Just to Clarify

A vote is always an option

 

This goes back to the fact that large sellers by definition have more customers than small sellers (since it is accepted that by large seller we are talking about people that sell to many people opposed to simply selling a massive quantity to a single person). By having more customers, you thread is going to be at the top of the forum more often even if you yourself never post in your thread. This means that large sellers may not need to bump as often as smaller sellers but that isn't due in any part to the seller himself but rather due to his customers. However, the meaning of what a bump really is has to come into play here. Since every post bumps your thread, every post essentially is a bump. Large seller's threads get bumped often due to high levels of traffic. This means that they need less specific bump posts to bring their thread back up where as small sellers need many more due to their small customer base. Thus, it makes perfect sense that there will be more bump posts in a small seller's thread than in a large sellers thread.

Now, instead of talking about fair (we should just ban that word), lets talk about what is best for the market and thus Sythe as a whole. No one has ever really talked about this but it is at the heart of what we want any rule to do. The way I see it is that we want Sythe to grow and we want our members to have a positive experience here. A bumping rule in it's simplest form is to improve the experience of our users by reduces the chaos that the forum would be in if bumping was allowed without restriction (this really includes everything you can think of from exploding post counts to RS style bumping every minute to stay on the first page). By improving the user's experience we are also growing the site because people who have a good experience are much more likely to come back than those who do not.

If we apply the current bumping rule to these couple of simply thoughts, it becomes clear that its doing more harm than good. First off, the rule contains a massive grey area. You can't dispute that so, everyone, don't try it. This means that it, by definition, is much more difficult to understand than if it had no grey area. For new users who have never used to market before, understanding the fact that thanking a user will be seen as a bump is not something that is immediately clear. This will cause them to have a negative experience and thus be more likely to leave, which is not something we want. However, if we can find a way to balance this with something good that the new rule has that the old does not, we can justify it on those grounds.

This is where everyone's arguments lie. The rule started (I'm just assuming here) because some moderators decided that they were tired of people "gaming the system" to gain an advantage over other users. That's why delete bumping was banned, because it allowed certain users to have an advantage over other users. The main argument is, posting after another person (thus defeating a no double posting rule) allows someone to gain an advantage over others by getting their thread bumped more often. It follows the same logic as banning delete bumping but there are notable differences. Delete bumping is not something that everyone can do; it requires knowledge. You also can not see others doing it and thus you can not learn to do it from others. This is different than posting after another user, which is fairly obvious and you can see others do it and learn from them. Delete bumping also has no grey area. One can not argue that there is any purpose to delete bumping other than to bump your thread. However, for responses to customers you can. This means that not only do proponents of the current bumping rule have to justify having a grey area, they also have to justify taking away the ability to talk to ones customers the way you want to.

People have done this by saying that there are other means of communication between buyer and seller that can be used. However, like everyone else has pointed out, that essentially defeats the purpose of having a market. It becomes less of a place to sell things and more of a place to advertise your business that in turn sells things. Thus, we are driving selling and buying off of Sythe onto other communications mediums, which again will slow the growth of Sythe due to people not needing an account as they will be simply using Sythe as a way to find people. Thus, not only do the proponents of this bumping rule need to justify a grey area and justify taking away the ability for people to communicate freely on Sythe but also justify reducing the growth of Sythe and justify turning Sythe into a new direction where the site becomes more of a repository of other places to go to get what you want instead of the place to go to get what you want.

I just think I had to use justify a few too many times in there to justify keeping the rule the way it is.

 

I think you are misinterpreting what they are saying. You are arguing that they are talking about post count but that isn't it at all. They are talking about the fairness of you and the other large sellers have 20+ customers a day bumping your thread up and obscuring the small sellers who have 2 or 3 customers a day. They're trying to prevent the market from just being 2 or 3 sellers and give everyone a (fair) chance. Why would I want to take the time to look for a gold seller when the top three threads are these huge sellers. It comes down to the new users trying to get into the market but it is difficult when they're already 3 or 4 giants dominating the market. Like if I try to market an unknown operating system when Microsoft already has market share.

Edit:

Here you have to define what is necessary discussion and what is sneaky bumping. Someone posts a vouch in your thread and then 2 hours later when your thread is on the second page you decide to vouch them back - that isn't discussion that is a sneaky bump. Telling someone you added them 30 minutes after their posting, that is a sneaky bump. Saying things like "added" or "thanks" is just useless as it is covered in the MSN conversation and if you have to do it then it should be through PM. With communication means like MSN it makes it possible for an easier transaction and where it all takes place, thus making a shop thread more of an advertisement then a place to discuss ones wares. Why would you discuss buying and selling gold on your thread when it is 100 times easier through MSN? You don't have the delays and communication is near instant. Again, that makes a thread more of an advertisement then an actual place to discuss wares.


Either way, it should be changed to cover all the bases in black and white terms. Though if people complain this much about the last three times it changed then I don't see why changing the rule is going to stop them from finding problems with a new rule.

 

SuF, that was an excellent post. I think you are really hitting the point I was trying to elaborate upon. People need to think about what is best for this website. We want a market that works well for all users, both new and old. This is the primary concern.

Along with the great points in SuF's post on why the current rules do not cater to our Market, let me add a couple more.

