Big Brother is Watching

Maybe it's just me, but I really don't like the fact that everyone can see each other's trade proposals and even the retractions (the approved ones, obviously, I have no problem with).  I usually submit my trades so I can see how it looks and then either propose or retract.  Why should anyone else know what I'm thinking about?  I don't want my competition knowing who I'm trying to acquire or who I'm trying to trade away.
I'm sure it doesn't matter to most people and I'm positive not everyone looks at everyone elses offers.  However, they could if they wanted to and that's what I don't like.

Besides that, everything else about the site is great.

thanks

It's true -- we do show all trade proposals so other GMs can get an idea of what trades you would be interested in.  There are plans on the drawing board for some more advanced trade matching, and a trading block where you can communicate to the league what transactions you have interest in.  But for now that is just a dream.

Anyone want to weigh in on this?  Would KFBA be better if only accepted trades were published?

Big Brother, AKA, the colonel! And his minions!

Having started in Yahoo, it was a bit disorienting at first, but now I find it useful.  I can check the outstanding offers to see who is "on the market."  I also learned a lot about what is "fair" value in trades of draft picks and keeper rights. 

Ultimately, I like it as it is.

I would like a better PM system.  Best I can tell, there is no way to tell if you have gotten a PM without randomly checking.  Since I have gotter four of them in nine fairly active months, I don't look terribly often.

i second mrobison

As a KFBA employee I should probably know this, but what does PM mean?

Personal Message...  If you don't know what it is, you probably have one waitin for you...  When you click on a user's name in the forums, you can either E-Mail or PM them...  To check your PM's, go to the boards and and click on "My Personal Messages" in the upper left hand corner (next to your user name)...

Seeing trade proposals helps stimulate trading and is at least some sort of check on bad deals.  Keep it.

I like it as well...  At least until we can summarize the info into a Trading Block feature...  (Showing all players currently involved in proposed trades, by team...)

It took some getting used to, but I am OK now with viewing all trades; it is somewhat helpful. But I (like twentysix if I understand him correctly) still question whether listing the trades where we submit, take a look, then cancel is necessary. These are viewable as "Retracted". No big deal really, I am now more cautious about submitting, but perhaps it can be revisted whether these non-trades are viewable by all...

twentysix wrote:

Maybe it's just me, but I really don't like the fact that everyone can see each other's trade proposals and even the retractions (the approved ones, obviously, I have no problem with).  I usually submit my trades so I can see how it looks and then either propose or retract.  Why should anyone else know what I'm thinking about?  I don't want my competition knowing who I'm trying to acquire or who I'm trying to trade away. I'm sure it doesn't matter to most people and I'm positive not everyone looks at everyone elses offers.  However, they could if they wanted to and that's what I don't like. Besides that, everything else about the site is great. thanks

A bit late on this, but I couldn't agree more about this.  No one should see everyone else's trade offers.  I can't stand this to be honest. 

There's a spot for a "Trade Block" on the message board - why can't you post there about a player you're trying to move?

I also don't understand the point of the public trade offers and rejected offers.  Can someone help me out with that?

mrobison wrote:

I would like a better PM system.  Best I can tell, there is no way to tell if you have gotten a PM without randomly checking.  Since I have gotter four of them in nine fairly active months, I don't look terribly often.

Good point here too.  I can see not checking if you don't get an alert saying that you have a private message unread and waiting for you.

And seeing the rules about seeing everyone's trade offers, I'd much rather send a trade offer through private message than have the rest of the owners view it.

What rdr said about trades that you submit but not propose and then cancel showing up publicly as retracted .. that's a bug that needs to be corrected.  Only proposed, accepted, rejected, and retracted trades should be public.  Rejected and retracted trades currently omit the details, you have to click on them to see what was involved.  I'd like to change that.

Some of you feel very strongly about trade proposal privacy.  This is a good debate to have here, the Colonel has been known to make rule changes based on these discussions.

Improvements to PMs will happen later this year as part of a major forums upgrade.  For now, just use e-mail instead.

Well, maybe I'm missing something too.  That's often the case.  Is there a reason why all proposed offers are made public?  Maybe to prevent people from offering bad deals from the start?  Not a bad move if that's the case, really.  I guess I just disagree with that, but if there are other reasons I'm totally ignoring, let me know and I'd probably change my opinion.

This is a tough one...  The intention was to promote trading activity...  If Team A proposes a trade to Team B, and Team C sees it, Team C could conceivably offer Team A a better deal...  Hopefully having this system in place does not stop teams from offering trades in the first place...

But really, what's the biggest downside to this format?  Is it really horrible to allow other league owners to know you're shopping a player?  In the NBA, players get pissed at their teams for making them available...  Luckily, NBA players have not yet begun to be offended by KFBA teams openly trading them...

In an ideal world, we'd have Trade Block functionality that was easily accessable...  Something on the League page where you could quickly track who's avaiable, and what is expected in return...