Pin Trading Etiquette -Has it gone downhill?

[q105birdman]

Lately I have noticed a good number of guests (without any regard to age, sex, race, etc) exhibiting horrible pin trading etiquette. Examples include, but are not limited to, grabbing cast members' and MY lanyard, pointing at pins inside of one's personal space, cutting around cash register lines to ask a cast member to trade pins and pushing in front of me when I have asked a cast member permission to look at their pins. I started trading in September 2008 and it didn't seem as bad as it is now. What could be the reason for this? What other 'boundaries' have you seen stepped over? What can we as guests do to improve this behavior? It seems that cast members aren't very pro-active when it comes to situations like this. I've asked cast members about the brochures that explained the rules of pin trading. Apparently they are no longer available. What can we do? I'd love to hear from cast members about your feelings on pin trading, both positively and negatively. Thanks!!!

[sisterdisco]

No problems noticed in August.
I did see a pin trading rules brochure though. Can't remember where I saw it......might have been at Downtown Disney?

[tinksmom02]

I don't know that there's anything we can really do, except to lead by example. When my daughter wanted to trade pins (always with a CM, we never got into the whole asking other guests thing), I always made a point to have her ask nicely to see the pins. If there was one she liked, she would either name it, or point to it (without touching the pin). If she didn't see anything she wanted, she would say Thank you, anyway. If she wanted to see a cashier's lanyard, and the cashier was busy (I tried to steer her away from crowded cash registers), we would stand off to the side, so the CM would know we were there but it wasn't an urgent issue.

And if we wanted to see pins, but another child/ren were there, we stood off to the side. If kids started to come up behind us, I would say kind of loudly, "Just be patient, after this little boy it'll be our turn." I kind of do that all the time, to reassure her and kind of gently reinforce that I'm aware of where we are in line and won't tolerate line jumping ;)

I don't really know what else we can do, especially if CMs aren't really taking a stand on the issue.

[TheVBs]

We were there in May and didn't see any poor behavior. But I also didn't see a lot of other people trading. Our DDs trade and we just make sure they're polite and follow the rules. Sorry you had some bad experiences!

[figgie]

Sorry you had some bad experiences with pin trading. You are dealing with humans and not all are well manered or "Nice". I go to WDW several times a month and have been trading for years, in fact, I have pins from my first trip to WDW on opening weekend and, boy, have they changed over the years! I have made wonderful friendships over the years due to this hobby and to tell the truth, don't notice any more bad behavior now then in the past. People are people and dealing with some are just harder than others. I just shake off bad experiences and enjoy the good!

[TracyL]

I'm at WDW once or twice a month, and am a semi-active pin trader. I'm not seeing any trends with regard to pin trading behavior that are different from previous years.

The thing is, when you notice someone do something obnoxious, it sticks out in your mind. And humans are pattern-matchers, so if you see a few examples of bad behavior in a particular context, you'll tend to notice the pattern. It doesn't take too many of those experiences before you find yourself saying, "wow! There sure are a lot of rude pin traders!"

Something we can do as guests is "catch people being good." When you see someone exhibit exceptionally good pin trading etiquette, you can say, "hey, thanks for being such a polite pin trader. It's nice to see someone setting a good example." This will be particularly effective if you're talking to a kid, or if you have your kid(s) with you (and will sound less corny, to boot. :) ) And if you say it within earshot of one of the rude people, so much the better!