Transparency between buyers and sellers makes Sythe a unique place to trade. Users of our markets can instantly view interaction between buyers and sellers, and see open dialogue between both parties. They can see that sellers are communicating with their buyers, and that we respond to them personally about their concerns. Yes, we could PM them. However, that takes a public conversation away, and creates a private conversation. It is no longer transparent. For all the browsing user knows, we never acknowledged the customer's order, we never completed it, nothing happened at all. They have no way of knowing.

However, by communicating with said customer, we display to all of our users that we have acknowledged them and provided them with individualized service. This gives the browser much more confidence in dealing with the seller, and the Market as a whole.

As SuF said, you are looking to switch an area to sell into an area to simply advertise. I believe that with my experience selling on the market, which has been 3x longer than most of the mods on this thread have even been members on the site, that this goes against our website's culture. You set a very dangerous precedent with these rules, and continue to discourage open communication with every change. It's time to really ask ourselves what has made this site popular in the first place, and why it is different from other forums / selling sites.

The issue of "new sellers" being disadvantaged continues to come up, and I am sick of it. New sellers have come and gone consistently since I joined in 2007. I don't recognize a single seller from original free trade or BH. I am the only one still here. If you are going to try and tell me of all people that a new seller can not come here and start a GP business, you are going to hear me tell you that you're wrong. Yes, it takes effort. Yes, it takes persistence. Yes, it takes a whole lot of time. But that's because you're coming into a fairly saturated market. That's not changing from a bump rule.

Start asking yourselves if this update really helps the website. How many people even come here and put in the effort to become well known GP sellers? Is that really a big demographic of our users? Shouldn't we be targeting the much larger group, who are looking for an easy and simple experience buying gold? Instead of the 0.1% of people trying to set up a business? Why are we changing the whole dynamic of our website for a small group, who to this point I have yet to see launch a complaint about the situation??

I am just utterly confused about all this.

 

That seems like a good solution to me clears up any problems with excessive bumps, and its not hard to misinterpret. At the moment when I handle a spam report to be honest I have trouble figuring out whether a vouch is the same as a "thanks" or a confirmation is the same as "added" they both do the same thing but are just worded differently.

 

Is all this debating necessary? All that should happen is a vote in the Staff Lounge and then whatever the rule is, the mods have to enforce it strictly whether it's 1 post every 8/12/24 hours.

 

Once again, I think it's the wrong route, but still is BETTER than what we have now.

I think GP sellers should have some say in it, since the rule really should only apply to the Gold Exchange. There's no way anyone is going to be able to enforce it anywhere else.

 

It happens in all of the market.

 

- No double posting / delete posts within 8 hours (spam rules still apply)


This is much better and much more clear

 

This is really the only viable solution. The only other option is one post per 8 hours on a thread, which imo is a horrible option for a discussion board.

 

Sorry I quoted the wrong one I was referring to going back to the old bump rules.

It's way too hard to distinguish where "thanks" becomes a vouch and where "added" becomes a confirmation for somebody, and "anything of that nature" can honestly be anything so atm it should say "No posting within 8 hours of your previous bump on one thread." because that's what it is stating at the moment.

 

This whole thread makes me miss the Staff Lounge a bit But yes, that rule I outlined would cover everything we discussed and prevent pointless posts such as "still buying" or "online now" which would = spam.

 

The only issues I've realized with that is that if you post let's say "Thanks" to a user, and then they post "No problem man. Thanks", you could technically bump your thread an hour later since your not double posting. I hadn't thought of that when I wrote essentially that rule months ago. That's a minor detail that could be worded into the rule somehow.

 

So, what the final ruling?

 

Nothing yet.

 

Misread.

To clarify, let's look at this from both angles. Angle A: Buying Thread

Seller posts "Thanks". Buyer replies, "No problem". No extra bump.

Buyer replies to Seller's original post with "Thanks". Seller now for some reason says "No Problem" (this almost never happens, but let's assume it does). Buyer now posts again.

Even in this instance, why is the buyer posting again to the customer? I don't see any reply he can make after "No Problem" that wouldn't be spam. Spam rules still apply.

 

We could change the wording from double post to simply bumping and make it clear that bumping refers to a post that says "bump". Then, you may bump after x hours (who really cares how many hours) after the last post in the thread. Normal spam rules apply so if you "respond" to a customer for no good reason (obviously an attempt to bump) then you can get hit with a spam infraction. That leaves some room for interpretation but I think it'd be rare that a customer would be the one ending a conversation or posting again after they vouched or what not.

 

So, to agglomerate all of this into one rule, let me take a stab:

- A bump, which is not subject to regular spam rules, may be posted after 8 hours of inactivity on a thread. All Delete Posts / Double Posts will be considered bumps.
- Any reply to a customer is subject to spam rules. Thanking a customer should never take up more than 1 post.
- Forum threads are not to be used as an alternative to instant messaging.

 

Completely agree with this.


And agreeing with Suf, people forget that this is a forum. The growth of a forum relies on posts. If that is a problem take post count out of the market completely.

If a seller is competent they shouldn't have a problem ever progressing, otherwise new sellers like Arcus and Viou never would have emerged when R2 and King were at the top. They just know how to run their business any anyone who does will succeed. They succeeded with the old rules why can't you guys? Maybe just accept the fact that you aren't as good at running a business as them. Build your customer base and you will take off, its not hard. Give respect where respect is due. Instead of creeping R2's thread when I was a noob because I was jealous of his success to report all of his posts, I creeped his thread to learn from him, how he interacts with his customers and keeps his business in tact professionally. There is so much more to having a successful business then simply "who gets their thread bumped the most".