Elliot, I'm missing the point here

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Posted By: runscott

It's great that you have started moderating, but why are you deleting the content of some posts, and in other cases, the entire post, especially when there is not a censorship issue? A little humor can't hurt anything, and this isn't Cuba (not that there's anything wrong with people who come from Cuba, but there is a Communist government there that represses freedom of speech so please don't beat me up for saying "Cuba").

If you delete BcD's posts, even when they aren't attacking anyone or anything, he'll go away, and though some might feel that's a good idea, it's simply not fair.

I'm just confused here - it looks rather arbitrary...which, of course, is certainly your right.

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Posted By: Elliot

It's not arbritrary---Look at the Header

A forum for the discussion of primarily pre-war baseball cards.

That does not include inane prattle, and I'm tired of it. You're correct a LITTLE humor never hurts, but having the board filled with these comments is ridiculous, and it has nothing to do with who has posted it.

The board is also not the place for comments directed to only one person----it seems to me that email is the correct method of communication.

Even look at your post about the Britney Spears card....fair enough, it's interesting, although obviously not vintage, so I leave it up. Next thing, it's exploded into 4 or 5 posts saying nothing and denigrating Bob Dole. Now, I need to go back and edit.
Why I have to babysit this board and make rules when common sense will do the trick is beyond me.

Elliot

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Posted By: runscott

I won't waste my time with you anymore - delete/edit whatever you choose. Perhaps this is Cuba.

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Posted By: runscott

First there was no censorship - meaning profanity and insults - now we have total censorship - not because of profanity, but because the moderator just doesn't necessarily care for the content.

I appreciate Elliot setting up this board and I still think it will be a great place for vintage card discussion, but I'm dismayed that I can't open my virtual mouth without a good chance that it will be censored. Yes, I joke around a lot. No, I am not a lurker - I also add what I know about vintage cards to this board. You can have both or neither.

Think about it - what if you and a bunch of other guys were sitting at a dinner table at the National, having a steak, and someone started talking about something that the table moderator thought was inappropriate? So he then has the capability to "mute you", or worse still, erase anything that you might have said that he disagreed with? Many of us DID have dinner and drinks together, and we DID talk vintage cards, and it WAS useful, but, YES, we talked about other things as well - without that, it would have turned out, like this board is turning out to be, a table I would have had no desire to sit at.

Sorry, but it doesn't work for me. We are a bunch of vintage card collectors talking pre-WWII cards, but we're not "Dungeon and Dragons" rejects that are so focused on this area that we don't have other lives. Part of what makes this board work is that we ARE NOT a bunch of nerds. I learned this at the National when I met a bunch of you - EVERY SINGLE board member I met was a normal person, socially acceptable, and FUN to hang with.

...and I think that's the way this board should be too. We talk cards and we occasionally deviate and show we're human and not single-tracked social oddballs.

Elliot, if this truly is OUR board, leave this thread alone and let us discuss it a bit. If the majority of members are in favor of a strict, no b.s. board that pertains only to vintage baseball cards, fine. We can censor any Geronimo, Brittany Spear or Mickey Mantle discussions that might come up. And we can delete any jokes, innuendos, etc., that do not meet your approval as "vintage card related". Say the word.

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Posted By: Brueso

I understand and totally support editing and deleting posts that insult other board members- even board members that I don't care for. I would have definitely cut out the thread that is titled "Koos shows his true colors"- even though I think I've made it clear by now that I'm no Koos ally.

As far as my Dole crack goes- the man was paid money to be in a Pepsi ad, the gyst of which was everyone is drooling over Britney. I think he denigrated himself by doing it, and I think a random comment about that or about national figures in general should not be out of bounds. Is it vintage card related? No. But I think this board would be a little stale if discussing anything but those little pieces of cardboard was the only thing allowed.

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Posted By: Dan Mathewson

Personally, I enjoy most of the personalities here. I enjoy the humor. I enjoy the colorfulness that some of the threads take. I value the card knowledge here.

All I want to see gone is the outright meanness, the crude, personal attacks and comments that don't belong here or anywhere. It's disrespectful and malignant.

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Posted By: B C Daniels

I really wnat to know this? it would explain why you seem to have no sense of humor. Is everyone on this board around 67 years old /( not meant to offend Julie V ). I wrote a few things in the past few days to express lightening up after all the guff and slinging. I also have written some things to share information concerning paper,a topic know one else on here seems to know very much about! being as paper is my life, I am not so certain everything I right about it would constitute being "inane" just because I put a little humor into it. So far,it looks like I'm the only person who does not hae a beef about buying a card and finding out later it was trimmed or laminated to a rare back or whatever.......I was trying to help with some of what I know after restoring 4000 paintings is all! I bit the bullet with Koos and now I am getting slammed for humor ( that you do not find funny i know,you publically told me* ).....shhhheeeesssshhh!

