A response from a CGC IT! ebay seller!

[RockMyAmadeus]

Is it accurate to refer a raw book as 9.8? No it is not. That book is not a 9.8 until it gets graded.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

We´ll just have to agree to disagree

Yes, as the disagreement is between those with a rational basis for their position and those with no interest in such.

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

I give Barbarian some major for being on the other side of the argument. Harold Fuller, take note.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

CGC it has something to do with a listing of a comic book. That is the reason why I don´t see it as spam.

Using that reasoning, you could put ANY word with a slight connection to your listed item, no matter what the relevance. I think eBay's policies, which I posted at length, are very clear that a distant possible connection is not adequate as a justification.

 

Its a comic book listing, CGC grades comic books. The book is ungraded, one´s saying to get it graded.

Yeah, we understand that's the rationale. But the seller's job is not to tell people (or suggest to people) what to do after they potentially purchase an item. The seller's job is to accurately describe the item, period. Offering a suggestion of something they might do after they buy the item is completely outside the responsibility of the seller --ESPECIALLY if that suggestion is a form of keyword spamming. eBay's policies make this clear.

 

Do you dispute that this is eBay's policy? Let me ask you that again: Do you dispute that eBay has a policy against spamming keywords that do not directly describe the item being listed? Let me ask you one more time: Are you actually disputing that eBay's policy is eBay's policy?

 

Now, let me put this another way: Would you be convinced if an eBay representative specifically addressed this situation and definitively affirmed that no, "CGC it" is not within eBay's listing guidelines? Yes or no?

 

If it´s from serious dealer + good grader it might actually be of interest to people who collect CGC books to get that particular one and get it graded.

This is a rationalization. Why rationalize keyword spamming? But let's put this to the test: Let's take a board survey of how many eBay browsers out there, when seeking high-grade books they'd like to eventually submit to CGC, do searches for "CGC it" in hopes of finding high-grade books. Anybody search eBay this way? Bueller? Bueller?

 

If a browser wants to find high-grade books, that person has many options for search terms: "high grade," "near mint," "very fine," "like new," etc. Those would all be better search terms than "CGC it" because, let's be honest, most reputable sellers who are offering high-grade comics do not put "CGC it" in their listings.

 

Your rationalization also fails to acknowledge the net negative of the spam keyword. You say that "CGC it" might help people find high-grade raw books. But what about all the people who are trying to find CGC-graded books who then get search results that are opposite to what they're seeking? Do they not count in your analysis? You claim a benefit while ignoring the obvious flipside.

 

Who am I to decide that a particular listing or book is not CGC worthy or should not be graded?

This question is irrelevant since the judgment of individual books is secondary to the larger question of appropriate listing terms. The primary question is whether "CGC it" violates eBay's listing guidelines and their rules against keyword spamming. It has been well-demonstrated that yes, "CGC it" does violate their guidelines.

 

And who am I to decide what is of interest to people searching on Ebay?

Again, it's not about you, it's about eBay's policies and the logical reasons behind their policies. But I would wager that if you were to do a statistical analysis of individual search patterns, or a survey of what comic-book browsers prefer, you'd discover that a hard majority of people prefer not to be burdened with keyword spamming and other distractions that dilute the effectiveness of their search terms. People searching for "Nike" don't want to get results that say "Adidas not Nike," or "Just like Nike." They want to get results full of actual Nikes.

 

Apparently it bothers some people while looking for only CGC graded books. A very simple solution was given here by Doohickamabob before to avoid it.

Yes, I did give a solution, but it's not necessarily "very simple." It involves having to post a long chain of Booleans in each and every search that a person does. The average person searching on eBay only has a fleeting grasp of Boolean search terms and would have to spend time tinkering around with them to finally weed out all the false positives for CGC searches. Whether or not my solution works, the point is that people shouldn't have to jump through hoops to avoid keyword spamming to begin with. Somebody letting their dog take a dump on your lawn day after day is also easily dealt with by cleaning up the dog-doo, but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

 

I´m not saying that its the rationale from all sellers, but apparently, the one that responded the OP, had something like that in mind.

Don't you think the rationale for most sellers is for their item to show up even when people aren't searching for it? Just in hopes of getting a few more eyeballs on their stuff and hopefully selling it? That's obviously the rationale. And.....drum roll....that's keyword spamming. Which.....drum roll.....is clearly against eBay policy. Are you really going to dispute that it's keyword spamming, and are you really going to dispute that it's against eBay policy?

