A Call To Arms: Elliminating traders in local chat

I hope I’m posting this in the right forum... .If not admins please move it. I thought this is where it should go. To the best of my knowledge this is also an original thread… so here we go!
Are you tired of going into an area and trying to talk to someone on the local chat channel only to have your message lost in an over flow of "WTS...." or "WTB..." all on the local chat channel? You are not alone. Recently I have seen that some sellers are deciding that the best way to sell their items is to move into the local channel. I for one am not going to tolerate this, nor should you. People often say.... well just ignore them. I say this is unacceptable for 2 reasons 1) the ignore list is only so long.... and 2) why should I have to work more simply because others aren't following the rules? With this in mind I have started a campaign and a call for others who are also tired of this. If we ban together I’m sure there are enough of us to implement my plan. The more people involved the easier it will be to do. I have found that simply asking most people to cease and desist and to start using the trade channel is enough. There are some people who think that they have the right to just shout wherever they want and I’m asking the GW staff about this currently... if it is considered spam.... if it is reporting them will be the next step. ANYWAY.... here is where you the reader come in.... if you wish to join this little alliance (not an actual guild alliance.... just a group of concerned players that the game is taking a nasty turn) please let me know here.... or through a private message. All you have to do is if you see someone misusing the local chat.... let them know that it is best... for the thing they are selling/buying and for the rest of the community that they use the proper channel for the proper purpose. Thank you for your time and I hope you will support me in this endeavor.

Selling in the chat channel only occurs because it's so hard to sell things, people wouldn't bother if it wasn't almost impossible to sell the amount you sell, in chat, by using the trade channel only.

You can't stop it, you can't "rise up and smite those who use chat to sell"... the idea is absurd. Most pople don't care when they're buying and inversely, don't care when they're selling (as long as they get what they want for the price they like).

There has to be incentive to not sell in chat.

The remidy for this is a new way to sell, whatever it be... and I'm sure that on the way soon. Hopefully people trying to sell things in a chat channel in Guild Wars won't shorten your life span or reduce your level of well being.

Noble idea

However, as you will probably see in replies above and below this one not everyone will be nice about it.

I agree that it is irritating
I don't sell in all chat
I don't buy from anyone using all chat

thats what i can do without having to deal with all the BS people will dish out to you for saying this here and in-game.

Good Luck

tear... i thankyou for you very constructive comments.... but Crimson... i'm not saying smite them... i'm saying moving from trade to local isn't solving thier problem and it isn't heloing the rest of them. People turn off trade becasue they don't want to trade.... so why on earth would going to local chat fix that? it doesn't. it is far better if those wishing to sell something or buy something turn on thier trade chat and there you go.... start trading. If it continues as it is.... eventually people sick of not being able to communicate with others outside of PM will also just turn thier local chat off and the GW community will lose out on the fun the local chat can bring... from making parties for quest/missions to just talking about random things. I too hope for the GW staff to come up with a good remidy to this but am not counting on it... unless the institute a trade district (or districts policy) however until that happens I still think that the best way to fix the problem is nicely asking them to stop. i'm not sure where you get "smiting" from that.... but ok... I think the incentive should be that 1) it is the right way to do it and 2) your stuff sells quickly.

Well, if you really want to simplify the whole issue, people wouldn't sell in local chat if it didn't yeald some sort of benifit for them. It's just a case of "I want to sell this item, and I want to sell it as fast and effectively as possible".

The fastest and most effective way to sell things, at the current time, is a combination of local chat and trade chat. So, that's why it happens and will continue to happen as long as it works.

When selling it local chat stops getting the results sellers are looking for, then you'll see it decrease.

I sell in local and trade, because for me, sometimes I see something in local chat (because trade is off) and say to myself "hey, that'd be pretty neat, I'll get that".

Auction house/alternative method of selling is the only thing that will stop this... so keep your ear to the ground for that change.

yea.... not getting it. Does it look like i'm going around policing spam? no... when i see it i try and tell those who are doing it to stop. If more people were doing this Trade channel would be ressurected... and the use of local channel for trade would no longer be needed. I'm just trying to get more people to do this as well... not take up your play time doing it... just if you happen to see it while breifly in town (who hasn't) to ask those doing it to move to trade chat. The reason it isn't effective to use trade chat right now is quite frankly because people who SHOULD be using it aren't. If that changed.... which is what i'm going for..... then i think both the traders and non-traders will do what they are trying to do much more efficently. I hope i clarified that a bit. a little "could you please use the trade channel" every now and then would fix most of the problem. Especially if more people are doing it.

A good fix to stopping local chat spam by sellers/traders is eliminating the possibility to type numbers into local chat, instead restricted to using words for numbers, so instead of saying WTS 15>50...you would be forced to say WTS fivteen over fifty, otherwise go to trade chat and use whateven numbers you want. This way people will get too lazy to type words for numbers and use trade channel. Usual local channel however wont suffer from using words for numbers, since they rarely use them, unlike traders with all the statistical numbers.

I once sat in a town (possibly Deldrimor war camp) and sent a message along the lines of "please use the trade channel" to every person that posted a WTB/WTS in the local chat channel.

Most of the replies were along the lines of "do you tell everybody this" to which I replied "yes". It wasn't hard to do clicking on a name and hitting up arrow and enter.

After a while I did find either people had me on their ignore list, but there were also a lot using the trade channel instead.

Some people are just didn't realise there was a trade channel.

