellers who are most likely making their living off of sythe and they haven't donated to sythe it kind of upsets me in a way considering they probably wouldn't be in the situation they are in if it wasn't for sythe.org and it's community. But most of you have donated several hundred dollars so I don't agree with number 2 and I don't think it's something sythe would or should do.

Number 1, I don't really see a problem with this aside from I don't know if it will be possible for them to implement as I have no knowledge on the subject. I think it equally helps both parties making them easier to find for people who know what kind of seller they are looking for, either a well trusted gold seller who most likely has inflated prices which come with the benefit of knowing your not going to get scammed or from a individual who will probably have lower prices but comes with some risks at times.

Number 3, if something to that effect can be easily implemented I don't see why not other then it may upset some of the gold sellers.

I can see this being a huge problem though as how do you decide who's a business and who isn't? Do you have to have a website or is someone who buys and sells gold on a regular basis considered a business?

 

Not liking any of this
In particular, hiding large gold shops has the direct effect of boosting scamming. By making it easy to hide people you know you can trust you are inviting new users to see only people who might be scammers. In particular new users who would test such an option would see a reduction on the prices advertised and they'd be alot more likely to get scammed