Attention all hands... 68kMLA Rules Update (2009-03-21)

[~tl]

The 68kMLA Forum Rules have been updated today, and the main addition is this clause:

This is not an eBay/Craigslist/etc seller appraisal forum…While there are certainly some items listed on eBay/Craigslist/etc that our membership would find interesting, we will not tolerate posts that insult a seller for the price they have decided to sell the item at or the contents of their listing. While we don't mind users questioning the price of an item posted, it is the seller's prerogative to choose the price they sell their item for, and not knowing the exact value or specifications of old computer equipment certainly doesn't make them an "idiot". Posts linking to an auction with the sole purpose of questioning the price or listing details will be locked or removed. Not only can they can encourage people to overstep the fine line between fairly questioning the price and flaming the seller, they lead to a generally bad atmosphere on the forums.

The number of threads we've had recently that serve no purpose other than to bash eBay sellers for either not knowing much about the item they're selling or for pricing it too high is simply unacceptable. While everyone here may think of themselves as experts, there are lots of people out there who know nothing about old Macs and it is unfair to them to laugh at their mistakes on a public forum. While I have no problem with people discussing the fair price of machines, some members have been less than subtle with their opinions of the sellers in question. This creates a bad vibe about the forum, and, to be honest, makes us all look like a bunch of sneering smart arses. If an interesting item happens to come up, then I have no problem with it being posted. But there really is no need to post common items that just happen to have a mistake in their listing or an inflated price tag.

Thanks.

 

[II2II]

It is also worth noting that we rarely, if ever, laugh at a seller for posting something for too little. Indeed, many of us boast about free (or dirt cheap) hauls. And, well, when you put 1 and 1 together to get 0 it just makes us sound like a bunch of freeloaders.

That being said, I don't like the rule. While you can regulate behaviours, it will not change attitudes. So we will just see that sort of behaviour manifest itself in other proliferating threads of discussion. (Remember when the problem was Mac vs. PC. Then it was bitching about sellers. What's next?)

 

[Unknown_K]

I don't see a problem posting a link to an item just to do a "price check". Granted most of us have picked up gear for little or nothing over the ages, but that will not last as stuff gets harder to find and people are willing to pay some money for them. Just like any other hobby posting final sale prices is a good idea to show members what is common, rare, and commands money (atleast so they do not toss it). I would also think people mine this site to see what we deem worth paying for.

Ebay only keeps concluded auctions online for a short time anyway, after which the links do not work.

As II2II pointed out, you cannot regulate attitudes. If somebody wants to poke fun at an ebay seller there are many ways around posting a direct link to it.

 

[Christopher]

I agree.

And can we please stop making fun of each other because we didn't write something the right way? I don't know if its just me, but I don't take them as a "joke".

Maybe it's because I have been in a rather insecure mood these past couple of months. :-/

 

[~tl]

I don't see a problem posting a link to an item just to do a "price check". Granted most of us have picked up gear for little or nothing over the ages, but that will not last as stuff gets harder to find and people are willing to pay some money for them. Just like any other hobby posting final sale prices is a good idea to show members what is common, rare, and commands money (atleast so they do not toss it). I would also think people mine this site to see what we deem worth paying for.

I don't have a problem with people posting links to do a price check. It's the spate of recent posts that are along the lines of "Look at this... a for . This seller must be crazy or on drugs! What an idiot!" that we've had recently that I'm trying to cut down on.

 

[System7]

Floppy Disk Burner.

I am done now.

 

[macgeek417]

...And floppy burning software! :

But yes... There is no need to post every single "RARE!COLLECTORS ITEM! 2003 iMac! VERY FEW IN EXISTINCE! ONLY 4.7BILLION DOLLARS!" just because you may think the price is too high.

There is someone out there who will buy it.

 

[equill]

Locks keep out honest people. Regulations or protocols guide civilized people. However, for this community's sake and the protection of this site's owner it must be clear that whatever-bashing quickly reaches a satiation point. Tom has set the bar on this one. Let's abide by it.

de

 

[macgeek417]

Locks keep out honest people. Regulations or protocols guide civilized people. However, for this community's sake and the protection of this site's owner it must be clear that whatever-bashing quickly reaches a satiation point. Tom has set the bar on this one. Let's abide by it.
de

Agreed.

 

[Gil]

It's the spate of recent posts that are along the lines of "Look at this... a for . This seller must be crazy or on drugs! What an idiot!" that we've had recently that I'm trying to cut down on.

Sorry... :I

 

[II2II]

Just a comment on the "floppy disk burner" comment: we're talking about a technology that has not been in common use for over a decade. (Rememeber, Apple pulled the floppy drive out of iMacs in 1997 or so.) Very little software has been distributed on floppies for about 15 years. People haven't really been saving data to floppies for about 20 years. Is it any wonder that someone gets the terminology wrong?

On top of that, any one of us could end up saying something stupid like that. I know a lot of people used to ask for "Apple II ROMs" for emulation, and they were talking about games rather than the system's firmware. (They were actually looking for disk images.) I frequently muck up on terminology for Windows based systems, since I'm more attuned to Unix linguistics. And so on. When you make fun of people for mistakes like that, chances are that they won't learn and remedy it. They will just be turned off and hostile to you.

