Arch has spoken!

[Davenport]

Is there an official list anywhere of who CGC considers "our competitors"?

Or is it basically any fee-based comic book service provider that isn't them or their sanctioned marketing partner?

 

Open-ended it could be any grader, restorer, presser, autograph authenticator or conservationist on the planet. Possibly auction venues and data-miners if you toss in the Heritage/GPA previous-CGC-sales data loop.

 

edit: And messageboards.

[Architecht]

I spoke with Arch about monitoring of PMs recently. He explained that they VERY rarely read PMs and it is only with the permission of both parties unless there is threats being made.

 

This is incorrect in one aspect. PMs are the property of the recipient. If you send something to a person, it's their choice whether that PM can be shown to an admin. The sender has no control of it at that point.

[Architecht]

Am I to understand from that announcement that the mods also monitor our PMs? That's a bit disturbing.

 

It's probably the same thing as government monitoring of emails, texts and phone calls: they probably just flag certain keywords and review them. If CGC is going to monitor my PMs, all I ask is that they don't turn their information over to my wife - who would kill me if she knew what I spent on comic deals.

 

We do not monitor keywords or anything else in PMs in any automated fashion. We will review PM activity by request only. But once having been asked to review a PM, the sender will be held accountable for moderation guidelines.

 

So, for example, inappropriately sexual imagery is not allowed on the boards. If you send a PM of a racey comic cover that you normally can't post to another member who has no problem with that, then we will never hear about it, never look for it, and never care about it. If you send that image to someone who objects, they report you, and they ask us to verify it really happened by looking directly at the PM, then moderation action may be taken.

[wardevil0]

Is there an official list anywhere of who CGC considers "our competitors"?

Or is it basically any fee-based comic book service provider that isn't them or their sanctioned marketing partner?

 

Open-ended it could be any grader, restorer, presser, autograph authenticator or conservationist on the planet. Possibly auction venues and data-miners if you toss in the Heritage/GPA previous-CGC-sales data loop.

 

I'm also interested in this. There are multiple users here who provide fee-based comic book services, at least one of which has had threads praising his work removed, while one for a different user is still available.

 

There's currently a discussion in the Signature Room as to whether or not a signature authenticator would be a competitor. Most say no, but the admins/mods can rule on this unilaterally.

[Architecht]

Is there an official list anywhere of who CGC considers "our competitors"?

Or is it basically any fee-based comic book service provider that isn't them or their sanctioned marketing partner?

 

Open-ended it could be any grader, restorer, presser, autograph authenticator or conservationist on the planet. Possibly auction venues and data-miners if you toss in the Heritage/GPA previous-CGC-sales data loop.

 

Actually, I added this to the moderation guidelines in response to someone sending bulk PMs to promote another message board - which I find inappropriate. It wasn't driven the competition in grading, although it applies there as well.

 

It's pretty straight forward. When someone is launching something new, it's tempting to use a resource like the CGC message boards to try to get the word out. There's a fine line between the general interest in these services by the CGC customers, people who come here with an express interest in promoting an agenda.

 

It's not that these other kinds of services don't have a place in the hobby. It's just not relevant to the whole idea of the CCG message boards to allow that kind of promotional agenda.

 

The community tools CCG has built are pretty cool, and mutually valuable for the company and for the users - and we're pretty proud of that. And we do actually allow quite alot of latitude for open expression - balanced criticism of CCG, moderation, and lots of other topics (and frankly we even allow some amount of unbalanced criticism in the spirit of preventing a chilling effect on community expression). We do that because it is important to have an open channel with customers that lets them provide honest and respectful feedback about CCG services.

 

But we prefer to let competitive concerns spend their own resources on building a relationship with the collector community rather than borrowing CCG's. Generally, if there is something new and competitive launching in the collector base, we will not want the boards to become a target for astro-turfing advertising.

 

 

[N/A]

Is there an official list anywhere of who CGC considers "our competitors"?

Or is it basically any fee-based comic book service provider that isn't them or their sanctioned marketing partner?

 

Open-ended it could be any grader, restorer, presser, autograph authenticator or conservationist on the planet. Possibly auction venues and data-miners if you toss in the Heritage/GPA previous-CGC-sales data loop.

 

Actually, I added this to the moderation guidelines in response to someone sending bulk PMs to promote another message board - which I find inappropriate. It wasn't driven the competition in grading, although it applies there as well.

 

It's pretty straight forward. When someone is launching something new, it's tempting to use a resource like the CGC message boards to try to get the word out. There's a fine line between the general interest in these services by the CGC customers, people who come here with an express interest in promoting an agenda.

