Posted By:
Al C.risafulliI feel compelled to chime in here. Sorry to add to the clutter.
I see nothing whatsoever wrong with a collector looking for a second opinion before making a purchase - whether it be from Kevin or anyone else. Sometimes in this hobby, opportunities present themselves to buy cards that a collector may or may not be familiar with. I certainly have a handful of people I consider experts, and I'm more than happy to look to them for guidance from time to time, and on the one or two sets where I have some knowledge, I'm more than happy to answer whatever questions get thrown my way. There's nothing earth-shattering about that.
I don't think this thread was started to trash Kevin, it was started by Mike to provide some suggestions on how Kevin might enhance a business he's thinking of creating. Anyone who has weighed in on this issue has an opinion on Kevin's abilities, and that horse has been beaten to death.
Unfortunately, though, Jim has decided to weigh in on Kevin's behalf, and in the process, to drag another message board into the discussion. At first I wasn't sure why Jim was doing this, because it did not help further his argument and probably reflected poorly on Kevin. It also got the thread off track in a hurry. But 200+ posts later, I think I understand that Jim enjoys the fact that he becomes embroiled in threads that encourage heated debate, regardless of the content of the debate.
While I enjoy busy threads as much as the next guy, I'm usually just not that interested in all the drama. I get involved in it sometimes because we can't always help it, but I generally have tried to stay away.
The problem here, and the reason I'm posting, is that Jim is continuously referring to another message board in his posts on 54, and I don't think it's appropriate for a number of reasons. First of all, because I think it's disrespectful to the Net54 community to flaunt another message board within this forum. Second of all, because I think it portrays that board - a community of which I am a member - in an unnecessarily negative light. It's just another chatboard, with its own purpose and its own community of loyal members - just like this one, of which I am also proud to be a member.
But the third reasons I'm posting is because I am trying to understand why Jim - who agreed with me privately last night to stop dragging that other message board into his posts here - continues to discuss that board. For someone who has been a vocal opponent of hijacking threads on this board, my opinion is that every time he mentions the other board, he hijacks a thread. I don't get it.
I also don't get why Jim, who has referred to the other board as "boring" and "funny" and a "secret society," along with several other negatives over the last few days, would have privately asked me - yesterday - if I could help to reinstate his membership there. I reached out to Jim privately, as a friend, and asked him to kindly stop using LTS as a way to create drama here. Despite the fact that I advised him I would not pursue reinstating his membership on LTS, he agreed to stop discussing LTS on this board.
So I went to sleep.
This morning when I arrived at the office, I was surprised to see Jim discussing LTS here again. Best I can tell, he has some degree of fixation on it, to the point that he is willing to risk friendships over something as silly as using it to polarize this board. Of course, by insulting it, he only encourages its members to come to its defense, much like loyal 54 members have come to the defense of this board within other forums.
It's weird, and I can't figure it out. Jim is generally a nice guy who enjoys creating controversy, which is a personality trait that isn't exclusive to Jim by any means. I have come to Jim's defense multiple times, because I think in a lot of cases people pounce on him without reason. But in this case I think he's being deliberately insulting, he's deliberately creating ill will, and he's detracting from the topic in a negative way.
I wish he would stop, but evidently he won't.
-Al