EC ed

two scams in one day?

2014 picking up right where 2013 left off with this ....

I hear you.

Look...HOS/PL sellers starting sales threads sucks - no doubt about it. I wish we could kick those threads out. But, right now we can't. This is written in the marketplace forum in plain view:

"A probation list for bad transactions is maintained by the community. You are still responsible for your own transactions."

Maybe make it BOLD, RED, and add "For the love of community, Pretty Please click this link to check the PL/HOS list before engaging in a transaction; otherwise, you're a insufficiently_thoughtful_person."

Which is kinda silly, since we're supposed to be policing the sales threads ourselves. At least, that's my understanding.

Policing sales threads requires a rule to be broken...otherwise, there's no policing to be done. HOS/PL sellers are not breaking any rules by starting sales threads, just like roofers who have BBB ratings of "D" aren't breaking any laws by continuing to advertise their roofing services.

Why not just post in the sales that that the seller in on the HOS/PL?

Because those sales threads are not in violation of marketplace guidelines; therefore, posting this information in their threads is threadcrapping under the current system.

If there is an effective way to deal with HOS/PL sellers spitting in the face of the community and flipping the bird to the list.

I'll help be the Devil's advocate here. How is it that an HOS/PL member starting a sales thread is "spitting in the face of the community"? It's not against marketplace guidelines for them to start a sales thread.

Rather, it's up to the community to ignore those sales threads, and perhaps direct scorn towards those members who choose to do business with HOS/PL sellers...but that's a different matter entirely...

I understand the emotion of hypothetically wanting to "allow" boardies to back out of deals with PL/HOS members...I share that emotion. However, logically, I'm not so sure how I feel about this...isn't it a buyer's responsibility to figure out whether a seller is on the PL/HOS before hitting the 'take it'? Not sure "not knowing" is a legit excuse...the link to the PL/HOS is right there at the top of every marketplace forum area...we're not children. If someone doesn't understand what's going on here (or doesn't care) and starts transacting, that's on them, to a large extent.

I like to think of real world analogies for stuff...suppose I need a new roof on my house. I go out and sign a contract with ABC Roofing Company and agree that I'm going to pay them do my roof. Later, it comes to my attention that ABC Roofing Company has a 'D' Better Business Bureau rating, and I'd rather not have them do my roof. Tough - I can't get out of the contract I signed on this basis. I should have done my research before I signed the contract, right? Just sayin'...

Now, if it was against the rules for PL/HOS members to start sales threads in the first place, that would mitigate this problem before it starts...maybe that rule change is what we should push for...

Jon just bought a couple of Superman-related issues from me - just an all-around pleasant transaction. Great communication and speedy payment. KUDOS!

I hate to bring this up, but there seems to be an unfortunate problem. I just read and re-read the marketplace rules again. I can't find a rule in the marketplace guidelines against an HOS/PL member starting a sales thread. Can anybody else find it? If it doesn't exist, it should...otherwise, I don't see a basis for the mods to poof these threads...if the mods don't see those threads as being in violation of marketplace guidelines, that might explain their stance on the threadcrapping, etc.

Nothing should happen to Swick, and the mods should remove the thread. After all, what good is having the lists, that the mods supported, if they don't enforce it.

100%

Swick just took one for the team...will be interesting to see what happens....

I just received a beautiful slabbed EC SSS 12 8.0 from Tom. Just an absolute pleasure of a transaction, with great communication & bomb-proof shipping.

