FYI: My eBay auction ending tomorrow 5/25/08

[Chas]

Do you do this sort of thing when you're out with friends? I'd like to see you walk into a store, walk up to a customer waiting in line to buy a few high-priced collectibles and say in a loud voice, "Hey, why don't you go across the street to that store over there? They have those CDs for a lot less". Some stores might not let you out of there without a limp.

Your attitude shows you appear to be clueless as to how to act among peers.

And your post shows you appear to be clueless as to how to construct a good analogy . This is a community here , not some impersonal sellers emporium with faceless customers . I want sellers to get the highest price they can , and buyers to get the lowest price they can . I hope you don't fancy yourself a defender of free markets , for they depend on information being non-asymmetrically distributed . As it happens , sellers here often offer prices lower than the going rate as a way of giving something back to this community . An expectation of this has developed such that every so often a seller's prices are pointed out as being out-of-line . I don't recall charges of "bad form" being tossed about in those instances .

...tell me why I should categorically place the interests of sellers over buyers, and how this is fairer than giving equal weight to their interests?...

exactly what do you see as your role here on the board? is it your responsibility to protect the rest of us from making a bad decision by paying [what you think is] too much for an item, thereby justifying your "outing" the creator of this thread? personally, i don't care about the issue of downloading as it pertains to the situation we have here. and as far as I know, there's no rule to prevent you from competing with another seller by offering the same item on your own thread. what i object to is your decision to derail another member's thread, and even more so, your assertion that you have the right to do so in the interest of people like me who buy cds from other board members. i don't know of anyone here who holds you responsible for protecting the interests of us buyers, and i for one would appreciate your refraining from doing what you did again.

Since the seller got his asking price , just exactly how is it that I "derailed" his thread ? I can understand how a seller could resent my looking out for the interests of the buyers here , but your pique is a little harder to understand . Your resentment seemingly springs from the fact that I wasn't duly anointed by you to look out for buyers , otherwise you would have simply said that you have no personal interest in the information I added . Or perhaps you're saying that you don't know anyone who cares about paying the lowest price possible , in which case I would infer that you must move in some pretty well-heeled social circles that are not representative of the community here . Why aren't all you people ( who are ever so solicitous of sellers ) arguing that the "Ebay Craziness" thread can on occasion "interfere" with other members' sales and should thus be abolished ? If that thread is kosher , then I suppose our disagreement boils down to whether posts that could potentially affect a seller's sale and/or price are rightly only made in separate threads .

I was just joking....

Appreciate the effort Al , but my earlier attempt at jocularity with this bunch in here should have demonstrated the futility of it .

Thanks, but I've been on this board a helluva long time, and you won't find a more jocular bunch.

Agreed . By "this bunch" , I meant the po-faced types haunting this particular thread .

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Since the seller got his asking price , just exactly how is it that I "derailed" his thread ?

He got his starting price, not his desired price! He desired to get as much as the market would bear. You felt it necessary to deflate the value of his offering. You chimed with your post while the auction was still running.

Look, it's all about timing. If you had posted what you did after the auction, it's no big deal. You talk about a "community" but you just screwed Parkertown!!

You're an idiot.

[Chas]

Since the seller got his asking price , just exactly how is it that I "derailed" his thread ?

He got his starting price, not his desired price! He desired to get as much as the market would bear. You felt it necessary to deflate the value of his offering. You chimed with your post while the auction was still running.

Look, it's all about timing. If you had posted what you did after the auction, it's no big deal. You talk about a "community" but you just screwed Parkertown!!

You're an idiot.

More rubbish . If timing is really the issue for you then how is that there have been many , many posts in the "Ebay Craziness" thread regarding active auctions , potentially affecting some member's "desired" sales price , and not one reproving word out of you ??

[robviti]

i have to disagree with my friend kevin. there's no reason to suspect that this thread had a direct effect on the ebay auction. by using the word "derailed," i was referring to the fact that thread was simply created to inform us of a member's auction. no inflated claims were made and no coercion was involved. your actions turned this thread into something very different, hence my use of the term. why did you do it? i can't be sure, and frankly i don't really care because you're not lying on my couch. however, your reactions thus far to people's objections are telling. you talk about this being a community, "not some impersonal sellers emporium with faceless customers." and yet you disrespect a fellow member and try to defend your actions by splitting us up into buyers and sellers. you say "I want sellers to get the highest price they can, and buyers to get the lowest price they can." how did this thread become about what you want? parkertown wanted to let us know about his auction, that's why he created the thread. again I ask you, what gives you, me, or anyone besides him the right to turn this discussion into something different? i remember on one occasion i answered a seller who asked why no one wanted his items by saying they were readily available at lower prices. also, some members have offered public corrections to erroneous statements, i.e., a title advertised as "oop" is actually still in print. the majority of such communications are made through private messages, giving a member the chance to review the information and edit if necessary. i might be wrong, but my perception of the tone of your posts suggests something less altruistic than what you claim. if you really believe you belong to a community, then listen to what several members are trying to tell you. you don't have to agree, but realize that if you continue to do what you did here, you may receive the same kind of peer pressure to stop.