 

The idea that a seller puts "CGC it" in his listing title to "help" people find high-graded books is ludicrous. I mean, you reaaaaalllly have to stretch common sense to make a claim that the seller is trying to be helpful. And note that the OP's example demonstrates clearly that the seller wasn't helping people at all, since he had listed a couple hundred raw books with "CGC it" in the title and a significant portion of them weren't even close to high-grade. So your claim that "CGC it" might help people find CGC-worthy books is demonstrably false, if this example is any indication.

 

Is it true that its CGC worthy? It´s irrelevant for the point I am trying to make.

Is the CGC it put there for hits? Yes, but It´s irrelevant for the point I am trying to make.

Why is it irrelevant to the point you're trying to make? What point are you trying to make, anyway? You haven't made much of a point at all, other than repeating the same rationalizations in new ways and ignoring the central issue of how "keyword spamming" is defined (quite clearly, and repeatedly, in eBay's seller pages) and what eBay's policy is about it (it's strongly against it).

 

Which is: It is not misusing the brand and if you look at it the way I do, its not spamming.

"If you look at it the way I do" is the problem in this sentence. You haven't given logical reasons for why you look at it the way you do. Mostly what you've stated is that you choose to blatantly ignore the definition of "keyword spamming" and you choose to blatantly ignore the question of what eBay's policy is. How else are you looking at it, if not that way?

 

In fact, since I have no invested interests in either case, my answer was as unemotional and rational as it comes.

Being uninvested in something does not guarantee that one will be rational about it. Sometimes distance from a subject even feeds into someone's ignorance. I'm not "emotional" about the subject but I do have a first-hand knowledge of what a problem it is when you're trying to find something specific and sellers use keyword spam to cheat their way into your search results. It's a net negative because you end up spending 10 minutes to find something would take 5 minutes if people weren't selfishly throwing false positives in your way. If I search for "Superman" I don't want to find a bunch of "Green Lantern" comics, I want to find "Superman." If I search for "CGC" I don't want to find a bunch of raw comics that the seller thinks look nice, I want to find CGC-graded comics. Etc.

 

You don´t agree with my reasoning and I don´t agree with yours.

This symmetry does not mean both viewpoints are equally valid. The comparison point for arguments is determined by the strength of the reasoning within each individual argument. I have directly responded to and rebuted your arguments, while you keep ignoring the basic thrust of mine, which is that (1) "CGC it" falls well within the definition of "keyword spamming", in spite of unsupported rationalizations and flimsy speculation to the contrary, and (2) eBay has a very clear policy against keyword spamming.

 

A comic book is not an "accessory" to CGC, it's the primary product being sold.

This is incorrect. CGC does not sell books, they sell grades (and graders notes). Buy the book, then the grade is the moto

You just said "this is incorrect" and then you gave no explanation for why it is incorrect. Your statement that "CGC does not sell books, they sell grades" in no way contradicts my statement that the "comic book....it the primary product being sold" in an eBay listing for a raw comic book.

Which brings me to second point, the one with the juice: numerical grades grades in raw books.

This point has no "juice" because it has absolutely nothing to do with the question of whether or not "CGC it" is keyword spamming that violates eBay's policy. How does the existence of one abusive practice negate the existence of another, unrelated abusive practice?

 

Is it true that its a 9.8? ... Does this clutters a lot more listings than all CGC it combined? Yes, just the 9.8 is enough.

In what way does this make "CGC it" any less a form of keyword spamming? I'll answer that for you: It doesn't.

 

Now, having said all of that, here are some flowers:

 

I was having to scroll left to right to read the thread, so when I got to this one, I thought RMA surely must be posting again.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

I was having to scroll left to right to read the thread, so when I got to this one, I thought RMA surely must be posting again.

RMA and I have one thing in common: obsessive-compulsive responding.

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Either way you slice it, I have always felt like people here purposefully bait arguments to futher degrade threads into mindless Spoon talking. My

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Whether you agree with Barbarian or not I have to fall in line with RacerX on this one. Its not conducive to civil debate to blatantly call people names because you dont agree with their position.

 

Oh wait a second Do the forums have a elitist slant? Maybe? Does having thousands of posts give you the right to talk about so called noobs just cuz the post counts are low? Speaking as a low post count "noob" it sure seems that way sometimes

 

Either way you slice it, I have always felt like people here purposefully bait arguments to futher degrade threads into mindless Spoon talking. My

 

I think it's pretty simple, actually. Whosoever gets all angry and fist-shaky and insulting is generally the person that lost the argument. I personally don't use the "CGC it" noise in my listings but I also don't really care that they exist. Just doesn't seem all that meaningful either way. But to start insulting someone because they don't agree with you is to be awfully thin-skinned.

 

Yeah. That's me. Thin skinned.

