Any news on the 'Grinder Selling' being banned?

As per topic, we're currently not allowed to sell Grinders which I believe covers:

• People who find one and have someone turn it into a Grinder cannot then sell it on
• People who find one and then turn it into a Grinder, cannot sell it on
• People who stumble across one, cannot sell it on

I believe the concern is over the security of the location and how it may not be as 'secret' as the seller would like you to think.

Any news on this in the way of a formal statement or if it's going to be allowed but with conditions?

I ask mainly because I've been inundated with people after my Grinders 'R' Us service, and it'd be a lot easier for me if I could sell some pre-made Grinders to meet the demand.

But if I just ask you in-game, you can help me with my grinder, or not?

Yes, that's fine and above board, but I'm talking about what happens if you decide you then want to sell that Grinder? You can't currently.

Ok

I don't think we've released an official statement yet, but I believe Jeremy is working on it. In the meantime, the selling of coordinates is prohibited. This means that the sale of a pre-made grinder is prohibited. If someone finds a spawner (or group of spawners), it is perfectly acceptable for them to contract you (or another builder) to design a grinder around that spawner. It is also perfectly fine to sell the service of building a dark-room spawner in the customer's preferred location.

I believe one of the conditions is that the spawner has to be in a "natural condition." My understanding is this means that the contractor (you) has to do the clearing of the spawner with torches or some other method. I know this harms your model of having your customer clear the spawner before contracting you, but it was the only way we could be sure that someone wouldn't contract you or another party to construct a grinder around a spawner that was found and cleared by a third party who planned to build their own grinder.

Anyway, expect to see a thread dedicated to this and perhaps a couple other topics from ICC on the forums soon.

I did a search but could not find anyone in authority saying they were banned. If someone knows of a thread that does have someone in authority banning them, please post a link. Thanks.

Thanks for the clarification.

ICC makes a post about it, or was it GKJ, in the Auctions sub-forum, it's about two pages back. Hence why I listed my sale on the marketplace and it promptly got locked as I hadn't spotted it either.

Cheers EW, I'll make an ammendment to my small print on that suject and it's good to have a guideline to work off of.

We're continuing to allow "tea and biscuits" as a condition of sale, though.

Aaaa this is so jarring. I was just about to open my mob spawner and rare items store!!

Could you sell the location of spawners, with no grinder built around them?

The reason we prohibit the selling of location/coordinates is because it is not a guaranteed safe object. The location can be known to many, and the spawner may even have been destroyed by an unknown party before the buyer even knows its coordinates.

To sell something you actually have to own it , you can't own anything in the wild.

Say that to my locked chests, sir (or madam, I dunno, your gender is unspecified)!

The fee is not to own the item, its to show you or tell you the location. Everyone who buys a spawner knows the risks. Whether they take the risk is their decision and their problem if it gets griefed. However, the seller has a responsibility to 'forget' that spawner.

By banning all exchange of coords, I am 100% sure spawners will still change hands. The difference is that it will take place 'underground' and the value of the item will increase as a result

For now, we ask that you don't place them for sale in auctions or in the marketplace. I'm going to bring this discussion up one more time in the staff discussion forums and see if we can't tweak it a little bit and have some ground rules as we do for the casino games, etc.

No guarantees but I will give you that we will discuss it further.

Thanks for that, I wasn't sure if he meant no coordinates at all, or just grinder ones.

I agree that if you place a " ban" on this you only succeed in creating an underground market for it. Although people will have to remember that it is very likely that mods have the option of seeing players' whispers. But there are ways around that too. Secret messages in writable books that you throw into lava afterwards. Ohhhh books are gonna be yummy.
/evil laughter

I just realized that it might sound like I'm condoning this. Not the case, the conspiracy theorist in my head just went on a rampage. Do what your mods tell you folks. Its for the good of everyone.

On a more serious note. I would like to throw my two cents in there since there is still some mod debate going on.

I think shutting down the selling this item is a bad idea. I think it is admirable for the staff to want to protect people, but I think y'all might be getting just a touch over protective. Consider these machines "investment" sales. There is always some risk in investments. As long as the buyer and seller understand this then I don't see anything not above ground about it. I was considering buying one, I was intending to spend the money as an investment to make more money in enchanting. I understood full and well that a spawner is not something that can be protected. At the same time I know that I would not buy something like that from a source that was not a member of the community with a very strong reputation.

You guys really can not stop people from making bad decisions. The most you can do it put the information out there about how to make safe and smart decisions and hope they read it. If you guys try and enforce a lot of really crack-down laws on anything that could be risky, then the environment will become oppressive.

Thank you mods for all you do for us. I <3 you all.

Mel

All I can say about this is that if someone gets conned in an underground economy, don't come crying to the staff about any bad experiences because the fact that you tried to circumvent the rules will not look good.

There are a lot of things that could happen that staff won't immediately know about. When we find out about it, we deal with it in whatever way will best serve the community and maintain the standards that the entire community has agreed to. Since I'm assuming we won't condone underground deals designed to circumvent the community's rules, bans will be handed out when we discover such deals.

[edit] Also, shutting down these sales is only partly to protect people. It also sends a strong message to people to not come crying to us when their deal goes bad. We've had to try to figure out ways to settle disputes in the past that won't be an issue for us with this new rule. But, as Jeremy said upthread, we will discuss it further and we always welcome constructive input from every member of the community.

Ok but what if lets say I have a 3 spawner grinder. I built it all up and used it for a while (Alone) but I decided to move to a different SMP and I want to get rid of that grinder. Would it be an option to sell it to a friend ingame? Or is that also not allowed.

I think the point I was trying to make (Maybe it was muddled up. A lot of times the stuff in my head doesn't make sense to others ) "Black markets" are created when systems become to restrictive. No one with half a brain is going to break rules, then tell mods about it. This is why I truly believe it is safer for the community if you guys decide to monitor and regulate instead of ban on this subject.

Think of it in terms of the school debate of teaching abstinence over protection. Kids are going to do it no matter what you say about it. It is a lot better to teach them to do it safely than to tell them to keep their pants on. The second option is going to create a lot more teen mommas. (teen mommas being, in this case, people who buy grinders and regret it because it got griefed.)

Edit: I want to rephrase the last sentence. No matter what option you pick you will have people who (get pregnant) buy grinders that get griefed. But the number will be fewer if you teach them to do it safely than tell them just don't do it.