Freebie forum section

[Ivain]

Since the "free" tag was removed from the product and service forums, it's sometimes difficult to tell if someone is asking for free stuff or not, and even if it's not, freebies really don't belong in the marketplace.

So I'm suggesting we make a 'freebie' forum (logical title pending).

In the past I was opposed to this because I believed it would attract more freebies to the market. But since the removal of the 'free' tag seems to have achieved exactly zilch, we might as well give it a shot.

This is meant to be different from the Premium Begging forums in that it's meant for products and services only. So no begging for cash.

The idea is that this is also the place to post your free PMC download projects and free spigot practice plugins and whatnot (no, not the practice gamemode plugins, but plugins you made because you're learning to develop plugins).

How do I envision it going:

"hey i want free builders for this non-profit server (if you want free builders/devs/etc for a for-profit server, go back to your momma's basement and stay there)".

"I want this bunch of mines, a castle, 10 houses and stuff, in this here style."
Anyone feeling generous, or perhaps looking to do vouchcopies etc for their service can then go THERE instead of the marketplace forums, where they don't belong.

(As such it would simultaneously solve the (admittedly now smaller) problem of people asking for vouch copies in threads.)

Perhaps someone has a house lying around, or a wall and some towers that they're not really ever gonna use and fits the style. Unlikely, but people keep trying for a reason.

Some rules I would suggest:
-No asking for money, whether begging or in exchange for a product. That's what the begging forum and marketplace forum are for, respectively.
-No shit-talking people for wanting free stuff in this section. I know, bit rich coming from me, but this would be a place specifically meant for non-profit/fun projects and those scrubs too poor or desperate to have even a lowballer-budget for services to set up a for-profit server.
-It's no longer allowed to ask for free stuff in a marketplace section. There's a dedicated section for this stuff now, and you're gonna stick to it.

-Server ranks or 'hosting a build server for you' or other non-currency payments are considered freebies, with the exception of reliably redeemable products (such as giftcards), or trading a service for another service, though the latter is still frowned upon, and it can be up to staff discretion to decide if the value discrepancy is consistently too big.


The reason I'm proposing this is because I'm honestly getting sick of people asking for free services worth dozens or sometimes even hundreds of USD in the marketplace, and they're probably getting sick of me as well.
If we keep them separate, I'd not be taking out that irritation on them since I wouldnt run into them anywhere near as often, and if I DID take it out on those nicely staying in the right section, I'd get pelted with warning points.

I'm not making this post only because I think it should be implemented right now, but also because I just want this up for discussion, to see if I've missed anything big.


PS: Who knows, if I'm no longer constantly grating about people that lack basic respect for service providing companies and freelancers, I might have an easier time throwing an occasional freebie their way as well.

 

[Ever]

We've already got Giveaways

 

[Ivain]

We've already got Giveaways

Giveaways is very tightly rule-bound and only meant for contests and actual giveaways, meaning it usually results in people asking for something to be done, such as making up a name for servers and stuff.
This is FAR broader, and not meant to be RNG-based or contest-based.
Giveaways also doesnt have a requesting option, which is the main reason I made this suggestion.

 

[Ever]

Giveaways is very tightly rule-bound and only meant for contests and actual giveaways, meaning it usually results in people asking for something to be done, such as making up a name for servers and stuff.
This is FAR broader, and not meant to be RNG-based or contest-based.
Giveaways also doesnt have a requesting option, which is the main reason I made this suggestion.

instead of adding a whole new section, maybe change it to Giveaways and Freebies[DOUBLEPOST=1522786309][/DOUBLEPOST]

Giveaways is very tightly rule-bound and only meant for contests and actual giveaways, meaning it usually results in people asking for something to be done, such as making up a name for servers and stuff.
This is FAR broader, and not meant to be RNG-based or contest-based.
Giveaways also doesnt have a requesting option, which is the main reason I made this suggestion.

with a requesting option, people will just sign up and ask for like 10$, if you have premium, you get the begging section

 

[Ivain]

instead of adding a whole new section, maybe change it to Giveaways and Freebies[DOUBLEPOST=1522786309][/DOUBLEPOST]
with a requesting option, people will just sign up and ask for like 10$, if you have premium, you get the begging section

It literally says in the thread no asking for cash. So if they did that they'd get warning points and have their thread deleted.
This is meant for all those noobs that come to the marketplace section asking for people to work for free. I want them out of the way.
And adapting the giveaway section wouldn't work without ditching almost all of the carefully crafted rules that surround it, meaning we might as well implement this and then ditch giveaways.

