Ninja Trading - Why is it not bannable?

[ACat]

Do you have a link to the blacklist?

i do not, and i couldn't share them if i did. they're for breaking user made adoptable community rules though, not scamming. if they're allowed in one area, i don't see why they shouldn't in another.

Ahh I see! Yeah that's a very good point

[[ r a t ]]

I don't have much solid stuff to say here, but I remember being sorta ninja'd on my first re-release day... and over the years, seeing that other unaware players were being targeted similarly but with much worse results (the pet I lost wasn't as sought-after as the others had lost), and for years it's been nagging on me whenever the topic comes up. It's made worse that there's unspoken "communities" that consist of ninja traders on here.

Super glad the "is this trade fair" thread exists. Maybe some of the stuff there is subjective, but I can see it's saved a lotta people some stress.

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I think an easy means of addressing this is to have something like a noticeable pop-up warning / banner that appears in the Trading Center & when making/editing/viewing trades when a user is dealing with offers that involve rare+ or Dec18 pets.

During Dec18, there's that site news post regarding bad trades, but I feel like a lotta people's attention aren't drawn to it too much, 'specially if they're younger users who are averse to lots of text or people who are easily overwhelmed by too much information.

With doing a popup, you could probably do more, like larger text, maybe even use the CS font or "warning" colors or something to draw attention to the alert. Not saying they should do this, but something along those lines, maybe. (shrug)

[Darkcloud!]

this was a topic of discussion about two years ago and it didn't really go anywhere. it boiled down to staff being unable ban ninja trading because they can't determine what is objectively fair and what isn't, alongside being unable to discern user intent. and even if they did draw the line at what's fair and what isn't, it was stated that players would just simply 'regret past trades' and want them reversed.

That seems kinda like they are assuming all users have bad intentions if they report a completed trade as having been a ninja/scam, when from what I have seen is that it is simply that person getting the access and help they actually needed to understand that the person trading them was not being honest about values.

To me, a normal user, it takes only a few clicks around a person's super-full event trade/"hold" group to see if they are a) trading other players that have similar groups, dates, posts asking for that trade, adoption centers, trading with players that can message back (yes, i'm referring to me here :P)

OR if they are trading a lot of COPPA users/ new join dates with very little actual trades to anyone else. That can even be a red flag of double accounting.

Where I WILL agree it gets hard is when a well-established player is targeting returning players, like what happened to me. There's no red flags on this person's trade pets/groups at all. But because of the lack of policy, they were outright able to lie about value, and then gloat about it in pms afterward and the trade went unreversed.

I think an easy means of addressing this is to have something like a noticeable pop-up warning / banner that appears in the Trading Center & when making/editing/viewing trades when a user is dealing with offers that involve rare+ or Dec18 pets.

During Dec18, there's that site news post regarding bad trades, but I feel like a lotta people's attention aren't drawn to it too much, 'specially if they're younger users who are averse to lots of text or people who are easily overwhelmed by too much information.

With doing a popup, you could probably do more, like larger text, maybe even use the CS font or "warning" colors or something to draw attention to the alert. Not saying they should do this, but something along those lines, maybe. (shrug)

I LOVE this idea. Heck, have the banner appear on the trade page for everyone during the entire length of the event until rarities are released.

[Wookieinmashoo]

To me, a normal user, it takes only a few clicks around a person's super-full event trade/"hold" group to see if they are a) trading other players that have similar groups, dates, posts asking for that trade, adoption centers, trading with players that can message back (yes, i'm referring to me here )

This is a very good point. I don't think I've been ninja traded when I first started, but I did have an instance regarding my art thread. I have prices listed and I was offered something under the price. I mentioned list pets or Mid advents (can't remember which) and they informed me they didn't know what that was. I looked up their previous posts, and found they had an auction going on for list pets, and even had a group named for them. I thought about mentioning this, but I don't like being confrontational on a pet adoption site of all things. I was told by someone else, that a blacklist wouldn't be advisable, and instead helped me use the PMs to create a rule for anything they sent me to delete them instantly. Years after I check their account and it had been deleted.

Use the search tools on the site to help. If the person has a lot of Dec. 18th pets, is known for posting trades but for some reason never posted any of these, it's best not to trade with them. Unfortunately new players won't know how to search usernames and post histories. You can also do a Google search for a person's username ( "Chicken smoothie [username]") and those results can turn up results as well, but the search engine on this site is much better.

