New classifieds rule suggestion: Enforcing valid Trade Offer URL

[shadyfan]

Trade offers have been existing for more than 10 years and are the most convinient way of trading, without the neccessity of adding someone to do a simple trade. In my opinion it's time when everyone should have their trade offer URL set on backpack.tf, if they're willing to be an active trader. And the majority of traders will avoid adding someone for making a simple item for item trade (not involving complicated negotiations).

My rule suggestion is the following: Everyone that has an active classified listing should have a valid trade offer URL set. This rule would only apply when someone has active listings. So it wouldn't apply if they're just willing to use the site to view their inventory or read forums or use the site in any other way.

 

Pros:
- No need to add someone and wait to have you friend request accepted (or even denied for unknown reason)
- Being able to immediately check if someone has trade holds or can't trade for some reason
- Being able to report someone who denies your trade offer at their price, by providing actual screenshot (as that's not possible with declined friend requests or blocks)

 

Cons:
- New users have no idea how to set it up, or if it exists at all. Solution: Have some kind of popup with instructions how to set it up. The ones in the General Settings page are clear enough, it just should be linked in the popup.
- Receiving random offers while not being an active trader. Solution: You can always change your trade offer URL in your Trade Offer privacy settings on Steam. Or have the option to remove it from your Settings page.
- Traders who don't want to receive trade offers, and only want to be added to communicate or negotiate offers. Solution: They still need to have a buyout price in mind that can be set ridiculously high, so if someone pays it, that shouldn't be a problem for them.

 

Feel free to share your thoughts.

[thecityburns2day]

Yeah I'd have to agree at this point also. I get that bots have an advantage in instant trading and whatnot, but I absoultely hate having to add a human to send them a trade offer anyways because they are never online or never answer messages when they are on.

[OGSemper]

Hopefully these features can be implemented with next.backpack.tf, I think it’s a feature that every modern trading site uses and is required to have by now, without setting up your trade url you are basically shooting yourself in the foot, same deal as people with escrow in 2024, without the ability to have people send offers directly you are at a serious disadvantage as a seller, and having a pop-up that takes the user to their settings page and asking them to set up their trade url would be beneficial as a whole for the entire platform of backpack, I still have friends I play casual with daily that dont know how to use backpack and cant figure out how to trade, some have been playing the game since it went f2p in 2012.

 

[Heidecker]

Tbh I feel like even forcing everybody to have their trade link set up and then still giving them the "add to trade" option would already fix most of the problem. A good 95% of the "add to trade" listings are people that just don't have their URL set up and would take trade offers as well if they "could". 

Obviously that doesn't really fix the issue with buyout decliners and such, but I have had buyout declined/timed out/traded to alt on enough normal listings as well, it's a problem with no great solution.

[Vincentius]

I don't see the reason for this to exist, it removes a users freedom of keeping a trade link private and only wanting to discuss trades in a steam chat or directly with the user. 

 

In the classifieds option there is a direct option to hide non tradelink listings 

 

 

Removing users freedoms might even remove users willing to sell on the site as they feel uncomfortable with the idea of publicly releasing a trade link.

[wersady]

I get what you're saying, but I really don't think having to add people for trades is a big deal. If someone isn't accepting your friend request or answering your messages, they would probably also ignore your trade offers. If only trading through friend requests leads to fewer trades, then that's the seller's loss. If you're not willing to add a seller for an item you want, then I think you're just being kinda lazy.

[RussellSproutz]

I agree they're should be a trade link rule enforced. I've had a couple times where I would want to buy an item and then their trade link is invalid. 

[shadyfan]

From my experience, the majority of traders that don't have their trade offer URL set on backpack.tf just have no idea how to set it. I don't think there's a lot of traders that don't set it, because they don't feel comfortable with sharing it publicly. Maybe if that's the case, they shouldn't be using trading sites and only go to trade servers to add people and negotiate? But that's just my opinion and I may be wrong.

 

Also, it's not just about being lazy to add someone. Trade holds and trade bans still exist, so you might waste your time waiting for someone to accept your friend request just to find out that they can't even trade. Not to mention the language bareer as well.

[Sir Spoon The Second]

2 minutes ago, shadyfan said:

Not to mention the language bareer as well.

I have 3 people I trade with/talk with through steam on a regular basis and just us google translate to talk with them and never had a big  problem doing that

as long as your just typing like 3 sentences then google translate works great but if your gonna type and send 1+ paragraphs then thats where google translate begins to miss translate stuff or if its a really uncommon language

in modern day trading, having a language bareer is not really a problem any more cus of the advancements in translating software

[wersady]

12 minutes ago, shadyfan said:

From my experience, the majority of traders that don't have their trade offer URL set on backpack.tf just have no idea how to set it. I don't think there's a lot of traders that don't set it, because they don't feel comfortable with sharing it publicly. Maybe if that's the case, they shouldn't be using trading sites and only go to trade servers to add people and negotiate? But that's just my opinion and I may be wrong.

 

Also, it's not just about being lazy to add someone. Trade holds and trade bans still exist, so you might waste your time waiting for someone to accept your friend request just to find out that they can't even trade. Not to mention the language bareer as well.

 

I think encouraging people to set their trade link is fine, but enforcing it is going too far. Having more options makes the site more accessible to more people. Trade holds and bans can certainly be annoying, but I feel like that rarely happens, although that's just my experience, maybe I'm just lucky. In some instances, I can see friend requests actually being better for when the seller has a trade ban since Valve has started enforcing 2-3 hour trade bans when you change your Steam name. A friend request allows the seller to explain to the buyer that their trade ban will be over in a few hours, which I imagine most traders are willing to wait for a good deal.

[Zeus_Junior]

11 hours ago, RussellSproutz said:

I agree they're should be a trade link rule enforced. I've had a couple times where I would want to buy an item and then their trade link is invalid. 

It being invalid is a different topic. You can already report this and we’ll hide their listings

[eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee]

14 hours ago, wersady said:

I get what you're saying, but I really don't think having to add people for trades is a big deal. If someone isn't accepting your friend request or answering your messages, they would probably also ignore your trade offers. If only trading through friend requests leads to fewer trades, then that's the seller's loss. If you're not willing to add a seller for an item you want, then I think you're just being kinda lazy.

i don't think they would ignore trading requests. after all being sent a trade offer is less riskier than adding a random user on steam to the average user.