What do you consider to be the dividing line/date for choosing the Golden/silver/Bronze or the Copper/Modern? I thing of bronze going to like 1985 but wanted other opinions

I just got notified that the shill has cancelled all of his bids

Well, that didn't take long

Edowens: Use your enthusiasm for good, not pot-stirring...or torch-carrying...or whatever.

mrwoogieman: The thing of it is, that's sincerely what I'm trying to do. I don't know how many different ways I can try to say that that is my intention. However, it seems that every time I come into a discussion thread and attempt to help steer the discussion in what seems to me to be a more substantive direction, my attempts get characterized by some as pot-stirring, torch-carrying, inciting controversy, etc. I tell you what - it just seems that I haven't figured out how to substantively contribute to a discussion thread around here without someone characterizing my attempted contribution in this fashion. I'll keep trying, but it's proving difficult. Take this latest discussion...I come in and try to offer an alternative way of thinking about a potential solution to a debate that has apparently been going on here for years that was already being actively discussed in this thread, and I'm suddenly stirring the pot. Geesh.

I think the biggest challenge with this consolidated historic list (which has been talked about for a few years) would be the hard feelings it can cause, which you are experiencing right now.

 

When reviewing that list, there are long-time members that show up once years ago. So when they see their one-time incident being brought up after all these years, naturally they are not going to appreciate this.

 

If any list is posted (including the one you created), better to drop the one-timers just to be fair. Otherwise, how do we ever let people move on when they never had another issue ever again?

Again, I'm not advocating anything at this point...I'll leave that discussion to those of you who have been discussing this for years already. As I said, hopefully seeing the PL activity summary will be helpful when that discussion recurs.

edit: also, notice that I intentionally didn't label this analysis as a "list" - I certainly didn't suggest that any connotation be attached to it, such as "Tool Shed", "Problem Children", "Scarlet Letter Recipients", or anything like that...it's just a neutral summary of what has factually happened on the PL since inception. In fact, if you read back you'll see that I brought this up as as an alternative to such lists that were being suggested.

I will say, however, that it seems like the principle at issue here is one of information transparency. Should this information be transparent or opaque? I think it's an overstatement to say that making the historical PL activity transparent will prevent people from moving on. For example, seeing a long-time member on there years ago would not have any effect on my willingness to deal with them (as an aside, one of my large early purchases on these boards was from one such boardie that is involved in this discussion). There are comparisons/analogies that can be drawn between this and criminal records out in real society, but I'll leave those for the lawyers...

You said yourself that there are few repeat offenders.

I didn't know this until I did that historical activity summary...did you? Someone had to do it if we wanted to see the situation. Otherwise, we'd just continue on this issue without information that was relevant to the discussion. So....there it is.

Why do you and your torch-carrying villagers feel the need to keep your boot on their necks?

I think it's pretty clear that I'm not carrying a torch on this one.

For Menace, should have been 1/9/14 removal (not 1/9/13)...typo..fixing it now...

 

Also he was never on PL list was he, I thought he was HOS?

Indeed he was on the PL....added to the PL on 12/6/13; moved from the PL to the HOS on 12/21/13; removed from the HOS (and not put back on the PL) on 1/9/14.

This idea has already been attempted and was shot down.

Start what you're attempting to start and just see how effective the list is at getting differences resolved.

If you're going to keep people in the mud, there will be little effort from someone to get their name off of it, rendering it completely useless.

Just to be clear...this isn't something I'm trying to start. Back on page 2145 or so of this thread, a serious conversation was brewing (started by other people) about starting a third list of past offenders, etc., or even somehow branding such people with scarlet letters (I agree with you that this idea seems to resurface from time to time). I simply pointed out that a less abrasive step would be to simply summarize the historical PL removal activity. Some people seemed to think that would be a useful step (one that might also satisfy the "scarlet letter" contingent). I just went ahead and carried out that summary from the documented activity in the PL thread...it's just a regurgitation of information that's already out there. I don't see how summarizing this information keeps someone in the mud. Anyway, it's just something to try to advance that conversation by showing what things would start to look like...actually, one of the findings is that repeat offenses actually don't happen all that often, so what some perceive to be a problem might not really be a problem at all. In any event, if we don't want to even maintain this summary of PL activity, it's hard to argue that we would want to take a harsher step like a third list or something along those lines...

For Menace, should have been 1/9/14 removal (not 1/9/13)...typo..fixing it now...

