How do you make your profile unavailable?

Schwartzy

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[Lestrades.com] Nao 尚

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Re: How do you make your profile unavailable?
« Reply #1, on June 28th, 2017, 12:44 PM »
No there isn't. I could do, it but nobody asked for that until now.

Now, why is it a "waste of time" to get offers from other traders?

I mean, your profile says to use Barter or *SteamTrades*, which has a reputation of being a poor, very poor tool for trading...
Is there something at LT's that makes it impossible in your mind to make trades on, even worse than ST?

I doubt so. I keep seeing mentions that LT is superior to other sites-- but that there aren't enough people using it.
Well, if you use it for searching it means you think it does some things well. Then maybe you could look into how it does trades, too. Then I'd suggest you start syncing your lists from Barter, so you'll get more accurate trade offers, if that's what you're worried about.

Syncing: Click on "Tradables" > "Compare tradables with Barter.vg" > "Remove them all", press Back button, click "Add them all". This will sync your list to be exactly the same as on Barter (of course you can customize it.)

That's at best a total of 2 clicks to do, at worst 4 clicks.

Now please tell me what justifies this thread, and your all-uppercase profile message...

Akylen

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Re: How do you make your profile unavailable?
« Reply #2, on June 28th, 2017, 06:08 PM »
I think account parking is helpful in some occasions. Ex: Going on holidays for a long period of time, trading absence (most of the times traders come back), sickness, etc.

Whatever the reason is, avoids people sending offers, which are then unanswered and may 'damage' your trading image.

The author of the thread doesn't seem to want this feature for these reasons. In that case I suggest only being able to use the entire website if account is not parked. As soon as account is parked, the user can only see his profile and options within, nothing else.

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Re: How do you make your profile unavailable?
« Reply #3, on June 28th, 2017, 09:58 PM »
Quote from Akylen on June 28th, 2017, 06:08 PM
I think account parking is helpful in some occasions. Ex: Going on holidays for a long period of time, trading absence (most of the times traders come back), sickness, etc.
I understand this; but offers on LT never expire, and you don't get in trouble in any way for failing to reply to an offer. It's up to the offer sender to determine whether they want to cancel an offer, or keep it active until the trader comes back and decides, "oh wait, not such a bad offer"...
Quote from Akylen on June 28th, 2017, 06:08 PM
Whatever the reason is, avoids people sending offers, which are then unanswered and may 'damage' your trading image.
Everyone has their reasons for leaving offers unanswered. They're not always bad. ;)
I'm sure there's a reason for Lestrade's host to systematically ignore the offers I send him. I think he doesn't want to disappoint me by declining them. :P
Quote from Akylen on June 28th, 2017, 06:08 PM
The author of the thread doesn't seem to want this feature for these reasons. In that case I suggest only being able to use the entire website if account is not parked. As soon as account is parked, the user can only see his profile and options within, nothing else.
I don't know his reasons, but I'm sure if he tried out the site, he'd be happy to discover it's not doing things the same way as others do.

Schwartzy

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Re: How do you make your profile unavailable?
« Reply #4, on June 29th, 2017, 07:19 AM »
Quote from Lestrade 尚 on June 28th, 2017, 12:44 PM
Now, why is it a "waste of time" to get offers from other traders?

I mean, your profile says to use Barter or *SteamTrades*, which has a reputation of being a poor, very poor tool for trading...
Is there something at LT's that makes it impossible in your mind to make trades on, even worse than ST?
It's a waste of other's time because I don't use this site for trading and won't see their offers. There is nothing wrong with your site of course. I just don't need a third trading site to keep track of. Two is enough for me. This site and barter.vg are similar enough already.  I agree that functionally this site is far superior to steamtrades but steamtrades is popular and was the first trading site I used.
Quote from Lestrade 尚 on June 28th, 2017, 12:44 PM
Now please tell me what justifies this thread, and your all-uppercase profile message...
I made it all uppercase so it would be more noticeable to traders.
Quote from Akylen on June 28th, 2017, 06:08 PM
In that case I suggest only being able to use the entire website if account is not parked. As soon as account is parked, the user can only see his profile and options within, nothing else.
I don't see why it has to be an all or nothing approach. You're able to disable trade offers on barter and still use the site. I'd still like to use the search function on this site.  I'm just trying to be considerate to other traders and not waste their time looking at my list and making offers I won't respond to.

