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I never had any problems?

Well, I sell exalt fodder, this is my main income,
so I would just hurt it by using "rules".

I do not even name my dragos, when I sell them,
it would be just strange anyway and too much work.

If I buy dragos, I might exalt them one day, but
only because I need some space.

It is yours to do as you please? That sounds
familiar to me. :)

I would like to add my voice to those disagreeing with the updated policy on dragons and exalting.

First, I recognise that this is not a democracy. I am in no way demanding that the developers/administrators change their policy or indeed take any action at all. However, I hope that they do care about the opinions of the community (and from all I've seen so far I have every reason to believe that this is the case), so it seems worth a few minutes of my time to voice my thoughts.

In short (as this is a wall of text), I find the current system to be unfair to sellers. Sellers' only reliable recourse is not to sell at all. By contrast, buyers can buy with impunity and without consequence. There is no practical way for sellers to limit their sales to the sub-population that they wish to sell to, while buyers have free choice. I don't agree with the statement that stipulating terms of sale constitutes harassment.

I can see that this is a thorny issue. I agree with the sentiments of the administrators in many respects. Specifically I agree that:
1) The ownership of dragons is transferred when they are sold, not tied to their place of hatching.
2) People should be allowed to do as they please with the dragons they own.
3) People should not be allowed to harass each other.
4) People should not have the authority to dictate how others play the game.

However, I disagree that dictating certain behaviours as part of the terms of sale is the same as controlling the way another person plays. Demanding that someone behave in a certain way is not the same as refusing to perform a service for them (i.e. selling a dragon) unless they behave in a certain way. The key difference is that terms of sale are conditional. I strongly disagree that demanding that a dragon you sell or give away not be exalted is harassment. Nothing is forcing the potential buyer to interact with you. There is no personal element to the demand. I cannot see anything morally wrong (and I consider the problem of harassment to be a moral one) with stipulating conditions of sale.

Beyond the moral dimension, there is one of practicality. Obviously terms such as non-exalting are unenforceable under the current system and I can't immediately think of a way to make them enforceable without causing all manner of other problems. Setting unenforceable terms on the sale of one's dragons inevitably leads to heartbreak for the seller. However, I don't think that forbidding sellers from making such demands solves this problem. Those who were already distressed by having their dragons exalted will still be distressed, and may now be labelled as harassing despite (in my opinion) doing nothing wrong. Those who weren't distressed aren't personally affected anyway. Obviously there are far too many dragon sales for the administrators to look into every case of hurt feelings individually, nor indeed am I sure that they should have that responsibility. It's not an easy one to solve, but I don't think the current "solution" helps at all, aside from possibly making the problem a little less visible.

I do think that it is wrong to buy from someone who does not want their dragons exalted with the express purpose of exalting, regardless of whether your intention is to hurt or simply to make a profit (although obviously the former is worse). It's dishonest and callous towards the feelings of others. Is this something the administrators should get involved with? Probably not, any more than they would get involved with any other case of people lying on the forums or generally being jerks. I think they are making the right call here in getting involved with only those cases where the behaviour is a targeted attack (harassment) and not those where it is just mildly antisocial behaviour (impersonal, not specifically intended to hurt). But I don't think that the moderators should be protecting those who are being jerks above those who are merely sensitive (even if excessively so).

Now, you may be saying, isn't it contradictory to say that people should be able to do what they like with the dragons that they have bought, but that it's wrong of them to exalt these "non-exalt" dragons? I disagree. The moral fault is not in exalting the dragon, it is in buying with the intent to exalt. If the seller would (explicitly) not have sold to you had they known your intentions, I feel that you have purchased the dragon on false pretences.

I am also actually not against the idea of blacklisting and calling people out for jerk-ish behaviour. I recognise that this is a problem because it can be abused and can encourage further abusive behaviour. For that reason, it may be wise of the administrators to forbid it altogether. However, in theory, this sort of name-and-shame behaviour is a way for a community to police itself against unpleasant behaviour that is below the level of what is important enough for staff to get involved with. The benefits are probably not worth the potential for abuse, but I don't think that calling people out publicly is necessarily and inherently a bad thing. Perhaps some highly regulated system could prevent abuse, but that would probably introduce a lot more work for the administrators.

What would I do to solve this issue? I'm not sure. It's complicated.
The ideal solution would allow people to stipulate conditions of trade and have some recourse to reverse the trade if the conditions were not upheld. This would be more fair to the seller than the current system. It would also be fair to the buyer if all conditions had to be set and acknowledged before trade, because they could always simply choose not to buy.
Unfortunately, the theory is non-trivial to put into practice.

But that's just my opinion.


Edit: Just a small note that I really ought to have remembered to put in the first time around - thank you to the developers/administrators for being concerned, self aware and proactive, even if I don't necessarily agree with all your choices!