[Approved]Disallow users advertising their Discord servers without a direct quote

A lot of responses to threads in the Runescape service community are copy/paste templates advertising Discord servers without any actual quote on the service itself. I believe that this should be changed so that a price should be quoted in the thread.

There are two reasons that I believe that this rule should be implemented:

1. It takes users away from Sythe. Once the user is in the provider's discord server then they are spammed with notifications about deals, accounts, etc. & the person asking for the service no longer has a need for Sythe as everything can be organised within the Discord server.

If providers were required to leave a quote in figures (just as they would in their personal Discord servers) on the thread, users would feel less compelled to join every single Discord server that is posted on their thread because they'd see the price is outside of their price range.

I'm a member of 8 different Discord servers from users advertising their service discord & it's just overwhelming. I don't care for the constant @everyone's and @here's - I didn't join these servers for that purpose, I just wanted a quote on a service which generally takes hours to receive anyways.

2. There's a direct audit trail. Everybody knows exactly how much they're getting/paying if quotes are left in the thread. If it came to either party scamming, the thread asking for the service would state the price from day 0. No miscommunication / gradually increasing prices and no instantly deleting messages from the discord server.

Obviously, these prices would be subject to change dependant on account restrictions (i.e the user didn't mention the account is a pure therefore making DPS much lower overall) but a rough estimate should be included.

I'm not saying stop people from using Discord servers to conduct business; I just believe that in order to keep users on Sythe, they shouldn't have to join Discord servers to be able to get a quote on the service they need.

 

Often a service has a large amount of variables, such as skilling & questing.
If a user doesn't wish to specify stats and whatnot on an open, visible forum then discord is often the way forward.

It's like taking your car for a service, asking the mechanic to quote you on how much it'll be without telling him the faults or make/model of the car.

 

Yes, but in most circumstances, the user requesting the service outlines the relevant stats/requirements within the thread which is enough for a service provider to base a quote on.

With regards to your analogy, an experienced mechanic will be able to narrow down what the potential problem is with the information that the owner of the car provides them (i.e. the tail lights aren't working), the mechanic would then give the car owner an estimated quote based upon the information provided, that may be subject to change depending on what specifically needs to be done (bulb replacement, rewiring etc.), but they'd know they're not going to need to install a new gearbox.

Though that isn't really too relevant to RS as the problem is laid out in front of the service provider from the offset. The user requesting the service in 90% of cases outlines the key information and what is expected of the service provider (i.e. I'm looking for 60-80 Agility. The provider knows they need to run laps on the seers/pollivneach course until they reach 80. They don't say "I need something done but I'll only tell you what it is on Discord".

Sending the user to your discord server to get a quote just makes the whole process of getting a quote longer than it needs to be.

 

I'm going to say no support

Here's the reason why

To address that you don't care about @everyone or @here just suppress those notifications as shown here:



Additionally, having things done in the Discord is not true, I use MULTIPLE trading Discords, and the majority of my clients always require a confirmation PM for the first trade. If you blindly trade someone without verifying the reputation of the person you're trading then that would be your own fault.

 

The issue is not the use of Discord itself, but users farming postcount with copy/paste templates which aren't directly relevant to the thread. I actually think that Discord is a great platform.

Users are looking for a quote on the service that they need, not an invitation to a server to get that quote. My point is that the copy/paste posts which take 0 consideration for the user's request should not be allowed without a quote within them. This allows the user to make a choice on who they'd like to complete the service without having to join a plethora of Discord servers. It overcomplicates the process of finding a service provider.

You wouldn't go into a shop and see a chocolate bar that you want to purchase, but when you ask the cashier how much it costs they respond with "Oh you need to join our little club to be able to see the price", so why should it be any different here?

Yes, you can suppress the notifications, but why should the user have to go through every Discord server they've joined to get a quote and change the notification settings for each of them, when all they wanted in the first place was a quote for a service on Sythe if the provider can't even be bothered to write a figure down in the first place?

Confirmation PM's mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, as server owners are able to delete messages within the server, so they can send a confirmation PM but then delete all evidence of the trade ever happening.

They could theoretically send a PM, take the payment and then delete the confirmation messages and act as though the customer never responded after the PM. If the user doesn't screenshot the trade because they think they're in safe hands then their case wouldn't be very strong as the Discord conversation has been manipulated, as opposed to Sythe, where a reason for deleting posts must be provided.

 

You also wouldn't request a quote online instantly without having a team to help (the team being the staff on the discord chanel).

Consider discord chanels a shop with staff, you wouldn't approach the owner of Walmart for your quote would you?

You'd be directed to the cashir.

 

You're right, I wouldn't approach the owner of the store but that's not how this works. The owners are approaching the customers in this situation.

Most services have a pricing list at the ready so they should already know roughly what they're going to quote; It's just sheer laziness copy/pasting the same message on every request thread saying "join my discord server for us to tell you the price".

Even if they do need to discuss it, they shouldn't redirect the user to their server without discussing what they would charge amongst themselves in the first place. If they can't do that, then they shouldn't post on the thread until they have a decision on what their time is worth.

It's just farming post count.

 

A taxi rank is all I can relate this to.

The drivers are self employed and pay a monthly fee to the owner of the company.

The owners job is to drum up business > making it worth while and scimming some of the money.

 

This has been suggested before although I'm not sure what happened to the thread.

I agree though, if everyone were to do this the entire market might aswell collapse into one section since all the threads/discords linked are advertising everything in many different sections

 

Agree, this is just spamming up the forums with lowquality shitposts.

 

ALOT of you are MISREADING TS'S thread. He's not saying no to advertising discord servers. Hes saying no to hijacking ppl's threads to advertise and farm post count.

Support, at the very least infractions should be given for these retarded advertisements that have zero relevance to the thread and simply just drown out other traders who put in legit quotes. You wanna advertise, keep it outside the thread(obviously). Saying no to this is akin to supporting hijacking threads which is frankly, damn retarded.

I'm on Sythe because i want to buy services from Sythe Users. Place ur bid/quote on the thread, or dont post at all. How or why the hell do I need to know your discord server exists? You're literally shitposting at this point.

 

Advertising discord servers should be forbidden as a whole, unless there is a specific section dedicated to them.

 

I'm glad that people agree.

As for

You keep on using analogies which aren't relevant to my point. I don't know what kind of taxi companies you have wherever you're from, but the taxi company's owners don't approach the customers where I'm from. They have a number and you call them, nothing is done to drum up business.

This is about POST COUNT. Not about hatred for Discord.

 

I agree with you to a certain extent, which is why I leave my thread to my pricing for the user, and tell them if they are interested to use the discord link in my signature.

That way, if they feel my prices are happy enough for them to use, they still have the option to contact me if they wish to move forward, no need to add "oh join my discord to get a price"

 

I'm rather curious to know if there's any correlation between Sythe website traffic and the existence of multiple discord servers attempting to address the exact same thing Sythe.org addresses.

 

Support. Discord adv. has/should not have its place on a forum.

 

Sythe will be irreparably damaged if administers don't sit down and think of the implications of this. These Discord servers are essentially direct competitors to Sythe. Sythe is essentially letting competitors springboard their business/community on their own platform at the expense of Sythe's future.

Why ever come to Sythe when some random Discord you joined, advertised on Sythe, offers the services you need? These Discord communities will kill Sythe, and Sythe needs to be proactive and create their own moderated Discord community ASAP too.

 

They do already have their own Sythe discord that is moderated and owned wholly by Sythe admins.

 

I presume she meant a server endorsed by Sythe.org itself, and one that is an official Sythe.org endorsed server. Not one ran by Admins, as that is not an official Sythe.org server.