Real Money Trading

I've never replied to a thread before, but I would just like to say that while it is unfortunate that some people feel so hurt by RMT being banned, it's better this than jail or a big fine. While the staff would get in trouble for allowing RMT to happen, anyone doing it would still get in trouble as well. Another point I would like to make is that while the people doing RMT were technically committing a crime, no one is saying that people doing RMT are bad people. Some, it seems, didn't even realize it was wrong. I can understand the anger and frustration coming from both sides, but RMT being banned is the best for everyone, even if it doesn't seem like. Like I said, it's better that it's banned without any current punishment than getting into legal trouble and getting a severe punishment. To the staff, thank you for hard work on this site! To the community, thank you for making this site more fun <3

i thought id hop on to this trend Of course many will be annoyed, its not as if this was a main source of income for anyone, barely more that a way to earn that extra bit if needed, I personally never did any RMT, But for those who did this is going to be a big turn away for them, i honestly feel like many will be quitting due to this new trade rule. But yeah, I do understand where the mods are coming from and i also understand where everyone else is coming from, however im just going to be blunt, if something is necessary in the mods perspectives, it should be made necessary in ours too o.O, I wish the best of luck to everyone and i hope not too many quit <3

to those who dont read up on what people were saying: (and i dont blame you, its a lot of long posts) many people are upset at the removal of RMT, yes. but many are also upset at the way mods handled it, how mods had grace time and their punishment was "a stern talking to", and of course the attitude Niet had, making us feel like its our fault for not doing better, and for not replying to his thread from years ago. im "singling him out" because of his request to not group mods as a whole into his own attitude, as found here. but please remember to not attack him or any other mod. it's okay to point out things they do badly, its not okay to borderline harass them. my personal issue is not the fact we didnt get grace time, but the fact some mods acted like a post from 1+ year ago is a good excuse out of this. they treated it like its a well known fact it would get removed, using that post to justify it, when so many users didnt even know it existed ? i hate how poorly updates are "stored", how every user, even the new ones, are expected to know about posts from years ago. and obviously, posts as old as that, are gonna be hard to find. we shouldnt be expected to know about these. mods after doing RMT right before the removal update, getting scolded by admins with no further punishment: i understand the legal side of this, and im not complaining about that. if you wanna give your two cents about this without reading up on everything, go ahead ! but dont just assume that everyone here is mad because we didnt have a grace period. we've been over this already in the thread. it feels like some people read the responses on the first page/s and assumed thats what we're fighting for... when mods already answered those concerns. (english isnt my first language so some things might sound a little silly, i hope it makes sense at least)

Apologies, I need to make another quick interjection: The staff members that were admonished were not able to complete RMT trades. They had set up a thread, yes, but it was caught and removed before any agreements regarding RMT were made. They did not gain anything. I would also like to request the halting of "blame posts". Niet knows he's done wrong and has apologised for it, as seen in the thread, so dredging it up again after the fact isn't really necessary.

This horrible news has broken me… This may sound dumb as hell but it’s always been a childhood dream of mine to make money selling Pokémon. With my newly acquired paypal card I was just beginning to make that dream come true. To me, RMT on pokefarm was like a little beacon of hope in an otherwise demanding and depressing world, it’s really the only reason I’ve stuck around all these years. I think if there are people out there who have money to throw around, why ban them from helping out those less fortunate who could actually use the extra money?! So long as it’s done discreetly/offsite I don’t see what the problem is…

