Now I don't want to publicly shame anyone because I support every user involved in this scuffle, but:

I spent an hour in chat watching people argue about advertising ethics in shops.
It was noted that a particular user said that they had the lowest prices (this was in Survival not Economy), and of course someone had to go and see for themself. It was deduced that this was not the case.
Instead of brushing it off, brand new players and literally everyone else was roped into the fray, forced to listen to an hour of malding, some on the side of the player who advertised, and others opposing it.

Now, admittedly there were good points on part of both parties, the advertiser claimed to have seen the prices of other shops and adjusts theirs accordingly to optimize their prices to the lowest they can be (but mind you not the lowest possible, or below). However, it was contradicted by the claim, "is false advertising ethical?" To which the answer would technically and morally be "no."

In my opinion though, I don't care who I buy stuff from as long as it's somewhat affordable (in game, irl is different but I digress).
My apologies to anyone who had to hear the whole argument, and to those who were offended by it.

Whose side would you take?

 

No sides taken, the players involved need to get a room. Haberson needs to just drop the topic, honestly not worth his time. The other purple named person involved needs to chill too

The advertising from haberson is harmless, I didn't even notice it until it was brought up.

On the other hand, haberson arguing that he has the "best prices" and backing it up with 1080:1 farm goods that nobody except new players buy is kind of sketchy (not to mention his default prices for more commonly traded items like diamonds, gold, redstone are on the higher side).

 

Hey, Kuriboh_kun (the purple guy) here
To whom it may concern:
I have been thinking this through, trying to see both sides, being empathetic and reading the code of conduct for a better understanding of the values of the server and after all of this i end up feeling even more confused at the situation and the advertisers actions, and though most say he has a good point i think he has none whatsoever as i´ll explain here, even after only being here for less than a month i noticed a phenomenon that happens very often, when new player enter the server they usually ask questions to find the best stores, popular places, or other thing in that line, that question is simply followed in most of the cases by: by "/ads", "check ads", or even the culprits /visit, sometimes even by himself/herself, when new players see someone with high rank in /ads or a big add on chat of a high level island they naturally develop trust to the words there, either because /ads is run by the server or because no one says the opposite on chat, when the "lowest prices on skyblock" phrase is used untruthfully it propitiates a unhealthy maket and a hostile relation with its clients, also it stablishes a monopoly until the player doubts the seller words, so if the question is if false advertising is bad for the server my conclution would be yes.
This thoughts sparkle new questions about the situacion, does he really doesn´t have the lowest prices? was i too rude? is this against the rules/code of conduct? what should the server do about this? and does the culprit knew what he was doing all along? i´ll answer them as follows to the extend of my capabilities
-I think anyone that has played for more than 1 week, from new people like me to mods, knows that his/her prices arent low enough to be promotioned as "the lowest", though he may have good rations on some items they are farmables, rarely buyed, that often acumulates to big stores, and readily avaiable (even with better ratios in some stores) and often only bought once and then farmed by the player, so the ratios are less relevant, therefore the argument surrounding this ratios is a textbook example of cherrypicking, also, being that the store in question has one of the better stocks in the server the prices are built around them to a great extend being that higher price stores can´t sustainably exist because why would someone buy there if there was a lower price that most of the time has stock, and cheaper stores experience difficulties with stock as pointed by the culprit because often people naturally take advange of the low price to take some extra while they can, to resell, etc. therefore the prices he/she puts will be the middleground of the server in terms of prices by mere logic, to visualize my point just imagine what would happen if this store lowered the price of iron to 7:1? with the present stock conditions he maintains, every store would have to sell at that price or not sell at all, the incapacity to maintain stock with this price is irrelevant to the point in this hipotethical example for the point is about the way the market shapes around the prices of the store with the most stock. so in conclution, no, he/she hasn´t the lowest prices and the ad contains false and misleading information. if anyone would like that i elaborate this point i could do some graphics showing the prices in different islands in diferent intervals and along time(random, selected, and top in ads) to better show this point.
-first, rude is a subjective concept and though, most if not all of the words that i said where cold facts about the situation not related at all to the seller in question, i could have been seen as rude, so i offer my apologies in public right now for my the way i talked in the chat putting enfasis on the cold facts part, i have changed the way i talk to this person till the end of that conversation as seen here and another instance in witch i messaged him, but at the same time with the way i was raised i consider one lying, repeateadly using ad hominems, and ignoring the facts, figures and my person, etc. that happened in the chat that day is a way more rude act thus i expect his/her apologies, and if he doesn´t understant the concept, disagrees with it or ignore it, shame on you. i may add that he banned a 12yrs old friend from his island with no reason whatsoever, he, as i, dont speak english natively so i understand if something that he said was misleading but i messaged the person in question and get no response, i consider unfair that my friends are banned from a store when they have nothing to do with me, and being unfair is another thing i consider rude.
-this is a important question, is this against the rules/code of conduct? after taking a quick reminder of this guidelines i noticed that in the point 4 subsection 5 of the code of conduct it states that spreading rumours to staff and players is against the code of conduct, and one may suppose this mainly talks about spreading rumours about other people to negatively affect them but being that spreading rumours about oneself to gain advantage of the market and players is spreading rumours too, and that is not only inmoral but also forbidden on the code of conduct without especification, being that in this especific situation its being used maliciously to monopolize and mislead i think its logical to asociate this to the breaking of this rule, also as i said in the last point the person in question was rude, directly lied to me in chat, and used ad hominemns (being that as offensive as any other insult) breaking a myriad of other rules not related to the advertising situation. also its worth noticing that this player declares being in this server for years so this guidelines should be well known to him/her, aggravating the offense.
-it would be futile asking to the server to moderate and truth check each ad or chat advertising instance, it would be a waste of valuable time and impossible to maintain given that a full analysis was made on each ad would be complicated, thats why i suggest making this a reportable act when proved with facts and figures, and even then i think that work is already done in the "no spreading rumours" part, though i still sugest consecuenses or anything that would stop this instance of false advertising for it to be done.
-and to finish, was this made consciously? after seeing the reaction of the culprit when my point was given to him, acting defensive giving us misleading information about irrelevant items, using ad hominems, and most important repeateadly evading the point and diverging it to make it about his prices (when they are totally fine, the point is the advertising), this actitudes to me looks like he/she was totally conscious about the situation and the hostile enviorement it makes for new players, another way to call this would be "gaslighting" another thing i consider very rude, also with the lies to diverge the topic being that he studies the market in a way that his data shows that he/she has the lowest prices (literally impossible as explained on subsection 1) or him/her was lying about studying the market consciously or he/she was lying about having the lowest prices consciously, all of this goes according to my perception but i treated the data with all the respect i could and should have had, although i dont rule being incorrect in this point if somebody has facts that add something to this theme and i dont rule out a case of mythomania, taking in count all of the respect people with this condition need.
I dont know if here i can ask for a mod to take a look at this situation but i¨ll follow-up this situation till the end, and a lot have said to me to chill out but i say to them, you need to be less chill about this, this situation alienates new players and gives a false perseption of a inflated market that discourage players to continue playing, i have seen a lot of people leave the server after just a few minutes or hours because of the prices, i´m sure more people have seen it and its pretty common, where do you think they got that prices? also i must add that i was never a part of this cycle, i have found other awesome stores and i advice people to do the same if they dont care so much about stock.

