A Request For Actual Trading Discussions (Page 1 of 2)

I agree with everything Mr. Parameter said.  A little communication goes a long way.

I just want to give a shout out to LargeSack who has been working with me on a big trade the past 2 days. Not only have we been going back and forth with our lists, but he has also been searching through his hundreds of thousands of cards for stuff I'm looking for!

Get this man a drink...

Ive run into the same situation before and it annoys me to no end just having a trade cancelled for no reason. The same goes for proposing a trade without saying anything. In that case, if its something Id want, I tend to over look it but, but it really annoys me when I just no responses from people or even a hey how ya doing I was interested in this or that.

I mean you dont walk up to someone with an open trade binder and just point to their Sacred Foundry with your Stomping Ground and grunt and groan til you get their attention. Were not cavemen (well unless your like the Geico Caveman)

Something Ive come to find tho is, more often then no, people like to look at lists and see what people have OTHER than what they may have posted in a thread or discussion. Its good if you have something on their wishlists but I know in my case (since I have this addiction to janky foils) I might be more interested in something else then what was originally offered.

Usually before I even offer a trade, I look through their list and throw up any cards they have that Id be interested and just leave my side blank. If there is something I know they were actually looking for Ill include that but Ill leave my side blank to give people a chance to see if there was anything. And I usually propose the trade and leave message. Im pretty good about checking if they read my message so if after a few days I get nothing, I just cancel the trade and move on. Im not going to waste my time or potientally tie up a card just cause of the chance to get something.

I just really wish sometimes people were alittle bit more personal-able but I guess thats just me having high expectations.

Here here.

Also, thanks to everyone who is easy to communicate with.

I would have to completely agree.

Trying to make trades has become absolutely crazy. I can't tell you how many people I have asked questions to, or offered trades to, or started a "negotiation" with who have just decided to let it sit for 2 weeks or never respond.

How complicated is it to express your interest or disinterest? It's about respect and honest dialogue. Don't try and rip people off, just offer reasonable trades and state your intentions clearly from the start. Don't get me started about people who send a trade offer without some sort of body text ... can you at least say Hi? Seriously, common decency.

End Rant.

An aside : I'm in Canada which basically means 2/3rds of the people here won't trade with me. I understand it, the delays blow on both sides. I usually title my trade offers as "Canada trade" or something similar to get it out in the open early and that helps.

Any suggestions on how we can fix the process?
Maybe include have a status option? Status "Looking to trade", "On the fence", "Just cataloging" or maybe a note on when the wishlist was last updated?

I'm just throwing ideas out here...

Truthfully, at the moment, I'm not too worried about the pain it takes to find a trade.  That's inherent to the process right now, but that process will hopefully be changing to support much of what you guys have suggested (filtering down the trading opportunities in more/different ways).

And I understand completely the process of seeing a trade come in, meaning to come back to it and forgetting that it was sitting there and not responding.  I've been there, done that, and I don't fault people for doing it, or getting upset about it.  I'd suggest that if you don't receive a response at all that you just give it a quick bump a while later by adding another line in the chat to see if the other party is interested or not.  It is easy to forget about trades if you don't constantly look at the page, or if you have a lot of trades going on at once; feel free to lend a helping hand in the memory process.

A little trick that most people might not know is that you can actually see if somebody has viewed the messages that you sent on the trade.  Just like on your trades page, where it shows that you have unread messages on a particular trade, the same can be viewed on other people's trades by going to their profile and then to their Trades page.  Any trades with unread comments will have the comment icon next to them, so you can determine if the other person has even seen your comment or not.

My concern is more with how people handle themselves once a trade is initiated, essentially nullifying that whole process of finding somebody to trade with because they don't talk before taking action.

Thank you for starting this thread, NullParameter. I could not agree more about what you and others have said here.

Communication has definitely waned on this site since I joined last year, especially centered around inactive, errant, or scatterbrained traders. I ALWAYS make an effort to start and end trades with elaborations in the chats if needed and am very grateful when others do the same. If the trade doesn't work out or it wasn't what you wanted, no hard feelings, but DO let me know about it so we can move on.

I have made the extra effort of putting into my profile notices that:

* I respond to all trades, no matter the size, and promptly.
* I am usually online daily.
* I can always be reached through the message feature (which goes to an e-mail account I use frequently) or on Twitter (which I use quite a lot).
* Which specific cards are not up for consideration (and those are only a small handful of what I own).

I've been lucky to work with several traders on this site that have done their utmost to make trading a great experience. I hope we continue to be the majority here and not the opposite!

And, NullParameter, for your response here vs. trading requests, take no offense: it's quite likely that I don't have good stuff to trade against what you have!

Cheers, everyone. Be excellent to each other.

I try to respond to everyone that starts a trade with me, at least within a day or so and if I cancel a trade I always try to give a reason (no wishlist at the moment, trading on hold til new set comes out, etc.). Now, there are sometimes when I think people are being a bit... I don't even know the word for it. One of things I hate the most is when a new trade shows up in my list, I take a look at it and the person wants a bunch of Legacy cards or costly EDH staples, let's say it totals $80, and when I go to checkout their list, the most expensive cards they're showing for trade are couple Hellriders and one Loxodon Smiter.

That's ignorant. I don't want 15 Champion of the Parish for a Force of Will or LED... not now, not ever.

This is basically what is already being added.  (Hopefully soon)

I don't know all of the specifics because I'm not the one developing it (obviously), but that is the general gist that I've gotten out of the conversations that we've had on the subject.

love this thread, and talking about having a trade canceled without any real explanation. finalized a trade and discussing shipping and they up and canceled without any sort of reason.   seems someone made them a better offer after they confirmed address's with me but instead of giving me a chance to counter offer they up and traded with the other guy even though ours was final.