Just want to clear a few things up about sharking

Really? Let me transpose this to another scenario shall I?

A 15 year old girl wanders in a bar and yells out "someone rape me now", do you jump on her figuring if you do not someone else will?

No amount of mental gymnastics of rationalizing (and I have heard it all), changes the fact that our parents teach us right from wrong, and if you know the price of an item is "too good to be true" you are honor bound (if not legally so in many countries) to inform the seller that you know the price to be unusually good and establish with utter certainty he/she knows what they are doing.

I completely agree. In my opinion, the argument shouldn't concern the definition of what "sharking" is. For me, the behavior doesn't need a term to describe it. Any situation where you knowingly acquire a valuable item at little or practically no cost, Is dishonest and despicable. I don't care if he said he wanted a key for his unusual, the fact that a person would take advantage of that individual to such a degree shows that they are no better than an individual who tells them the valuable item is worthless. The only situations where these actions are acceptable, in my opinion, are: when either party honestly does not know the value of the item, or when (and i have seen this happen more than once) an honest player informs the other of the actual value, and the player says "oh that's fine i still only want x items")

Would sue the bar for even letting her in :x Had a friend in trouble due to that, we where at a club 21+ and he went home with a girl :x next morning the police was at his door she was only 16.
Now he is doing 3 years for rape without having a clue as she had fake ID and everything, the sad fact is the club never checked so yea they are shut down and sued.

Guys. Calm Down. You are all over-reacting. Rape is being compared to a trade of an item worth $50-75. The point is not was it fair or unfair. The point is that a situation like that (which I PURPOSELY picked as it is very grey on the line) should STILL not be warranted to receive a shark tag. The question of the topic is not morality. It is sharking vs non-sharking as per definition of this offense in current tagging communities. Let's stay on focus here please. Let's not start talking about rape here. We are simply talking about a game trading community tag. You can't compare the two.

But sharking is a question of morality itself, which is why it can be compared to situations like VenGanZa used. And that is why you will never get a clear answer, because sharking changes definitions based on an individuals moral compass.

You presume here that the person did not know the value of the item. You also presume that I intentionally sought him out to gain an advantage over him. The truth of the matter is we are comparing a cup is half empty to half full situation here. But what this topic is discussing is the official tag definition. The fact that some may consider this a bad call while others look at this is a lucky deal which happens to all traders who have traded long enough (we all got deals that are worth 1-2 buds less on unusual trading). What is the difference here that I got an item for 2 buds less then it's worth considering the owner of the item fully and voluntarily decided to set this price and sell it at such. Also, if someone came to me and proved to me that the item was hijacked or involuntarily traded, I would have given it back free of charge without looking back once on the matter (check my caution tag if you don't believe I would go out of my way to right a wrong). Knowing I righted a wrong is enough for me and I don't care to drop the $50-75 personal loss on it.

Ultimately it is the thrill of getting such a wicked deal that drives most traders to shop around for good deals and barter and trade. As far as comparisons go, here is a more reasonable comparison. How about all these yard sale antique hunters who sell items at Sotheby's for $millions. They buy it at a yard sale for $1 or $2 and walk away millionaires. Are they rapists too? You can not compare the rapist scenario here.

we were never discussing an official tag definition because WE ARE NOT, AND NEVER WILL BE A SHARK DATABASE. Don't get ahead of yourself. We're purely talking of morality.

"Official tag definition"? there is no "Sharker" tag.

This entire thread shows why there is not one. There is no fine line. 2 buds off of a 50 bud item is nothing, 2 buds off a 2 bud item is "raping" them of their item, unless both parties are fully aware of the items value.

And no one said sharking is like rape (in the traditional definition, having to do with forced sexual interaction), they were merely saying that there is no place to draw a line with sharking, just like there is no place to draw a universal line in any moral situation. When is it sharking, and when is it a good deal? When is it rape, and when is it having sex with a girl who was a little too drunk? When is it murder, and when is it abortion? When is it war, and when is it terrorism? See what I'm saying. It's all up to the individual, which is why I think its only ok when both parties know the value of the item, and you think it is ok as long as they stated the price they want.

I clearly said communities that DO tag for it. would be nice to have them weigh in here. I am aware of SRs rules. Also, morality is a personal thing and what you may see as a half empty cup I may see as a half full cup. Doesn't change the fact that it is the same volume of liquid (beer/vodka/cognac/hydrocloric acid/etc.) in the cup. The original question was about what the tag means. I would imaging that the only ones who can answer that are communities or community admins from communities that officially recognize this term as a punishable term. Since SR does not recognize such a term as being a markable offense (unless extreme circumstances are apparent such as aggressively and repeatedly using "sharking" to ultimately scam people), it is not something that can fairly or accurately be answered here.

No communities tag for it. Some BAN for it, but there is currently no live shark database. There is a big difference between a ban and a tag. You should know this

Could not agree more. Which again brings up my point, that if a person sets a price, voluntarily offers the price of the item without inquiring or (we dont know the full story) voluntarily selling it for 1% or 2% it's actual value, does not make the buyer of the item a shark. Moral compass may not have been working at 100% at the time but there was no "crime" or "offense" committed that can ultimately lead back to any sort of ban. If I am wrong point it out here (calling out all admins with power to decide from communities that have tags for this) so that a thinner gray margin can be formed. This taboo topic always gets brushed under the table yet it is left as such a gray area I believe it DESERVES a closer look. May not result in tagging but definitely needs to be occasionally discussed to help set the moral compass of noobs straight

I understood that AF2 (for one) had "tags" which (until recently) were relayed as offendable community caution tags to steamrep. (sorry for double post. 2min limit expired)

No. They tried to but we denied those tags.

Thank you for clarifying that. I retract my statements. I guess this topic becomes a conversation of morality.

Yeah, it is true in that situation that there is no "crime" taking place. Just depends on the user and anyone else involved in how they see it. Right and wrong does not always line up with "legal" and "illegal", especially when you throw in the variable of human morality.

What? This was never the case, nor was it ever attempted.
All we did was take reports, for which other communities could use as a basis for a ban.

At least get your facts straight Chaos.

So you DID essentialy have "tags" which can be used to help other communities know when someone was tagged "shark". That's what I remember when I used to frequent your forums Aces.

If you put it that way, then you could qualify it as "tags", but they were not. It was simply a reports forum.
As SR has no stance on sharks, we never tried to push anything that way either.

This seems like an attack and defend thread, at this point.

No forte.

I was actually just trying to get clarification as to how far other communities which have always been referred to in past threads here as tagging communities. In past conversations it was often referred to as AF2 and a couple of others have "tags" for sharking but SR would not tag themselves. This little flood of messages was just intended to clarify this exact claim and how far these "tags" carried weight in the rest of the community. I also understood that whenever other approved communities tag people, those tags get relayed here (only as CAUTIONS). I for example have a sourceop caution here for getting banned on sourceop.