i hope they didn't make any agreements through PMs then, but it still shows a lot about them, even if they didn't get to make a cent from it. if your first response to "we might have to ban RMT without a grace period" is to quickly try and do it before it gets banned, then you shouldnt be a mod. but thank you for the correction, i was wrong on the "making money" part. (for clarification, when i say "you" i dont mean elta, just adressing any mod who tried this) and if you're adressing my post in that 2nd paragraph; i dont want to keep on talking about him, im not one to dogpile on someone, but this is an issue that hasnt been solved for years. ive seen some posts from the past, and if we pretend it didnt happen, change might not happen. but at the same time i understand we should still show we have hope in him changing, positive affirmation(?) is much better than the opposite of it. either way, i'll stop talking about him from now on, and im hoping he sees the community's feedback as something to improve on, and not "they were told to stop talking about me, so i can go back to my ways". im deeply sorry if any of my words to anyone came off as rude. it's never my intention. a bit offtopic, but if anyone knew New World the game and the drama around it, you probably saw how any opnion critical of it was seen as "hate", when in reality people criticizing it wanted it to succeed. they showed their community what needs improving on, and wanted to hold the staff accountable for their mistakes. not out of malice, but because they wanted a good game to play, they wanted to see it become a better game than it already was, but some kept seeing them as haters, and nothing more. i hope this doesnt happen here on PFQ too. i criticize this site and staff because i want it to succeed. ive been active here in the past for a reason, its fun and addicting ! but it has its flaws that need pointing out. this isnt a bad game, and none of the staff are bad people. but just like anything and anyone, it can be improved.

Staff can do nothing if it happens offsite but also they can't allow doing this. I understand your pain about this, because I feel same thing. Thanks to RMT trades I could adopt month ago 2 tortoises (because I had extra money to buy them nice homes and pay vet bills, without this I could be not able to afford extra costs{withoud lending money from my parents, I can always count on them, but you know, they have their own payments too}, because I own more than 80 reptiles in total and they are money eaters) but I also feel like there can be done nothing with this. My biggest pain atm is fact that it has been done in so unexpected time.

For me RTM was actually a nice way of swapping leftover currency I gained from my art but I did expect this as many pet sites do not allow their currency traded for real money; some don't even allow art to be sold for real life currency. Overall, I am not affected because I can still take art commissions for real life currency but it still was shocking for most, I am sure. At first, not the news saddened me but how it was handled when I read the thread this morning. At least the staff team & the admin seems to try to slowly pace things up and adjust to the new situation ! Makes me happy ! even if it took some backlash for this to happen Also people that look at users that did RTM like some evil people and feel hollier than thou is quite ... a weird flex ? The RTM felt like when a kid gets some extra pocket charge I don't see what is so evil. Oh well ! Cannot be helped...better than no site at all or big fines as others said

so here's what's been sort of bothering me about this whole thread at this point (please keep in mind i've never spent money on this site nor have i been involved with rmt, just some of the things said here have rubbed me the wrong way.) i might not be completely up to date here, but i still don't understand why a warning wasn't issued a week or so in advance of this ban. i understand that the lack of grace period was because of "legal issues," but why not warn users beforehand? it seems like pfq was just trying to save itself because staff knew they would lose a lot of money if a warning was issued*, and that comes off as incredibly selfish to me. the other thing is that i really don't understand how you guys (staff, niet, etc) can't have seen this possibly becoming an issue sooner. if you're creating a site with real money involved, they you really have to do your homework about the laws around this sort of thing, so how is it that this is only just now coming to head with a full ban? (also, something else that irks me: niet didn't "check to make sure his reply was appropriate?" how come that's something the mods have to deal with? that should be on him.) * because rmt involves trading pfq currency/melans etc for less that pfq sells it for officially (otherwise it wouldn't work), had users been given an official warning in advance of this ban, no doubt many users planning to quit already would have liquidized their pfq assets, meaning they would be profiting off of rmt instead of pfq) TLDR; staff please do better.

...A warning is the exact same thing as a grace period. If they were to have announced a week ago, "hey we're going to ban RMT on 1/28 because it's illegal", that is the staff saying "Keep doing illegal things on our website for a week!". That is the exact same thing as a "grace period". And they absolutely could not have made an announcement of a ban without explaining why it was being banned- look at how many responses are on this thread. Do you really think the userbase would have accepted such an announcement without demanding an explanation? (And that's fine, I'm not saying people should accept that, I'm just saying a reason would have been demanded. And at that point, the staff would have to admit knowledge of illegality, and encouraging illegal activities to continue for a week.)