The trade channel.... is it our ugly side?

So it's our only real universal chat channel, at least universal as far as our server and faction goes. And the misnamed 'trade channel' seems to either function as visual white noise, become a source of amusement or constant aggression, or in very rare cases actually get used for some kind of advertising. Some of us use it to show off how incredibly clever we think we are (usually by insulting someone) or to spam some sort of meaningless information that--at least as far as I can see--has nothing to do with trade.

 

And then we have the PUG, LFG, Arena, and Guild advertisements. I think I've been improving my foreign language skills lately by translating the guild advertisements that pop up in Portuguese, Norwegian, or Dutch, to name a few. Since this is our best version of a universal channel, I actually understand this. Where else can people get a message out there, although it's not really a trade function. But I think that's something Blizzard caused to happen--we were just good evolutionary beings and adapted. We have to sometimes adapt a function to serve our own purposes and not the game's original design.

 

It seems extremely rare that a sale is offered or sought on trade channel these days. Maybe once every 20 entries is a sale item. Most are ambiguous too and I wonder if they get lost a bit amidst the other chatter.

 

My favourite are the abuse and insults. For some reason, when some brave soul actually dares to ask a question (admittedly they are often quite basic, but I've rarely seen such a vehement response in RL when someone asks a basic question), someone is usually in a race to type 'Google' or 'Wowhead' or 'look it up urself, idjit'-- something like that. Again, not sure the trade channel was designed to be the insult channel, but there we go.... apparently a certain number of us feel we need to get our rage on using the trade channel. I am pretty sure in RL that person would probably be a little bit more patient with questions. But not in WoW. Of course, if someone asks a question that I can answer, I will often whisper to them privately. I'm too scared to even dare speak on the trade channel! I don't want to get my virtual head bitten off.

 

Have you noticed the same thing? Is your trade channel more than its original design? Do insults get flung around with ease? Do you like to chatter on it? Do you just ignore it? Would you actually let your mother/grandmother read the comments you write up on it? Is it the virtual white noise to your dashing around between the bank and auction house?

 

Oh and I have a new poll on my research site: I am curious about who likes to PVP when they are not raiding! http://www.raidingresearch.co.uk Go check it out. :)

 

Ciao!

 

Ladan