 

[Gil]

People haven't really been saving data to floppies for about 20 years. Is it any wonder that someone gets the terminology wrong?

Exaggeration, much? Flash drives really didn't become mainstream until about 4-5 years ago, or so. Guess what everyone used for transporting data before that. Oh sure, they had ZIP disks and many computers had CD burners, but floppies were still a very largely used form of media until flash drives.

 

[macgeek417]

People haven't really been saving data to floppies for about 20 years. Is it any wonder that someone gets the terminology wrong?

Exaggeration, much? Flash drives really didn't become mainstream until about 4-5 years ago, or so. Guess what everyone used for transporting data before that. Oh sure, they had ZIP disks and many computers had CD burners, but floppies were still a very largely used form of media until flash drives.

Yeah. 20 Years? That would mean that people hadn't used floppies since 1989 : :lol:

 

[magnusfalkirk]

the previous two post are a perfect example of what the topic of this thread is about. So it hasn't been 20 years since people quit backing data up to floppies. His point was that some times people screw up and it's bad form to jump on them for it, which is exactly what you two did.

The whole point here is that some people don't know much about the computers they are auctioning on eBay, or even talking about in these forums. We need to quit bashing people and instead maybe try to help them so they will learn more, if they want to, and maybe become active members of the retro-community.

Just my two cents worth,

Dean

 

[II2II]

Just to address the 10/15/20 year comment, yeah I will stand by it. I don't think that people have much of a concept of what the world of computing was like before the hard drive was affordable. What loading a program off a floppy was like, or saving all of your data to floppy, or (later) what installing a program off a stack of floppies was like. It was a royal PITA. So when hard drives came around people pretty much dropped them, except when they had to. Which pretty much left floppies to installing programs and swapping data, then finally just swapping data. Even when it came to swapping data, things like Zip drives were used in many areas because floppies simply weren't large enough. (And later CDs, in spite of the pain of burning.)

Todays' retro users seem to treat them as some sort of novelty. Part of the experience. Well, I can tell you that most of the experience was leaving those floppies on the shelf unless you really needed to use them.

 

[JDW]

No doubt many are quite curious to learn of what precise threats were made against our fine forum owners to have resulted in such a strict tightening of rules. And while some may wish to argue that one or more of our family here at 68kMLA provoked such rules, I suspect rather that severe outside pressure was the key to it. Whomever, therefore, made such threats against our good members is certainly sitting back with a large grin on their faces right now. This is a victory for them.

At any rate, the rules are now what they are. Let us therefore abide by them. My personal thanks to forum owners for offering us this forum to express our thoughts.

 

[II2II]

And while some may wish to argue that one or more of our family here at 68kMLA provoked such rules, I suspect rather that severe outside pressure was the key to it.

It must have been the ESIAA (eBay Sellers Industry Association of America). }

Regardless of why the mods decided to implement that rule, there is a need for a lot of us to adjust our attitudes. Maligning people over irrelevant things is a problem around here. Now I'm not talking about expressing a difference in opinions here. MacAttack94 certainly made a relevant point: perhaps I was over-stating the floppy situation. (I don't think so, disagreement is what differences in opinion are about.)

But System7's original floppy disk burner comment was a barb. It didn't express anything directly, but it did imply, "this is how stupid some people are." That is malicious, even if it is meant to be humorous. It is not a difference in opinion.

 

[JDW]

irrelevant things

I suppose if that were true, then no outside pressure would have been applied to our respected forum owners, nor would our forum owners then have decided to delete a thread and post new rules. But did some of the best minds and most well respected "family" among us actively contribute to that now-defunct thread over "irrelevant things"? Something in all this was quite relevant to many.

I personally wish to keep family first, outsiders second. As such, it should not be any secret as to the real reason for the thread deletion and new rules. If outside pressure was the key, as I suspect it was, let it be revealed and we then shall move on. Otherwise there will always be lingering suspicions and perhaps even genuine fear that other threads may face the same fate because "outsiders" can make a big deal about "irrelevant things" and get what they want.

 

[~tl]

irrelevant things

I suppose if that were true, then no outside pressure would have been applied to our respected forum owners, nor would our forum owners then have decided to delete a thread and post new rules. But did some of the best minds and most well respected "family" among us actively contribute to that now-defunct thread over "irrelevant things"? Something in all this was quite relevant to many.

I personally wish to keep family first, outsiders second. As such, it should not be any secret as to the real reason for the thread deletion and new rules. If outside pressure was the key, as I suspect it was, let it be revealed and we then shall move on. Otherwise there will always be lingering suspicions and perhaps even genuine fear that other threads may face the same fate because "outsiders" can make a big deal about "irrelevant things" and get what they want.

While it is true that we had an e-mail concerning the thread in question, aside from bringing it to our attention it had little to do with the final decision to implement new rules. There was certainly no "outside pressure" forcing us to implement them. We simply didn't like the attitude that some members were displaying in that thread, and others since. This is not a "family", it is a public internet board, and hence some degree of order has to be maintained. This isn't helped by the fact that some members seem to treat this like their private little club and think they can get away with anything because it's "their" forum. If keeping the peace and cutting down on this behaviour requires making new rules, then we will do so.