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Re: How do you make your profile unavailable?
« Reply #5, on June 29th, 2017, 06:18 PM »
Quote from Schwartzy on June 29th, 2017, 07:19 AM
It's a waste of other's time because I don't use this site for trading and won't see their offers. There is nothing wrong with your site of course. I just don't need a third trading site to keep track of. Two is enough for me. This site and barter.vg are similar enough already.  I agree that functionally this site is far superior to steamtrades but steamtrades is popular and was the first trading site I used.
It's also superior to Barter's :P
Barter started as an experimental site with very few users. The user base increased over the 2 years it's been around. Lestrade's is poised to do the same (especially with everything I have planned for it), so ultimately, while I think it's good to have several solutions available, it's in everyone's interest to have a high offer count in here as well and build a reputation with LT users who aren't on other sites. ;)
Quote from Lestrade 尚 on June 28th, 2017, 12:44 PM
I don't see why it has to be an all or nothing approach. You're able to disable trade offers on barter and still use the site.
But... To do what? What's Barter got that's not directly tied to trading?
Quote
I'd still like to use the search function on this site.
While it's true that my search feature is preeeeetty good (:P), I don't really see how that function alone justifies the use of a site for someone. :^^;: Except maybe to search for previous bundles with a database that's not the same as Bvg's, I dunno...
But you can also see that some games are pretty common at Bvg and rarer here, so it's in your interest to trade them here because you may get better value for the same investment. I myself only care about LT ratios, I don't bother checking out other sites.
Quote
I'm just trying to be considerate to other traders and not waste their time looking at my list and making offers I won't respond to.
Even if they're good offers..? :-/

Schwartzy

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Re: How do you make your profile unavailable?
« Reply #6, on July 1st, 2017, 05:53 AM »
Quote
Lestrade's is poised to do the same (especially with everything I have planned for it), so ultimately, while I think it's good to have several solutions available, it's in everyone's interest to have a high offer count in here as well and build a reputation with LT users who aren't on other sites.
If Lestrades eventually has more users than barter then I may stop using barter and use Lestrades.
Quote
But... To do what? What's Barter got that's not directly tied to trading?
There are links to look up information on games like ITAD and steamdb. There's lots of info for the games themselves, links to trading card sites, current players, etc, . There are direct links to users steam profile and steam rep. You can see how many are offering/want a game. There's no reason to disable the entire site's functions just because someone doesn't currently want to trade or is taking a break.
Quote
While it's true that my search feature is preeeeetty good (:P), I don't really see how that function alone justifies the use of a site for someone.
I probably should have said game matching instead of search. Barter's matching doesn't work anymore and when it did it was buggy. It links to Lestrades as "instant game matching" so that was the main reason I use it.
Quote
Even if they're good offers..? :-/
Most of the people who have sent me offers are names I've seen before on barter. Seems like it's generally the same people.

Pika! Pika!

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Re: How do you make your profile unavailable?
« Reply #7, on July 1st, 2017, 06:43 AM »
It is understandable and it sounds like a lot people are willing to use Lestrades as long as it has more users, but not using it at all keeps that very status quo intact which is not found all that desirable in the first place. It is like saying: "Change has to start somewhere, but it better start with my neighbour and not me."

I also do not want to miss out on trades, but to do so I always update Lestrades and Barter completely and Steamtrades probably at least every 2-4 weeks.

Akylen

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Re: How do you make your profile unavailable?
« Reply #8, on July 1st, 2017, 03:46 PM »
The reason I suggested the account parking differently from Barter, it is because it seems Lestrades needs a push to grow.
Both websites have potential to get bigger than they are.


The user base seems to be coming mostly from Barter. We haven't seen a big shift and it might take too long to ever happen.
ST is the most used, even though it is crap for trading. I'd like to see more people moving from there to Lestrades or Barter. Simply because these are much better trading platforms, it is such a waste to miss it.

In order to grow, focus should go to other websites like steamtrades, indiegala (where I started), etc. Barter is in a vicious cycle with almost the same users. On the other hand new users attract more traders. Also these users will attract other new users that are using those websites.

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Re: How do you make your profile unavailable?
« Reply #9, on July 1st, 2017, 06:15 PM »
@Akylen, yeah, ST is the main 'target' to get more users, but it's not the only one.
Quote from Schwartzy on July 1st, 2017, 05:53 AM
If Lestrades eventually has more users than barter then I may stop using barter and use Lestrades.
That's not the point, though. Unless Barter dies overnight like it did back in March without supervision, there's always going to be new users on Barter that are unaware of LT, just like there are LT users who are unaware of Barter (or unwilling to use it).
The point is to use each site to their strengths. Just because I'm confident about Lestrade's strengths doesn't mean I don't understand that some people will always prefer Barter -- the only thing I don't understand is when they simply say they don't use LT because it doesn't have enough users. Again-- when people say that, they're part of the problem.

Sorry, I feel like I'm repeating myself...

I just wanted to say, I've been thinking of a solution that will satisfy everyone (including me, obviously). I'll implement a flag when I get started on profile options (because right now I'm not, as it implies a bit of retooling and I'm too busy on my scraper updates), indicating that you're not available for trade offers-- but I won't prefer offers from being sent to you. I'll just show a warning (like a dialog box) to users who want to send you an offer.

