Solitude & [@Frey]: I’m going to briefly reply to this before my next class so apologies if it’s a bit short. The ‘off-site policing’ rule is formatted as a subclause of the bullying rule. An example where we would step in is say, on a random blog there are posts such as “Amaterasu is the worst person ever and should go die in a ditch”. While it is fine to express unhappiness and rant, when it is openly targeted at specific users we consider that unacceptable behavior which breaks our ‘no bullying’ rule.

If you were commenting “gosh I can’t seem to get what I want in this event” or “I dislike how this coat looks”, that isn’t a problem - you’re welcome to your own opinions. It is only when it becomes blatantly obvious you are addressing one specific user (name-dropping) and saying hurtful things about them is when this clause comes into play.

(I’m out of time but someone else will address the other concerns posted by users on the previous page I didn’t answer.)

I just have a couple of notes. ouo

1. I think it’s just the wording that’s bugging people with the offsite thing. The way the sentence starts off, it really sounds like your concern is for the site’s rep other than the users themselves. It almost comes across as ‘don’t say bad things about MC offsite’ more than ‘don’t say bad things about our users as a form of bullying offsite’. I’m still pretty unfamiliar with those anon-type things (only found out about it via FR, and only know of two since I don’t actually use blog sites or w/e), but I am aware of what goes on there, and I’m pretty sure you guys mean to say that, for example, posting on those things to directly cause trouble for a user is not okay. With the way that’s worded at the start, though, it really comes across as ‘ruining our reputation as a site with those blogs is not okay’. That’s the only problem I see with it, the wording. I understand that it’s a subclause, but the phrasing really doesn’t help.

2. I’m really not sure how to feel about the ‘grammar police’ thing (because that’s really what that is, let’s be honest here). I get that your aim is to keep MC a site where all forum posts are readable and make sense. I really think that should be handled by the users themselves, though, not the mods/admins. I mean, I can definitely understand a mod/admin stepping in if someone’s purposefully speaking gibberish to troll/annoy people, but chances are, in this day and age, if someone is constantly spelling poorly and not forming coherent sentences, they probably a, know they have a problem, and/or b, have some sort of disability or language barrier that prevents them from being able to fix it without a huge strain. To have mods going and excluding these sorts of users from being involved with the community seems a little harsh. I understand the want to educate, I understand the want to keep the site clear of confusing posts, but I’m not sure I feel comfortable with forcing people (who, as I mentioned, very likely already know they’re incorrect and likely unable to fix their mistakes without great strain) to be excluded.

When I see posts like that on other sites, the users will often either respond with simple questions for clarification, and then move on to communicate with the OP as best as possible, ignore the post entirely, or make fun of the user. We have rules against treating others poorly, so that shouldn’t be an issue here. So, I guess I just don’t see the need for staff involvement, unless someone responds negatively to those posts, or someone’s making posts like that just to troll. It just feels like we’re not a professional/formal site… I mean, we’re collecting virtual pets and fishing for boots and fish with ties, so why should we jump to being strict with grammar/spelling if it’s not a form of trolling? You can flag their thread and type out the most friendly, smiley-filled message you want, but it still won’t feel friendly to the person if they were genuinely trying to communicate, but were unable to do so to the new standards. It will just embarrass them (even if the message is private, yes), and make them feel inadequate - which we as a community shouldn’t wish to promote. x-x

Firkasa
Thanks for the update!

I’m surprised that the age increase (i.e. from 13 to 16) wasn’t announced — unless it has been before & I just never saw?

Anyway, I’m excited about the new features & updated rules that’s more “concrete”. Being too vague can lead to issues. I’ve read through all the replies and would like to comment on two of the rules:

If you tarnish Mycena Cave by contributing to and/or allowing bullying posts to an anonymous blog, we will aggressively respond and investigate through legal avenues, and it will result in a ban when we determine who you are.Section 2, #5

I’m in favor of this. I’ll admit I follow some “anon” blogs pet sites, mostly to see what’s going on. I’ve seen people being targeted on these blogs & it’s sad. No one wants to be that person where all the “hatred” is aimed at. I’m glad that staff will step in if this happens. From reading what Amaterasu said, it seems to protect the user as opposed to the site itself receiving “criticism”. MC— the staff, are very open to feedback. They’ve asked for the public’s opinion, encourage discussion, and have implemented changes/added features (e.g. pinging) based on that. I just don’t see them going around & shutting down anything/anyone based on negative criticism, when again, they encourage people to give their opinions. :P

