Sharking is basically stealing. If you condone sharking you're nothing but a thief.

Stealing is taking without permission, both parties have to agree to the trade for a trade to be made. They must be happy with the sharker's offer if they accept, so both parties must be happy

This type of conversation has happened before.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/groups/tf2outpost/discussions/0/864980278135195804/

Sharking may be an ethical thing that people have different opinions on, but they are not welcome on Outpost.

It's like telling someone they won a brand new car, all they have to do is give you their old car and sign some papers. You convince them they got a good deal but in fact they also gave you ownership for their house. Of course they will only find that out later when they're evacuated but at that moment when they got the brand new car they were happy.

You'll say it's their fault for not reading the contract they signed but that doesn't change the fact you decieved them. Of course it is like stealing because nobody in their right mind would give you something of value for something that's worth barely nothing.

You could ask what's so wrong with people exploiting little children; Technically - if the child and the other party agree - why should society look down on such people. You could even argue in some cases that the child could have gained much more from the ''deal''.

It's exploitation because one party clearly has much more information about the topic - and know that what they are doing is wrong.

More of a moral issue than anything else :)

As Terminus said, it's a moral issue.

I believe that being banned for sharking is ridiculous because anyone who falls prey to sharking is just not paying attention to what the prices of what they're trading are. Also, if they fall prey to sharking, they are either incredibly stupid or they aren't coming out on the bad side of things.

Some people, obviously not you guys, don't trade for value so much as what they wish they had. Some guy could really want a hat worth 1 Refined and the other guy is like "Since it's worth so much to him, I'll bump the price up a bit and sell it for 3 Refined." In these scenarios, the person who is buying the 1 refined hat may be getting sharked, but he doesn't care because he likes what he got.

On the stupid side of things, if somebody, for example, comes into TF2 Outpost with an item worth 3 Refined on backpack.tf and someone buys it for 1.66 Refined, is that sharking? Does sharking have to be a major lose of value on one party's behalf, or is it just a single weapon's value loss. When somebody puts up an item up on TF2 Outpost, they had better either know what the item is worth or want a specific item for it, because if they just ask for offers and then accept an offer, if they find out a week later that they lost 2 Refined in the trade it is entirely their fault.

Is it only sharking if the person who gets 'sharked' is unhappy about his trade when he finds out later? Because from the way I see it, sharking is just losing value in a trade, and people lose value in trades all the time, which is how other people make a profit.

Also Norby89, as | S.S. | creamy said, sharking is not at all stealing, both parties in the trade must agree and accept what the other party is offering for their items, as I said before, people who suffer from sharking are stupid.

Originally posted by Sir Skad:

Also Norby89, as | S.S. | creamy said, sharking is not at all stealing, both parties in the trade must agree and accept what the other party is offering for their items, as I said before, people who suffer from sharking are stupid.

That way of thinking isn't going to get you many people agreeing with you. Not everyone is an experienced trader and could have easily have just opened an unusual with their first key they ever bought for the game they started playing and enjoy greatly.

It isn't right to say that someone coming by to prey of their lack of trading knowledge is just the same as someone scoring a good deal on Outpost.

It isn't the actual sharking only that gets them banned, it's the question of do we want the type of people who willingly go out of their way to shark others in our community?

Originally posted by Currier Bell:

That way of thinking isn't going to get you many people agreeing with you. Not everyone is an experienced trader and could have easily have just opened an unusual with their first key they ever bought for the game they started playing and enjoy greatly.

It isn't right to say that someone coming by to prey of their lack of trading knowledge is just the same as someone scoring a good deal on Outpost.

As I said before, the people who are getting 'sharked' out of their item must be willing to accept the items which they recieve, this means that the unusual he unboxed is worth no more than the item(s) he is recieving, in his mind he is happy about the trade until somebody tells him he got ripped off and makes him upset.

And I don't care whether we have someone like that sticking around in our community because if he comes after me I'll tell him to piss off because before we trade anything, I'll look up how much my item is worth and see if I like what he's offering.

