A Note About Civility

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

There have been a few threads lately where members have been especially rude and vulgar to each other. Often times the comments don't have anything to do with the thread topic or baseball in general. This got me to thinking.

One of the good things about the internet is that it allows us to interact with people that we would never meet in our everyday lives. On the other hand it also allows people to say some pretty terrible and hurtful things without having to look the other person in the eye. I think this sense of anonymity can be a bad thing because it appears that it causes some people to make comments that I doubt they would make in their every day life. I would challenge everyone to consider that before posting something out of anger - would you say that to someone's face in front of a group of people?

Personally, I come to the board as a stress reliever. I am passionate collector and there is something relaxing about talking cards. I have met several people on this board who I consider friends and I am grateful for those relationships. When I see people act so vitriolic it detracts from that experience.

[Luke]

I agree with you that personal attacks can detract from the experience, but I think we have a lot less of the internet anonymity problem here than just about any other forum. The fact that many people list their real name does a lot to take that problem away. Also, reputation is very important here if you want to do any kind of business with fellow members. I feel like most of the time when people get into it, they are just arguing their point passionately. Probably no different than if we were all hanging out in a bar discussing our preferred color schemes for the borders of the tags in the plastic holders for our baseball cards (lol).

[6-4-3memorabilia]

I imagine you are talking about this Joey character. Although I don't know him and never had any conversations with him I can understand the attacks on someone that has done a lot of bad, but you still need to have some trust. I came on here thinking I wouldn't buy any cards on Net 54 but there is so much good stuff so I bought my first one from Luke Lyon, went great, since I bought a Bill Terry Goudey and waiting on a Bill Dineen T206 I just paid for yesterday.

[Runscott]

...

unnecessary venting on my part

[chernieto]

Civility---good !

[Peter_Spaeth]

I think a little bit of license is inevitable, but I have no use for the really vulgar stuff that is usually people's ticket out.

[calvindog]

Alex makes a good point. Next time a repeat fraudster calls me a douche on the board after I pointed out his latest fraud, maybe he'll ask that he be banned instead of supporting him remaining here -- where he can continue to call me a douche and send me vile PMs.

[Runscott]

Do morons come up to you when you are discussing baseball cards with friends, and interject their lunacy? Do teenagers walk up to you at the coffee shop and flame you verbally for the way you order your coffee? Do otherwise intelligent people curse you to your face in public when you disagree with them? If any of the above are true, you need to move away from New York City.

No offense Alex, but the internet is different. Fortunately, we have a moderator, as do most internet forums, who has to set up his own rules, and when the lines get crossed, we get warned or banned. That's good enough for me.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by I Only Smoke 4 the Cards

One of the good things about the internet is that it allows us to interact with people that we would never meet in our everyday lives.

Yeah, I also had that in my 'bad thing' column. If we were only interacting with people who we would choose to interact with in real life, following your suggested decorum would not be a problem.

[Jcfowler6]

Just act like your mom's standing there watching you. Don't say or do anything you wouldn't if she was.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Runscott]

Haha. Good advice. My mom would be slapping me at least twice a day.

Sent from my SM-G730V using Tapatalk

[atx840]

Nevermind.

[Exhibitman]

I'm with Alex on this one. I am human so I mess up at times but I try to not to go to the purely personal attack. Calling out someone for acts as brother Jeff has done is different and fair game and if you take me on first all bets are off. Otherwise I try to keep it polite.

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

Originally Posted by calvindog

Alex makes a good point. Next time a repeat fraudster calls me a douche on the board after I pointed out his latest fraud, maybe he'll ask that he be banned instead of supporting him remaining here -- where he can continue to call me a douche and send me vile PMs.

Jeff - My position was that his eBay issues had nothing to do with the board. I stand by that. However, I know we disagree and I respect your opinion.

[Jantz]

Originally Posted by I Only Smoke 4 the Cards

Jeff - My position was that his eBay issues had nothing to do with the board. I stand by that.

Sorry Alex, but you are wrong.

Ebay is a big part of "our" hobby.

It would be safe to say almost every board member here has an Ebay account which allows us to buy and sell.

Joey has multiple Ebay IDs.

So if he is buying any form of sports memorabilia, there is a good chance that he is buying from a fellow Net54 board member....and NOT PAYING!

So it has everything to do with this board.


Jantz

[Luke]

I don't understand how you can think that him being a deadbeat buyer on ebay (where most of us are sellers) has nothing to do with this board. We all participate in this hobby. The transactions occur on a variety of different sites and through email, but it's all the same hobby. It is a really big pain in the ass when someone wins an auction or clicks buy-it-now, and then doesn't pay. Usually when that happens, you have no idea who did it. In this case we do, and he absolutely should have some consequences for his actions. Whether or not he should be banned isn't my decision, but the other members of the forum deserve to know how he conducts his business, given that we have that information. Also, judging from his past behavior, there is probably one main reason that he hasn't been a scumbag on our forum (he has not been allowed to use the b/s/t). Just my opinion and take on the situation of course. I just don't understand why you think it's ok for him to renege on deals constantly on ebay since he hasn't done it here (and hasn't had the chance).
Let's say you run a small business, and one of your employees has a second job. One day he gets arrested at his other job for stealing $100 from the register. You like the guy, and are unaware of him doing anything dishonest while working for you. Are you letting him work his next shift for you? (I'm aware that the analogy isn't perfect, since what he did isn't as bad as outright stealing, but I think it works well enough)

[Paul S]

Originally Posted by Jcfowler6

Just act like your mom's standing there watching you. Don't say or do anything you wouldn't if she was.

