What changes would improve the trading system?

Discussion in 'Trade Talk' started by sjguglielmo, Dec 28, 2018.

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  1. sjguglielmo

    sjguglielmo Zealot (522) Aug 26, 2009 Minnesota
    Trader

    I love trading, but there are a bunch of changes to the BA site that would improve the experience for us traders. Some of these concerns have been magnified by recent posts to the bad trader thread -- with some of these changes in places, the issues that came up in the BT threads might not have been issues in the first place. I'd love to hear what other ideas for improvement you guys have. Here are the three that come to mind for me:
    1. Enable a way to send a PM to someone that directly references their ISO/FT post, for example by automatically making the subject line of the PM identical to their post title. This is what sites like Craigslist do -- when you email a seller in response to their post, the email subject line is identical to the title of their post. This would minimize confusion, making it much clearer which post someone is responding to. Obviously traders *can* do something like this in the current system by writing meaningful subject lines to their messages, but automating the process would help.
    2. As part of the official trade request/acceptance process, there should be a place to actually say what the terms of the trade are -- which beers are being exchanged on each side, and any other details that have been agreed upon (shipping by a particular date, including extras, etc.). Then when each side agrees to the trade, they'd be agreeing to the terms that they've laid out. Right now the process seems bizarre. Traders sort out these details via PM, then click a button that merely indicates that they've agreed to something (but doesn't say what that something is). It would make things much more transparent and reduce the likelihood of misinterpretation to have both traders specify and agree to the actual content/terms of their trade.
    3. There should be a way to take private notes about trades and/or users. Right now we're pretty limited in the feedback we can leave about our trade -- a simple bad/neutral/good response along with some very brief feedback. I actually appreciate this, since it keeps things short and sweet. But if would be helpful if we could keep more extensive private notes as well. This would be a way to keep a more comprehensive account of our own trading experience with other traders. Beyond that, it could also be a way to flag other traders who we might (or might not) want to reach out to in the future. For example, if I see a particular trader who's interested in a brewery I have access to, it would be cool if I could make a private note associated with that trader, so that I could message them at some future timepoint when I have beer from that brewery.
     
  2. Snowcrash000

    Snowcrash000 Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,041) Oct 4, 2017 Germany
    Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    I think that all of these would require quite sweeping changes to the existing system that might be difficult to implement. As such, I doubt we'll be seeing something like those anytime soon, to be honest.

    However, all of these points can actually be easily achieved by simply using copy & paste or taking private notes separately. Yes, it's a little more inconvenient, but really not that much of a big deal.

    A lot of the problems that we've seen in the recent Bad Trader threats could have easily been avoided if people had taken greater care to communicate more clearly.
     
    odcardinal, bigda83 and eppie82 like this.
  3. MattOC

    MattOC Pooh-Bah (2,100) Jan 13, 2013 Massachusetts
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    One change I'd like to see and I've never understood why it's allowed if you agree to trading on this site is the ability for users to limit who may view their full profile.
     
  4. bigda83

    bigda83 Crusader (453) Feb 13, 2014 New York
    Trader

    I agree with you on this. If people can't communicate well, or talk like a complete moron, then there's a more likely chance of having something happen. When people are vague in communication or skirt questions then I just say no thanks and move on. When I communicate I try to very very detailed and spell stuff out with the other person and expect the same back. If you have time to search the trade boards then you should have time to communicate with me and be precise. I'd love the option of expanding the simple feedback portion and doing a 1 to 5 rate on communication, shipping, etc, but as you said that's a huge overhaul.

    I made the mistake of not following this rule once and I'll never do it again. It's been harder to get trades on here so I started looking on social media and traded with someone on fb. The guy seemed like a tool and the communication was far from educated. I went ahead and did the trade anyway and it was a mess. Told me five different times he would provide tracking, but always seemed to have an excuse why he couldn't. I finally got mad and intercepted my package and that's when his communication changed.

    He was part of a private group to out bad beer traders and sent my information out to the entire group so I had 100s of harassing messages and people threatening to give my number and address and everything out on the web. He magically had a tracking number then too, which was dated as being shipped that day (even though he said he shipped, then his gf shipped it multiple times). Damage was done already though and pitchforks were already out so I was called a thief (his box hadn't even left his town and all I did was intercept mine) and accused of stealing lol. I posted everything and proof and was still told it was my issue and I was impatient and they sided with him.