Do not inquire, publicly or privately, about a player’s pets or items that are not explicitly listed or marked for sale.Section 6, unsure of number

Thank you for this. This has happened to me before & I didn’t appreciate it. It didn’t make me dislike the player or anything like that, I would just prefer to be asked about my pet(s) when they’re listed for sale. I don’t blame them, I had an urge to do this with Amaterasu‘s Hyperion to have matching ID account & pet a long time ago. I didn’t, but that’s beside the point. I don’t feel like I should have to put on my profile that they aren’t for sale; you would know they were for sale because it’d be clearly stated/shown in my sales thread(s).

An example where we would step in is say, on a random blog there are posts such as “Amaterasu is the worst person ever and should go die in a ditch”. While it is fine to express unhappiness and rant, when it is openly targeted at specific users we consider that unacceptable behavior which breaks our ‘no bullying’ rule.Amaterasu

I completely agree with this example. Thanks for the clarification, Amaterasu.

Diglett covered another concern I wanted to bring up, but didn’t get around to mentioning: grammar policing. I don’t see many users on here that struggle with grammar and punctuation. I think it is fair to point out that while many of us speak English as our native language, not everyone here does. As you also stated, some users may have a learning disability.

If someone where to flag one of my posts for being grammatically incorrect, I would be very embarrassed. I’m not the most active user on here, but I think some users are afraid to post because they’re afraid to be called out on the way they write.

As an English major who wants to work as a copyeditor in the future, correct spelling, proper grammar, and punctuation are things I enjoy seeing on this site, but I think we also need to remember that realize languages are evolving and are just as “alive” as each and every one of us.

bruisemuruve My reason for bringing up the fact that I am disabled wasn’t to suggest that all disabled people are or ought to be like me so much as to say that I do understand being in a position of needing to discuss my disability with complete strangers, as well as to take this out of the hypothetical. I have had to ask many times throughout my education in order to get the accommodations I needed and while it can be a struggle (and certainly was the first few times) I still don’t feel like it’s fair to give accommodations to everyone because some people need them. As someone who is disabled, I would be quite bothered if everyone was treated as though they were disabled as opposed to me having to ask for accommodations. Yes, I understand it can be uncomfortable but lowering the standards for the entire site to avoid someone having to have that uncomfortable conversation that they likely will have or have had already with educators and employers seems unreasonable to me.

Amaterasu Okay, so if hiding a post only removes it from the recent posts, what would be the reason for hiding it at all? Maybe it’s because I don’t use the recent posts feature that I’m not understanding, but I guess I don’t understand what benefit there would be to hiding a post if people will see it in the forum anyway.

bruisemuruve
I’m certain that we’ll be reviewing the clarity of this rule prior to the update going live, given it’s caused a fair amount of confusion and concern among users.

tehuti88
You basically pinned it down in your last paragraph there, haha. We found that we needed to be more specific as to what sort of content needs to be tagged vs. what does not, and the movie example seemed generally relatable.

In any case, written content can be hard to ‘rate’ in this sense, especially since everyone has a different tolerance level for violence, swearing, etc. The upcoming tagging feature should prove helpful for situations like this, since you’ll be able to tag your thread specifically for violence or language rather than having a blanket ‘mature’ warning pinned onto it.

Firkasa already quoted this in her last post, but this section of our new ruleset is good to keep in mind:

Note: If you think your roleplay falls “in between” a category, or if you are unsure of which category, it is best to pick the category that promotes the more restrictive viewing.

Roan

I can see some issues with this one with Identity Theft type bullying… Will there be consideration for this type of behavior if it ever crops up?

Staff takes bullying reports very seriously, and we will always investigate as thoroughly as possible. This is a situation that would be taken into account during that process.

Regarding the “uncomfortable topics” section of your response, this portion of the rules is in regard to chat - specifically, any official chat room (Main Chat, any event chat, etc.). While it’s possible to avoid a discussion that may make you uncomfortable in the forums by ignoring the thread, this isn’t something that can be done in chat, short of leaving the room.