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Posted By: Dr.Koos

...with any of you?? First, everybody's bitching and complaining, "Ohhh Elliot, you've GOT to do something, PUH-LEASE! Help us..Help us..SOS!! SOS!!, Edit the Board, Elliot..GET RID OF EVERYTHING that doesn't have to do with cards, especially that bastard Koos. He's so off-color. Make him go away, wish him away into the cornfield". Elliot, being the RESPONSIBLE moderator that he is (YES, showing great responsibility to what HE believes should and should NOT be on HIS Board), edits MY posts that HE FEELS he doesn't want up on HIS board and everyone voices their approval. THEN, when he edits OTHER'S posts that have no business being here as well, you're all on his case, meanwhile, when Elliot started this Board, everyone here was suffering from withdrawals because of the Vintage Board folding, having no where to go to talk cards and vent wraths. Elliot provided you with a place to go, a hospitable environment that HE built and maintains with his own two hands and y'all want to not only run amok in HIS house, with his open door policy, you want to start putting out cigarettes on the tables, knocking down walls, and remodeling to make yourselves more comfortable. What balls y'all have!! How'd all of you feel the other night when the Board went DOWN? Tell the truth, what was the first thing you thought? "Oh NOOOOO, not again. Elliot pulled the plug. Now what??? Now where am I going to go to see my words in print to satisfy my journalistic fetish?". He DIDN'T pull the plug, but he very well could have thrown his hands up in the air and said "F*** those ingrates". I would have in a heartbeat. He's a SAINT, and ya'll don't realize it. I'm guiltier than the rest of you for contributing more than my share of adversity here and even I realize it. Lay the Hell off of him and let him run his household the way he has been, before the temporary outage becomes a permanent one.

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Posted By: leon

Elliot and I had a long conversation yesterday about off-topic humor on the board. If you can open your minds a little and re-read his post he states his postion very well. I told this to BCD yesterday, on the phone, also. A little humor is great and there is no problem with that. When a good vintage thread goes to 25 posts and 14 of them are 1-2 liner off topic humor, good or bad, then we have basically formed a comic forum with vintage cards thrown in. Yes, most will not like my sentiments here but I totally agree with Elliot. I don't believe you will see EVERY bit of off topic humor get deleted. That would be stupid and I don't think that is what Elliot wants. I also know that we are not going to get into a pissing battle over this as I, for one, won't do it. I also have no say so on what gets done on OUR board in the editing or deleting dept. I was reading a few threads recently and most of them were one liner comic posts....that is not what I wanted to be reading. Like I said I wouldn't have minded a few but when MOST of a good thread turns to other topics I don't feel it's good.....you can disagree but I think a lot of the folks that want this to be a forum for "primarily vintage baseball cards" would agree, even though they probably won't post about it.....so keep the few humor bits coming, in my opinion, and let's try to stay on topic....otherwise, let's form a different board that is for "primarily humor" and ya'll can amuse us...best regards......(I can hear my phone/email ringing now )

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Posted By: Brueso

and yet THAT slips thru the edit screening.

This board has gotten too complicated.

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Posted By: B C Daniels

I fully and completely answered the question...WHAT IS PAPER STOCK??? " Like everyone else who contributed,you included........all you did weas rant about AAA and LibertyforAll** know one else answered the guy's question!!! What the heck is that? At least,humor included,I can comprehend the stinkin question!!!!

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Posted By: MW

Brueso --

There's nothing complicated about it. Sometimes the moderator has to make a judgment call -- that's all there is to it. Not everyone is going to agree with everything he edits or decides to leave...not everyone is going to be happy.

Still, it's significantly better than any Internet forum where anonymous individuals attack others at their leisure and at this junction, it's the most workable solution we have. And runscott -- maybe you're right about the Bob Dole posts, but that's Elliot's call. This forum DOES need a moderator from time to time and I think Elliot has done exceptionally well.

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Posted By: runscott

...is an unnecessarily heavy swing of the pendulum. Here's a suggestion that might help Elliot feel like he doesn't have to be so rigid about censorship: I haev created another Network 54 forum - "Vintage Baseball Heated Disputes". The only thing that will be censored is obscenity and bigotry. When we see a dispute getting out of hand, meaning one where email fights would suffice but the parties in questions want to make sure everyone else can see their dirty laundry (and sometimes having 3rd party suggestions can help us), a board member simply suggests that we move it to the "Vintage Disputes" forum, I post that a thread has been set up on that forum, and Elliot then deletes the entire friggin' thread on this forum.

