Stop sellers from spam promoting in threads.

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Originally Posted by Luke I've added a poll to this thread now, please vote as we are looking for more input from the community regarding this suggestion.

1. By banning self-promotions entirely, it will inadvertently push sellers to invest more in "pay for promotions," which will lead to an influx of sponsored content that is less transparent and harder for members to identify as advertising.
   
2. It will also encourage sellers to use bots to promote their services, which will be more disruptive and harder to manage, and will flood threads with even more low-quality and irrelevant posts.

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Originally Posted by 0x41^4 By banning self-promotions entirely, it will inadvertently push sellers to invest more in "pay for promotions," which will lead to an influx of sponsored content that is less transparent and harder for members to identify as advertising. Just curious, do you have any examples of such promotions? I had a think and a browse and couldn't find anything similar. It will also encourage sellers to use bots to promote their services, which will be more disruptive and harder to manage, and will flood threads with even more low-quality and irrelevant posts. Easily rectifiable with the amount of staff the forum has manning TBM already. You could even push that a step further and increase forum security for these specific sections (I.E, captcha request if creating a post within TBM / Hack sections when having certain keywords flagged) Of course, you won't stop every bot nor spammer, but it mitigates the majority. With the captcha technology already available, plus the developers elitepvpers use internally, I can't see this point being a problem at all. If anything, it'll just slightly increase moderators' workload.

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Originally Posted by 0x41^4 Voted no in the poll @[Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] made. I completely agree that it is extremely annoying, however, in addition to it already being against the rules for sellers to self-promote in other sellers' sales threads, an outright ban will absolutely have unintended consequences. The two most obvious ones are: By banning self-promotions entirely, it will inadvertently push sellers to invest more in "pay for promotions," which will lead to an influx of sponsored content that is less transparent and harder for members to identify as advertising. It will also encourage sellers to use bots to promote their services, which will be more disruptive and harder to manage, and will flood threads with even more low-quality and irrelevant posts. It comes down to the saying "better the devil you know than the devil you don't." Ultimately, allowing controlled self-promotion is the lesser evil compared to the potential rise in less transparent and more disruptive promotion methods.

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Originally Posted by Callum snip

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Just curious, do you have any examples of such promotions? I had a think and a browse and couldn't find anything similar.

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Easily rectifiable with the amount of staff the forum has manning TBM already. You could even push that a step further and increase forum security for these specific sections (I.E, captcha request if creating a post within TBM / Hack sections when having certain keywords flagged) Of course, you won't stop every bot nor spammer, but it mitigates the majority. With the captcha technology already available, plus the developers elitepvpers use internally, I can't see this point being a problem at all. If anything, it'll just slightly increase moderators' workload.

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As another user previously mentioned in this thread, I completely agree with the idea that sellers have the ability to create their own thread(s), bump it as they see fit, advertise in their signature, and that really should be it. You begin to tread in muddy waters when you allow users to promote their cheats in threads with users asking which cheat is the best or most popular, as every promotor thinks the one they're promoting is the best. It should be up to the user to browse and make their own choice as they see fit, and not being coerced into making a purchase they otherwise wouldn't have made should they have browsed themselves. This is also a textbook way to incite flame wars and scamming accusations from seller to seller in a desperate bid to prove they're the best.

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Originally Posted by lort1234 snip

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When we are talking about people abusing the system here on epvp, i think it really clear that no evil should be here. That might be easier said than done, but who says the promotions with bots and adertisements with bots isn't going to get worse just because epvp allow some of the "bigger" sellers spam promote their services all around the Forum.

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Also everyone that is using this Forum, can easily see if a person with no reputation and a new account is recommending something, is kinda fishy.

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Originally Posted by 0x41^4 I think you've misunderstood what "paid promotions" means in this context. Sellers paying or offering compensation to their customers to spam the forum claiming their service is the best is not an activity that should be encouraged for obvious reasons.

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Originally Posted by 0x41^4 See above.

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Originally Posted by 0x41^4 Most trade/market staff, as well as those who have been in such roles on large communities, would disagree with this perspective. Users frequently fall victim to even the most blatant scammers. One of the most notorious scammers we've encountered here (Choron) managed to steal tens of thousands of dollars from victims using fake accounts and identical pictures from one of the largest cheat providers in the scene, by simply adding his watermark, and was able to continue scamming here for well over a year. * Please don't misunderstand my position. I agree with both of you that repeated self-promotion within a thread is annoying. However, when I evaluate the pros and cons of the proposed suggestion, I see more cons than pros. I feel that a fair compromise would be to limit the content of self-promotional posts. For example, we could require the use of spoiler tags, prohibit terms like "best," and then revisit further additions to the rule.

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- Auto-Bumps can also be used for the free bumps

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- Permission to create an additional resell thread - even if there is already a thread from another seller

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Originally Posted by DeprimereShop Despite being a seller on this platform, I truly do find the constant spamming of self promotion as demoralizing when checking the latest posts. Often times it comes down to a handful of individuals being the greatest offenders, and I am not stating that I am perfect either, but I would be open to seeing a rule change.

