Suggestion: Add a way to show if a contract was fulfilled or if it was broken. Reason: It would help when researching to see whether or not a person is "trustworthy" Any Other Information: Recently I was looking into buying a donation feature from a player. After searching their name on here, I saw a few contracts that they had been involved in. However, it was unclear if the contracts had actually followed up. One contract was "no longer needed" and when I asked the mod that handled the contract, he didn't remember what the outcome was. (I guessed it was possibly due to one party backing out) Once a contract is locked, there isn't normally any more input on the mater. If someone (possibly a mod) could just say something after the contract if fulfilled like "contract fulfilled by both parties" or "contract no longer needed due to debt being paid off". Or possibly in another case they could say "contract broken by player x" or "both parties agree to voiding the contract". This would help people in the future when looking at where or not a person can be considered trustworthy.
The purpose of the forum contract system, as I understand it, was to make it easier to write out contracts, as opposed to a rushed and limited in-game chat. I think what you are suggesting is an interesting idea. But I don't know if moderators should/could follow-up with every contract. On EcoCityCraft, it is up to the players to be responsible for their own transactions. I personally understand what you are saying though. What I do is I look at what sorts of contracts someone has done before. Then I look at any complaints they were involved with. Specifically I look for complaints that deal with contracts. If I don't find any complaints, I assume that there has not been an issue with a forum contract they have made... It sounds risky to be sure. But that goes to the heart of what trusting someone in an agreement is. If you don't feel comfortable, don't do it. But you are right though, more information would go a ways to helping people. Perhaps what could be done, is that a new forum section could be made where people link a contract they have, and both parties post that the contract has been fulfilled, then moderators can simply lock it. Perhaps the mods can then go back to the old contract, and add a new post at the bottom, liking to the completion thread. By doing this, both parties self acknowledge that the contract is complete and over. Now, some contracts are not so easy to say that it is over. For example, some have long standing effects, such as trusting someone with the password to a chat channel... Those are indefinite. ----- It is important to keep in mind that there are two caveats. First, the use of contracts is player driven. The use of a confirmation system would also be player driven. Second, it's possible to still circumvent the purpose of this. If players A and B make several contracts, and then make several confirmations, to everyone else, it seems that both are reliable players, when at least in this example, players A and B were simply spamming these contracts to make themselves appear more reputable. -- This would leave us back in square one. In the real world, when you make a serious binding contract, you can sometimes file these with your municipality. It is still entirely up to you to see that it is done, have evidence of whatever happens, and if there is a problem, you bring it before the municipality. If we think about that, then ECC is fulfilling what already happens. Why is this important? Real world has been around longer, and I would trust that real world business practices have evolved into their current form, because they made the most sense, and worked.