Most of the editing (or lack thereof) complaints about this board revolved around personal stuff, so perhaps this will solve that problem and give Elliot less to worry about. Go for it.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/216056

Vintage Baseball Heated Disputes

A place for vintage chatters to take it semi off-line. Yes, your peers can still see it and make comments, but you won't be bogging down the regular forum with tripe.

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Posted By: Mike Williams

that this board was created a little under a year ago. It was created because the Full Count board was a mess due to several factors and the software to "handle" the mess wasn't capable....I digress!

Now, in the course of this year, VERY LITTLE of what could have been edited was. It wasn't until the last few weeks that posts have been deemed inappropriate....and edited on any type of regular basis.

The free speech thing is an old and tired argument at least for this poster....if you want a board where anything goes, I would invite you to create one and go there.

THIS BOARD (OUR BOARD) happens to have the eyes and ears of our hobby. Having said that, it should not mimic the state that our hobby is currently in....nor should it read like a Yahoo Stock message board. The idea here is to talk, share knowledge and debate VINTAGE BASEBALL CARDS. You're not being censored, you're being asked to treat the board, and it's posters with a little respect. Call 'em as you see 'em....but be fair. Just my warped thoughts.

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Posted By: Jaime Leiderman

Mike, excellent post!

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Posted By: runscott

no one has ever asked for a board where "anything goes".

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Posted By: ty_cobb

I have enjoyed the vintage card forum since
the Full Count days. I also realize this is
not the same forum and different rules apply.
I value your insights(in fact of some
30 posts to my E90 Shoeless Joe post,you
were the only one to relate some factual info
of relevance to me).

I don't enjoy some of the crass postings any more
than the rest of you, but my take on the 'censorship'
thing is that quite a few things regarding card
restoration are being swept under the rug. As a veteran
collector it leaves me with the impression that some
collectors of the 'old boys school' can restore cards
to their hearts content without repercussions,while other beginning collectors are not allowed to even ask
questions about it.

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Posted By: Brian C Daniels

can I restore it?

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Posted By: Dan Mathewson

...and I admit I feel the same way he does.

I'm leaving this board now too. The rest of you can become the whipping post for all of Koos' hate, misery and anger (some of you are already, but the rest and pick up the slack for how badly he'll miss taking cheap shots at me at every corner).

I can barely post anything without a crude comment or name-calling from him. I cannot ask questions here without same. I wasn't even in Elliot's original August 28th post about this very "censorship" topic, and Koos had to malign me, then tried calling his insults "constructive and informative" later as a defense. Of course, all of his garbage stays up for everyone to read.

I came here to learn, share knowledge, be warned and learn about warnings/fraud, and enjoy the respectful, friendly people on this board. Not have this childish attack BS come around every corner.

I guess that takes precendence, however. Have fun wading through the personal attacks and food fights. Koos, you can write what you like as I will not return to read it.

-dan

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Posted By: jeff s

wake up, y'all! if you do not pay attention to people that are making trouble on this board, they will go away! plenty of worthwhile things are still coming up, but every time a new person jumps in to the koos debacle, the debacle itself grows! if all the sane people leave, koos will have the board to himself. maybe that is what he deserves, but we end up losing something.

it is not that hard to read this board and turn on your "ignore" mode when something obnoxious appears. i've been doing it for weeks now, and i seem to be none the worse for it. it's not difficult or time-consuming, and if we all ignore those who bother us, they will go away, allowing those of us who are sane and occasionally informative to keep the board running as it ought to be run.

i will now dismount from my pedestal.

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Posted By: Elliot

I realize that no matter what I do, there will be people unhappy with it....I imagine that's just the nature of this beast. I will continue to make moderating decsions as I see fit---when I'm not sure, I will, as I have in the past, consult other regular contributors. If this upsets people and they feel a need to leave this forum, I am truly sorry, but hopefully the forum will continue on without them.

As Leon suggested people should re-read my posts on acceptable content and/or contact me directly. If you don't find it acceptable, don't post. I don't edit/delete posts on a whim, and would prefer not to get involved at all.

To address two specific questions in the posts above---
1) Brueso--I've read and reread Koos's post in this thread, I don't see anything offensive. Assuming there was, don't you think your post was a bit quick, expecting me to edit/delete this post in a matter of minutes.

