Loan Business / Loans -- Official Ruling -- SEE HERE! (in Public Record)

The Administrators have come to the consensus that any and all threads requesting and/or giving any type of loan out should be created in the FS/WTB Forum Directory. This means that the threads of Pixel Sage's loans, NightStrike's loans, etc. [those threads that are disguising themselves as "public records" but still requesting/offering loans] should be created in FS/WTB. The Public Record forum is only for deals already made or for confirming deals that are to be made.

To clarify:

If you're a loan business, you should post your big tables and advertisements for loans in FS/WTB. Once you've made a deal with a client, you should create a thread in the PR forums tracking their progress.

Current loan business threads that violate this rule will be closed and the creator will need to abide by these new rules beginning now.

Admins: If I've managed to miss anything or not clarify things even more, feel free to chime in. :)

One question: Why?

Because it's an item for sale?

money.

Creating a single thread on a per client basis is an administration nightmare that causes nothing but problems and heartache, and makes no sense at all given your statement that the PR forum is for deals already made. How do multiple records per thread relate to putting a request in a given forum? I have no issues with having requests go in FS/WTB. Record keeping, however, is hard enough as it is with all the records in one place. If you force it to split apart into tons of threads, then I'll be forced to shut down. Keep in mind that I typically have 25 to 35 loans simultaneously. Running that in separate threads will choke my service. If you want me to stop the service, then just tell me -- it's not necessary to choke me into stopping.

You think this is a direct attack towards you, NightStrike. It's not. It's to enforce the rules properly that we've found un-etched in stone and are now making a specific rule for it.

Feel free to make one huge PR thread for all your loan tracking, it was just a suggestion to make a per-client basis. It also helps Admins with that so we don't have to go through all the other stuff in your threads in case there is a default.

"You think this is a direct attack towards you, NightStrike."

I never once said that. I did say that enforcing per-client threads would choke the business, and if that's your intent, to just say so.


"Feel free to make one huge PR thread for all your loan tracking, it was just a suggestion to make a per-client basis."

Ok. So does this mean that you won't close currently open threads as you initially stated?

"If you force it to split apart into tons of threads, then I'll be forced to shut down. Keep in mind that I typically have 25 to 35 loans simultaneously. Running that in separate threads will choke my service. If you want me to stop the service, then just tell me -- it's not necessary to choke me into stopping."

Seems to me like you're taking this as an attack towards you with all those "me's" in there. Though, I don't want to get into an argument with you about this because it seems rather silly, so let's just drop it.

I've closed all the threads that have the big table and advertisement disguising themselves as public record threads. If it's closed, then it was in violation; just make another PR thread with all of your clients' tracking details.

"Though, I don't want to get into an argument with you about this because it seems rather silly, so let's just drop it."

Nice. Stick it to me, then tell me to drop it. Oh how very typical.

"I've closed all the threads that have the big table and advertisement "

So a big table is no longer allowed, or is?

"disguising themselves as public record threads."

Nothing was being "disguised", and your implications are what is so insulting about this entire mockery. It simply started as a very simple way to handle a deluge of way too many CMs to handle. It's much easier to tell people to post in one place than to have to answer and respond to 35 chatmails. It's nothing more than "If you want a loan, don't CM me, as I can't handle it. Post here that you want it just as you would in a CM." That doesn't work at all in FS/WTB.

"make another PR thread with all of your clients' tracking details."

This winds up being the "disguise" you are accusing us of in the first place, as the existence of the tracking thread or threads is what advertises the loan business. There is no "advertisement" in the thread itself. In your new design of things, it will be disguised, however.

Honestly, I don't understand your logic. Why are you doing this anyway? It seems like it would be FAR easier to just tell people to post that they want a loan in the FS forum and then post the link in the PR thread. It sounds like what you want is for people to pay CB to apply for a loan. If that's the case, then we can even go one more and just have clients send $5k or however much a post costs directly to CB.

I doubt NS was making his loans thread in the PR forums rather than the FS/WTB forums to try and save cash. I think he was doing it for convenience, and I have to agree that this is all pretty useless... I think it was fine the way it was even though it was a violation of a forum rule. Maybe the rule needs to bend a little?

Another case of the cure becoming more problematic then the problem it was trying to cure in the first place? (If that makes sense??)

SNK4R, You'd be great as an English MP.

C'mon guys. You can't miss this irony.

Our biggest proponent for having rules set in stone is complaining about a rule being set in stone. *chuckles*

"Another case of the cure becoming more problematic then the problem it was trying to cure in the first place?"

