[MattyC]

So I pretty much stopped contributing to the PSA boards because of all the keyboard-courage fueled snide remarks, the allegations bordering on slander, the reality-disconnected expectations that people need to somehow be aware of every post about them on a website, and then appear immediately to defend themselves, and a failure to do so implies guilt. The inability of threads to stay focused and debates to stay reasonable and rational, and the overall uncivil, nasty tenor of the discourse. The constant complaining about possible shilling, inconsistent grades, outrageous conspiracy theories, the list goes on ad nauseum.

It's enough to sour someone on the hobby, to see what others who collect are like-- on the internet. Whenever I attend a show, which is infrequent, I have such fun meeting card enthusiasts in person and talking with them. Is it the anonymity of the internet what makes people so nasty toward each other?

All I know is that I'd heard for a long time that the Net54 forum was a place with a much more civil, mature vibe and was where one could go to learn more about cards, and talk cards with fellow collectors.

We all know shilling exists. We all know that the degree of transparency on ebay vs AH's IN EFFECT means nothing, because there is NOTHING stopping random accounts on ebay from shilling.

It seems that anytime anyone loses an auction and gets salty, they can dig up a bidder on ebay and scream SHILL, and then take the utterly unfounded and slanderous leap of implicating the seller as well as the card's owner. What a leap that is.

These days I tend to most trust the customer service of the two main sellers on ebay, Probstein and PWCC. If one were to look at my bidding history in some 30-day windows, they'd see 100% of my bids with those sellers. Does this make me a shiller?

Anyway, I think the internet is a great thing for the hobby, in terms of opening up the market so we can buy cards from all over. But the internet's affect on the social interaction part of our hobby is another thing altogether. Who wants to go somewhere to read about cards and see all this Sturm und Drang?

You see a card you want at auction, bid what you'd like to pay for it. You win it, great, you lose it, whatever. You don't like auctions, buy elsewhere. It's so simple.

No one can stop shilling. That's not defeatist. It's a fact. Human avarice will always find a way. But the individual can render it a moot issue by choosing to pay their price. I've never lost an auction and then went into the auction bidding data to hunt for shillers. I bid, I lost it, I move on in the hunt.

For me, I think the answer is to use the internet only to buy for a while.

I'm going to go look at my cards and remember that they are the hobby, not this thread.