 

Comicseekers added 5/10/2009 removed 6/2/2009 ( 23 days on PL)

Comicseekers added 7/19/2009 removed 8/12/2009 ( 24 days on PL)

Comicseekers/primeinvestibles/megacon added 9/14/2010 removed 11/18/2012 ( 796 days on PL) * moved to HOS

 

primeinvestibles added 10/9/2011 removed 11/11/2011 ( 33 days on PL)

Should the bottom primeinvestibles be added to the top comicseekers/primeinvestibles?

Perhaps...tricky to present the ones with the aliases...this particular presentation just reports all the removal instances as they were classified at the time. I suppose people didn't realize that primeinvestibles was an alias for Comicseekers until after the fact, then the alias was added to the Comicseekers entry in the list. There's definitely some room for cleaning up this presentation....

So, I finished this little side project....I slogged through all 109 pages of the Probation List thread and parsed out all of the removals (that was a great lesson in board history). Here are the results, sorted alphabetically by boardie name:

PROBATION LIST REMOVALS (through 1/14/14)

Boardie1 added 6/30/2013 removed 9/17/2013 ( 80 days on PL)

Boardie2 added 5/23/2008 removed 6/26/2009 ( 400 days on PL) * moved to HOS

Boardie2 added 3/24/2009 removed 11/27/2009 ( 249 days on PL)

Boardie3 added 9/19/2008 removed 11/8/2008 ( 51 days on PL)

Boardie5 added 9/14/2012 removed 3/30/2013 ( 198 days on PL)

Boardie6 added 5/5/2008 removed 5/6/2008 ( 2 days on PL)

Boardie6 added 5/21/2009 removed 6/26/2009 ( 37 days on PL) * moved to HOS

Boardie7 added 10/22/2007 removed 10/25/2007 ( 4 days on PL)

Boardie8 added 7/1/2011 removed 7/3/2011 ( 3 days on PL)

Boardie9 added 5/10/2009 removed 6/2/2009 ( 24 days on PL)

Boardie9 added 7/19/2009 removed 8/12/2009 ( 25 days on PL)

Boardie9 added 9/14/2010 removed 11/18/2012 ( 797 days on PL) * moved to HOS

Boardie10 added 10/28/2008 removed 6/26/2009 ( 242 days on PL) * moved to HOS

Boardie11 added 10/12/2008 removed 4/9/2009 ( 180 days on PL)

Boardie12 added 1/8/2011 removed 3/23/2011 ( 75 days on PL)

Boardie13 added 12/7/2007 removed 1/16/2008 ( 41 days on PL)

Boardie14 added 12/17/2011 removed 11/27/2012 ( 347 days on PL)

Boardie15 added 12/11/2012 removed 12/16/2012 ( 6 days on PL)

Boardie16 added 11/7/2007 removed 2/20/2008 ( 106 days on PL)

Boardie17 added 11/5/2008 removed 6/26/2009 ( 234 days on PL) * moved to HOS

Boardie18 added 10/22/2007 removed 10/25/2007 ( 4 days on PL)

Boardie19 added 3/27/2007 removed 6/26/2009 ( 823 days on PL) * moved to HOS

Boardie20 added 2/2/2008 removed 2/6/2008 ( 5 days on PL)

Boardie21 added 12/9/2008 removed 12/30/2008 ( 22 days on PL)

Boardie22 added 4/7/2013 removed 5/17/2013 ( 41 days on PL)

Boardie23 added 2/14/2008 removed 3/24/2010 ( 770 days on PL)

Boardie24 added 8/9/2007 removed 8/16/2008 ( 374 days on PL)

Boardie24 added 11/2/2010 removed 11/3/2010 ( 2 days on PL) * moved to HOS

Boardie25 added 2/2/2008 removed 2/20/2008 ( 19 days on PL)

Boardie26 added 11/4/2009 removed 11/5/2009 ( 2 days on PL)

