Here is why I think your arguments about unsolicited shop adverts is invalid. If I'm relaxing in town doing things I rarely need to see messages advertising a shop but say someone is doing a sale then they can make that message once in economy chat and it's within the rules to do so. They can do it again three hours later and I think that's reasonable. This doesn't stop shops from advertising though because: a) They can also advertise on the forum and that's static b) They can advertise anytime someone asks about an item, which is fairly often and if you have a mall then that gives you plenty of opportunity What this rules prevents is people continually posting on a single server or by jumping between servers advertising contentiously. This is both annoying (as evidenced by players complaining about it and thus needing a rule) and ineffective because no one needs to be reminded that often that a shop exists. So I think at this point you're just arguing for the sake of arguing and if you just relax and follow the rules you'll find that your shop doesn't suffer at all.
Once an hour is not contentious. Even with a three hour rule, twenty people could(since we like to dabble in what ifs in this debate instead of using logical conclusions) advertise within that three hour window and you still have to see it. You know, if you assume anyone is staring at chat while IN TOWN or a supporter for three hours straight. If you are staring at chat for an hour straight its hardly bothering that a message interrupts whatever could possibly be so interesting that you aren't actively playing the game. You also fail to acknowledge that not only is it ECONOMY chat but you can turn it off if it is really that bothersome to see a one line message every once in a great while Edit: I think you missed this part, as far as "just follow the rules" goes.
Why should someone have to turn the chat off to avoid spam? I do not think that any shop owner is going to lose business by being restricted in how often they can offer unsolicited advertising. Here is a timeline: 11:00 AM - Shop owner enters unsolicited ad in Economy chat 11:10 AM - Player asks if anyone sells Wood and shop owner can reply that they do, thus having their 2nd ad 11:15 AM - Another player asks if someone sells enderpearls and shop owner gets to advertise again 11:17 AM - Another player asks about some other item, etc etc So any aggressive shop owner is going to have plenty of opportunities to advertise this shop. All this rule does is set a rule so that staff can moderate those shop owners who continually spam the chat with unsolicited messages. You may dislike the change initially but in practice I think it's going to be a good thing... and if other information arises and the rule is found to have loopholes or bugs then I'm sure staff will re-assess.
Gawa and wkramer, it all comes down to how much tolerance people have for advertisements. The Staff agree that three hours is a good balance between "too much" advertising and "too little" advertising. The new policy seems to be working out right now, though. I shouldn't see the same ad half a dozen times a day. At that point it's just annoying. I do believe 3 hours is a good balance.
If economy chat cant be used or can only be used infrequently then why even have economy chat? Why not just lump it in with town chat if everyone in town is going to see it anyways. This really makes economy chat just a useless annoyance. Which is what it was before our messages were forced into e chat, useless and overwhelmingly ignored anyways.
There are people who don't play the economy. At all. No shops, no services, no auctions. And there are some people who don't WANT to see ads. Some people find them incredibly annoying. Giving the people the OPTION to ignore these messages is a +1 all around.
I've already shown how it can be used and used frequently so at this point you're just being a drama queen. Give it some time. I doubt you're a serial spammer anyway so I don't know why you're getting so worked up over this rule.
I'm not getting worked up. I think the need to call people drama queen would be more indicative. The simple fact of the matter is you want to address one point but not the whole situation. The rule makes no sense, isn't enforceable in any meaningful way and if anyone actually knew it existed besides the staff and the like four people that haven't unwatched this thread then it would cause more problems than it is intended to solve. edit: perhaps that is the whole idea: there is no problem but people keep whining, point them to this thread and say it is solved. Honestly its the only logical conclusion to come to revolving this "rule"
The rule does make sense, obviously you've made sense of it because you're arguing against it. It is enforceable because once a player is spamming economy chat with unsolicited ads and a player reports them then staff can verify this and point to this rule stating that they are breaking it and give them a warning. That is the whole issue. Before this rule existed, we had no rule and anytime someone was spamming the chat the staff couldn't enforce what didn't exist. Wah-lah, now we have a rule. Your comment about only four people knowing the rule exists, it's likely that only four people need to know it exists because those are the four people spamming the economy chat.
Idek what to say at this point. Lol, what? The rule was highly requested by the community so a rule was put in place. Makes perfect sense. I honestly don't see what the problem is... *watches thread*
