it was also suggested that a problem would be that outpost rules require you have the item in you backpack, but i often have doubles so that i can deal with both traders who add me, or traders who go direct to the bot.

It's flat out advertising and you know it.

it's not advertising and you know it... i don't make money off it (except the occasional minuscule referral bonus toward a VIP membership which is meaningless because i paid for mine (just like i donated to outpost)) and i am ok with both sites thriving.

i have no affiliation with those other sites. i'm just a user, Regen. my interest is to be able to have trades happen while i'm not able to trade myself. and you didn't answer my actual questions.

i should point out that even at the height of the browser wars neither microsoft nor netscape blocked each others site. facebook doesn't block twitter. google doesn't block facebook or vice versa.

this sucks, because i see outpost and that other site as different tools in my trading. if you note, i don't post outpost type trades at all on that other site. just automated trades and auctions.

What Bluedemon did to get away with this was make his trades, and then also put the items up on dispenser.tf or whatever the site is. He then posted on his trade "to complete this trade without interacting with me, click the dispenser.tf link on my profile". It was never linked on his trades, so I think it was ok.

You don't need to make money off it for it to be considered advertising.

You don't put an ad in a classified listing or newspaper telling customers to look for your deals elsewhere, no company would allow you to do that.

samhudson333 - that is a great idea - thanks for the tip.

Blue Screen: that's totally bogus. name one example where a company would prevent that and not get slapped with an anti-competitive suit by the DOJ or it's non-US counterparts...

by the way - i'm wondering. will outpost start closing trades that link to backpack.tf? for example i've seen trades for rare items like a low craft or odd number trade that link to their bp page on backpack.tf and ask potential buyers to check the price.

would that also be considered advertising?

I think you're making a larger deal of this than it needs to be. It is up to the discretion of Sneeza and the staff to decide what other sites you can or can not link to or how they want their site to operate.Outpost is a trading site on the internet, federal law does not apply here.

I also don't believe that Sneeza would want users to go to rival sites, even if many traders use multiple sites. Coming from a simple competitive standpoint, that makes sense to me and I don't hold anything against them for closing trades with links. If you dislike the way the site is ran, I would believe it would be best to then move your trading solely to Bazaar.

of course it's not a federal law regulated site, Currier, i was replying to Blue Screen's analogy which is also ludicrous.

my questions never did get answered - instead we keep going over the obvious (outpost defending itself against the heavy onslaught of competition (seriously??))

so i will repeat them: is dispenser.tf also off limits as a link? if i made my own bot (with a website hook) would that also be off limits? i'd like to know this before i make the effort to work on such a system and then have my trades closed anyway.

edit: if i link to backpack.tf is that also going to get my trade closed?

Originally posted by ༺ buddhapest ༻:

of course it's not a federal law regulated site, Currier, i was replying to Blue Screen's analogy which is also ludicrous. :jarate:

my questions never did get answered - instead we keep going over the obvious (outpost defending itself against the heavy onslaught of competition (seriously??))

so i will repeat them: is dispenser.tf also off limits as a link? if i made my own bot (with a website hook) would that also be off limits? i'd like to know this before i make the effort to work on such a system and then have my trades closed anyway.

edit: if i link to backpack.tf is that also going to get my trade closed?

Own bot with a website hook should we fine as long at it doesn't scam people, for this I would try to get it verified first.
backpack.tf links are fine

cool, thanks for the response

Originally posted by Regen:

Originally posted by ༺ buddhapest ༻:

of course it's not a federal law regulated site, Currier, i was replying to Blue Screen's analogy which is also ludicrous.

my questions never did get answered - instead we keep going over the obvious (outpost defending itself against the heavy onslaught of competition (seriously??))

so i will repeat them: is dispenser.tf also off limits as a link? if i made my own bot (with a website hook) would that also be off limits? i'd like to know this before i make the effort to work on such a system and then have my trades closed anyway.

edit: if i link to backpack.tf is that also going to get my trade closed?

Own bot with a website hook should we fine as long at it doesn't scam people, for this I would try to get it verified first.
backpack.tf links are fine

Why are backpack.tf links not considered advertising? It is another site and they also do have a trading feature making them a competitor. Seems like some kind of a bazaar.tf style double standards.

Originally posted by The Once and Future King:

Originally posted by Regen:

Own bot with a website hook should we fine as long at it doesn't scam people, for this I would try to get it verified first.
backpack.tf links are fine

Why are backpack.tf links not considered advertising? It is another site and they also do have a trading feature making them a competitor. Seems like some double standards.

Maybe because 99% of traders use it for price checks, while other sites are pure competition.

Originally posted by norby89:

Maybe because 99% of traders use it for price checks, while other sites are pure competition.

But given that Outpost does not encourage price lists or spreadsheets, that seems contradictory.

We do not encourage or enforce any speadsheets but we allow people to refer them in their trades. People should be able to trade for whatever price they want.

Backpack.tf focus is on price checking, not trading. Bazaar's focus is purely on trading.