EC ed

Hey man...so, when should we post reminders about following the rules and when shouldn't we? We're pretty diligent as a group about posting up Arch's template to remind people that they need to include shipping info, acceptable payment, etc. Why shouldn't we do the same for the rule concerning the basic structure of the marketplace?

OK...I'll work on streamlining it. We'll see how annoying this becomes...once there's a template, it doesn't take that much effort to post it up in a thread. And no...I don't envision hitting a thread with this every time a straggling book comes across that shouldn't be there...only if there are "enough" of them. Although, this raises the question of how many are "enough"....pretty subjective...

What should I change? Less guidance about how to fix the situation?

I'm trying out a new template over in HusTrucK's thread (see my post HERE ). Let me know what you think. Too much?? edit: I just noticed that my gentle reminder in HusTrucK's thread just got poofed! Ooooookaaaaay....

So, I just got home from work and had the following conversation with my wife: Me: "Honey, do you think I'm anal retentive?" Wife (laughing): "Is that a rhetorical question? Are you asking me about the extent of your anal retentiveness?" Me (smiling): "Yes, I suppose that's what I'm asking...how about on a scale from 1 to 10?" Wife: "Well, it depends on the subject, but anywhere from a 7 to a 10." So, all I can say is that I suppose this personality trait can be an asset around here, as well as an annoyance. I'll try to maximize the former and minimize the latter.

I understand your points...I'm really not that uptight about it...just wanted to briefly discuss. Slippery slope, but OK..... sorry for being cryptic...on cell now

Me again...against my better judgment I'm continuing to think out loud about the G/S/B vs. C/M thread location thing, vis-a-vis the rules... Junkdrawer presents us with yet another innovation to the sales thread structure in his sales thread HERE . Junkdrawer went to great pains to run two beautiful, separate threads in G/S/B and C/M, listing everything in it's right place. Then, dirtied things back up again by including the C/M books in his thread recap within the G/S/B thread...listing books, grades, and prices for the C/M books that are located over in his C/M thread. I suppose the general argument would go something like "well, just because the C/M books are listed in a recap in the G/S/B thread with grades and prices, it doesn't mean the C/M books are actually for sale in the G/S/B thread, so it's OK", right? What do you think? Human nature is a fascinating thing to behold. edit: now that I think about this more, this also might run afoul of the other part of rule #3 about posting books in multiple places

It is in the general discussion area you linked to. It wasn't here 5 minutes ago...it was a standalone thread in G/S/B...the mods moved everything over, including my request to move..

When you make a payment in PayPal, you can do so under one of two classifications...(1) paying for goods and services, or (2) sending money to family and friends. If you use PayPal to make a payment for a purchase of any good, item, service...whatever you want to call it...you are supposed to use classification (1), and PayPal charges a fee (roughly 3%) which reduces the amount of money the seller receives. PayPal is a for profit business, and they provide a valuable service for which they are entitled to this fee. As part of its business model, PayPal decided to provide the ability to send money to friends and family for things unrelated to the purchase of goods or services, with NO FEE...these types of gratuitous monetary transfers fall under category (2)...it is category (2) that is often referred to as PayPal "Personal." Requesting the use of that method is what is technically forbidden on the boards, because comics or any other item that is sold here are unambiguously "goods." Many buyers/sellers of goods, items or services are tempted to use the "Personal" classification to avoid the fee...however, doing so is strictly against PayPal rules...and some would call it worse than that. edit: joeycgcmaniac was faster on the draw than me

Again, please redirect the question to the above link I provided, delete this thread, and I'll give you an answer. edit: ditto

Please redirect this question to the general discussions area ( CLICK HERE ) and delete this thread from the sales area, and we can elaborate if necessary. edit: when I wrote this, the thread was a standalone thread in G/S/B...the mods moved everything over here. Thought I'd clarify, otherwise this looks

