Price manipulating is just wrong, I don't feel bad at all for you :p

Well first off i would have to say that while yes, people will hold on to their items in the hope of increasing their value over time. However what I dont agree with is an organized attempt to manipulate prices. So therefore the charge of being hypocritical is not valid here. Many groups like yours have tried to manipulate the market, BOMCs as you mentioned, Gen Archamedies, etc. You cannot deny an attempt to manipulate the price of S gunslingers in an organized fashion and therefore I would have to agree with the ban as of now.

BMOC's were artificially inflated by people making fake bids and fake sales, which was clearly deceitful and a serious form of malpractice.

What I am doing, on the other hand, with gunslingers is not deceitful. I am very straight up, and even boastful about my intentions with it. I have formed a group who I intended would sell at a higher price than the current going rate (as a bloc), in an effort to encourage others to do so and raise the price faster. So friggin what? You do not like it, tough s**t.
There is NO RULE against this anywhere in outpost, or anywhere else.
We are not making fake bids and fake sales like the BMOC folks.
We are selling as a bloc, at prices we wish to sell at.
If you are going to ban someone, it should be based on a written rule... not a personal vendetta because I hurt your feelings on the sourcerep page by laughing at your foolishness in investing in unusuals which you can only profit from by scamming some sucker who doesn't realize what trash ALL unusuals are. I notice a lot of outpost admins with trades begging to buy their garbage unusuals, and all I can say is that I am glad you are stuck with the trash.
If a rule did exist that said "You cannot make a group for the purpose of collectively hoarding, and setting prices as a bloc"... then I would have gladly given tf2 outpost the middle finger in the beginning and never bothered even signing up to it.

Add to that the admins here are dumb, and they all are contradictory. One admin claims a trade is right as rain, while the next admin will ban you for a relist. The admins don't even have a clear consensus on what is permitted and what is not; and if you dare ask them about the discrepancy between admins... they remove your post because they do not know what else to do... except to ban you for longer for daring to question the turds.

JON :D says one thing, MR. RAGAR says the opposite, while Pretendeer goes around in circles on the floor like curly from the three stooges not sure what to do because he has not been told what to think.

Source: Experience

I am out of here, have fun with your worthless unusuals boys. Maybe someday you will find a sucker willing to buy it; afterall, you were once that sucker yourself.

Originally posted by Nobel:

Well first off i would have to say that while yes, people will hold on to their items in the hope of increasing their value over time. However what I dont agree with is an organized attempt to manipulate prices. So therefore the charge of being hypocritical is not valid here. Many groups like yours have tried to manipulate the market, BOMCs as you mentioned, Gen Archamedies, etc. You cannot deny an attempt to manipulate the price of S gunslingers in an organized fashion and therefore I would have to agree with the ban as of now.

Launching personal attacks and ranting about your views on unusuals isn't the way to go. I suppose there is no explicit "rule" to attempting to manipulate prices, but just the sheer act of price manipulation is dirty. Even if you claim to not be making fake claims and fake purchases, just the notion of a designated group may manipulate the market.

Just because something that's shady and manipulative isn't explicitly banned doesn't give you a right to attempt to manipulate a market that affects the whole.

Originally posted by Nobel:

just the sheer act of price manipulation is dirty.

I don't think you've thought this through. The BMOC incident involved sham trades intended to misrepresent market conditions, and to defraud buyers and sellers.

Stockpiling items and forming a cartel to limit supply are wholly different things. For one thing, there is no misrepresentation and thus no fraud. This is a vital distinction.

For another thing, there is a steep slippery slope from outlawing cartels/collusion/hoarding to enforcing price orthodoxy throughout the market. Every transaction manipulates a price, if only infinitessimally.

As someone who holds a lot of one item, I'd like the mod responsible to expound on his reasoning and clarify the standard to be applied in the future.

This is NOT "common sense." It's complicated and subjective. If this new rule is to be applied fairly and consistently, it ought to be explained thoroughly upfront.

I agree that a revised rule needs to be created and explained. And yes I know about the fiasco with the bomcs and I do understand the difference you are trying to make, however I still can't agree with your group. You speak of misrepresentation, have you stopped to think about if your grouP does become popular and it's the Accepted as Legit thing? You can't possibly hope to add the majority of users with a s gunslnger and thus a small majority of the market would be misrepresenting the perceived hoarding culture of the item.

In response to your misrepresentation of market conditions. You are attempting to show an image that the supply of s gunslingers in circulation is lower and warrants a rise in demand. So I don't fully understand how you can use that as a legitimate argument.

It's not my group. I don't own any gunslingers, strange or otherwise. I just don't like the idea of a few admins dictating what I can buy, who I can discuss it with, or when I ought to sell.

I don't follow your misrepresentation claims at all. Are they claiming fewer s.gunslingers exist, than actually exist? Are they claiming that most s.gunslinger owners are in their group?

