Hi gang! I'm a huge fan of the auction section of the forums and its because of that why I follow quite a few of them and - if applicable - will also participate as a non-bidder sometimes (meaning: help explain the rules, confirm auction running time, try to help pick up player mistakes, etc., etc.). I have to stress this out: only if applicable. But because of this I've started to notice a pattern which I find a little disturbing and I think it warrants a post to remind all of us (myself included!) that the rules should not be taken too lightly! There are some of you out there who either knowingly or accidentally started to participate in some auctions only to stop responding to the aftermath. Worse: it almost seems as if some players start to make a habbit out of this (with the emphasis on 'seems', this is all my personal opinion). And I've seen others who, as commendable as it is, took sympathy to some situations and as such decided to move on. I cannot stress this out enough: the thought put behind that is really commendable and deserves a lot of respect. I can see where it's coming from (I've actually heard these comments a few times): you don't want to cause trouble and you also feel a little bad about getting EMC staff involved because "I lose some rupees, it's not that big a deal". So basically you'd hate to see the other player get in trouble for something you consider a minor issue. But here's the problem: Unless you actually went over a players posting history (note that any player can do this, not just staff) you cannot be certain if what happened in your auction is merely an isolated incident or if the player is actually knowingly and/or willingly disrupting several auctions. And note: I'm not talking about looking at 1 - 2 pages of history, I'm talking about going back a few weeks, maybe even a month or more. This is why it is important to get staff involved when something goes wrong with your auction! You shouldn't worry about staff immediately dropping down the ban hammer when someone makes a simple rookie mistake. In fact: let the staff worry about that. They have a lot more options than we do to determine if a player is actually making a dumb mistake (or simply going through a bad period) or is out to cause problems. But they cannot do that without our help! Which brings me to the very heart of this issue: taking action like this isn't about "getting the other player". Instead you should think of this as: "helping staff to protect the auctioning community". So yeah.. Guys, don't take the rules to lightly. When something goes wrong: ASK THE STAFF! Aren't you being a little overzealous here? I don't think I am. The very moment when you hit "Create Thread" (starting an auction) or "Post Reply" (bidding on an auction) you also picked up some responsibilities. Responsibilities which are clearly posted as one of the first (sticky) messages in the economy threads. But rules become meaningless if people don't follow them or if people don't enforce them. And, I know I'm repeating myself, the staff cannot easily enforce these rules without our help. That's why things like these are called community efforts. -- Shell
