a marketplace
 

I do not believe a marketplace would be a good idea. Menewsha is a growing community and will need a system somewhat like gaia's marketplace but we are trying not to be like gaia. Half of menewsha members were people that left gaia because of what gaia has done. I believe the staff are trying to create their own ways of doing things and I agree 100 percent on it. But at the moment, I do not believe that a marketplace is a good idea.

There will be a marketplace one day, this has been mentioned numerous times. It will come along eventually, once there's time to get it coded :yes:

Maybe it's because I am new but I don't even bother with the exchange. It find it much to chaotic and confusing to find one item I'm looking for let alone find various sellers to match prices.

I can understand though why the site does not have a marketplace due to being pretty new its self. I just hope that in the future a method that is a bit easier will come about.

Infinitys: But with this you can trade items for items instead of pure for items? Also, ability to haggle?

I support the idea of a marketplace, but I also think there needs to be some amount of moderation. That's a part of what I think went wrong with Gaia's gold system. Their marketplace is completely unregulated, which has contributed to the massive inflation on that site. Some sort of regulation needs to be maintained in a Menewsha marketplace to keep the same problems from happening here. I really don't want to see it get so out of hand here as it has there.

... But how would it be moderated? It would be fast, through a few clicks and the transaction is complete...
o ~ o

I don't know. I just said that I think there needs to be some form of regulation otherwise it will eventually end up just like Gaia's system.

What would you want the staff to do in response to this? If an item is put up for sale to the whole public. Then anyone is allowed to buy it. If one person wants to buy 30 december 2009 sets they can. That would be up to them if they had the gold. There is no real way to moderate that without breaking into peoples rights on this site. It is also unfair. If you want it to be moderated then you would need to not sell on the marketplace. Marketplace will create inflation. There is no helping that, well other than not putting one up.

Indeed. The market governs itself. If people want to pay 5k for a current CI set, they'll pay it and if they don't, it won't sell, period. The key to controlling inflation isn't extrinsic, it's intrinsic.

Alex, oh Alex....a marketplace would be a great idea, and seems like they are working on giving us one.....Yay :yumeh2:

Yes, I realize the principle behind the free market, but without some form of regulation, it's just going to bloat out of control.

So how, exactly, would you institute "some form of regulation" without infringing on the rights of the users?

I'm interesting in how you think a marketplace could be controlled too. As Kin has already stated it's entirely up to the user if they want to be fleeced, basically.

I can tell you that we'd have safe-guards in place. For example; on Gaia people can sell store items for above their store value. That will not be physically possible in our marketplace, I'm most insistent about that.

Let's backtrack a bit here, because realistically a marketplace is way in the future because it's going to be a MONSTER task to code it. It's going to need to be linked to the stores database to stop people over-charging on store items. It's going to have to have a search function so people can check all available prices of what they're looking for again to prevent over-charging. It will need a feature that checks and compares the price someone's entered when they want to sell an item that warns them if their price is way off base compared to average market value. That will be more to prevent gross under-pricing than anything else.

Believe me when we (eventually) have a marketplace it will come with all possible features to keep it fair. It will just be down to the users themselves to not give in to the people who thrive on over-charging.

The exchange rules state that a user can sell an item for whatever they wish. The code of conduct for the exchange states that a seller must honor their autobuy otherwise they are subject to an 250 point permanent infraction. How, without changing all the rules for the exchange/market, could there be regulations stating what people can sell items for, and how many they can buy, without infracting on peoples rights as users to sell their items?

Things will bloat out of control even without one. I can go ahead and buy October 2009 items. I could buy 50 sets off the market and what could anyone do to stop me if I wished to do that?