[Kalid]

Im a pretty longtime user. I inherited a lot of my valuable pets from a quitting user. I can not say all my trades are 100% fair, but it swings both ways for me. I overpay for demand (like the black cow) and I expect overpay for demand (like the monthly day 10 foal growth).

Where I sit, this is a normal aspect of supply vs demand. And even guides on trading account for long-term demand (Horrors list has a special section addressing how demand effects actual trade value on things like the 09 staff litter vs omgsr rats) and do not deal with recent releases due to the demand fluctuations (ex: current year URs)

The monthly inflation is normal. The newbie and dec 18th predation is not. Especially if it includes blatent lies like "this is fair".

I understand some people go off rarity without accounting for rareslist or such, and others go off personal aesthetic only. But these are exceptions to the userbase. Not the standard.

[Darkcloud!]

Use the search tools on the site to help. If the person has a lot of Dec. 18th pets, is known for posting trades but for some reason never posted any of these, it's best not to trade with them. Unfortunately new players won't know how to search usernames and post histories. You can also do a Google search for a person's username ( "Chicken smoothie [username]") and those results can turn up results as well, but the search engine on this site is much better.

I like this suggestion a lot, and it works well for those who know the lingo/site terms already!
I think the issue here though is that it:
-assumes a person has time to devote to trawling a person's post history, which can be difficult on mobile/if the person posts a lot in non-trade topics like forum games
-requires minors/new players to learn and become suspicious of people, which is overall a negative way to have to approach trading
-minors may only be allowed to access the pet site itself and may have parental locks to prevent going on other sites
-puts all the work on the honest users to do detective work vs. preventing the malicious users from being able to continue/exist in the first place

[Liliette]

I can’t speak for current times but cs staff actually used to be the biggest offenders of ninja trading. Which is actually crazy to me anytime I see a colored name talk about dreamies or missed outcomes and it’s like damn ya mama Tess can’t even help you. [edit] … People have been complaining about the trading economy/culture/whatever for a long time now, I think it’s pretty telling when your own staff members have to result to lowballing ppl cuz they can’t get the pets they want. Perhaps it has more to do with greed. I think it’s a mix of both.

Someone mentioned the fair trade earlier which can be a fine source sometimes but it’s not fool proof. I remember posting there sometimes and not even getting answer. I’d say most people would like multiple opinions before completing a trade that’s especially high value, so not getting a response is unhelpful. There’s also the issue of admin refusing to release pet numbers, which would actually provide us with an accurate “Rares List” instead of educated guesses (ex.looking back at dates when a certain pet changes rarity) although this does not take into account how many active users there are with a certain pet. Demand is also an issue because it can fluctuate, even sometimes artificially. Some pets will always be worth less despite its rarity tag, like the 08 or 09 omgsr rats, while other pets like the pps dragoncat doesn’t even have to be omgsr for people to receive omgsr offers, for what most people would consider fair even if it seems unfair on paper. We would need to have an official pet guide, before even banning ninja trading. Looking back at the trades I made with the original rares list, I cringe. Pets were placed so differently at that time, and it will continue to change as well. I believe Simon already said they will never be releasing pet numbers though.

If we were to ban ninja trading, what would that mean for previous users who have done so? Would they be banned? I can think of a handful of users on here who were notorious ninja traders but have since stopped however many years ago. Or perhaps given a warning? Would those trades be reversed? How far back would we go? Or is it something that would be enforced from the current date onward

I think it’s important to note that scamming and ninjaing have different definitions on CS. Scamming is absolutely punishable, you cannot lie about a pet/its value. If someone claimed their cobweb bun was a skelebun and asked to trade for a sunjewel, that’s not allowed. Or if they said a recent release is turning rare, but rarity hasn’t even been released yet for that month, that’s also not allowed. If this has happened to you, you can absolutely reach out for help

Lastly — outside of not allowing real currency trades, I honestly do not know of any other pet adopt website that bans/restricts its users from trading unfairly, or in a way others would view as so. I could be wrong though.

[*Hollystar*]

I like many others do not have an answer, but I was in the uncommon position this year where I had introduced a friend to CS around November and so I got to partially experience December 18th as a newbie through her.

The number of ninja attempts she got was astounding. I was genuinely so disappointed by the community and how blatantly targeted she was as a newbie by players who had been around for YEARS. It got to the point where she had to make her first locked group for Dec 18th pets because so many people were sending unfair lowball trades.

I had her report one of these trades at first because I was under the assumption that an obviously super unfair trade from a 2010 user attempting to trick a newbie was something that should be reported. I think that regardless of whether or not it is bannable something should be done to address it, because it is very much a real and common thing.