Negative signatures

[soniae74]

Hiya,
I'm just looking for some clarification please.

I know accusations of scamming are not permitted in user signatures as they are very difficult to be prove and therefore, on the whole, unfounded. I even fell fowl of this myself when I first arrived at GTP.
However, my questions is; are negative comments in signatures, similar to leaving negative rep's in the 'Traders Reputation Thread', permitted? For example, if a signature contains a comment which suggests a trade with another user was a bad experience; are these permitted?

Separately (just an observation), I've noticed that the pinned 'Traders Reputation Thread' is helpful but can only really be used as a guide to another users' reliability, trustworthiness and honesty. The list of users on the first post is misleading as it contains a list of names which could be interpretted as a complete list of trusted users. This list should, in my opinion, either be kept up to date or deleted completely. I appreciate the list was compiled by a user (albeit a very well respected user) and not an Admin/Mod but this only strengthens why it could perhaps be misleading, especially to relatively new users looking for guidance prior to making a trade with someone they don't know.

Comments welcome.
Sonia

 

[Duke]

I think that if you are going to publicly accuse any given user in every one of your posts you better be able to back up that accusation with very compelling evidence.

Frankly, all of this constant griping over people getting ripped off just makes me want to remove all the trading interaction from the site entirely.

 

[soniae74]

I had no intention of accusing anyone personally, I was just asking for clarification since some seem to get overlooked while others don't.

As to your second point, I couldn't agree more.

 

[Duke]

I had no intention of accusing anyone personally, I was just asking for clarification since some seem to get overlooked while others don't.

As to your second point, I couldn't agree more.

I meant the "you" generically.

 

[Blitz24]

Duke, can't there be a post requirement for people to post trades on the forum, similar to the 100 post requirement for GT5 prior to release?

 

[Pupik]

As to the original question, I think signatures should not be used to slander others at all. Quoting others is alright, but dissing others in a signature is just bad form; let alone, against the AUP.

Duke, can't there be a post requirement for people to post trades on the forum, similar to the 100 post requirement for GT5 prior to release?

No, because it's sort of a natural filter for the already messy GT5 forum/sub-forums. The junk posts would then be everywhere just so people could trade.

I personally wish we had a "2 hours of compulsory GTP reading" limit before actual posting, but that's impossible to enforce.

 

[Blitz24]

As to the original question, I think signatures should not be used to slander others at all. Quoting others is alright, but dissing others in a signature is just bad form; let alone, against the AUP.



No, because it's sort of a natural filter for the already messy GT5 forum/sub-forums. The junk posts would then be everywhere just so people could trade.

I personally wish we had a "2 hours of compulsory GTP reading" limit before actual posting, but that's impossible to enforce.

I understand. Maybe using a different requirement than posts. Not sure exactly how it could be done though. Perhaps a requirement to post a message in the welcome section?

 

[soniae74]

As to the original question, I think signatures should not be used to slander others at all. Quoting others is alright, but dissing others in a signature is just bad form; let alone, against the AUP.

Ok. Thank you. I may seem hypocritical but having seen the light I agree.

No, because it's sort of a natural filter for the already messy GT5 forum/sub-forums. The junk posts would then be everywhere just so people could trade.

I personally wish we had a "2 hours of compulsory GTP reading" limit before actual posting, but that's impossible to enforce.

I've seen forums previously where any user who has under 'X' amount of posts is forced to read a short but direct, timed, full-screen flash T&C page prior to every new post. If I remember corrctly, the user also had to accept the T&C's before the page closed. This function was eventually removed automaticaly when the user passes the required post count.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

The entire trading sub-forum is an issue because of the sheer volume of posts (take a look at the total posts of the GT5 section, and then at that one sub-forum). Enforcing the 100 post (or however many) limit we had in place prior to GT5's release would probably end up with similar problems as to what we saw before - members knowingly putting threads in the wrong sub-forum just to get around the limit, or spamming with near-empty posts until they hit 101. Seeing as how there is insurance with trades now (backup saves), and they don't have the "value" they did before, being limited to 1 million (1000 tickets and birthday tickets aside), reputation is less of a concern. Though I do understand that for those who do a lot of trading, it still should be a consideration.

As for the topic at hand - if you see a signature that you think is slanderous or outright AUP-violating, I'd recommend hitting the Report button and specifying it's the user's signature you are taking issue with. One of us will take a look into it

 

[Blitz24]

The entire trading sub-forum is an issue because of the sheer volume of posts (take a look at the total posts of the GT5 section, and then at that one sub-forum). Enforcing the 100 post (or however many) limit we had in place prior to GT5's release would probably end up with similar problems as to what we saw before - members knowingly putting threads in the wrong sub-forum just to get around the limit, or spamming with near-empty posts until they hit 101. Seeing as how there is insurance with trades now (backup saves), and they don't have the "value" they did before, being limited to 1 million (1000 tickets and birthday tickets aside), reputation is less of a concern. Though I do understand that for those who do a lot of trading, it still should be a consideration.