If so, that's sketchy and dumb, but a real stretch from there to permaban (compare what happens if you falsely claim an unusual is "1 of 1" in a trade: admin asks you to edit it, temp-ban if you don't).

If no, you can't hold the group responsible for a wrong impression that someone might form, especially when both of those things are easily checked through independent sites (stats.tf, tf2finance).

I will look into it

I agree that those in power/influence shouldn't restrict the market, however in the same coin I cannot agree with those who try to manipulate it using groups to create the illusion of scarcity.

I don't follow your misrepresentation claims at all. Are they claiming fewer s.gunslingers exist, than actually exist? Are they claiming that most s.gunslinger owners are in their group?

In regards to the question on misrepresentation, imagine if you thought and believed from the news that all car companies were to limit their selling of cars for a period of 3 years. You start spreading that rumor around and get other people thinking the same thing. Prices of cars start rising because people will perceive that supply of cars IN CIRCULATION are decreasing thus driving up demand/price. So they are not saying the the number existing is dropping (Per se), but as I see it, it is an attempt to manipulation of the perception in the minds of the those who exist in the market

Originally posted by FunnyBunny999:

Permanent ban, for starting a group for people who wish to hold onto their strange gunslingers for a year when their price goes up.
Nowhere in the rules, on any website, does it state that this is not allowed.
You know this is unfair, and I also know that appealing your decision is pointless. You are doing this because of what I said on the steamrep forums today. I spoke back to the "wrong" person, who felt it necessary to get me back this way.
I stand by everything I said, and if this is how revenge is met upon me so be it.

We decide as a group what to set our own prices at. OUR prices for OUR items which belong to US. We have every right to set that price at whatever we want. I am the only one being banned from the group, and we both know why.
There is no fake bidding going on like with the bmoc, but ... you already know this.
This is about my response to a skial/sourcerep admin, who can dish but can't take.
A permanent ban for breaking a rule which does not exist. This is personal on your part and has nothing to do with any rule anywhere.

Any hope for being treated fairly in any appeals process is non-existent, because I have been banned for breaking a rule which does not exist anywhere.
There is no rule against starting a group whose intention is to hold onto an item as a bloc, until that item is worth a lot more.

I do not care at all if you like me, I do not want you to like me.
What I did was not bannable according to your rules.
If it is, then half of tf2 traders are guilty of the same thing.
They are likely just not as willing to call you out on your hypocracy, and pretentious entitled egos.

A person or group dedicated to the sole purpose of item or trade value is defined as a monopoly. In the Unites States of America, monopolies are illegal because of their immoral nature. Although the Tf2 economy is virtual, it still needs to benefit he needs of all users and not a specific group of greedy, corrupt price manipulators.

Originally posted by Burglar™:

A person or group dedicated to the sole purpose of item or trade value is defined as a monopoly.

No, it's not. Read up on it.

In the Unites States of America, monopolies are illegal

No, they aren't. Read up on it.

needs to benefit he needs of all users and not a specific group of greedy, corrupt price manipulators.

Sure would hate for greed to sully trading! How do you figure anyone "needs" a strange gunslinger? And "corrupt"?! Corrupt how? Do you know what the word means?

Burglar, I think you did misuse the word monopoly here.

Naknak you are misreading his post on "needs".

Point still stands that it is an attempt to manipulate prices in an organized fashion. If you can argue against that point with logical arguements then ill gladly reconsider my position.

Reminds me of that group who decided to hoard shotload of Strange Rainblowers and only sell those for Buds. I guess that did not work out at all.
My prediction: your attempt is going to fail, though there might be some rich dudes buying those every now and then but that´s it. It´s like trying to sell million dollar cars in country where handfull of people can afford those.

OK. mattie owns 36 out of 393 unusual team captains, or 9%. None of them are for sale at market rates. He admits he is holding them with intent to profit. If mattie did not exist, unusual TC's would probably be cheaper.

There are 50-some members in this gunslinger group. I checked backpacks on a third of them, and I estimate the whole group owns <80 s.gunslingers in total, out of 3816 -- under 2%. I assume none are for sale at market rates. They admit they are holding them with intent to profit. If this group did not exist, s.gunslingers would probably be cheaper.

What makes mattie (or any other collector of anything, ever) OK, and this group not? Just the fact that it's one guy with lots of buying power, instead of 50 people with modest buying power? What if one other guy sees what mattie is doing and decides to buy 40 TC's of his own? Is THAT over the line? What if he and mattie chat about target selling prices? If they form a group and call it "TC appreciators"? What if the group is called "TC hoarders"?

My point: is that everyone should be allowed to buy as much of something as they like. Up to and including 100% of that item, if they can afford it. They should be able to decide when to sell it, and for how much. They should be able to discuss buying and selling strategies with other people.

And that's all these gunslinger people have done. If their strategies happen to be effective, the market will reward them. If they try to corner the market and fail, the market will punish them. That's what markets do. If you, personally, don't like it, devise a strategy to exploit them. That's the game.