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Abuse of inaccurate prices in classifieds


HusKy

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This is sort of suggestion / discussion about how this  problem could be potentially solved.

Those who use classifieds regularly have most likely already noticed this - inaccurate prices.

 

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Obviously, you could report all these ads. But there is probably more than a hundred of these.

 

Nonetheless, people who price their items inaccurately (deliberately or not) are gaining significant advantages:

- ads are always on top

- no need to relist/bump

- visible from stats page

 

Possible ideas how to deal with this:

 

1.

Infinite loop of inaccurate prices and reports - however, sometimes the price is off by 0.5, sometimes by 1.2 and sometimes by 0.1 => hard to judge.

Also, key price at bp.tf is sometimes inaccurate.

 

2.

Remove list box for currency [buds, keys, metal]. Have 5 input boxes (each with default value 0) for Earbuds, Keys (just regular Mann. Co. Keys), Refined, Reclaimed and Scrap Metal. Do not allow numbers with decimal places, only integers.

 

If someone asks for 19 keys + 3 ref, the values in the input boxes would be: 0, 19, 3, 0, 0 or 0, 19, 0, 0, 27 etc. The overall value is identical.

 

Comparing prices to sort the ads would be really simple too.

This would also remove the "what is 2.25 keys" problem and the "5.99 keys for bill's hat" problem.

 

3.

Other ideas ...

 

What do you think guys? I use classifieds a lot and to be honest this kinda bothers me. :)

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Hmm...Good job on noticing.

 

As what have other said, I also think Option 2 is the best choice.

 

Hope this suggestion gets carried on!  :ph34r:

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Option 2.

 

Also have a script which compares whats written in the notes to whats written in the value box would be helpful as well (similar to how trade.tf can recognize key words in notes--albeit its not 100% accurate it is something. So, if there are no notes then one can assume the price listed is what the seller wants. If there are notes, then the price listed would be compared to what the seller wrote in the notes (and if the two numbers aren't within .1 of each other then it gets reported to an auto-reported list (so the mods could quickly look over those--or not at all if they don't have time). 

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Option 2.

 

Also have a script which compares whats written in the notes to whats written in the value box would be helpful as well (similar to how trade.tf can recognize key words in notes--albeit its not 100% accurate it is something. So, if there are no notes then one can assume the price listed is what the seller wants. If there are notes, then the price listed would be compared to what the seller wrote in the notes (and if the two numbers aren't within .1 of each other then it gets reported to an auto-reported list (so the mods could quickly look over those--or not at all if they don't have time).

Basically there would be no reason to even mention the value/price in the notes. The system would be fool proof pretty much. If the seller states 0, 10, 6, 0, 0 and in the notes he says "11", he is obviously abusing the system. But once again, there is no reason to even mention the price in the notes. You set it directly and notes would be only used for extra info.

 

There is a corner case though. What if user asks for 10 keys, 7 ref and in the notes he states that he wants "11 keys and nothing else". It matches by bp.tf prices but I would still consider this to be 2 different price tags and a reportable ad.

 

Details such as "1 bud can replace 19 keys" or "every 2 buds for 39 keys" would be allowed of course.

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My point is that there will always be people who intentionally list an item for less then they're asking for. The purpose of comparing the notes to what they listed it for would help prevent people from doing this. 

 

The script would, of course, consider different currencies to be equal assuming. so 1 key would be 7 ref, buds would be 19-20 keys, etc... 

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I guess that could be added later. Parsing strings is not hard, but generic user input can be a b*tch. :)

yea....

 

But it would catch a good amount of them--certainly enough to warrant using it. 

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using any decently complex (and therefor effective) natural language parsing on all classified notes would likely be too intensive for bp.tf

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using any decently complex (and therefor effective) natural language parsing on all classified notes would likely be too intensive for bp.tf

Yes/No.

 

Most of the people who are asking for something different than the listing are usually very straight forward with their notes. 

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Having spent some time doing natural language processing in other areas I doubt anyone has the time to make an algorithm that wouldn't suck resources. Just separate the currencies in boxes as suggested above and people writing other stuff in the notes will mostly end up getting ignored and/or reported. I really just feel like serial abuse of the classified system should result in a permanent ban.

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I forgot about super low value trades. Some people trade their items for 1 weapon.

In that case a 6th input would be necessary or a "+1 random weapon" checkbox.

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Option two. But instead of an extra box for rec and scrap, you could only allow 0.11,0.22,0.33-0.88 ref values maybe.

 

But yeah, brad needs to do something about this, it's a pain. Also the amount of "relistings" needs to be regulated.

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Option two. But instead of an extra box for rec and scrap, you could only allow 0.11,0.22,0.33-0.88 ref values maybe.

 

But yeah, brad needs to do something about this, it's a pain. Also the amount of "relistings" needs to be regulated.

Have another box which will allow you to say how many of an item you're selling (and the number can't be higher than the number in your bp) and every time it gets bumped your bp gets scanned and the number will go down if one/more have sold. And of course you wouldn't be able to list multiple of the same items. So no more classifieds flooded by the same person.
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Have another box which will allow you to say how many of an item you're selling (and the number can't be higher than the number in your bp) and every time it gets bumped your bp gets scanned and the number will go down if one/more have sold. And of course you wouldn't be able to list multiple of the same items. So no more classifieds flooded by the same person.

Yes this was suggested before.

 

But I don't want to sell my last earbuds, so that option should be available too.~

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Option two. But instead of an extra box for rec and scrap, you could only allow 0.11,0.22,0.33-0.88 ref values maybe.

 

But yeah, brad needs to do something about this, it's a pain. Also the amount of "relistings" needs to be regulated.

 

Yes, I was thinking about that too.

Perhaps even better would be auto-rounding the values. 0.10 -> 0.11, 0.29 -> 0.33, 3.45 -> 3.44 etc. Possibly even to half-scrap values.

This could also solve the problem with small 1 weapon trades.

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Yes this was suggested before.

 

But I don't want to sell my last earbuds, so that option should be available too.~

add a "Not for sale list", which would be a good idea anyway, since you could put items into an NFS (and others could see your NFS list); so people could know if you are or aren't trading an item. AND, items in the NFS list could also be excluded from bp calculations allowing you (and buyers) to easily ascertain the value of your bp.

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Option 2 is already on the to-do, I told fiskie to do it but he's busy fixing miles and miles of terrible code that I wrote

Fixed that for you :-)

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