And I personally believe that's a perfectly fine stance to take. However the staff and general population of Outpost does not want those type of traders, therefore they will be banned.

By not banning people who shark, we'd basically be throwing up the signal that sharking is perfectly fine and indirectly promote the practice. I know I'd personally rather have Outpost be a safe place for "idiots" than sharks.

Main Rules #6:

No sharking. Sharking is defined as manipulating another user into trading/selling a valuable item for 10% or less of its accepted value (or 20% or less for users with less than 200 hours in that game). We participate in a network of trading sites that do not tolerate taking advantage of other users for personal gain.

Originally posted by Blue Screen of Dea†h:

Main Rules #6:

No sharking. Sharking is defined as manipulating another user into trading/selling a valuable item for 10% or less of its accepted value (or 20% or less for users with less than 200 hours in that game). We participate in a network of trading sites that do not tolerate taking advantage of other users for personal gain.

So the main difference between buying Quicksells and Sharking is essentially one word. Cause really, some people haggle 50% off of normal prices when buying quicksells.

I'm not condoning sharking, because I hate sharks. I got sharked out of a green energy Vintage Tyrolean once. Got traded an HHHH for it. I'm just wondering really.. What's the difference? Yes, the person selling their hat to a quicksale buyer is agreeing to the buyer's prices, but in a sharking situation, the seller also agrees to the prices that the shark sets. Either way, seller loses value, and sharks and quicksale buyers gain profit. If sharks aren't allowed, then why are quicksale buyers still allowed? (Cause really.. they are annoying. In all seriousness I once saw a trade asking for 60% off set prices. That's not normal.)

By the way I think you flipped the rules around Blue. Wouldn't it be 10% or less for users with less than 200 hours and 20% or less for regular users?

Originally posted by Sir Skad:

Is it only sharking if the person who gets 'sharked' is unhappy about his trade when he finds out later? Because from the way I see it, sharking is just losing value in a trade, and people lose value in trades all the time, which is how other people make a profit.

No sharking is not just losing value in trade. It implies loss in value but it isn't just that.

I bought a Vintage Jarate worth ~1 Ref for 3 Ref. Why did I pay that much? Because that's what the seller asked me to pay. Did I get sharked? No, because I knew exactly what I was doing. I wanted that specific Jarate and I was willing to pay as much as it takes. We're talking about people who don't exactly know what they are doing that can easily fall prey to more experienced sharks.

Sharking involves lying, manipulation, deceit, tricking the less experienced into trading their valuables practically for free. It doesn't matter if they are happy with the trade or not because once they found out what they lost it's guaranteed that they will regret it. Don't confuse this with getting a good deal or a bad deal.

Moony, stop posting references to Bazaar. We do not tolerate people trashing other communities, indirectly or not, and we certainly would expect more from someone applying to a position here (for the third time).

Originally posted by Moony♥™:

By the way I think you flipped the rules around Blue. Wouldn't it be 10% or less for users with less than 200 hours and 20% or less for regular users?

I didn't "flip" anything, that was a copy/paste from the site rules: http://www.tf2outpost.com/about

Originally posted by Blue Screen of Dea†h:

Moony, stop posting references to Bazaar. We do not tolerate people trashing other communities, indirectly or not, and we certainly would expect more from someone applying to a position here (for the third time).

Originally posted by Moony♥™:

By the way I think you flipped the rules around Blue. Wouldn't it be 10% or less for users with less than 200 hours and 20% or less for regular users?

I didn't "flip" anything, that was a copy/paste from the site rules: http://www.tf2outpost.com/about

Sorry if I made it seem like I was trying to trash Bazaar and I am sorry for my unprofessionalism. Also, I thought it would be the other way around since 10% would be stricter towards newer players, and 20% would give some leniency towards quicksale buyers/knowing/acknowledging traders that have like.. probably at least 500 hours?

Is it sharking when you ask for a price on the item and not offer a price? What if you say "how much do you want for your hat?" and they say "2 ref." for a hat worth 2 buds? They wanted 2 ref nothing else. No manipulation took place, the seller stated his price and the buyer paid what he wanted.