I too have been wishing for an auction hose for a long time. The issue I can see with it is the sheer number of auctions required to be going on at any one time. Even small items would be getting put up for auction. Perhaps a fee per item put up for auction would be incurred to stop the attempted selling of worthless junk.

Another kind of half solution could be creating a upgrades merchant, similar to a dye trader/ rare material trader. The prices paid for components would vary according to demand. This way people could buy their zealous mods or whatever. This however would not stop the selling of green items or miniatures etc.

Another idea is why not make the marketplace a true marketplace? Why is it called the marketplace but have no merchants? Maybe a dedicated sort of town for buying and selling goods can be created. If there are no quests to do in the town, nobody will complain about not being able to see the local chat.

Whatever alternative it won't stop spamming the local chat unless as suggested by a previous poster banning numbers in local. There are ways around this of course such as "selling shiros blades...msg me".

the fact that it is easier to avoid, tear, is exactly why it endangers part of the game. If it is simply avoided then no one... aside from traders.... will be using the chat.... maybe that is what you want... i don't know. I do know however that will elliminate a large part of the game for some players. i thank you for your increase in civility but think a bit more wouldn't hurt you. I liked M1h4iL idea quite a bit and think i will start a petition in the appropriate forum if one does not already exist. I do hope for this change.... and a diffrent way of selling things. If you don't think it is an issue at all... i recently was trying to get a group together for Kaeineg (sp??? ) Quests. I couldn't even sort through the local chat because of all the WTSs and WTBs. I looked on the trade channel and there weren't many people using that. NO i wasn't in District 1... i know better then that... so why on earth the excessive trading in local? You are right on one thing... it is a minor annoyance, but it is one we, the players can fix without doing a lot of work or "going on a crusade" or anything ridiculous like that. just a simple.... could you use the trade channel... thank you very much... is all it takes to elliminate some of the problem as Yobz pointed out. Some people don't realize it is there. So why not let them know?

I just try to ignore them, and if they decide to just keep spamming...ignore list they go.
The only time i really hate this is when im in Lions Arch and trying to form a party, i hate how its become the "market" for GW and to the point that if you're not selling or buying there...you're getting in THEIR way...

Kiri I could not have said it any better than that. I normally have local and trade turned off except for when I am trying to form a party. Then I get to try and notice the party requests through all of the recruiting and selling spam. Granted it is a lot worse in some places than others.

Sometimes I really wonder if these so called sellers even have their trade channel on. I won't buy from people using local, and I put my WTB in trade chat where it belongs. It is very erksome when I see in spam local chat for that very thing I have been saying I want to buy.

The problem lies with the people responding to ads in local chat, not with the people selling their wares there. I was selling a 20% enchantment wrapping some time ago, after 5 spams in trade I tried local once and immediatly sold my wrapping, so I can understand why people do it. Still I will try trade first. When I'm buying I turn of local and turn on trade chat, simply because I refuse to buy stuff from people advertising in local.

There is exactly one way to fix this - a system that will anonymously sell your items for you that can be accessed on all servers.

Trade is broken in guild wars. Selling in the chat channel occurs because it's hard to sell things. Banning people or censoring words like wts/wtb is not the right way to fix local chat traders. The only correct way to eliminate traders in local chat would be a working auction hose.

Since Anet put in a small change which moves "WTS" messages from local to trade channel, people have deliberately got around it by using "W T S" or " *W*T*S* " or some other variation.

What does this tell you? They know exactly what they're doing and that they're doing it deliberately... because they know other people may turn off the trade channel altogether to avoid the spam.

It also makes me wonder if this will continue when/if an auction house is implemented. Since people are deliberately getting around the Trade channel, they'll just as likely ignore the auction house and continue to spam even after that (for the same reason as mentioned above)

If they spam it you could technically report it as a violation of the RoC since I'm pretty sure it has some clause about spamming, but in reality I rather suspect that's one part of the rules which is probably never upheld.

<local chat>

WTS urgoz longbow, 100k+1000 ectos........1
WTS urgoz longbow, 100k+1000 ectos........2
WTS urgoz longbow, 100k+1000 ectos........3
WTS urgoz longbow, 100k+1000 ectos........4
WTS urgoz longbow, 100k+1000 ectos........5
WTS urgoz longbow, 100k+1000 ectos........6
WTS urgoz longbow, 100k+1000 ectos........7
WTS urgoz longbow, 100k+1000 ectos........8
WTS urgoz longbow, 100k+1000 ectos........9
NO NOOB OFFERS

I saw someone in KC yesterday doing this to cause the trade spam to go by faster and make it harder to sell:

Trade Spam belongs in Trade Channel (making chat move faster so no one can read)...1
Trade Spam belongs in Trade Channel (making chat move faster so no one can read)...2
Trade Spam belongs in Trade Channel (making chat move faster so no one can read)...3
Trade Spam belongs in Trade Channel (making chat move faster so no one can read)...4
Trade Spam belongs in Trade Channel (making chat move faster so no one can read)...5

They would do this each time someone spammed local with trade. I was cracking up laughing. Funny thing was, what little you could catch within the flying text was that people were thanking her for doing that and further insulting the traders for continuing to try and spam the channel with their overpriced junk.

This is something that will continue until there is a new way to trade.
Turn off the local and trade buttons and your game will be better for it.

BTW why do the spammers number their spam? Do they want everyone to know they are spamming?

It's a loophole in the spam filter that allows them to... well, spam.

Sorry, but 75% of these spammers will be posting in this thread. They will tell you it's impossible, and others will think they are right.
Spam is what spam keeps alive.