With the best wishes for this, our server kuriboh_kun

 

I was trying to wrap my head around how one could debate the ethics of advertising prices of their skyblock for an hour until I saw your absolute unit of a comment. I'm not reading that though sorry homie :'(

 

Yeah, to be fair Kuriboh brought up some fair points in the false advertising aspect of Haberson's shop. They aren't the lowest prices, and just because stores and other facilites utilize "creative liberties" in their advertising to gain more customers, false advertising isn't the most ethical way to gain a following among the commonfolk. What I don't get though, is how there is an unhealthy relationship between the customer and the merchant. I haven't heard anyone complain about Haberson since the day I came here, and despite perhaps even if there is a good sum of people against their prices, it's probably not a lot; otherwise a crap ton of people would be complaining in the chat (which they aren't).
Also, this is no cause to start a witch hunt against every "dastardly capitalist" because 1.) this is literally a block game where the economy is fueled by dirt and 2.) we play this game to forget about society, and on top of that, society is idealized in the simulation to which complaining would be out of the question since there is no viable cause for it.

TL;DR
I still stand by saying that Kuriboh and Haberson raise good points. Haberson doesn't have the best prices in Skyblock but they aren't terrible and thereby not cause for an hour long debate about monetary ethics, much less a rally against him.

 

the relashionship is unhealty because the buyer is uninformed about the real landscape of the economy and the resons he is buying in that store are way different that the reasons an avid player would have (price and stock respectively) and people often dont say anything because there are other reasons the store could be considered useful or good, or just to follow the common sensus, also, a more important point is that this problem affects mainly new players like i said before, and a lot of new players dont argue, just leave, and in my personal experience that happens very often with the main reason being the server prices (i donth think the server prices are expensive but if you incorrectly believe that the middleground prices are the lowest it becomes logical), we can also say the relationship is unhealty because the buyer starts seeing new players in a predatory way, an example to this is how the culprit is one of the persons that utilizes the chat just to advertise constantly, without stablishing any other conversation and very often replying with false advertising to questions of new players, all of this results in the seller searching the most efficient way to take advantage of new players in the lapsus when they believe the false claims, also, this is not a witch hunt, this is like any other rule being broken and exactly because this game is an escape from society we should strive to make it better than it, and stop this bussiness practices that contaminate our server with some of the most common negative aspects of society itself, i´m also not starting a rally or anything like that, i think i´m just another player shining a light on a situation where the code of cunduct is being broken and the values of our server are being putted to the test, also, i wish to speak for all the new players that doesn´t have a voice or are intimidated by the landscape of the server, how often do you see people that have played for less than a week talking in this forums?, stoping this practice would make their progress in the server more fluid and honest.