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Seems to me that either there are a lot of bored people on this site. Or a lot of panties twiested up. These are minor things on Ebay, and if you can't live with them. How on earth are you going to get along with a women? These things should be expected, and they are not against any rules or laws.

This is the ultimate in irony -- somebody reading and posting in a thread who then criticizes other people for the simple act of reading and posting in the same thread.

 

Anyway, a lot of panties "twiested" up? Get along with "a women"? An either/or statement chopped into two sentences? An if/then question chopped into two sentences? A false statement to the effect that keyword spamming is "not against any rules" (when eBay's rules were quoted at length)? There is a severe ongoing problem here in both remedial English and basic comprehension. You don't have a leg to stand on in criticizing anybody else.

 

 

[RockMyAmadeus]

Seriously dude. You actually wrote the above with a straight face?

 

You have isues man. Deep issues.

 

A word of advice from me to you. Most here do not subscribe to being corrected as to their typing and grammer, on this internet chat forum. There have been others that have done that and they are a fainting history.

 

Did you really type these? Deep issues for sure.

 

"Once again you make a dependent clause into a stand-alone sentence."

 

"I don't think you got very far reading about Freudian analysis."

 

"has different answers if applied to a single instance of an action versus ongoing and multiplied instances of an action. Scaled upward even small behaviors can have destructive consequences, which is a pattern we see more and more in the world these days."

 

I will be glad to stop this discussion. I have stated my opinion about the subject. Now, we are just arguing about my lack of communication skills and your penchant for correcting them. I also am not the first one you have done this too. In this same thread even.

 

You "seem" to be the definition of the nerd type. You are on the correct forum. But you need to (IMO), stop correcting the communication skills of others. You got my point that I was making. Therefore my communication skills worked perfectly.

 

You sir, are a nitpicker. Get off of your high horse Sheldon. People are laughing. You may be one who is highly intelligent when it comes to communicating, and it just flows naturally. Or you may be one who types their internet chat forum posts on a note pad until you get them perfected. Then copy and paste. I don't know. But what I do know, is that you should not be correcting the postings here, when it comes to sentence or paragraph structure. Nor spelling and grammer. It is unseemly, and unappreciated.

 

Discuss the ideas. Debate the merits or facts. I am all for that. I love to debate. But I would not correct someones spelling mistakes. Unless I did it in a friendly or humorous way. I would not redicule or denegrate them. It is beneath me. It is beneath you. IMO. It adds nothing to a debate, except the attempt to denegrate the opposition.

 

So....do you want to debate further the Ebay question at hand? I have more ammunition ready, in that regard. Or do you want to debate the correct way to type nit-picker?

 

The FACT is, that Ebay allows what we were discussing before the english lessons. If they allow it. It becomes a precedence.that will and would stand scrutiny. Additionally, when selling comic books. It is absolutely proper and pertinant to suggest CGC grading as an option. No matter the grade. It is without merit to suggest otherwise. That should be obvious. If you want, I can post some pics of books that should never have been CGC'ed. But they were. Several threads here that are titled something along the lines of "Did someone really get this P.O.S. book graded by CGC?". We all laugh about it. We even discuss doing something with it (or them), like auction it off for charity or mailing it around to each other. Without it being packaged.

 

 

[tjanse]

[Doohickamabob]

One last thing about about the inherent contradiction issue; you have to remember that we're talking about this as if we would know the seller's reason(s) for not slabbing their own book. Unless specified by the seller, we'd have no idea why the book isn't slabbed. So going into it there would be no obvious contradiction b/c you wouldn't know why the book isn't slabbed to begin with.

True, the seller's exact reasons are unknown. But you can estimate a probability based on the content of their words and actions.

 

In the end we're obviously on the same side of this debate. I just believe there's some wiggle room with regards to painting all seller's who behave this way as sketchy, for lack of a better term. Honest mistakes are made by honest folk all the time.

Again, I am not against your decision to give some sellers the benefit of the doubt. I do not collect comics or use eBay for the purpose of judging people. I just have learned to identify some red flags. When a seller uses tactics that are in line with a used-car salesman, you learn to suspect he might be selling a few lemons.

[Doohickamabob]

Answer: Yes, and go kiss yourself. ... Answer: Yes, and bite me. ... Answer: Wrong, and bite me again.

Well, so much for getting answers to the questions.

 

Who the heck do you think you are? Giving me homework.

Which the dog ate.

 

I know that you and TFTCVOHHOFSSS, are one and the same. That is shilling.

I thought a shilling was 1/20th of a pound? Or was that sixpence?

