"Hoarders trade thread" idea

[SabrinaB]

Hello all ♡

On the hoard discussion board there was a suggestion that lead to an idea. The suggestion was to have a subboard for hoarders. But i dont see that happen.
There is the discussion thread and you can share your hoards on the adoptable board, so i dont see this happen.
But it lead to an idea: a hoarders trade thread.
There are swap threads for monthly outcomes, events and rarities. There also is a "seeking items" trade thread. Why not for hoarders?
Yes, there is the hoarders handbook. But how usefull is it? Many have never even heard of it.
* you can only post once, so your post easily gets overlooked.
* you have to look up hoards by searching the pet's name, but not overyone uses the "official" name. And most hoards are common, which we all have plenty of in our trade groups. Why look up all those pets to fijd hoarders?! It's only usefull if you disband a hoard of your own.
* many people have quit, but their post is still there.
* posts often don't get updated.

The people on the hoard discussion thread would love a thread where they can advertise their hoards. Other hoarders can swap hoards, other people can turn their trade fodder into better pets or pets they have on their wishlist.

To avoid that thread from getting flooded, some possible suggestions:
* limit the number of hoards you can post at a time. 5 hoards, 10 hoards? No loopholes, like adding 20 pets into 1 image.
* limit the times people can post. Once per page? Once per hour or day or week, if the thread moves too fast?

Added suggestions on the thread:
* post once per day/page or even less
* no current month/event outcomes (what if people hoard an entire species? Probably drop this idea)
* link to hoards with at least XX hoarded pets in it to avoid collectors who look for only 1 outcome for their collection (what about mini hoards?)
* add links to your post on the hoarders handbook to make sure people are "registered" hoarders (why force people to post there if they dont want to?)
* redo/update/change the handbook and add categories to species, litters, etc.

This is not to speak about the discussion thread or the handbook in a negative way. The discussion thread is amazing to share and talk about your hoards, but not for trading. The handbook could be, but i doubt anyone really uses it.
Why not try something new?

Please share your thoughts ♡

[Wookieinmashoo]

I would love a hoard swap/trade board. I feel that the hoard discussion thread is already a sneaky trade thread. People show their hoards to show them off, but people browsing know where to send those pets now. Hoarders give value to unwanted common pets, and it would be great for people to be able to find those people who want them. I know there are rat hoarders out there, but where are they?

For post, I would prefer 1 a day or even less. I don't feel current month's/event pets should be allowed as long as their relevant swap threads exist.

As far as general swaps, that's a bit iffy. I would allow store pet swaps of the same litter, but as for any other pets, I don't know.

[sillymillipede]

i love this idea! i notice some people don't even want trades that will be for hoards so i think this could be rlly good

[Papilio Ulysses]

I just want to preface this by saying that my original comment in the Hoarders Discussion Thread was NOT a suggestion, purely a silly wishful thought. But it did spark inspiration for ideas. x)

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A swap board has already been declined, mainly for this reason:

With a hoarder’s swap thread like you are suggesting, there would not be any specific category to work off of since any pet/item on the site could be hoarded. It wouldn’t follow the format of “I want X pet/item, I can offer Y for it”...

I feel that a 'hoarder's trade thread' is essentially what the Hoarder's Handbook is meant to be. So, rather than suggesting another trade topic, how about we use the ideas discussed here to suggest changes for the Hoarders Handbook? The Handbook, while outdated, is still much closer to what I think hoarders need to help them find trading partners. A few of its rules could be modified to let the board stay more current.

For example, by allowing users to post more than once, pet requests are more likely to been seen rather than getting buried and/or forgotten. And pets that don't have widely accepted names can be seen more frequently by their images rather than relying on 'search by name'.

For posting limits, I suggest 3 hoards per post, 1 post per day.

Rename the Hoarder's Handbook to the 'Hoarders Trade Thread', move it to the CS Trades forum, and pin it. Currently, the Handbook is somewhat categorized as an informational thread in the Chicken Smoothie Discussion forum. Most people looking to trade are using the CS Trades forum.

[Lennie]

Whether this applies to a new hoarder trade thread or to the existing hoarder's handbook, I think it may be helpful to start defining pet/litter names by more "set in stone" factors than trying to independently assign litter names (not that I think doing that should be discouraged!).
I think it may help other users find trading partners more easily by defining pet/litter names by the "Month - Year - Species / Artist*", since those are universally known defining characteristics of a litter or outcome. This could be in addition to independently or community assigned litter names, but as mentioned with regard to the current hoarder's handbook, looking up pet names can be difficult when there's such a range of potential "names" circulating the forums.

*Artist on its own may be a bit of a hit or miss category of definition as an artist may make more than one litter in an event/month or may change their username at some point.

[Celozon]

I'm not necessarily against the idea of this, just here to offer my own opinions and thoughts. My posts often come off a tad negative cause I generally focus on possible loopholes and ways things can be taken advantage of. Its not intended to say that it can't work, just thinking about what might need to be considered to ensure it does work.

