[Suggestion] Ban *PM* me offer sales on the forums.

It is up to the seller and buyer to decide if they need to protect their deals from public eyes.
Sometimes there is no need for privacy, sometimes there are several.

- don't want the competition to see your deals - applies both to sellers and buyers
- prevent immature, "shop xy sells diamonds for 25r" ready-to-start-drama players from spamming your deals
- don't want to show details of a deal like amount / price / discounts to public / other customers, for example when trading very scarce goods
etc.

The EMC customers are actually their parents
But perhaps most of them just don't care?

I just think that taking away tools and freedoms (... and customs and privacy!) is generally not a desirable way to fight fraud and protect people. (We're at the old topic about the level of kindergartness of EMC.)

m4nic you seem to be under the impression that this is some backhanded attempt to regulate commerce when in truth it is the exact opposite and promotes buyer and seller protection. as ive said before as long as it follows the lax auction rules i posted earlier it is entirely allowed. there are other less intrusive ways to go about doing something very like this in game however and if you wish to do those staff will not interfere. in server silent auctions are entirely allowed and even encouraged. on forums though mods (and many players within this thread) would prefer a little piece of mind

Sorry, I missed that (?) ... can you please post a link?

The topic of this suggestion is (whether) to ban private bargain / negotiations through forum PMs, which, BTW, I've done numerous times. I just think it is not a good idea and that there are much better ways to fight fraud / scam.

its on the first page:
if you are going to do this style of "silent auction" it should follow the same rules any other auction thread would. that is a clear end time (not from last bid but from open of thread so i dont gotta monitor your pm's), a clear representation of the items offered which are set according to auction rules, a clear lowest bidding price, and a concise winner to the auction that is stated then closed when the stated product is gone.

Why? Unless you're trying to sell something for more than it's worth, what difference would it make for the competition to see? We're talking about minecraft items, not unreleased secret things you have to sign an NDA for.

Which is against the rules, and there is a report button to report it.

Again why? Why would you not want to show details of the deal? What possible harm could it come to?

I'm not sure what you mean at the level of kindergartness, but as has been said before, this isn't the real world. It's a computer game where we come to have fun and enjoy ourselves. Should we abandon all the rules in favor of freedom? We're all mature and can do the right thing. Griefers can grief, spammers can spam, we'd turn this game into EVE Online (eew).

i play eve online where there is the free market like m4nic proposes, its filled with scammers spammers and pirates. trust me normal people arent as altruistic as you might beleive

Especially when given the apparent anonymity of the internet.

Very much true. Often times people like to "taste" what it would be like to break the rules in a game, since they can't do it in real life.

EMC is not an "economy server," and that is good so, that makes it actually more interesting (also from economy point of view!) than so called "economy servers."

We have economy for two reasons - one of them is that economy is a natural part of MC (S)MP and almost any community. When you have people there that can gather various resources, they will start to trade. Trading makes people develop faster and reach their goals sooner and more efficiently. They can specialize and provide service and use others' services. That's (small scale) economy. A currency makes this trading much easier (but people would trade even without currency, for example with diamonds). Economy is one of the main selling traits of EMC, you can find it on EMC ads.

IMO, hampering trade on EMC in any way takes away from the community and the game. People like and need to trade and they like the freedom in an unencumbered virtual world very much.

I feel this should be obvious, there are numerous examples, but ok, here is one - and yes, we're talking about EMC:
By watching what people do on EMC and trying to identify trends, you make a prognosis that the price of wood will significantly increase over next few weeks. At the same time, you have a project that needs high amount of wood. The competition is watching the market and developments closely (trust me, they do ). So what you would like to do is to buy quite a high amount of wood without telling everyone and speeding up the increase of the price unnecessarily.

Second example: You're giving few special customers a special discount, but you don't want to sell to other customers at the same price, and you neither want to disclose further details. You also don't want people coming with "why don't you sell to me cheap, you did sell/buy to/from y for x rupees" or similar.

Scamming of any kind is also against the rules and can be reported, so ... no special rule is needed.

Yes, very true, but we all (should) know that and act accordingly. Still, "no scamming" rule should be enough, it covers all ways and flavors of scamming.

FTRim = features, traits and rules needed for small kids and clueless or ignorant or immature others
FTRma = features, traits and rules needed for big kids
\ = difference (set operation)
U = union (set operation)
|...| = valuation operator, where |(a, b, ..., x)| = |a| + |b| + ... + |x|

LoK = Level of kindergartness

LoK = 100% * | FTRim \ FTRma | / | FTRim U FTRma |

LoK is the ratio of the valuation of the stuff and rules for small kids to the stuff and rules for all.

It can have value from 0% to 100%.
LoK near 0% (mostly stuff for big kids) = mature community
LoK towards 100% (mostly stuff for small kids) = kindergarten
The LoK for EMC has yet to be calculated, suggestions are welcome

So ... "no private (PM) bargains" would surely increase LoK, as big kids do not need such rule.

