Need solution to what should be a relatively simple problem.

[doomedtofail]

WARNING! Off-site contact information posted. Most scams occur off-site. Please contact members directly via EpicNPC chat. We do not investigate disputes if you communicate off-site.

This a relatively simple problem that I cannot figure out a fix for.
People absolutely refuse to post in my threads when contacting.
Posts all say post before contacting.

People constantly one of the following-
1)Do not know why that added me. I really do not know why you added me, I am not psychic.
2)Do not have an account
3)Are completely obvious scammers.
4)Adding me for assistance due to former mod status, I on the most part do not mind this, I do try my best to help or advise.
5) I have zero idea who I am talking to because most of these discords or skypes are not linked to a post here.

I tried making threads with no contact information saying to pm me.
People still add my skype or discord.

Put all my new threads with my contact information in hidden content that requires 25 posts.
still get adds with no posts.

The only thing I can think of is
1)deleting my contact information from some more/all older threads.
2) changing my contact information entirely.

Any other ideas out there.

 

[ARMIK]

I think you should remove all the contact information from your threads and say in the thread that the only way to contact you is via EpicNPC private message.

If they don't have any of your contacts the only way will be to contact you on the forum

 

[EpicNPC]

We've been thinking about making a change to remove all off-site contact info. There's too much scamming going on with impersonators and as you posted above, many sellers have complained about the same thing.

The main issue with this is there's no automatic way for us to remove or block chat usernames. We can block words like Skype or Discord, but then people would post thinks like s.k.y.p.e or whatever other combos they think of.

Regardless I think this will have to be something we do anyway, but it will be done after the switch to the new platform.

 

[ARMIK]

WARNING! Off-site contact information posted. Most scams occur off-site. Please contact members directly via EpicNPC chat. We do not investigate disputes if you communicate off-site.

you just need to create your own instant messenger on site so people dont take traades off site. the current chat program sucks and is not very useful. if you're able to create something better, where we can make groups and such and implement TG to it it would be awesome.

i dont think its the right call to block people from using off site messaging when the current private message isnt any good. why would i need to refresh a page every time i wait for a reply in 2018. I would want a sysmte that does instant messaging on site, sends me push notifications about new messages and such. Until then I would prefer doing talking off site.

I get your point with all the impersonation and such, but like i said you need to offer a good substitute for discord/skype/whatsapp before you disallow people to use those.

 

[EpicNPC]

It's not easy to create a instant messenger system. If it was, someone would have already done it by now. We've tried multiple different chats and we even tried creating our own a year or two ago and all have problems. The current chat is the best one we've had.

With the current chat, you can already create group. Once you start a chat with someone, at the bottom is a "add more people" so you can add other members.

On the new platform, push notifications will be instant. So if you get a new PM, you'll be notified immediately compared to the current 30 sec average delay. But you'll still need to reload the page.

 

[The Integrity]

The group chat is very buggy. Chats often randomly disappear and people get removed from the group.

The single chat is fairly decent though but can still be improved.

 

[doomedtofail]

Hey I started reopening threads to edit them but this seems to be bugged as it bumps them to the top of the page so if edit all my threads the forums will be a mess....

 

[EpicNPC]

It's not a bug.

Threads auto-close after 30 days of no activity. Close threads can't be edited, so if you want to edit, you have to reactive the thread first. When a member clicks to reopen a thread, the system automatically bumps it so it's active again, this then allows the thread to be edited.