Since spamming clutters up trades and is a more persistent annoyance I would consider it a more appropriate target for bans. Plus that kind of stuff tends to attract repeat offenders, while it your case it was of a more opportunistic bent.

arand, that is already the impression that I got from your story. And my position remains that while it's extremely distasteful it isn't ban worthy in my opinion. I'll say that he a greedy and discourteous trader who most definitely did this to flip a profit, but to call this trade hijacking is a bit of a stretch.

Though I am surprise that he managed to ninja your offer within an hour. Either he was lucky or he spends way too much time watching outpost.

To the best of my knowledge it was this trade. http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/8078005
And the offer in question is at the bottom.

Player Z didn't put a post on arrand's trade. AKA he probably directly added the guy.

Originally posted by Champelliot:

Originally posted by FeelZeSchadenfreude:

While a bit uncourteous I don't see anything really wrong with what happened. If the buyer of the hat had no issues then you were simply unlucky enough not to take an offer in time. It's a free market, speed does matter at times.

No, that's wrong I'm afraid. If a person takes an offer directed specifically to another user, without it being extended to them, it's called trade hijacking and is a ban-worthy offense.

What do you mean by "specifically"? As in the person, in their offer, says that they want to sell to a specific person? If somebody is selling an item, and finds a tempting offer on somebody else's trade selling the same item, and takes it, is there any moral or legal-ish reason to punish this behavior? Are we to punish them for acting in their own best interests? Can arand or I or any other trader really say "Hey, we own that person's offer, don't take it, it's not fair!"? The fact of the matter is that in all likelihood the person offering to buy the moon bombing run didn't care who he got it from, so arand can't claim that he has a special right to his offer other than the fact that it was on his trade.

All the other bannable offenses are against actions such as spamming and scamming and posting one's own offers/trades on somebody else's trade. This basically is saying harassment and theft are illegal. The behavior that arand is bringing into question, since the offender didn't actually put a post on his trade (yes, i looked), does not approach the levels of harrassment or theft. The offender didn't put a post, and arand hadn't explicitly said that he had accepted the offer yet. In fact, I would say that it is no better or worse than the highballing/lowballing that is rampant on outpost. Distasteful, yes. Bannable or worthy of a warning? No. There has to be a distinguishing line between what is unfair and what is illegal.

Arand's proposal of hiding an offer for one's eyes only is a neat way to solve this. However, if you still want to punish users for this behavior, I believe that any attempt at enforcement will fall flat because as you say it is difficult to know who initiated the exchange. Unless you want to go after both.

While a bit uncourteous I don't see anything really wrong with what happened. If the buyer of the hat had no issues then you were simply unlucky enough not to take an offer in time. It's a free market, speed does matter at times.