I agree. I think the problem is that even if someone just makes a "loan tracking" tread in PR with no advertisement, it is already advertisement as you now know who is offering loans and can just CM them, thus eliminating the need for any FS/WTB thread. There is no way around this under the current system. And CM's are a pain to deal with as opposed to a forum thread (it is much harder to follow a CM conversation as the current set-up makes it difficult to read the posts in any sort of chronological order).

I think the best solution would be to put FS/WTB back the way it was before (let anyone respond), but maybe have everyone pay a fee to post to prevent the spamming problem ($2000 for the original poster, and maybe $500-$1000 per response from everyone else). This would solve the current "problem" with the loan threads, and would also prevent the current issue of people "missing/not reading" CMs when they hold a sale and would make it more fair for everyone.

Maybe there could be a toggleable option to choose whether or not your thread in FS/WTB will accept replies from other posters are not as well if that person decides he wants to keep it private.

Or, just let it be. Let the loan threads in the PR continue? They don't bother me?

Maybe let the creator pay 30k to central bank in order to keep his thread maintained in the public record (Thats if this whole thing is about fee avoidance?)

Well, I just think it's a stupid rule. That is my opinion.

If you are going to act this way with loans, then you should be fair and act this way with forgers too. They are also selling something. So make them post in the FS/WTB thread and make them keep track of their contracts in individual threads too.

Yup, that would be stupid, wouldn't it! Yes it would.

I will be closing down Pixel Sage's loan business as soon as the current loans are repaid.

As Nightstrike stated: Loans businesses will now become administrative nightmares.

Most admins, as far as I can tell, have never tried to run a loan business. It's hard, VERY hard. I have $17.5M to loan and I make about $500K profits per month (and another $500K for Pixel Sage). It was barely worth it before, now it's just not worth it.

On top of all of that, it will now become that much harder for players to obtain loans. Way to keep players from leaving CB!

As they are stating, it is a rule, learn to deal with it.... Its not changed anything, it should have been dealt with long ago, if i read how they announced this the right way.

You say that now smallpau, but I think you'd think very differently if you were the one that was affected by it. :)

Oh yeah smallpau1, that's a good reply: "Shut up and deal with it!"

Bravo! You should become a politician.

How about making a new forum called Loans analogous to the Forging Services forum?

One can always say that forgers are making a profit just like Loan Sharks are.

This way everyone should be happy, hopefully.

I second Ranger's idea...honestly, it was the first thing that came to mind when I read this thread.

Yep, that's what came to mind immediately to me. It is totally logical to make a seperate category only for loans. Makes life easier for the loaner as well as the future clients who are shopping the the said loans.

I had suggested the Loan forum idea long ago, and was ridiculed for it.

Just to clarify given Oddbird's response -- I love the fact that the admins are "setting a rule in stone." It's a wonderful thing. I disagree entirely with the rule itself, as it is creating the problem it allegedly aims to remove. PR tracking threads will become disguised advertisements under the new system. In the current system, they are very clear -- don't CM me, post in the thread. I can't deal with CMs. Using FS *forces* the use of CMs.

Forget that - I won't do it. Everyone already knows what I do. Heck, before I started, I'd get two or three CMs a week asking for loans simply because my char was listed at the top of the stats page for richest.


What I fail to see in this thread (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is a legitimate reason for why the current system is broken, and a legitimate reason for why forging should or should not be any different.

NS wrote: "What I fail to see in this thread (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is a legitimate reason for why the current system is broken, and a legitimate reason for why forging should or should not be any different."

I second that.

So why exactly is it so impossibly hard to have users create a thread in FS to request a loan? A new forum might lower the amount of traffic you get from adding a rule to email you whenever anything new comes up, but outside of that using FS/WTB as the place to request loans seems perfectly sensible.

Loan company A has a Post in FS/WTB they bump daily with information about loans they offer.
Loanee B makes a post in FS/WTB requesting a loan.
Loan officer C rubber stamps the loan by either creating a PR thread for the loan, or adding an entry in a large combined PR thread...

Why is this so hard?

the difference between loans and forgers is that forgers are already being "taxed" by the blacksmith...

...and Talion was kind enough to show us (in my stupid opinion) why we needed loans moved... 1 mil a week profit is nothing to sneeze at, this is a fraction of that being taken as a money sink.

Arg...1 mil a month then...still not bad.

per month, not per week.

We get taxed when people decide to leave without paying, and are left with a $20m hole in our pockets.