Boardie26 added 10/23/2010 removed 10/28/2010 ( 6 days on PL)

Boardie27 added 2/14/2008 removed 2/14/2008 ( 1 days on PL)

Boardie28 added 12/6/2013 removed 1/9/2014 ( 45 days on PL)

Boardie29 added 3/18/2010 removed 6/10/2010 ( 85 days on PL)

Boardie30 added 1/24/2009 removed 6/24/2012 ( 1248 days on PL)

Boardie31 added 11/18/2013 removed 11/23/2013 ( 6 days on PL)

Boardie32 added 10/18/2007 removed 5/20/2008 ( 216 days on PL)

Boardie33 added 12/7/2007 removed 5/22/2008 ( 168 days on PL)

Boardie34 added 12/1/2013 removed 12/30/2013 ( 30 days on PL)

Boardie35 added 5/23/2012 removed 11/22/2012 ( 184 days on PL)

Boardie36 added 12/29/2008 removed 12/30/2010 ( 732 days on PL)

Boardie37 added 7/6/2010 removed 7/9/2010 ( 4 days on PL)

Boardie38 added 11/14/2013 removed 11/26/2013 ( 13 days on PL)

Boardie39 added 2/21/2008 removed 8/9/2008 ( 171 days on PL)

Boardie40 added 6/2/2009 removed 6/26/2009 ( 25 days on PL) * moved to HOS

Boardie41 added 1/11/2008 removed 7/9/2010 ( 911 days on PL)

Boardie42 added 7/21/2010 removed 8/12/2010 ( 23 days on PL) * moved to HOS

Boardie43 added 12/15/2009 removed 12/15/2009 ( 1 days on PL)

Boardie44 added 3/12/2009 removed 3/12/2009 ( 1 days on PL)

Boardie44 added 6/23/2009 removed 4/25/2011 ( 672 days on PL)

Boardie45 added 11/4/2009 removed 12/8/2009 ( 35 days on PL)

Boardie46 added 8/16/2012 removed 9/14/2012 ( 30 days on PL)

Boardie47 added 5/17/2013 removed 7/7/2013 ( 52 days on PL)

A couple interesting observations...turns out that repeating PL offenses is not that common...and when repeat offenders raise their heads, they typically wind up being upgraded to the HOS in pretty short order. Now, what we do with this summary is the next question...just file it away for personal use, or put it in a publicly accessible thread somewhere and maintain it going forward...

EDIT (1/17/14): I edited out actual Boardie names from this list. Until such time that the community decides definitively whether and how we want to make this information transparent, I thought it would be better to remove actual names, to avoid any negative connotations that might arise with respect to people that happen to show up in this history. This information exists in raw form out in the Probation List thread, if anyone chooses to access it for whatever reason. You can still see here that repeat offenders are relatively uncommon, and when they occur, they tend to wind up moving to HOS. Specifically, since the beginning of the PL in 2007, there have been 8 repeat offenders (6 highlighted in orange above, plus two who are currently on the PL that have previous PL visits). Of these 8 repeat offenders, 4 are currently in the HOS. These facts alone should be useful in the debate of whether we should have a repeat offender "list", should the debate recur.

I would think that most people wouldn't like being on a list that had a negative connotation, but if it's deserved, I wouldn't worry about their feelings too much.

 

There would be really nothing to enforce per se, it would just be list to warn people that if you deal with said person it might not go smoothly as they have a history.

 

This thing wouldn't need to be structured as a "scarlet letter" list that people are "added" to. It would accomplish the same end if we just kept the institutional memory of the probation list historical activity in an easy to access summarized location. That is, simply keep a documented "list" of probation list removals. Simply something like this:

 

PROBATION LIST REMOVALS

 

1/17/05 Boardie X was removed from the PL

3/24/05 Boardie Y was removed from the PL

7/18/06 Boardie Z was removed from the PL

9/27/07 Boardie X was removed from the PL

 

Stickie this thing at the top of the discussion area, just next to the thread that contains the actual PL. If this was easy to access, it would be trivial for me to see that Boardie X has been on the PL twice, and I can use that information as I see fit. Tough to argue with simply trying to summarize instutional history. This wouldn't have the connotation of putting someone on a list, but the info is there nonetheless.