[Aggie87]

Chas' first post was very judgemental (calling people "object-fetishist/golden-eared/"principled" folks"), and his judgements continue ("uppity", "clueless", po faced", "sanctimonius") and yet the irony is that he basically tried to undercut Parkertown's auction by recommending people steal music instead of buying it from Parkertown.

Why he chose to arbitrarily pick this particular thread to recommend "free" downloading is a mystery - his argument applies to every sale/auction thread, and therefore doesn't really belong in *any* particular sale/auction thread. It's a topic that deserves its own discussion, and already has, painfully, over and over.

I wonder when somebody starts a new thread talking about a Prius they just purchased if Chas will hop in and tell the poster that he screwed up and should have merely stole a car off the lot instead.

[Dan Gould]

Chas' first post was very judgemental (calling people "object-fetishist/golden-eared/"principled" folks"), and his judgements continue ("uppity", "clueless", po faced", "sanctimonius") and yet the irony is that he basically tried to undercut Parkertown's auction by recommending people steal music instead of buying it from Parkertown.

Why he chose to arbitrarily pick this particular thread to recommend "free" downloading is a mystery - his argument applies to every sale/auction thread, and therefore doesn't really belong in *any* particular sale/auction thread. It's a topic that deserves its own discussion, and already has, painfully, over and over.

He's also butting up against the prohibition on promoting sharity blogs or soliciting burns.

But then again, in his world, information yearns to be free, so why not?

[Chas]

.....again I ask you, what gives you, me, or anyone besides him the right to turn this discussion into something different?

Let me get this straight . The gravamen of your objection is now that I was responsible for taking this thread somewhere the thread starter didn't intend . Given how long you've been around here and witnessed literally thousands of threads go to places not intended by their starters , I can't help but see your concern as utterly disingenuous . I was criticized , I responded , and the thread went where it did , and not in accordance with any malice on my part . It should be apparent that I value reason , and thus that the kind of peer-pressure-absent-reasoned-discourse found in your posts , Kevin's and especially Erik's , does not incline me to change my behavior .

[Dan Gould]

.....again I ask you, what gives you, me, or anyone besides him the right to turn this discussion into something different?

Let me get this straight . The gravamen of your objection is now that I was responsible for taking this thread somewhere the thread starter didn't intend . Given how long you've been around here and witnessed literally thousands of threads go to places not intended by their starters , I can't help but see your concern as utterly disingenuous . I was criticized , I responded , and the thread went where it did , and not in accordance with any malice on my part .

You've got to be fucking kidding me. "Thread drift" doesn't happen in the Offering and Looking for subforum. When someone puts up something for sale, it should hardly get any responses except from those interested in the items(s).

For reasons of your own, you crapped all over his thread by encouraging anyone here who might have bid on a rare and difficult to find CD by encouraging them to find it for free in blog land. That goes against the stated rules of your host.

But then again, you don't give a shit about your fellow members, why should you give a shit about what your host expects?

Aggie's first comment summed it up completely.

it's not cool to jump on Scott's thread for the purpose of effectively suggesting that people shouldn't purchase this cd from an upstanding board member, but should seek to download it for free instead.

This is not the place for those sort of comments.

That is, unless you aren't a self-centered prick who doesn't give a fuck about actually respecting the community.

[robviti]

...That is, unless you aren't a self-centered prick who doesn't give a fuck about actually respecting the community.

c'mon dan, you and i have gone over this in many of our sessions toegther. stop repressing and tell him how you really feel.

[jazzbo]

NOW THAT's FUNNY!

[Dan Gould]

...That is, unless you aren't a self-centered prick who doesn't give a fuck about actually respecting the community.

c'mon dan, you and i have gone over this in many of our sessions toegther. stop repressing and tell him how you really feel.

Small steps, doc, small steps.

[robviti]

and for those times between sessions when you need a little shrinkage, try:

[JSngry]

Freud trumps Safer!

(this time.... :rmad: :rmad: )

[Van Basten II]

Oh my, there's more action discussing the auction than at the actual auction