 

[Justis]

The reason I'm proposing this is because I'm honestly getting sick of people asking for free services worth dozens or sometimes even hundreds of USD in the marketplace, and they're probably getting sick of me as well.
If we keep them separate, I'd not be taking out that irritation on them since I wouldnt run into them anywhere near as often, and if I DID take it out on those nicely staying in the right section, I'd get pelted with warning points.

I understand you seeing people ask for free stuff makes you upset, but I imagine you'd feel the same way if they lowballed in any way. Like asking for a complex map for one cent.
Price is a range of endless possibilities.
Separating entire forums and product/service categories based on a single price condition is not suitable or maintainable for our marketplace nor our resources, nor any aspect of MC-Market.

I do believe that no matter where a product/service falls within a price range, whether that be on zero, slightly above, seriously beyond reasonable, or anything in between, that they belong in the same place.
That said.
I do believe that we need more options for filtering.
Currently we can only filter based on tags, and order based on reply date, etc.
I would like to see more filtering/ordering options provided in both our forums and in our resources.
Amazon and eBay as examples, provide a seriously amazing group of filter/sorting options, adjusted to each category you could be searching in.
This aspect of a marketplace is important for providing ease of use, especially in our case, where it is both buyers AND sellers doing the searching.

Instead of splitting apart the forums, I believe building in more filter/sorting options would resolve, for example, the frustration you feel that you are subjected to.
In regards to pricing, we would simply need to require a price range be input in the form for the creation of a marketplace thread; and then instantly that thread would be able to be filtered/sorted based on that information.

 

[Ivain]

So justis, basically what you're proposing is to re-introduce the prefixes/tags that were in the marketplace previously, or some alternative with the same function? I'd be amenable to that, I made this suggestion because I was under the impression that that was not gonna happen, what with the suggestion to re-implement the 'shop' prefix in 'premade builds' amounting to nothing.

 

[Justis]

So justis, basically what you're proposing is to re-introduce the prefixes/tags that were in the marketplace previously, or some alternative with the same function? I'd be amenable to that, I made this suggestion because I was under the impression that that was not gonna happen, what with the suggestion to re-implement the 'shop' prefix in 'premade builds' amounting to nothing.

I want an extremely extensible feature for filtering/sorting threads in our marketplace.
Not in the form of tags, absolutely not. Tags are not extensible. More than a couple, and thread listings would look extremely spammy and verbose.
Something completely separate.
Due to priorities at the moment, I haven't had the time to give much thought to the specifics, beyond what I've already described.

 

[Ivain]

I want an extremely extensible feature for filtering/sorting threads in our marketplace.
Not in the form of tags, absolutely not. Tags are not extensible. More than a couple, and thread listings would look extremely spammy and verbose.
Something completely separate.
Due to priorities at the moment, I haven't had the time to give much thought to the specifics, beyond what I've already described.

Ah, I see. Perhaps a more advanced search function? Or actually using 'invisible' tags, the way you can tag resources and threads with keywords (not the prefixes).

 

[Mick]

Separating entire forums and product/service categories based on a single price condition is not suitable or maintainable for our marketplace nor our resources, nor any aspect of MC-Market.

This suggestion was created before and I would quote my response to that suggestion here but I believe that Justis explained it perfectly in the quote above.

I do hope to redo the forum prefixes in the next update since there have been dozens of suggestions about fixing them, but I'm unsure about adding a free prefix. Justis, we'll have to have this discussion a bit later on.

Denied, thanks for the suggestion.