From the looks of things, I'm about to lose another couple million from NoFear. So going by Talion's numbers, that's all the profit from first quarter gone. Forgers don't have to worry about the blacksmith coming in and draining all of their funds purely on a whim, irregardless of how perfectly they hit the forge cycle.

You making a bad loan isn't the same as a money sink...

yes it's awful someone defaulted, but that's why collateral was invented.

Novice, your statements suggest that you really don't understand the loan business. I'm afraid I can't reply to your statements, as we are on totally different levels.

You can consider xfer fees as a tax.

Wow...just wow.

dress up your trolling however you want buddy...it's the same song...

I gave valid reasons why this change was needed, explained simply how a system without CM's could work...and that's the best reply you can give... pathetic, I expected more after all this time having to listen to you.

Knovice, aside from transfer fees assumed by the loaner, there are also collateral transfer fees, and risk of not being paid. Also, if you are not richer than God like Nightstrike, you don't have access to your money until the loaning party repays it.

Finally, FS/WTB threads close after a few days and people can't reply directly to them.

I assume you have never started a loaning business. Else you would know how complicated they can be without having to manage multiple threads, some of which users can't even reply to and expire after a few days.

I'm tired of this... this was my last reply. My opinions have been given and Pixel Sage's loaning business is closing.

Roger out!

"I gave valid reasons why this change was needed"

Why are changes NEEDED?... It seemed to work fine to me even though it was against the 'rules'.

Im i stupid or you can track details of all your clients in 1 post but don't offer more loans in that thread or accept new offers in that thread?

If it ain't broken don't fix it.

Did admins get hundreds of CM's a day with people saying,
"I'm sick of these loan-sharks threads!!!"?

It just seems that this whole crackdown is just making things more difficult, more of a problem for people. Instead of 1 manageable thread, accountants will now have to check through hundreds of chatmails and multiple threads, whats the point!? Loan-sharks are basically the same as forging, they are offering a service. They aren't selling items, or looking to buy something. Hell, they sure ain't selling neopoints.

All these questions about why it was done. Have any of you ever bothered to read the PR forum rules? If not here they are for you.

This forum is for confirmation of (or status updates for) deals that have already been made. Primarily this is for deals made in chat, since if you have arranged a deal in the Forging Services or FS/WTB forums, you might as well confirm it there instead of making a new thread here.

Posts requiring an admin's attention (potential abusers, etc.) are also on-topic here; as are posts along the lines of "I'm leaving for a week." (Or, "for good.")

Again: This forum is not for people looking for deals. Those posts go in Forging Services or FS/WTB. This is enforced by fining violators; it makes life easier for everyone when they know which forum to read for which kinds of post.

Regarding "private deals" confirmed here and elsewhere in the forum system:

If 2 people enter into a deal, and it is posted here, and one person backs out, or scams the other person, here is what will happen:

If person A scams person B, we will reset A. We do not want to encourage scamming. BUT, it is your responsibility to make sure the person you are dealing with is trustworthy. We also do not want to encourage the thinking of, "so what if this guy offering me a cornuthaum for $100k is scamming me, all I have to is whine to the admins to get my money back." So no, we're not in the property recovery business. Same goes for loan installment payments. In other words: if you want truly scamproof trading, your only option is the auction system.

This right here in particular should more than answer the question of why.

"Again: This forum is not for people looking for deals. Those posts go in Forging Services or FS/WTB. This is enforced by fining violators; it makes life easier for everyone when they know which forum to read for which kinds of post."

I can't see the rules for the new Loan Service forum. Can you paste them as well please?

In response to edyit's post:
"This forum is for confirmation of (or status updates for) deals that have already been made."

From that I gather, we can still post our big table of loan tracking then. It is afterall a status update. So is it correct to say then the initial post of the loan business (rules, rates) go into the FS/WTB forum (which I'm fine with), and the loan tracking can go into the PR forum? This needs clarification (for me anyways). However, each deal to be made for the loan must be a separate thread for each user/client. Which brings to another question, can we still have a central PR thread then for the loan status updates?

From SNK4R: "Feel free to make one huge PR thread for all your loan tracking, it "

I believe you're allowed to do that, its just getting people to apply for it in the thread, rather then by hundreds of chatmails.

Lamuness, as SNK already stated,

"Feel free to make one huge PR thread for all your loan tracking, it was just a suggestion to make a per-client basis. It also helps Admins with that so we don't have to go through all the other stuff in your threads in case there is a default."