LOL, my mom was bipolar. I used to have to censor HER!

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

There is another thread devoted Joey. Let's please let our discussion of him remain there. He has been banned and I have nothing else to say about him.

[Jantz]

Originally Posted by I Only Smoke 4 the Cards

There is another thread devoted Joey. Let's please let our discussion of him remain there. He has been banned and I have nothing else to say about him.

No problem Alex. I can respect your wishes.

After this post, I won't type another word about Joey.

Now how about you respect my wishes.

This is a baseball card forum! The next time you want to lecture about civility, put it in the watercooler section.

Please note that I was civil.


Jantz

[Gradedcardman]

Jantz,

You have a way with words !!!

PM sent

[calvindog]

Joey was the most uncivil person on the board: he defrauded Net 54 members, defrauded numerous people on eBay, lied about it out here, and then was vulgar to anyone who pointed out the truth.

Alex strongly supported Joey remaining on Net 54.

Alex then starts a thread complaining about the uncivil tone on Net 54.

Then Alex doesn't want to talk about Joey anymore, just about the lack of civility on the board.

All of this makes sense -- on Mars.

[MattyC]

Hey, Jeff-- my second gig ever was a sequel script to Total Recall (this was right before Arnold became governor, which unfortunately killed the project). Point is, I did a ton of research on Mars. Most stuff on internet chat rooms don't make no sense there, either I think we need to start looking at wholly alternate universes for the sense making sometimes; Mars is far too close to reality!

[itjclarke]

Originally Posted by I Only Smoke 4 the Cards

There have been a few threads lately where members have been especially rude and vulgar to each other. Often times the comments don't have anything to do with the thread topic or baseball in general. This got me to thinking....

Personally, I come to the board as a stress reliever. I am passionate collector and there is something relaxing about talking cards. I have met several people on this board who I consider friends and I am grateful for those relationships. When I see people act so vitriolic it detracts from that experience.

Alex, I agree with your overall sentiment, or at least what I think prompted you to start this thread. Whether it's at all realistic for things on the board to remain mostly positive and without devolving into name calling, pile jumping, witch hunts is another topic... but I sure know it would be nice if there was less drama and more cards. I'm like you in that my cards and this board are a stress reliever for me, a nightly escape, and ideally an opportunity to learn and to connect with a few cool people who share this passion. I don't come here for drama.. there's plenty of that to be had in real life.

Anyway, your thread here made me curious enough last night to search out the Joey thread on the memorabilia side, which in turn made me curious enough to Google some of its contributors. One word follows that- "WOW". Won't go into details, but I will say I went to bed (and awoke) with an unsavory feeling, and that my point of view on here has been influenced. I also know there are some posts I will either take with a grain of salt or totally dismiss going forward.

I'm not naive to the fact there are a lot of scammers and I truly appreciate it when legit scams/scammers are outed here. I also for the most part appreciate the folks who do the investigating and outing, and have tried to do my bit when I can. At the same time, this act often seems to go awry and after reading all of that thread, I wished I had not. Separately, I trust my own judgement when shopping for cards (as I think most here do theirs), and like to think I'm diligent enough to avoid the major scam (thanks in large part to board members who have generously shared knowledge). If not??? oh well, I made the choice to take that "risk" and I'll live with it. It certainly won't kill me... and please excuse me if my adrenaline doesn't spike if I get duped/shilled up $10 on eBay, or if someone doesn't pay for an auction. I never want to take this hobby (or myself) too seriously, or to allow the worry or drama to outweigh the enjoyment. As for the stolen memorabilia thread, I'd bought a card from "pre-scandal" Joey and then exchanged a few harmless emails about cards and our mutual affinity for T202. All exchanges were nice and cordial and if he was a true scammer, I definitely didn't feel threatened. Now he's banned, so I guess there's little chance he'll have a chance scam anyone here. Maybe that's a good thing

On that note here are some cards---

[I Only Smoke 4 the Cards]

Ian - Nice Goudeys!

[buymycards]

Alex, I agree with you in regard to crossing the line. We are all reasonably educated and we should be able to berate, humiliate, accuse, and belittle people without resorting to name calling and profanity.

I have noticed that when someone is accused of something, the accused person quickly resorts to profanity and name calling. A rational response to an accusation would go a long way toward defending a position and getting some respect.

Rick

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by buymycards

We are all reasonably educated

I doubt that's true. We are a very diverse group - not just education or income, but background, personalities, emotions, mental stability, etc. Expecting everyone to behave according to the rigid requirements of a few is unrealistic. Leon gives us a lot of leeway for behavior, and I think it's required in order to account for all the differences.

[bobbyw8469]

Originally Posted by Runscott

I doubt that's true. We are a very diverse group - not just education or income, but background, personalities, emotions, mental stability, etc. Expecting everyone to behave according to the rigid requirements of a few is unrealistic. Leon gives us a lot of leeway for behavior, and I think it's required in order to account for all the differences.

+1

Everyone, while having some similar qualities, is probably as different as different can be!

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by Runscott

I doubt that's true. We are a very diverse group - not just education or income, but background, personalities, emotions, mental stability, etc. Expecting everyone to behave according to the rigid requirements of a few is unrealistic. Leon gives us a lot of leeway for behavior, and I think it's required in order to account for all the differences.

Scott keeping his options open!