Okay this is one of my pet peeves.

It seems to me that the Trade chat channel exists in many games for a reason. There was a need and developers of games written long ago responded to that need by creating a separate chat channel. The need continues and so current developers continue to write that system into new games.

However some players are lazy. Some are ignorant. Some are just ornery.

What I'd like to see is a system which encourages players to use the trade chat channels without penalising them for "getting it wrong".

What I was thinking was a System Message, once per logged in session which notifies players typing certain "styles" of message into generic global channels once the message has been sent, but just once.

"Warning: Your message appears to be a trade request. Please consider using the dedicated Trade chat channel ( /3 )"

From what I can see the rule for spotting messages could be simple. Any message featuring specific (multi-language) keywords in a message with a linked BOE item(s) would flag the system warning.

The warning would be once per session (so anyone choosing to use general chat for example can still do so). But over time, those players who were using those message without realising the gaming convention would be pointed in the right direction without the game being heavy handed about it.

WTB in custom channel... Fine. LFC in guild chat or whisper... No problem.

Yes. It's imperfect. WTB/WTS message which had the item name typed out rather than linking the item wouldn't be flagged. But I was intending this as a very light touch solution erring on the side of caution to avoid annoying players with false positives. It would be a slow "learning over time" solution, where players would eventually see the message a few times over a period of time and realise the advantage.

Examples of "flagged" message:

• LF crafter {item}
  
• LFC {item}
  
• WTT {item} for item.
  
• {item} WTS
  
• WTS {item}{item}{item}{item}
  
• etc, etc.
  

My experience on a European English and US servers is that the list of combinations of {item} and {phrase} is finite enough to catch x% of messages. As for the other y%, I assume they'll type one of flagged messages eventually or become familiar with other people's approach before it sets off my OCD

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