 

It's not that these other kinds of services don't have a place in the hobby. It's just not relevant to the whole idea of the CCG message boards to allow that kind of promotional agenda.

 

The community tools CCG has built are pretty cool, and mutually valuable for the company and for the users - and we're pretty proud of that. And we do actually allow quite alot of latitude for open expression - balanced criticism of CCG, moderation, and lots of other topics (and frankly we even allow some amount of unbalanced criticism in the spirit of preventing a chilling effect on community expression). We do that because it is important to have an open channel with customers that lets them provide honest and respectful feedback about CCG services.

 

But we prefer to let competitive concerns spend their own resources on building a relationship with the collector community rather than borrowing CCG's. Generally, if there is something new and competitive launching in the collector base, we will not want the boards to become a target for astro-turfing advertising.

 

 

This is all fine and good but I'm at almost 18k posts and still no custom title. How do you explain that?

[dupont2005]

Every single one of your employers can read your emails

Not mine.

[dupont2005]

Why are people so concerned with CGC reading PMs?

 

Every single one of your employers can read your emails (and probably do it from time to time). We know this. It's accepted when you sign up to work there.

 

It's THEIR forum. It's THEIR website. It's THEIR systems and software.

 

I doubt they actively do it either, I imagine it's just if they have a good reason too.

 

I think that people are troubled by the fact that they can read PM's because there is the belief that certain users are also moderators. So let's take a look at two scenarios where that power can be misused. This does not mean that this happens, or that I believe this happens. This is how this specific power could be misused.

 

1 - Make believe you can read PM's. There is a book in the marketplace that you are interested in that the seller is fielding offers for. You want the book, but do not want to offer too much more than anyone else. Simply go into the seller's PM box to gauge interest and offers before you make your own. (Or anything along those lines)

 

2 - You and I do not get along. You use your PM review power to go through my PM's to see if there is anything there that you could use against me.

 

Again, this is not to say that this happens or that I believe that this happens. These are two scenarios where I could see other board members to be disconcerted with.

I think banning people for mentioning a product in a PM is a misuse of their powers, but it's actually stated out in the open. I wonder if that means mentioning _oey _ost in private can get one banned? I'm guessing it can.

 

[ChrisInBaltimore]

Every single one of your employers can read your emails

Not mine.

 

My employer even monitors the websites I look at while at work. One day I was looking through a sales thread and there were some scantly clad women on the covers. I stopped getting on the boards around that time at work.

[ItsJustRyan]

Am I to understand from that announcement that the mods also monitor our PMs? That's a bit disturbing.

 

No. We don't. We will (and by that I mean only an admin, not a regular moderator) in select cases and by the REQUEST of a user, go into their PM inbox to verify a violation of policy.

 

So, for example, Member A sends physical threats to member B via PM. Member B asks us to go in to their inbox, confirm this is happening, and take action. I will do that on request. We will not in this situation go into Member A's inbox, as member B has no right to request that action.

 

The language here about PMs was included because it was brought up that a member here was bulk PMing users to promote something. If we are made aware of that kind of spam by a user, we will stop it.

 

 

Arch spoke to us.... AGAIN!!!

[awakeintheashes]

[awakeintheashes]

that was quick.

[Ditch Fahrenheit]

[MatterEaterLad]

When Prodigy was around and AOL was taking off, they would flag and delete any email which mentioned AOL. People didn't even know it was happening.

 

Hope it doesn't come to that.

[BlowUpTheMoon]

[Park]

When Prodigy was around and AOL was taking off, they would flag and delete any email which mentioned AOL. People didn't even know it was happening.

 

Hope it doesn't come to that.

 

It won't but it is gonna be awesome watching the conspiracy theorists at work.

[N/A]

Common sense ain't common and new arbitrary rules are frustrating. (thumbs u

[N/A]

When Prodigy was around and AOL was taking off, they would flag and delete any email which mentioned AOL. People didn't even know it was happening.

 

Hope it doesn't come to that.

 

It won't but it is gonna be awesome watching the conspiracy theorists at work.

 

And can only help with the post counts!

[DR.X]

I started rubbing my eyes a minute ago. Did something get the hook or am I seeing things?

[Comicopolis]

When Prodigy was around and AOL was taking off, they would flag and delete any email which mentioned AOL. People didn't even know it was happening.

 

Hope it doesn't come to that.

 

It won't but it is gonna be awesome watching the conspiracy theorists at work.

 

And can only help with the post counts!

 

Custom title