Ok, so let me make a quick post on my behalf if I may. So obviously I'm new here and with that comes a little bit of a learning curve. I've bought a lot of books recently and have watched as new sellers constantly get bashed when they don't do it quite right. I haven't really been bashed yet, thank God, but being a new seller can be a daunting task! I have studied how to sell correctly and I honestly thought I had all my t's crossed and i's dotted. When it was moved I was a little shocked since Dale's thread has mixed books as well. I also understand that he is a seasoned veteran and with that comes leeway. And lastly I totally feel where your coming from. You've been here for awhile, know how things should and shouldn't go and are totally justified getting perturbed with new boardies mucking it up from time to time....... So I really thought I was doing it right by putting the correct books into the correct threads. As far as the freebies, I thought that would be fun and draw people in. The TT44 was happily claimed as was the Silver Spider-Man. I promise I'm trying to do things right and I can also promise I only make mistakes once. I'd also like to thank a few seasoned members who have been very helpful with me and trying to keep me on the road to doing things correctly!!! I've had a great time here so far, have some fun budding relationships already and I hope to become a valued member of this society. I sincerely apologize if I didn't get it quite right the first time and I promise to do a better job next time. - Drew Seems like you're doing fine, Drew. (thumbs u (that's a sincere thumbs up, not an insincere thumbs up) I was just curious what others thought about the freebie thing...that was a pretty new innovation, and I was just thinking out loud about how that interacts with the rules, given all of the recent discussion. The sense seems to be that freebies are OK, and that's probably right, I suppose.... Also, I'm still pretty new around here myself (I wasn't even eligible for the gift exchange this year ) , and similarly still trying to figure things out...

I don't have a real issue with his thread, per se...just thinking about how the general idea of doing this relates to the rules at a technical level. And this one caught my eye because of how he moved this thread back to G/S/B with C/M books remaining in it after it had been moved by the mods to Mixed, with self-justification for why he moved the thread back with the C/M books still in there... And trust me, the last thing I want to be is the rules police...sweet mother...I can't keep doing this.

(thumbs u I had already used "perplexed" in a recent post up above, so didn't want to be repetitive. Mix it up a bit. And isn't it the case that the mods moved his thread to Mixed once already today? Now he takes the initiative to move it back, and actually addresses the mods in the first thread post, telling them it's OK that he moved it back because now the C/Ms are freebies? Do I have this right?

I don't like the precedent that TheMightyMidget is trying to establish here... that is, the argument that as long as copper/modern books are technically offered as freebies, it's not a rules violation to put them in G/S/B (see the G/S/B thread HERE ). So, if books are placed in the wrong area, the mods should not move the thread if the incorrectly placed books are offered as freebies (and there are 3 of them in there...not 1, as indicated in the initial post...so, 20% of the books in that thread are C/M)? What? I disagree. Don't get the logic...actually, there is no logic offered. Thoughts on this concept? And the most flummoxing thing is that TheMightyMidget actually (appropriately) has a concurrent thread established in C/M! Why not just put them there? Why, oh why, oh why does this have to be so complicated?

+1 I went looking for the rule that provides guidance about the correct location to spew personal vitriol, but couldn't find anything directly on point. And all this on the heels of such a productive discussion...

Dale, I applaud you for that decision, sir. Although I think the separate thread approach provides a nice, clean structure, Rupp raises an interesting point about putting the thread back in Mixed that relates to my thoughts about Mixed that I didn't want to digress to earlier... This is for all of us to consider: Why is Mixed a four-letter word? If any of us thinks it’s better to have our books in one large thread for whatever reason, why not run our threads in Mixed? That’s what it’s there for. Is it because it’s a “low traffic” area…no one goes there...it's too much trouble to check it…is that it? I don’t think that’s true…say I’m browsing the boards, I have some money with which to buy comics…I think, ‘hey, I wonder if there are any good threads in Mixed’…I click the link. Why does no one go there…because there are never any good sales threads there? Is that why? I assure you that if Dale Roberts was running an epic sales thread in Mixed, I'd go there. Do you see how this is endogenous? If people put quality combined threads in Mixed instead of incorrectly putting them elsewhere, Mixed would not be a low traffic area…people would go there, and sellers would love putting their threads there. It’s self-fulfilling! You could make a case that the collective rules violations (putting combined threads elsewhere) are a key cause of why Mixed is a low traffic area!

Fixed that. Didn't want things to be mischaracterized. Let's be fair to the moderators. The moderators never imposed any punishment (nor should they have). The (appropriate) moving of the thread to Mixed was not punishment, but was simply putting the thread where it "should have been" in the first place. Punishment would have been the imposition of some extra consequences on top of putting the thread where it belonged to begin with. The moderators did not impose any such extra consequences (correctly so).