 

(1) Are you aware that shill accounts on this site-are forbidden? In your own words. Explain how it is-that a brand new member here, is backing up your statements, and sounds a lot like you wrote his responses.

Paranoia will destroy ya. (Great Kinks song!)

 

(2) Do you know why "shilling" is deemed by this site and others to have a net negative effect on the integrity of this site? In your own words, describe the basic reasoning behind this sites policy against shilling.

The CGC mods can detect shilling based on IP addresses. They've recently banned at least one person who had two accounts on the same IP and then tried to explain it as the other account being his roommate.

 

If you look at how much friggin' text I write, there is no way I'd have any time left over to make a sock puppet just to agree with myself.

[Doohickamabob]

Do you know the precise definition of "keyword spamming"? In your own words, paraphrase what the definition is. Let's see if you understand it.

 

The operative word used to describe the definition of spam is "Unrelated" - i.e., "It involves a number of methods, such as repeating unrelated phrases, to manipulate the relevance or prominence of resources indexed in a manner inconsistent with the purpose of the indexing system."

 

What I'm getting at is I think Ebay might be letting this slide because, although misleading, the phrase 'CGC it' is not unrelated. Is this what conditionfreak is driving at?

This interpretation of the guidelines clashes with eBay's additional guidelines relating to brand names.

 

A few people here have come up with some good examples outside the comic-book realm. I forget the details but one was something to the effect that you could sell blank T-shirts and then put "Use your BeDazzler on it!" in the title and, according to the reasoning of conditionfreak and others here, that would not be keyword spamming. Or let's say you were selling fuzzy dice (no relation to Dice X). What if your listing title said, "Fuzzy Dice. Looks great in your Porsche, Jaguar, or Mercedes!" Then imagine they posted hundreds of listings for fuzzy dice and each one had several car makes/models in the title, or other brand names relating to cars.

 

Anyway, I posted the eBay guidelines at length on page 2 (or 3?) of this thread -- both regarding keyword spamming and inappropriate use of brand names. I think once you read it in full it's pretty hard to dispute that "CGC it!" is exactly the sort of thing they're targeting by posting those guidelines.

 

Early on, I offered to attempt to get an eBay representative to weigh in on the matter. If anybody is still interested maybe we could do that here.

[Doohickamabob]

I think I can boil all these pages down to one simple thing.

 

When I do a search on eBay for CGC's, I want to see the results come back to me for what the item "is" .. Not what it "could" be.

 

*spoon*ing infuriating when I'm looking for slabs, and *spoon*loads of raw books come up in the results!

Succinct...

[Doohickamabob]

I go on record, that, IMO, it is perfectly legit, legal, and approprate. Maybe I should retype that. Let's try again. I go on record-that-IMO-- it is perfectly legit, legal and appropriate.

Legality doesn't enter into this. We're talking about eBay-land.

 

I DO understand why someone would be against a slew of "key" words, put into a title. If those key words were not associated with comic books.

So as long as the keywords have something to do with comics you're okay with it? Say someone listed a Superman #100 comic and then put "Microchamber Paper It! Mylar Sleeve It!"

 

But as I have said before (and others have also pointed out), people do slab what I would consider drek. Additionally, some sellers may not have a clue what is "worthy" to be slabbed. Just like some sellers try and sell a $30.00 book for $600.00. "Worthy" being an opinion that differs between individuals. You and I know what is "worthy". But some do not. My wife (after I die), could easily use "CGC IT!" in her ebay titles.

You keep coming back to this train of thought, but it has nothing to do with the reasoning behind why "CGC it!" is keyword spamming.

 

But I will admit that most who currently do it, just want to draw traffic to their "drek". Appropriate, although not very thoughtful.

This seems like progress to me: You're admitting that "CGC it!" is a questionable listing practice.

 

When it comes to money issues, most are not very thoughtful.

There are no honest and above-board businessmen out there?

 

Most here would say that anyone is allowed to ask whatever they want for their book (even on this site, which is sometimes laughable).

Unrelated issue. I can't think of any scenarios where overpricing items would cause a breakdown in the effectiveness of the search function.

 

Therefore, if ebay allows sellers to reference CGC in their ads for "drek". Then they allow it, and by allowing it, condone it tacitly.

I think you're confusing an argument against keyword spamming with an argument against overgrading. Overgrading is its own problem.

[Doohickamabob]

I like this game... my secretary plays my LP's for me...

Shhhhh...

[RockMyAmadeus]

Answer: Yes, and go kiss yourself. ... Answer: Yes, and bite me. ... Answer: Wrong, and bite me again.

So in other words, you backed down from answering my direct questions about the main subject of this thread. Backed. Down.

Who the heck do you think you are? Giving me homework.