 

I agree, it would be hard to object to the existence of a list such as this, which merely restates existing facts. If the list were ordered alphabetically rather than by date it would achieve the objective, yes?

 

 

Sounds like a good idea to me.

Back on this idea for a minute...I just spent some time going back through the PL thread starting at its inception in October 2007, and started compiling a spreadsheet of all the PL removals...so far, made it through the first 50 pages (roughly the beginning of 2010). Here's what it would look like through that point (of course, we could format this better, sort it by name, etc., but you get the idea...):

PROBATION LIST REMOVALS (THROUGH 12/31/09)

Boardie18 added 10/22/2007 was removed 10/25/2007 ( 3 days on PL)

Boardie7 added 10/22/2007 was removed 10/25/2007 ( 3 days on PL)

Boardie13 added 12/7/2007 was removed 1/16/2008 ( 40 days on PL)

Boardie20 added 2/2/2008 was removed 2/6/2008 ( 4 days on PL)

Boardie27 added 2/14/2008 was removed 2/14/2008 ( 0 days on PL)

Boardie25 added 2/2/2008 was removed 2/20/2008 ( 18 days on PL)

Boardie16 added 11/7/2007 was removed 2/20/2008 ( 105 days on PL)

Boardie6 added 5/5/2008 was removed 5/6/2008 ( 1 days on PL)

Boardie32 added 10/18/2007 was removed 5/20/2008 ( 215 days on PL)

Boardie33 added 12/7/2007 was removed 5/22/2008 ( 167 days on PL)

Boardie39 added 2/21/2008 was removed 8/9/2008 ( 170 days on PL)

Boardie24 added 8/9/2007 was removed 8/16/2008 ( 373 days on PL)

Boardie3 added 9/19/2008 was removed 11/8/2008 ( 50 days on PL)

Boardie21 added 12/9/2008 was removed 12/30/2008 ( 21 days on PL)

Boardie44 added 3/12/2009 was removed 3/12/2009 ( 0 days on PL)

Boardie11 added 10/12/2008 was removed 4/9/2009 ( 179 days on PL)

Boardie9 added 5/10/2009 was removed 6/2/2009 ( 23 days on PL)

Boardie6 added 5/21/2009 was removed 6/26/2009 ( 36 days on PL) *moved to HOS

Boardie10 added 10/28/2008 was removed 6/26/2009 ( 241 days on PL) *moved to HOS

Boardie17 added 11/5/2008 was removed 6/26/2009 ( 233 days on PL) *moved to HOS

Boardie19 added 3/27/2007 was removed 6/26/2009 ( 822 days on PL) *moved to HOS

Boardie40 added 6/2/2009 was removed 6/26/2009 ( 24 days on PL) *moved to HOS

Boardie2 added 5/23/2008 was removed 6/26/2009 ( 399 days on PL) *moved to HOS

Boardie9 added 7/19/2009 was removed 8/12/2009 ( 24 days on PL)

Boardie26 added 11/4/2009 was removed 11/5/2009 ( 1 days on PL)

Boardie2 added 3/24/2009 was removed 11/27/2009 ( 248 days on PL) *moved to HOS

Boardie45 added 11/4/2009 was removed 12/8/2009 ( 34 days on PL)

Boardie43 added 12/15/2009 was removed 12/15/2009 ( 0 days on PL)

Potentially useful? If so, I'll continue....

EDIT (1/17/14): I edited out actual Boardie names from this list. Until such time that the community decides definitively whether and how we want to make this information accessible, I thought it would be better to return this to anonymity, to avoid any negative connotations that might arise. This information exists in raw form out in the Probation List thread, if anyone chooses to access it for whatever reason.