2) Ty Cobb---I have never deleted/edited posts with content. I share your concerns and let the Koos/BcD debate run on for some time hoping that it would result in some answers. It is not clear to everyone that we will never get a straight answer on the forum to our questions.

If anybody has any concerns/suggestions that they wish a response from me, please contact me directly.

Elliot

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Posted By: Brueso

Thanks.

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Posted By: Brian C Daniels

what type of job you have? And frankly,I answer 90% of the slings directed at me by stating that 90% of it was exagerated bologna. I did try to address the issue about 10 times concerning altered cards that were graded etc....the ONLY relationship I had with altered cards and the public was between myself and Joe Merkle denounced founder of SGC,,,,,restorationist expert. The only other time I ever had issue with alteration,was when i won a card ( e-106 Cobb**) from DavidFestberg auctions and traded it sight unseen for mello mints to John Spencer,whi figured out by me drop shipping the package,I had no way of having any time to have altered the Cobb Festberg sold me! Those are the only two incidences concerning me and altered or trimmed stuff outside of cards i brought to public forums that were for sale to notify a warning to you all if you mdid not Already know! I send letters sometimes to people like John Spencer warning him of cards he has initial bookmark bids on not to pursue because he is a nice guy,good for the hobby and kindly created a chat group I participated in. I have done deals with bunches of contributors on this board including the nemises I now aquired and yet none of them have posting anything I have done that was inapproprite or unfair to them. This includes,but not limited to~ Vorthian,Pete C,T-BOb,Leon,John W,Frank Ward,"JD",Mike Williams ( who sold me his entire collection a few years ago! ) ,BMW,Doug Allen ( who I have done like 50 deals with ),Ted S,and more! None of these folk have issue with me concerning any bad deal I made with them.....I have done on and off e-bay deals with all of them. being none conservative has some drawbacks in a world of stiffness, byt this aside i have had great dealings with anyone on here I have done deals with outside of myself and RK*.....wes stoped so the rest of it,at least between he and I is not an issue.

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Posted By: runscott

The posts involving obscenity and bigotry lasted far longer than the "Bob Dole" and other ones that you arbitrarily deleted this morning.

you are right that there will always be someone who disagrees with you, but your decisions would be far more popular if you listened to the consensus rather than just one or two people who send you emails.

The concensus has been rather simple: let us post, but remove the obscenity and bigotry. I don't know how many times we have told you this. And it hasn't been just me.

As I suggested before, this is a subject that should be discussed by ALL of the board members who desire to. Instead you have made it clear to us that a select few have your ear and the rest of us can go jump in a lake.

Okay, so we're jumping - later.

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Posted By: Dr.Koos

...out of your head! Brian and I are holding one of the Board Members hostage. We've got Leon. Plain and simple, and we can't be responsible for what hideous fate will befall him if any of you try to leave. And remember, we're watching. We're watching the other Boards for signs of desertion, and we've got our eyes trained on all the bridges, tunnels, and airports (and any and all other feasible means of flight). DON'T try it!, unless none of you ever want to hear from Leon again! NOW, y'all keep posting just like nothing ever happened and Leon will be just fine.

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Posted By: ty_cobb

The welcome matt is at the other board Koos,
I've just got to hear how a busy dr. has so
much time for cards,comics and petty scraps
going on until 4am in the morning. Do you ever
sleep?

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Posted By: runscott

trying to replace this board - that would be stupid, as it took a long time to gather most of the experts in the field to one common area for dissemenation of information.

But I am providing an outlet for people who feel a need to air out card-related differences they have with other collectors, or who just feel the need to bitch about vintage card tangental stuff - I think that having that forum available will keep this one cleaner. I would hope that those who have talked about leaving at least lurk for a while until things cool off(which they already seem to have done). I see the current thread as being very healthy, though some of the responses have me disturbed.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

my $0.02 worth.

I think that some of you are getting hung up by confusing obnoxious with inappropriate. A poster who is rude and condescending but discussing a vintage card or related issue without undue ad hominem attacks (it is perfectly ok to rail on a dishonest seller or incompetent grader) or obscenity is not necessarily out of line. Some people simply cannot express themselves without their truly $h**ty personalities bleeding through. Personally, since we are all grownups (I think) and can certainly copyedit our posts, I would prefer seeing that these people be booted from the board or placed on probation when they break the decorum (as it is, I simply skip their posts and ignore any strings they create), but I understand not deleting their relevant albeit irritating posts.

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Posted By: B C D

is he Goudey Guy????

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

other parts of the world interesting.