    I obviously did some back searching and found out he had been booted from other groups for being a dbag and also found police reports on him. He tried to skirt that stuff though but not listing his real last name online, but it was easy enough to find. In the end I sent my box back again and his didn't arrive for another few days. He kept threatening that the group would do whatever they want with all my info and the harassment would continue so I just sent it back to avoid bs.

    Sorry for the rant, but it's just an example for anyone out there to always communicate well and go with your gut feeling. If something seems off then it probably is. Some new changes and updates would be nice, but we can always do our own thing to ensure things go as well as possible. Then at least if something bad happens at least you know you did everything you could on your side first. Don't rush or be in a hurry on stuff. Make sure it's set in stone and settled and that a trade request was accepted and ship dates were discussed.

    Cheers!
     
    odcardinal and Franfab like this.
  5. FFFjunkie

    FFFjunkie Initiate (0) Aug 26, 2014 Illinois

    I myself would like to know why someone can set their profile to private as well....
     
  6. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Not unlike privacy settings found on many social media platforms, it's simply part of the forum software. To remove it would require hacking the original code, which would only benefit a very small segment of our users.
     
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  7. FFFjunkie

    FFFjunkie Initiate (0) Aug 26, 2014 Illinois

    Thanks for the explanation as I was really just curious. Makes sense that it’s part of the original software.
     
  8. D09daryl

    D09daryl Crusader (446) Mar 11, 2017 California
    Trader

    How difficult would it be to add a section to the trading feedback that lists what the trade was (i.e. my xxx for their yyy) & possibly tie this to the completed trades section. This would be my #1 change & I found it very useful for gauging trades back on Reddit.
     
    Thirst_trappist likes this.
  9. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Being able to tag beers on a trade feedback is something we've thought about in the past, but it's not a highly requested feature and we have bigger projects that currently demand our focus.
     
  10. 7irondave

    7irondave Pooh-Bah (1,918) Jun 22, 2016 Massachusetts
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    If it ain't broke don't fix it
     
  11. Bruno415

    Bruno415 Initiate (0) Dec 18, 2016 Minnesota
    Trader

    I personally am not a fan of the 3 different trading headers on here. I kind of understand why it’s done but I liked the single header instead of the three. Seems like trading got harder on here when that was switched. Now I have 3 separate pages to search instead of 1. Although admiidatley my trading has slowed a bit due to my overstocked cellar lol
     
  12. mdg164

    mdg164 Crusader (424) Mar 28, 2017 Pennsylvania
    Trader

    1) I ALWAYS make the title of my PM the subject from the trade post. I am also starting to quote their trade post in the initial PM. It's really easy and makes life much easer for both.
    2) Before I accept a trade, I generally will explicitly state what I am sending, and what I expect to receive, with as much detail as possible (brewery, beer, variant, year, quantity, etc.) without acronyms (the acronyms are out of control). I ask them to do the same.
    3) Microsoft Excel
     
  13. mdg164

    mdg164 Crusader (424) Mar 28, 2017 Pennsylvania
    Trader

    Maybe I am missing something, but I would like to know why this matters? The only thing I really care about is where someone is from and how many trades have they completed. I don't need to see a profile to get that info.
     
    FFFjunkie likes this.
  14. FFFjunkie

    FFFjunkie Initiate (0) Aug 26, 2014 Illinois

    It’s come up a bunch of times in the bad traders threads. More often than not a bad trader will set their profile to private. Then it’s a guessing game of when they’ve been on last and read messages or read their own BT threads and played stupid.
     
    Thirst_trappist and mdg164 like this.
  15. KBS

    KBS Savant (1,078) Apr 25, 2014 Michigan
    Trader

    There are way too few entries on “completed trades”. What if when someone sent an official trade request they would need to enter the trade (required field) and then it autopopulated a locked forum thread. Couldnt see the participants, just what was traded.
     
  16. sjguglielmo

    sjguglielmo Zealot (522) Aug 26, 2009 Minnesota
    Trader

    Sure, obviously there are plenty of ways to be able to take and access notes. But my point is that these ways are clunky if they're not within BA. I myself couldn't be bothered to keep a separate Excel (or whatever) file with notes. It would be streamlined -- and therefore much more utilized -- if it was built right into BA.
     
  17. izzyismyrott

    izzyismyrott Savant (1,052) Jan 5, 2015 Indiana
    Trader

    If I'm trading with someone for the 1st time I try to do this.
     
    mdg164 and 7irondave like this.
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