Personally, I think that's WAY too much regulation. Especially the part about not being able to sell over the store price. I feel that in all cases, if someone is stupid enough to buy something at whatever price, then it's their problem. I feel the same way for the sellers-if they're dumb enough to put something up at a ridiculously low price, even by accident, then it's their fault. People have to take responsibility for their OWN actions. If you make a mistake, then learn from it-pay more attention next time. I've made mistakes on that other site that have over time cost me a couple of hundreds of thousand gold. I didn't whine or ask for my item(s) back. It was my own fault for not slowing down and paying more attention. If someone doesn't like what they are finding in the market, then they can always go into the forum exchange and try their luck there. Again, you don't have to do away with that just because you have a market.
The exchange rules may state whatever they like, however, people can lie, and unless a mod is in there and catches them, which they can't because they'd then have to be in every store and check every single person's inventory every single time a transaction is (possibly) started, the person won't know they're being lied to and nothing can be done. And as people on here tend to take most others at their word, most won't suspect that the seller is lying to them, therefore they won't report them. That's ONE of the reasons I'm for a market. You don't have to worry about going to buy something and the person tells you they don't have that item anymore or they already sold it. On the more honest side, you don't have to worry about the item being gone after doing all that work to find it at the price you want just to find out that the seller doesn't have it anymore but just didn't update their store.

Another good thing about a market: I wouldn't have to scroll down half a page anymore through all the personal stuff the store keeper has up just to get to the items being sold. It sounds like I'm just being anti-social, but truly I'm not. I'm just the kind of person who likes to take care of business with the least amount of trouble possible so I can get on with the fun stuff. Shopping, to me, is a task to get done and out of the way. I just want to get it done so I can "go out and play"!

Infinity
If that happens. Then you report it. Then a moderator will go look at the posts. Or a forwarded PM would be nice to the mod who contacts you on it. Then an investigation goes underway. It goes with posts, edits for the post, PMs, inventories and trades. Once that is completed the scammer, or person who attempted to scam a user is dealt with accordingly. Going for both buyers and sellers.

Mods go through every post in every thread in the forum. We are aware of who is taking PM bids. Who is telling people there are 'higher' offers.

But you would only report it if you suspected something. On here, I think most of us all tend to take others at their word-I know I do-because it seems like a much tighter knit community. Example: "Nancy" has seen "Sally" around the forums and doesn't like her style, attitude, even position on a certain issue, what have you, but she never says anything or indicates her dislike. "Sally" sees something in "Nancy's" store with an autobuy price and makes the offer. "Nancy" doesn't want to sell to "Sally" because she doesn't like her so she tells her that "oops, she doesn't have that item anymore and sorry she forgot to update her listing". "Sally" doesn't report it as she has no reason to suspect "Nancy" would lie. You could even expand on that with "Sally" being basically blackballed by a certain clique or group because of "Nancy's" dislike. They can be so subtle about their actions that "Sally" would never be the wiser.

My main reason for wanting a market is like I mentioned, I think of shopping as a task to get done, and having to do it with the current system is a pain in the butt.

Then you can consider a new round of inflation as the cost of convenience.

We cannot force users to sell to a specific someone. But, the way I see it. If someone wants to not sell their item to someone, they have that right. I believe Jack was responding more to the fact that inflation is inevitable with a marketplace and the response of 'regulating' what people can and cannot buy in it.

I'm more than willing to pay a little more for the added convenience. I do it in real life all the time.
This is very true. I wanted to address that particular point but had already rambled enough in that post :)! But if they are lying to the person to do that, is it allowed? If they have an autobuy up, and someone they don't like offers on it, can they actually say "I don't want to sell to you because I don't like you"? I'm at odds with myself on the problem of someone's right to refuse service to another for whatever reason. On the one hand, I believe that if you don't want to sell to someone for whatever reason, that's your right. On the other hand, what if their reason is because of a particularly discriminating reason that has no real basis and shouldn't be allowed, like a real world example of they don't sell to someone because they are black or they are a woman, etc. There's the flip side to that as well-selling to someone with stipulations, for instance, they say they won't sell to hoarders. Can you really tell someone what they can do with what they bought?

Just do away with all those problems by having a market. All that added convenience with none of the problems. Just my opinion though.

Personally, the seller has the right to sell to whoever they want to. Except for maybe in the case of AB's... I'm a bit foggy on those. Though after an item is bought, the seller has no say. Except for the Quester's Raffle and such run by the staff.

The marketplace would be easy for the users, yes, but I'm pondering on how much it would stress out the staffers... The market would go fast, but this means scams can happen faster and unless we want the automated price estimators, there would be no way to update the price guide fast enough, and this really sounds like a coding hell in my point of view.