(Admins and Mods, feel free to advise me to post in a separate thread if I am going too far off-topic.)
There is insurance and I wholeheartedly understand that its less of a problem than it was say 2 months ago, but issues such as traders failing to fulfill deals should somehow be monitored if it was proven to have originated from this site. Insurance (or for those who don't back up saves, just outright losing the car) still doesn't help one member from being taken advantage of by another member.

 

[Clark]

Would a minimum time as a member help with the volume of threads? i.e. New members can't make new thread until they've been a member for x number of days, weeks, months (maybe years in extreme cases ).

 

[SohnVonStig]

Would a minimum time as a member help with the volume of threads? i.e. New members can't make new thread until they've been a member for x number of days, weeks, months (maybe years in extreme cases ).

New members have to have their threads approved don't they?

 

[soniae74]

..//..
As for the topic at hand - if you see a signature that you think is slanderous or outright AUP-violating, I'd recommend hitting the Report button and specifying it's the user's signature you are taking issue with. One of us will take a look into it

I reported this users signature as I felt it unfair since the comments are unproved, but the signature remains.

Curious to know if this is permitted or if the report was just overlooked.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Sometimes it can take a little while for the mods to get around to dealing with reported posts. They will act eventually.

The reason why accusing others was banned in the first place was because it created a dangerous situation. People accused other forum users of wrongdoing, and it was usually without any proof. Naturally, the accused person sought to defend themselves, and they usually did so by going on the offensive. The net result was usually a flame war. A few people were proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have ripped others off, but they made up the minority.

The original policy was for the moderators to launch an investigation, and as I was the one who created the thread for that policy, I received the standing majority of complaints. But I underestimated just how many there would be; at one point there, I woke up one morning to find fifteen separate private messages in my inbox with complaints of wrongdoing. And given that we had a case turnover rate - instances where we could prove that someone had done something wrong in the game and used the forums to facilitate it - of just 3%, it was a huge waste of time. Most of the people we banned were duplicate accounts for previously-banned members. That's why we revised to policy to reporting bad trades to the PSN homepage. It could have been worse, though; another GT forum had to scrap their equivalent of the Marketplace when they found that users were arranging trades on their forum, then stealing other peoples' cars in-game and then selling them on eBay.

On more than one occasion, I lobbied very hard for the Marketplace to shut down, and I have a very clear memory of more than one moderator agreeing with me. It was just a huge drain on resources, and it got to the point where I openly refused to go in there, simply because of the sheer weight of problems the damn thing has caused. It's one of the leading reasons why I declined to continue with moderatorhood once my initial three months were up.

 

[soniae74]

Thank you for your reply.

I cannot imagine how unbelievably difficult it must have been during the period when the moderators were investigating all complaints. I cannot say I'd be in favour of the trading forum being closed as while I don't trade much myself anymore (since the 1,000,000 cap), I dare say I'll probably use it sometime in the future (although I did spend 20,000,000 on one car yesterday so possibly not !!!).

However, I can completely understand that the trading forum places a huge demand on the Mod's/Admin's and can see that removing it would lift a huge weight off their shoulders. You (Interludes) may even then have the spare time to buy a PS3 and take up playing GT5 yourself !!

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Actually, I never had any intentions of buying a PS3 and GT5. I still don't. I simply don't have the time for games, and I cannot justify a $700 outlay just to play GT5.

 

[Rotary Junkie]

Actually, I never had any intentions of buying a PS3 and GT5. I still don't. I simply don't have the time for games, and I cannot justify a $700 outlay just to play GT5.

$700? How?

$300 + $60 + tax = $400 at absolute worst. Unless you're tacking a G27's cost onto that?

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Well, it was just a rough estimate based on the last time I checked the prices. Which I admit was some time ago. But the point is that I'm a university student working part-time as a high school teacher (I get a few days' casual work). In addition to my studies and my teaching, I have responsibilities around my college (which are not unlike being a mdoerator), a girlfriend and one or two side projects (thankfully, they're not too active right now). I don't have the time for video games and I don't have the money. Even if I had both, I still wouldn't want to splash out on a PS3 just to play GT5. And why? Because I like things the way they are now and I don't want to change that - especially not with viedo games, as I was a problem gamer in high school.