So yes you can make 1 big thread for TRACKING purposes, all loan applications must be made through CM's or FS/WTB.

Ok, well then it seems simple if what Edyit says is true.

Just make your thread with your big table for tracking and state at the top of the table that loan applications will not be accepted in this thread. People will have to infer they need to CM you for loan details. If someone applies for a loan in the thread, it's not your fault and perhaps said kind admin will remove said post in order to keep the necessary law and order.

"all loan applications must be made through CM's or FS/WTB."

is there any other way to navigate the FS/WTB, other than CMs? :P


Simple solution, pay 5k a day to run a loan service. keep track of it all via the long PR threads already utilized, and bump/create your FS/WTB thread once a day. Is there another aspect I'm missing? Because this seems like all it is, and that doesnt seem like too big a deal, nothing worth turning a ripple in the water into a tsunami over... If there's more, then I apologize, and argue around/over/under me, and act like im not there ;)

Thanks for the clarification edyit. :) If that's the case then, I guess I'm lost as to what the fuss is all about.

The fuss is that you can't run a loan business using chatmail. It is an administrative nightmare. I am speaking from experience -- I tried it, and it resulted in more mess than any of the admins seem to realize. If that's what's being forced down our throats, then I will agree with Talion and shut down the business. You all can can go elsewhere for your $25m loans.

Honestly, make this easier on everyone and create the Loans forum. FS/WTB *does*not*work* for these purposes. Consider NightStrike's Loans shut down until the system is actually usable again.

Here's another idea that someone else can suggest so that it gets noticed -- Just extend the functionality of the Forging Services forum if creating a whole new forum is out of the question (which it apparently is). Just make it "Forging and Loan Services". Then everything is done, and we can all go back to throwing money away at scammers.

Hmmm.... I agree with NightStrike on that one. The forging forum is already close to the least used of the forums. If clutter is an issue, it won't be. So, yes, extend the functionality.

You can say, all you want, that the loans are a way to make money. But, really, it's just another service a player offers the game. You really can't make all that much money from it.

And...

*puts armor on*

None of you are going to like this. And to the few exceptions out there, feel free to ignore me.

I see this issue being ignored, eventually. I see people getting over it, until it fades away. People who are not directly affected will skip over the post after the first few flames. And, sadly, how can I blame them? Blame truly, good people for ignoring this crap? Why should a good person, who just wants to voice their opinion deal with flames and just mean statements? It's not right.

So.... what makes me angry.... why does CB so often just... not care? When was apathy the optimum condition in which to live your life? Players make fun of other players for being overly passionate about this. When one player says something too seriously, the line that it's just a game is not far behind.

So, here is what I request. CB! Stop ignoring what doesn't affect you. Stop being afraid of being considered passionate. I know alot of you write me off, because of my past posts. And as far as I can tell, I probably deserve it. But there are other players in this game who could truly make a difference if they just... voiced what they thought. About as many things as possible. Basically... CB, stop choosing your fights. Fight them all. You do not give up one thing so you don't lose another.

Pick this apart to your hearts content. Make me seem like someone with no life. That's fine, and probably true. The irony is that the same people I'm trying to reach won't read this, because they just skip over this.

I've said what I wanted to say. Frankly, I don't agree with the admins decision here, because they closed a door and didn't open a window and it smells really bad in this room right now. I support the admins. I like them as people, AND as the admins they are. Dang... I've wandered all over the place here. To sum it up....


- CB, be passionate about this game.
- Apathy sucks.
- If there is a problem with the game, admins and players alike shouldn't just get rid of it. They should get rid of it and then supply and alternative to what the problem was about.
- Combine Forging Services and Loans.


Thanks for your time.

Potential solution: what if FS/WTB threads are changed so the thread creator has a *choice* to allow other people to reply?

I agree whole-heartedly with GW here. Ironically, I'm the very same person that would have not said a word about this thread and kept my mouth shut. It's not because I don't feel passionate, it's the fact that there's no use fighting against the useless trolls and flames that fly across as I try to make a point.

I second:
- CB, be passionate about this game.
- Apathy sucks.
- If there is a problem with the game, admins and players alike shouldn't just get rid of it. They should get rid of it and then supply and alternative to what the problem was about.
- Combine Forging Services and Loans.

Amen.

Policy
This forum is for loans and forgering services offered and wanted. Deal enforcement policy is the same as for Public Record; if you haven't read that, do so now.

^^ i believe it has been done

Apparently this has been resolved.

Good work, a way to keep everyone happy has been found.