Yet another idea about this and similar issues:
How about members telling themselves if thy need special care? When you sign up, you automatically have some kind of "need special care" flag, and you can turn it off in your profile settings if you want (and know how to read the guide to find out how to). Or you can take maturity tutorial to turn the flag off.
Everyone would be required to take special care and keep everything simple and transparent around small kids, i.e. members without the flag turned off.
Then, if a member without "special care" flag complains about being scammed with "I have other offers that are higher" lies, the mod wouldn't need to check, and would answer "you should know better, go to the maturity tutorial."
If it is a "special care" member, then the seller either has all transparent and can prove his innocence or is automatically responsible for what happened.
It is not allowed for small kids to trade like big kids (like it is not allowed in a real kindergarten).

Because that would be downright ridiculous, insulting, inappropriate and completely unneeded.

Our rules are the same for everyone. That will never change. That's what makes EMC a great family friendly server, that welcomes all players with open arms. We accept everyone as equal when they join, and we will stay like that.

Don't like that we protect any and all members of the server? Then I'm sorry, but that's something that we will not change. There's no need to 'unprotect' some members. Why? Because they're playing on EMC, so are bound to the same rules and restrictions as everyone else.

Heh? It's about how it is done IRL.
You know that server, do you?
You know you need to pass a test before you can drive a car ... or go to a university? What is insulting about it?
Maturity test ... it's just an idea.

BTW, IIUC, if this is insulting, then "no PM bargains" rule would be way more insulting, because, through it, you tell to the whole community: "you are incapable."

Nobody would take the maturity tutorial if it turned off protection from scams.Therefore bad idea.

I think maybe this discussion is getting a wee bit too toxic for my taste...

m4nic, i understand that you are scared of change, but i promise good things can come from change. it may seem a bit rulesy, but the rules probably will not even affect you in any way.

i know you are all about the free market economy, but the website has rules for a reason, and most follow those rules without even realizing it. i prefer lurking than actually saying anything, but here:

life is not always about what you want. emc is not always about what you want as a player.
life has rules that you have to follow (do not speed, murder, ect). emc has rules that you have to follow (do not scam, hack, pvp, ect).
in some ways emc and life are alike, but in other ways they are not.
for instance, being a crazy rupee tycoon is welcome on emc, where as people would question why your running around with zelda money irl.

the forums are a different branch of the game, and they have a lot of similar rules, but some rules are different.
there are many things you can do ingame that you can not do on the forums, and vice versa.

ingame, you can build things, on the forums, you can vote for more rupees.
on the forums, you can leave offline players msgs, which you can not do ingame.

the residence system we have is pretty much rules, if you look at it. a player is able to allow another player to build on their residence, or keep them from even entering it, by setting a rule for that player specifically.

because of the residence system having these rules able to be set, town is almost ungriefable. its not 100% though, because nothing can truely ever be 100%..

but the point of the rules is to help minimise griefing, scamming, stealing, hacking, expoiting, and what ever else may be unfair, or harm other players.

please do try to understand, rules get put in place for a reason, and that reason usually has a cause behind it.

The only good protection from scams is learning social skills and keeping thinking turned on.
No one can turn that off except the dude himself.

Actually, I'm only a bit scared of change of LoK, specifically if it is increasing.

I'm a little confused as to what is allowed now.

It looks like we are restricting threads like this to the forums only so that everyone knows what offers are under negotiation:
http://empireminecraft.com/threads/selling-8-stacks-of-lapiz.29543/
http://empireminecraft.com/threads/...ombie-spawners-utopia-wild.29517/#post-564960

I also understand that if you are going to use pm's, you have to treat it as an auction, which is fine, although I don't think I would use that method as I would expect some pretty chaotic results. I think if I did I would want to set a minimum bid that is pretty close to what I think the items are worth.

I can understand why some people would want to buy/sell things privately and not have everyone see their negotiation. Mainly it seems like I might want to give a discount to someone I like and not be held to that price for others.

I was looking for example threads and I think there were a lot more Buying than Selling threads where the poster asks for pm's. Why aren't these also being restricted since the same motivations are present in those as well?

There are tons of Buying threads that ask for pms:
http://empireminecraft.com/threads/buying-superfast-cobble-stone-gen.29970/
http://empireminecraft.com/threads/buying-dc-of-iron-blocks-and-dc-of-glass.29504/
http://empireminecraft.com/threads/buying-beacon.29831/
http://empireminecraft.com/threads/buying-name-tags.30031/

By the way BiscuitBoy, finding your comment here seemed amusing:
http://empireminecraft.com/threads/selling-emc-treasure-vault-voucher.29632/#post-567151

So, does any Buying/Selling thread posted to the Forums have to follow Auction rules if it asks for offers in PM now? If we can't negotiate a Selling price as this thread topic suggests, we really shouldn't be allowed to negotiate any price, Buying or Selling, in pm if the pm was initiated by a Forum Thread.

I'm not auctioning,I just prefer using PMs for stuff like this.

If I linked one of your threads it was because I thought it was a good example, not because I thought it was breaking any rules.

I am asking for clarification and also suggesting that the rules, whatever they are, be applied to Buying as well as Selling threads.

Ok.I get that.