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Originally Posted by lort1234 What do you think about having a sub Forum, like i suggested above then?

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Originally Posted by DeprimereShop I'd recommend keeping the sub forums as is. Regarding posts from active sellers on non-black market threads .. I'd personally just prefer to see them list the actual product name they're referring versus "check out my post" or "join my discord." The overall intention I am fine with but enforce hardened rules regarding the actual quality of the post.

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Originally Posted by Callum Whilst we're on the topic, a way to differentiate verified purchasers in comparison to just random accounts made up by the provider to vouch for their own cheat would, I suppose, in theory be nice. However, I have no idea how to implement this. I've done some browsing today and have noticed more than a handful of 'strange' accounts. Of course, you can report them, but without the aforementioned rule changes (no advertising in threads anymore) they'll just continue to pop up.

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Originally Posted by Callum I agree with both sides. Having a sub-category dedicated to users searching for providers, or, even just a sticky thread in TBM sections dedicated solely to requesting certain features and having providers comment there (similar to how private-server sections, mainly Silkroad, have a sticky thread where the purpose is to recruit private-server staff based on their knowledge and expertise) would circumvent a few issues, would be cost effective, and require minimal effort on the backend to deploy. There are accounts that exist on this forum where their only purpose is to find any thread and post their cheat in. Whether their cheat fills the users needs or wants or not, or whether it is on/off topic, they'll still refer them to their cheat and website. At least if it's in one sticky thread(s) it's collated and manageable, then limit posts elsewhere via rule adjustments or flagging keywords in posts which aren't posted within TBM. Users have the ability to advertise in various ways on the website, and with the introduction of Elite this provides even more additional benefits and means to do so. Allowing users to consistently post their cheat in any given thread, to me, seems to defeat the purpose of the following; As auto-bumps won't matter to a non-elite user, they will just spam other threads telling them to check their signature, which is also a similar case to the second quote, creating an additional resell thread. If they're posting when/where they want, it creates no incentive to purchase these premium memberships in their eyes when they have free will to plug their cheat wherever, and whenever, they wish.

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Originally Posted by 0x41^4 Weird, literally the first thread I picked (took 30 seconds) demonstrates [Only registered and activated users can see links. Click Here To Register...] <- example. Additionally, outside of TBM, spend a week in any shooter subforum and you'll see how common it is. "The amount of staff" is an ambitious statement. TBM is far from being adequately staffed. It's full with violations, and currently, two out of the four market team members handle (based on what I see) 90% of the reports. Now, you're expecting them to scout for additional violations? Unless Luke can design a self-hosted solution for maintaining captcha requests, implementing this will incur additional costs. Also, if you remove the ability for sellers to self-promote, they'll likely stop subscribing to premium/elite plans, which will decrease site revenue. This exact thing caused OC and S7S to fail. History does not support this idea, lol. The suggestion that sellers should only promote through their own threads, signatures, and bumps sounds ideal in theory. But it fails to consider the practical reality. Allowing users to promote in response to queries does not inherently coerce purchases. Instead, it provides visibility and choice. If staff strictly control these interactions, it will lead to covert promotions (paid for promotions), resulting in less transparency, more user frustration, and undermines your entire theory. I encourage you to study the displacement of leaders throughout history to see unintended consequences. For example, during the war on drugs in the 70s and 80s in the U.S., the crackdown on major drug cartels led to the fragmentation of these organizations into smaller, more violent groups. Now, before you dismiss the similarity because sellers aren't drug dealers and violent offenders, remember that a lot of these people make their livelihood on epvp, selling products. If sellers can't exist outside of TBM, they'll turn to paying people to say their product is the best, use bots, and other disruptive methods. Banning self-promotion entirely will fragment and scatter promotional activities into more disruptive and less manageable methods. I think you've misunderstood what "paid promotions" means in this context. Sellers paying or offering compensation to their customers to spam the forum claiming their service is the best is not an activity that should be encouraged for obvious reasons. See above. Most trade/market staff, as well as those who have been in such roles on large communities, would disagree with this perspective. Users frequently fall victim to even the most blatant scammers. One of the most notorious scammers we've encountered here (Choron) managed to steal tens of thousands of dollars from victims using fake accounts and identical pictures from one of the largest cheat providers in the scene, by simply adding his watermark, and was able to continue scamming here for well over a year. * Please don't misunderstand my position. I agree with both of you that repeated self-promotion within a thread is annoying. However, when I evaluate the pros and cons of the proposed suggestion, I see more cons than pros. I feel that a fair compromise would be to limit the content of self-promotional posts. For example, we could require the use of spoiler tags, prohibit terms like "best," and then revisit further additions to the rule.

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Originally Posted by DeprimereShop Would the creation of an additional paid role, with a significantly higher price than Elite, make sense to introduce if it was the only role that allowed such promotional behavior? Not advocating for it, but just trying to think through how the low quality spam could be corrected while protecting the revenue that these individuals may provide EPVP.