We want our official chat rooms to be as welcoming as possible, and for that reason, if a conversation topic that makes someone uncomfortable enough that they request it be changed comes up, chances are they may not be the only one uncomfortable with it. In such a situation, moving the conversation to a private room is completely acceptable. In essence, all we’re asking you to do is be receptive to other players’ feelings on sensitive matters. We don’t expect everyone to keep a neat list of everyone else’s sensitivities, but we do ask that you do your own part in cultivating a comfortable environment in our official chat rooms.

Diglett Solitude
The grammar and spelling rule has always been in place; there are very few things different about the actual rule except that we’ve re-worded it in this set of rules, as previously it was a worded a little bit goofily (you can still view our current rules at the bottom of the page (or here)).  We’ve previously dealt with hard to read/understand posts by contacting the user directly, and we were going to change that over to a more efficient system (like we did with reporting). 

However, a number of people have expressed their concern with the temporary loss of posting privileges while the user edits the flagged post, so considering other methods (or just going back to our old method) is something we are willing to consider.  Instead of temporarily losing posting privileges, perhaps a notification at the top of the player’s screen would be more fitting (which would go away after they made their best attempt at editing their post) and less embarrassing to the user. 

In light of the concern raised by multiple users, staff will be sure to give more careful consideration to this feature.

Ally
Sign-ups became 16+ in June — I don’t think it was announced because it was just sign-ups of incoming new players that got bumped up (previously it was 13+).  The site continues to have a small population of users below the age of 16 from previous sign-ups.  We always intended for Mycena Cave to be targeted toward an older audience, and having the sign-up age bumped up a bit works toward that goal!

mosh
If somebody is breaking Mycena Cave’s rules, they should be reported to a moderator and the situation will be investigated from there. We consider bullying to be anything ranging from Ama’s previous example to publicly dragging someone’s name and reputation through the mud.  Influencing others’ feelings towards another user by posting slanderous statements is not okay—imagine if someone posted something anonymously about you that you felt had no merit; how would you feel? It puts users in a very helpless position since there is no way to defend themselves against an attack like that. 

A much more constructive approach is to present proof of a user doing wrong to a moderator, who will thoroughly investigate the issue and take action against the user who is causing trouble.

malkav
There are several reasons why people might want to hide their posts from showing up under recent posts.  For example, perhaps someone is a bit shy about their roleplay responses and would rather not have their most recent reply sit in plain view until getting pushed out of the spotlight by other posts. Or maybe there’s a silly exchange going on in someone’s hangout thread that they don’t want to forcefully subject the rest of the Cave to. This way, they can simply hide the things that they feel don’t need to be seen by all of the people who lurk the recent posts. :)

Crow

Thanks for the reply ^^ It helps to know that will be considered. I knew there was a rule beforehand, I was just really concerned that someone who genuinely had a hard time with spelling and grammar would end up losing social privileges for it. The thing about the way that rule is written at the moment, it in a way clarifies what you guys mean by the need to use proper grammar and spelling (by using that example, it’s specifying that it’s referring to troll talk or texting lingo, which is very understandable). Without that example though, and with a blocking system put in, it really ends up looking like MC as a site just doesn’t want people who have a difficult time with typing or using English to participate in the community (because without that example, it very much looks like you guys mean misspells and grammatical errors in general). So, I recommend keeping that example, and definitely reviewing that blocking system, because while it’s more convenient for mods, the result is a pretty harsh impact on users who have a harder time with typing/spelling. Not sure if convenience is worth that xD;

Edit: I think it might be a good idea to add a locked sticky to each forum with a reminder of the forum rules, and a link to the full rules page. While I’m sure quite a few users join and read the rules, quite a few likely just join and go straight for the forums/games/etc. Having a sticky might remind them to check those before posting anything.

As a non-roleplayer I don’t feel that these changes will have all that much affect on me personally. I’m just a quiet person who doesn’t like violence or extreme use of profanity, etc, so many of the topics that are being restricted and reevaluated would never appear in my personal posts anyway. That being said, I’m also relieved by the changes. The previous debate on roleplaying topics had me extremely upset (in my usual silent way) and worried about the future of Mycena, but I feel the new rules are fair overall and will help keep the site wholesome while still remaining open to a variety of roleplaying and other site content, just properly tagged and hidden. I will probably be blocking a few threads once that feature is implemented though ^^;

1. Do not inquire, publicly or privately, about a player’s pets or items that are not explicitly listed or marked for sale.Dove

I’d just like to say THANK YOU to this in particular. I’m one of the people who’ve had issues with a user asking me to trade and sell my pets even though mine are not up for grabs. It’s good to know I can back up my negatory response with the site’s rules.