My main concern is that given that a hoard pet can be of any pet, this effectively means there wouldn't be any restrictions on what pet could be asked for on a thread like this, beyond disallowing pets that are covered by existing threads (current month, current event etc). This also means that, absent of any further restrictions, anyone could post any pet they are looking for regardless of if its something they are actively hoarding. My reason for pointing this out is just that I could see this very easily becoming just a thread to advertise pets you are looking for, much like the 'seeking items' thread. While this works fine for items, that also has a much smaller trade market and the thread still moves at a relatively slow pace. I would not expect the same to be said for a 'seeking hoards' thread since that would primarily be pets, and could easily generate a massive amount of posts.

I think the easiest way to stop something like that would be to require a link to the hoard in question so they would need to have at least 1 of the pet already, but that still doesn't stop someone from putting a single '09 rare warrior cat into a group, link it, and say they are 'hoarding all '08/'09 warrior cats' as a way to advertise they want those, even if they just want it for their collection and not as a hoard. Again, not an argument against this idea, but just considering how it might be taken advantage of. Given that we don't have a thread for pets below VR, there could be a decent incentive for people to pretend they are hoarding a pet just so they can advertise they are looking for it.

I personally think at this point I prefer the idea of updating/refurbishing the hoarder handbook, I think I personally just like that sort of format better, but it would probably require completely restructuring it. I do agree with Lennie about categorizing pets by archive status rather than hoard name since thats obviously a lot easier to track. But also consider from the perspective of someone who wants to trade away their pets to hoarders, they are unlikely to be searching specific pets in a thread unless they themselves have disbanded a hoard. So organizing it through searching specific pets just doesn't make it very user-friendly for the people you want to attract. A better format might be to just have a list linking to every active hoarder who is part of the handbook, linking to their post that lists their hoards. That way they can visually see what the hoarder wants, then initiate a trade and see if they have any of those pets. That said, obviously any update to an existing thread is going to require input from the current thread owner, so there isn't much point in digging too deep on how it would work without finding out if they are alright with a change to the thread in the first place.

[SabrinaB]

You sure have some good points, Celozon, thank you for you input!
Adding links to the hoard can be a big help te prevent collectors to post, who only need 1. There could be a rule that they need at least XX pets already before they alcan advertise their hoard.

Adding links to the handbook doesnt really help in my opinion. There still are plenty of inactive people there and posts that are not being updated (my owns included, since i dont feel like anyone can see my post in that big pile).

Take a look at the swap threads. If you post the names, you are easily overlooked. Posting images works waaay better.

There could also be a rule to allow hoarder to only post once a week. Or to have posted on the handbook before postijg on the trade thread.
If it is being abused too much, it could always be shut down again.

[pisto pesto pasta]

Yes!!!! Full support

[LunaLate]

I think this would definitely help so much!!
I don’t like the hoarder’s handbook and I’ve never used it, I think if we get a new thread, it shouldn’t be connected to the hoarder’s handbook in any way. It feels so useless to try and use the handbook when you only hoard recent common pets, which I do. But I hoard so many different outcomes, trying to keep one post up to date with all of them would be a nightmare!! I don’t want to try to keep one post up to date.
Anyway, criticisms of the hoarder’s handbook aside, I think ANY sort of new hoarding trade thread would be great!! It doesn’t need to be called a “swap thread” if we are being too particular of what “swap” means. You shouldn’t have to list pets you have for trade. But I also have the idea that you could just have a simple description of pets you do have for trade, like “lots of 2022 ponies and horses” or something.
The one post a week idea would be nice. That way it wouldn’t move too fast but you wouldn’t have to worry about keeping old posts up to date. It would be nice to have a list of other people how are active and hoard so you don’t have to worry about them never responding (because if their post on the hoarder’s handbook is really old how are you supposed to know they’re still actively trading?? Maybe they don’t even hoard that anymore and forgot to take their post down?).
Anyway for how I think the thread should work, you would only be able to post once a week, and you would be able to post one or two pictures of your hoard pets per hoard. Maybe a link to one you already own so collectors can’t use it? Like this:
With a link to your hoard too
Maybe to keep it really simple you could only post like two or three hoards at a time per week and the next week you could post different hoards.
The only other idea I have, is that trying to name all the pets would be too hard because most new pets don’t have ANY commonly accepted names, is instead you could just list the years your hoard pets are from. So if you have a lot of 2021 pets to trade, you could just search “2021” and find people who would maybe want them? Idk that might not work, it would work for me but I haven’t been here very long so I don’t know how well it would work for others. It’s just an idea.
In conclusion, thank you for suggesting this, it’s a neat idea!

[Papilio Ulysses]

For links to active hoarders in the Handbook, maybe they could be organized by category? Similar to the Archive. Like for all the main species, other species, and a general category for item hoards. This could make it easier for someone to search and initiate a trade, especially if that person has certain pets/items they're looking to trade away.

The thread would probably have to be remade though, so that only currently active hoarders are being listed.

But as Celozon said, if we're requesting changes to be made for how the Handbook functions, the thread owner needs to be asked first.