In fact I'll probably be doing the same thing for that dreaded "Ignore user" option I've occasionally been asked for. Not preventing offers from being made, but indicating to specific users that you're not available for trades. Meaning they wouldn't know they're ignored (= no dramas, which was my main problem with ignoring users, as experienced on Barter), and they could still send offers but only after being told they're unlikely to be accepted.
Quote from Schwartzy on July 1st, 2017, 05:53 AM
I probably should have said game matching instead of search.
Oh... Okay, makes more sense.
Quote from Schwartzy on July 1st, 2017, 05:53 AM
Barter's matching doesn't work anymore and when it did it was buggy.
Yeah, matching was limited to the oldest 15 entries in your tradables. Was a real fun bug... That's when we all started using LT for matching. Plus, the speed eheh.
Unfortunately, for matching for work in conjunction with Barter (i.e. find a game on barter, click the LT link, click 'matches' or 'takers', find a user with good matches, launch their profile, click the Barter link, send offer), it'd require having up-to-date Barter lists on LT. Which, as I've said countless times, is only possible when everyone keeps their lists up to date, at least through the semi-automatic sync tool.
Quote from Schwartzy on July 1st, 2017, 05:53 AM
Most of the people who have sent me offers are names I've seen before on barter. Seems like it's generally the same people.
Oh, I guess this is mostly about increasing your Barter stats then ;)

Schwartzy

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Re: How do you make your profile unavailable?
« Reply #10, on July 2nd, 2017, 03:37 AM »
Actually I was planning on using LT for trading when barter's site was having login problems and we all thought the owner of barter was MIA but I gave up immediately after I couldn't figure out how to remove a game. I could add a game but didn't see any way to delete a game so I just went back to barter.

But I think the main problem is that the sites are too similar, which I know was the point. LT was supposed to replace barter so it's not a coincidence that many UI elements are similar to barter's. LT is clearly a better looking site than barters (which is pretty ugly) but functionally they're quite the same. So when the owner of barter reappeared and it was apparent that barter was not dead there didn't seem to be a reason to use LT for trading because it felt redundant. If barter had died I think LT would have successfully assimilated its userbase because it felt like barter 2.0.

Maybe you need to redesign the site so it doesn't feel like barter's anymore. Having an attractive site is nice but most users will probably prefer function over form and if they both function and feel the same then they're going to stick with the site they're used to and is more popular.

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Re: How do you make your profile unavailable?
« Reply #11, on July 2nd, 2017, 12:01 PM »
Quote from Schwartzy on July 2nd, 2017, 03:37 AM
Actually I was planning on using LT for trading when barter's site was having login problems
Well that was the plan for everyone... ^^
Quote from Schwartzy on July 2nd, 2017, 03:37 AM
and we all thought the owner of barter was MIA but I gave up immediately after I couldn't figure out how to remove a game.
At the time, a lot of things weren't implemented yet. I started working on the trading system in mid-March when the login system broke, I didn't have plans to implement it until much later (I was working casually on the site until then except for opening it up to the public for the matching system when Barter's match broke), so I had to be as quick as possible. Even by working long hours it took me nearly 2 weeks to open it (instead of the 2 days I was aiming for, lol), and even then, when I opened it, it was obviously missing most of Barter's features, because you don't do a Barter clone in 2 weeks... It's the kind of site that takes months to build.
Eventually after another month I had 80% features implemented I think, and after another month I was at 95% completion, with the remaining 5% not planned to be ported over (because of personal sensibilities), which is why I considered it 'gold' (1.0). But by that time, many had left the site thinking it would never be finished.
It's just upsetting to think that I worked so hard for so little.
The only difference is simply that I won't work my ass off on LT's for some time. I had a burn-out...
Quote from Schwartzy on July 2nd, 2017, 03:37 AM
LT is clearly a better looking site than barters (which is pretty ugly)
It becomes even more noticeable when using Night mode here and Dark mode on BVG... The difference is just stunning. Dark mode is terribly bad. The link colors are the same as in normal mode... Just feels like it was untested!
Quote from Schwartzy on July 2nd, 2017, 03:37 AM
but functionally they're quite the same. So when the owner of barter reappeared and it was apparent that barter was not dead there didn't seem to be a reason to use LT for trading because it felt redundant. If barter had died I think LT would have successfully assimilated its userbase because it felt like barter 2.0.
Which is also why it feels strange that Barter 1.0 is getting the bigger share when most of its users were exposed at one point to Barter 2.0, even in its unfinished state...
Quote from Schwartzy on July 2nd, 2017, 03:37 AM
Maybe you need to redesign the site so it doesn't feel like barter's anymore. Having an attractive site is nice but most users will probably prefer function over form and if they both function and feel the same then they're going to stick with the site they're used to and is more popular.
But they don't feel the same, and they only function the same on the surface... At least I hope?

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Schwartzy

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Re: How do you make your profile unavailable?
« Reply #14, on July 3rd, 2017, 09:17 AM »
It does feel and look the same to me. The style and layout is similar. The trade offers page is similar with all the links and info. Wasn't this intentional so it would make barter users feel like they were using an improved version of barter's?