I actually think something cool Mycena could implement, that other pet sites like Wajas has, is that in order for anyone to have posting privileges in the forums or chat rooms make them take a quiz about site rules and conduct. It would make 100% sure that everyone knows how to access the terms of service and rules of conduct and that they actually read them if they want to use the forums, rather than putting it on moderators to hold hands and spam every forum with a sticky redundantly explaining rules that should have been read to begin with. Then there would be no question that someone knows what they’re doing when they break a rule.

I don’t know about anyone else but I’m that rare breed that actually reads all site rules before joining and I can’t understand why someone would join a creative social site without doing so. For all anyone knows that ToS you keep ignoring legally binds you to sacrifice your first born child to Cthulhu while giving the Old One ownership of all the original work you might post.

Edit: Thank you for your clarification on the uncomfortable topics and bullying. I figured that’s what it was geared towards, and I’m completely fine with that.

” I know one or two people recently have had people contact them that wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, wouldn’t stop hounding them, adjusting offers that were flat out rejected, etc.”

It would make more sense to define that behavior as harassment and punishing hard, rather than addressing it indirectly.  As for the house analogy, what I’m suggesting is putting up No Solicitation signs as is done in real life.  But I seem to be in the minority opinion here and the situation seems to be worse than it looks so it’s whatever.

But I do want to say that people might not be sizing up the situation correctly.  The forums here do not click for me, and I am sure that is/will be the case for other users.  Like they don’t work for me to the point that I never used them until recently…and even then I still hardly use them.  Even now most of the forum set up just rubs me in a weird way and I can’t navigate it well.  It takes some doing to find things I had seen before.  I bump a selling thread or two of my own.  I do NOT have the will to just dig through the past few days or week to look for something for sale that I want.  Titles don’t often cover everything in the thread so you’re asking people to awkwardly go into and out of dozens of threads as opposed to taking the two seconds to slap “No Soliciting” on your profile.  One person said they aren’t even terribly bothered by the inquiries, they’d just PREFER them not to happen.  In the same breath they were too good to put a few words on their profile, as if it’s the biggest inconvenience of all time.  What people don’t realize is that people like me use the chat to snoop on profiles because they don’t learn about people otherwise.  If someone like me looks at someone’s profile and sees a coat they’d never seen before and they’d like one, it shouldn’t be some apocalyptic travesty if they happen to inquire about it.

“It’s like, if someone asked me to stop talking about a murder reported in the news, I would stop. But if I were having a discussion with someone about my bipolar II diagnosis I would not stop because it’s a real event that personally effects me.”

But that’s not necessarily a sound policy.  Basically it’s “if I’m being self-centered or otherwise trying to make the public conversation about me it can be about anything but if someone wants to discuss world events like syrian refugees then they just have to shut up if someone is offended by hearing about bad things happening in the world.”

I might be the only one asking this, but did Mycena Cave just outlaw keysmashing from every post? Even if it’s used at the beginning of the post, then explain ‘sorry i was just really excited’ and continues the post with normal grammar/etc? Because I thought keysmashing was universally accepted as a random spazzed sign of excitement. Like…

“KJHKHDGS:KJKSHFSLFJ:GDKJHGAHDFLSJH Omg I’m sorry I just got really excited about this topic being addressed. So here are my opinions—”

Would that be flagged anyway?

malkav

just wanted to point out that there are lots of situations in which you don’t need to disclose your disability to be given accommodations. i can use wheelchair access doors without telling anyone about my disability—anyone can use them. i don’t need to tell my professors about my disability if they ask for everyone to stand up and i don’t because they understand that if i’m not standing it’s probably because i can’t for some reason or another. i don’t need to disclose my disability to get tutoring, i don’t need to disclose my disability to use the elevator, i don’t need to disclose my disability if i’m out sick because of my disability.

i think it’s ridiculous to ask that someone go through the potentially harrowing and traumatic experience of disclosing something that personal about themselves so… what, the site can look a little nicer? i understand wanting to give a nice image but i think people need to actually step back and weigh one against the other. is it really that terrible to have the occasional incomprehensible post rather than putting that sort of pressure and anxiety on the users? i don’t know about you, but i’d much rather the former than the latter. it’s just not that big enough of a deal to justify putting people through that.

that’s my two cents.

edited to add:

i really don’t see the point in taking up moderator time on this issue anyway. like… if we can’t understand what’s being said, then someone is likely to say “sorry, i can’t understand what you mean” and then clarification can go from there. i don’t understand why mods need to be involved in such a petty issue.