Nope, not homework. Discussion of the main subject, which you've been avoiding all along. You avoided it again in this message. I suspect you will continue to do so.

 

I know that you and TFTCVOHHOFSSS, are one and the same. That is shilling.

You know what?

 

(1) Are you aware that shill accounts on this site-are forbidden? In your own words. Explain how it is-that a brand new member here, is backing up your statements, and sounds a lot like you wrote his responses.

Now you're acting like a paranoid lunatic. Oh well.

 

(2) Do you know why "shilling" is deemed by this site and others to have a net negative effect on the integrity of this site? In your own words, describe the basic reasoning behind this sites policy against shilling.

You're off the subject. But the CGC mods can detect shilling based on IP addresses. They've recently banned at least one person who had two accounts on the same IP and then tried to explain it as the other account being his roommate. So if I were shilling I'd have to be jumping through hoops to keep the other account on a different IP address, and it would be all just to sock-puppet somebody who agrees with me. That would be pretty silly, given that I could do less work by making sound arguments that compelled real people to agree with me (which is what has actually happened). You wouldn't know much about how that works, I suppose.

 

 

[Doohickamabob]

First off. We are discussing comic books. Not coins, paper money nor stamps. And even if we were discussing coins, paper money or stamps, they have a different set of guidelines for each of those items.

Different details, perhaps, but the same principles apply.

 

Show me the guidelines referring to comic books specifically. One that says you can not reference Overstreet, a numeric grade, or "CGC IT!" in the title.

If eBay starts to have high-dollar fraud problems as bad in the comic-book section as they've been having in the coins section, I'm sure they'll pin down the details you seek.

 

Secondly. Putting Walking Dead in the title of a Batman book auction, would indeed be key word spamming. But I see that totally different from referencing CGC, in regards to any comic book. TWD is specific. CGCIT is a suggestion, recommendation or embelishment sales tactic.

"TWD is specific".... Yeah, but so is CGC.

 

"CGCIT is a suggestion, recommendation..." ... Okay, so what if you listed Batman and then wrote, "Read it before you read Walking Dead!" in the title? That would be a suggestion or recommendation (or "embellishment sales tactic") as well.

[Doohickamabob]

I guess the same people that are upset about the "CGCIT!" thing. Would also be upset about the use of "Not CGC" or "PGX, not CGC". Both would come up in a search result.

For the record, I am not "upset" about any of this. I'm somewhat amused, and then I'm also somewhat vexed by the idea that people can't wrap their heads around the concept of keyword spamming and why eBay is against it. Mostly I'm (increasingly) frustrated with myself for spending time on this, but at this point it's like tonguing a sore tooth.

 

What if someone was selling a raw book that was previously CGC slabbed, but now cracked out, and they have the old label? Is mentioning that-spamming key words?

If they're selling the comic along with the actual physical label, then it would be kosher. Presumably the seller would not have a lot of comics with cracked-out CGC labels to sell, so it wouldn't come up often and wouldn't have nearly the effect on search results. (On a side note, the seller would want to make clear is that he could not prove the label corresponded to the comic, only that he was offering it as secondary testament to his own statement of the comic's condition.)

 

 

[Doohickamabob]

People do realize there's an awful lot of real estate to add descriptive items to a listing OTHER than in the search title, right? I mean, add CGC-worthy, cracked from CGC case and still have label, not CGC'd, and anything else in the body of the description and everything is great. Add it to the title so that it comes up on searches and you're keyword spamming, and apparently I'm not the only one who reports it and has gotten listings removed because of it.

This is where it becomes more of a gray area. The thing about the description text is that many eBay searches do "deep" searches where they look in both the title and the description, rather than just the title. So ideally you'd want to remove anything from your whole listing that could be construed as keyword spamming. But it's not as essential.

 

The place where it does become a problem is when people start using listing templates and then they overload the generic body text of every Turbo-Listed item with all sorts of stuff. One example is when people write things like, "Be sure to add me to your watched sellers list because I'm going to be listing comics all summer long! I have boxes and boxes full of X-Men, Avengers, Spider-Man, Hawkman, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Doc Strange, Nick Fury, Conan, Iron Man, and much more that I'll be selling!" Now every time somebody does a deep search for "Nick Fury" they're going to get results for every single thing this guy is listing, which can cause a real problem.

 

This is part of why I hate those listings for DVDs full of digital comics, since they'll often sell one DVD that has 20 different tiles in it, and unless all your searches have Booleans to eliminate every permutation of "DVD," "USB," "on cd," "digital copy," etc. (and sellers keep changing them around), you end up having to waste time day after day as your search results show up in your emailbox.