Guys and gals, I'm perplexed. This doesn't seem like a difficult problem to me. I myself just went through this with some large sales threads of my own. It doesn't cost money to start sales threads in the different areas. So, here's the scenario...say I have a stack of comics I want to sell. I determine a reasonable starting point for the Copper Age...let's call it January 1984. I scan all of my comics. I recognize that I have some comics that were printed prior to January, 1984 (and therefore belong in G/S/B), and some comics that were printed after January, 1984 (and therefore belong in C/M). OK...say for some reason I don't want to put my comics in Mixed (because it's a low traffic area or something like that...that's another issue I don't understand, but I don't want to digress). Fine. So, I open up a sales thread in G/S/B. Also, I put a little note at the bottom of my first G/S/B post (or in my signature) that I'm going to start up a C/M thread as well, and if anyone is interested, go check it out. Then, I go over to C/M and start up that sales thread, similarly alerting people to the existence of my concurrent G/S/B thread. In both cases I announce "you can combine shipping for books across my two threads!" Then, I get ready to start listing my books. If the book (or scan) I'm holding in my hand was printed prior to January 1984, I post that entry in my G/S/B thread. If the book (or scan) I'm holding in my hand was printed after January 1984, I post it up in my C/M thread. Problem solved. Clean sales threads in the correct areas. Comics being viewed by audiences most interested in those eras.... For the love of Festivus, can someone please explain to me why this is so difficult to accomplish? Ed

Good estimate! 72 "misplaced" listings out of 281 total listings to date, according to my personal calculations. 72/281 = 25.6%. This is using January, 1984 as the beginning of the Copper Age. Of course, if you believe the Copper Age started before January, 1984, the numerator increases. (As has been stated, this is indeed not the core issue...just an interesting statistic...I like statistics )

Also, just to make sure I'm clear (then I'm going to stop my rant), the initial thread placement or mix of books therein was not what infuriated me...that's why I'm not railing on "them." My issue was summarized best up above by another boardie, so I'll just post that rather than rephrase: That hits it on the head, right there. And the "lack of respect" idea is not a lack of respect on your part, but on the part of the authority. (thumbs u

I appreciate that response, Dale. Further, I appreciate your presence here on the boards and in the hobby, and I was looking forward to your sale. Surely though, if you put yourself in the shoes of a detached observer and look at the message chain I outline in my last post above, you could see how this course of events might be infuriating. As for the logic about what has happened in the past and what other people are doing, my opinion is that's never really a good reason to continue doing things the "wrong way," because as has apparently occurred over time, the "wrong way" has now become the norm...this is what happens, I'm afraid. Again, as I mention in one of my other posts above, if the norm is now that everything gets mixed in anyway and people are OK with that, why don't we just do away with the separate sub-fora and have one general sales area? You are correct that I don't have a long history here, but I'm assuming that the separate sub-fora were established for a reason. If that reason still exists, then we each need to try to do our best to preserve that structure. Again, I appreciate your response, and my infuriation at the circumstances is nothing personal. Best, Ed

Oh, and for convenience, here are some direct snippets from the thread (bold font added by me for emphasis): Page 1: Page 3 (after the mods moved the thread to Mixed, which by the way was also after Dale had already posted two books in the thread: 1 Golden Age and 1 Modern): Page 6: Page 28: Page 43 (after the mods moved the thread BACK to G/S/B): Yup - I started reading in mixed and now it moved to GA/SA/BA. It does look like it belongs in mixed...., but an awesome assortment of material!! And I would like to offer special thanks to Dena and all the mods for helping me out here. Dale Page 44: Ultimately, does it really matter? Looks like your thread is doing just fine regardless of "location". Probably not. I was pretty fired up last night when my thread got moved right before I was going to start posting. But the mods were cool enough to talk to me about it, and I appreciate that. Anyway, enough of this. Its over and done. "enough of this", he says.... That's rich...

Nope, Hector...you got it right. (thumbs u

Actually, in many ways I agree with you (joeycgcmaniac), and I actually have nothing personally against Dale. This is just a comics board, and at the core we're just talking about funny books...should not be any cause to get riled up about funny books, right? Seems a bit silly. What I'm riled up about is a more fundamental concept - the display of a fundamental, transparent feeling by someone that (for whatever reason) the rules should not apply to that person, and the authoritative powers openly taking an action that reinforces that imbalance. It's a more primitive issue than comics, and one that elicits strong emotions in me, personally. So, if the rules about where to list books have indeed gone to mess and it's just a big open marketplace for selling anything and everything in one place, that's fine too. We should just communicate to the mods that that's what we want, and delete all these separate areas in favor of one marketplace forum with no sub-fora....then, we won't have this issue.