Saffronic I mentioned this briefly in a previous response, but I’d like to expand on it.

Keysmashing can be a form stylistic typing and as long as there is some context to go along with it, it would not be flagged. We’d only flag a post that is nothing but keysmashing and there is no context (either in the post or related to the topic).

ie:

[ Player A ] makes a topic about Mugs: “I really like mugs and think they are cool. Tell me about your favorite mug!”

[ Player B ] responds: dkfhsdkfjhkdsfhsk

In the example above, there is no context either in the topic or player B’s post that would warrant a keysmash style post. Perhaps they are excited to talk about mugs. But it could be spam as well. The post is vague enough that we are not sure about the player’s intent.

[ Player A ] makes a topic about a new pet they got

[ Player B ] responds: jfhdfkhskdf

In this example, Player B does not add context to their post, but there is some context in the topic itself if we interpret the smash as one of excitement. So we would likely not flag the post since we can somewhat understand where it’s coming from, but would appreciate it if context were added to it.

I hope this helps clarify some things. :3

Edit: Fixed a few things

Crow but what if the offenses happened before mycena was made? or before a player joined mycena? if it happened over a Skype voice call? I think it’s a little iffy to not be able to be warned that someone is potentially very dangerous to be associated with. If you’d like I could pm you with specifics as I’d rather not drag this out longer than is necessary in this thread. I just want to have everything on the table and clear for all on the site to see. If there’s no “tangible” proof but you know someone is dangerous should you just shut up and let them do their harm until there’s proof ON mycena that they’ve gone after someone else?

(( also please note I’m not trying to be argumentative, the myriad of questions is literally just me asking questions for the sake of transparency. I’m really just trying to learn where the line is drawn in a public space so others may know as well. ))

[@cavebopper]

I believe the issue with the no soliciting note is partially to do with aesthetic and partially to do with not bringing attention to oneself.

I recently had an encounter with someone trying to buy a valuable item of mine, and I went back and forth with putting a note on my profile. However, since I try to keep my profile as condensed as possible, anyone who stalks user profiles would have noticed the recent change. I didn’t want that person to see it and feel I was targeting them indirectly. Especially since they are rather forthright, I did not want to continue a conversation with them where it makes me feel guilty to own something that they were pressuring me to sell. (I’m aware I shouldn’t feel this way, but it is what it is.) This rule makes me feel better about it since I can report it now instead of hoping they don’t do it again. I do see your side that we should be able to put the note on our profile to avoid this, but on the other side of the coin, I believe it’s courtesy to look through the selling threads and only contact a user if they are advertising a sale. It’s more complicated than face value and could indeed be partially due to the culture here on MC — that is, to expect a certain level of integrity from one another, especially when the majority of pets and items are connected to RP characters.

mosh Our moderating staff are constantly alert for rule infractions and genuinely harmful behavior. It is not the responsibility of any player to call out another player, period. If a player is concerned, they need to utilize the report function and allow staff to step in. Past transgressions from other sites will not be held against any player - Mycena Cave is a clean slate until reason for concern is provided as a member here. If one of our players chooses to target another player for any reason, action will be taken.

malkavbaekhesten While we are aware that it stemmed from the rules update, at this point I think your debate has deviated from our board topic. We will neither ask nor require disabled users to alert us to their disabilities, so it’s not constructive to the update at hand for you guys to continue this discussion here. If you’d like to keep it up, kindly redirect to either an echo or a different thread please!

Dove

i just wanted to clarify that i’m not under the impression you will require or ask disabled users to disclose disability. my point is that the system may get to the point where someone is forced to disclose their disability to avoid being flagged. you may not require it, but for some disabled users, it may end up being necessary to function within this system.

further, when i speak of pressure being put on the users, i don’t just mean the pressure to disclose disability. but the anxiety and discomfort it puts on those who are already insecure and nervous about their writing. knowing that you could be flagged, and being flagged itself, is (as diglett pointed out) embarrassing and anxiety-inducing. i just don’t see the value in doing that to players over this issue.

i also do not see the value in using up mod time and energy for this issue when in almost every case it could easily be resolved by the people in the conversation saying, “sorry, i don’t understand what you said.” in fact, i would posit that that is what happens in most cases. it seems silly to flag something and go through all that time effort when we could just say “sorry, what?”

I hope I didn’t miss anything, but I did do my best to read over the rest of the posts here.

I understand the reasoning for the flaggings, and I personally don’t feel the requirements for a post being flaggable are unreasonable. That being said, I do share the concern about the total ban from posting being needlessly strong, even temporarily and somewhat easily lifted. Nyfeaena’s suggestion for a quota, or Crow’s idea of a notification feels a lot more appropriate, or if a ban seems necessary to enforcing the rules, may I suggest maybe a ban only from the paid forums.

I also had a question about the inquiries issue: I saw that currently it’s fine for users to put in their profile they are open to inquiries on things not specifically for sale, but will this still hold true after the rules go into effect? I don’t see why it wouldn’t be ok, since the user who was asked would have to report the other user, correct? But I just want to make sure. I usually don’t have the energy to keep up sale threads, so personally I’m totally open to receiving inquiries, so long as the other user doesn’t turn it into “hassling” if I decline, I just want to be sure it would be ok to say as much in my profile after the rules change.

Thank you also to the staff for their clarifications and examples, I do hope some of these things are added to the rules when they’re implemented though, so that similar concerns don’t have to be addressed again later.

baekhesten
I just want to reiterate what Crow has said in an above post—the spelling/grammar rule has always been effect in Mycena Cave.

3. Use proper spelling and grammar and so on

The only real difference is that mods have an extra function in the form of flagging instead of us shooting the user in question an echo about the post. We also state that we will have the flag functionality, while we did not previously state how the rule was enforced. It has been (sparingly) enforced, but we are careful as to when we do so. As others have stated, it’s only done when the posts are near unintelligible.

The rule update just gives the mods an extra tool and tells users how the rule is enforced (rather than not saying it at all). We understand that stating it outright may cause anxiety in users, but it is better give out information on how things work than to not at all.

And as for wasting mod’s time and energy—we’ve undertaken the mod role to enforce the rules, including this one. It’s part of the job and not a waste of our time at all. It’s also done so infrequently that unless we get a spurt of users who suddenly start making no sense or are spelling every word incorrectly I doubt it’d add much time.

Ravenpaw
You’re allowed to say that you’re open for sale inquiries on your profile! The rule is so that people aren’t bothered by inquiries when they don’t want to be, so stating that you’re open for offers is completely okay. The new rule makes getting offers an opt-in system (by placing a [for example] “Open to offers on any pets/items!” on your profile) instead of an opt-out one.

bruisemuruve

Thanks for bringing that up! When I first ended up badly concussed, I literally couldn’t think of “oh, I should tell people” as a course of action for some reason.

I thought I would post this since people aren’t quite sure what all bullying covers. I’m sorry if this isn’t the best place for it, but it gives a good overview of the different types of bullying that can be encountered online. It doesn’t have everything, but it’s the most non-offensive image I could find to give a visual idea of what is considered bullying by most standards. Edit: It IS PG-13. I re-read this and realized I sounded very vague and ominous.

Paradoxical

i suppose when i mean “waste of time” i mean… like, think of the time it takes for someone to flag something, a mod to see it and respond to it, and the post get changed. that’s likely to take a lot more time than someone in the conversation just saying “i can’t understand you” and the person explaining themselves. it needlessly shuts down or pauses the conversation when all that’s needed is “i can’t understand you.”

i mean it’s different if it’s on a profile or something but like… it just seems an unnecessary process for such a simple issue.

baekhesten: The flagging system you’re explaining right now is actually more in line of how a currently report line would work (someone reports a thread, mods see it, ask the user to change it).

The new tool that we’d be using is a mod directly flags it, write a short note in regards to why and then the user changes it without having to report back to the mod, the mod does not need to close the report, etc. It’s actually quicker than what we have set up right now and would actually save us time.

Arintol: You can ask in the live chat, but not be persistent about it. Like every time you come into the chat going “Hey, is anyone selling X”? (and that’s all you ever really say) or every time a new person arrives “Hey, Y are you selling X?”