Personal reflections on rare items and disappearing threads

[xyzzy]

First of all, I’ve been part of this community for nearly 9 years and I think it’s a wonderful gem that should be preserved at all costs for the retro enthusiasts community: a friendly place where information and hardware can be exchanged, in a time when most of the interesting stuff gets sold just for profit at crazy prices on auction sites.

I have closed quite a bit of interesting deals on here, and it’s also thanks to Amibay that today I can still enjoy, when time permits, powering on my glorious Amiga and spending some time with it.

With this in mind (and also aware of the fact that the site can exist only thanks to moderators’ free time and users’ donations) sometimes I think that just a little bit more of common sense and awareness could make this site even more recognised as “the place to be” for Amiga (and other retrocomputing) enthusiasts and keep the community together stronger than ever.

Last Sunday a very interesting listing was posted in the Amiga hardware “for sale” forum. The seller had good feedback, a price for the lot was fixed and the first 5 declarations of interest were compliant with the site rules. Then there has been some fuss about whether the seller would split the lot into individual items, but that would have affected only from the 6th user onwards, so there would have been all the time to clarify the situation, and only in the remote case where the items hadn’t sold to one of the first 5 users in line.

At that point, a moderator jumped in and stated it was becoming a sh*tpost, so he first closed the thread, then moved it to the “sales archive”, and finally deleted it. Now the thread is nowhere to be found.

I don’t know what was going on, but I don’t think that actions like this benefit the community. I’m sure the moderator had pretty good reasons that justify what he did, but the fact that no real explanation was given doesn’t help build trust towards this site. I believe (and it’s just my personal opinion, obviously) that mediation always wins over disruption, communication over censorship.

Why was a sale of such rare items closed abruptly?
Was the seller not to be trusted?
Were the items not considered legit?
Is there a verification going on?
Was it just too risky to have such expensive items being sold on here?
Is this not a platform safe enough for this kind of sales?
Someone had an interest to obfuscate the messages to override the queue and the site rules?
There was no other way to act other than remove all traces of the thread and the items being offered?

So many questions and doubts arise when no explanation is provided. Maybe the moderator wanted to prevent other users from seeing the listing and contacting directly the seller, but the cat was already out of the bag so the most likely outcome is that the items will go to the first users that exchanged phone numbers privately with the seller and will never reach those who entered the queue and waited without trying to jump the site rules. Or maybe the items will end up being auctioned in other sites.

This could have been (as someone else stated in the same thread before it was nuked) the sale of the century, and could have helped Amibay make one more step towards being recognised as the most trusted place for the true Amiga enthusiasts, while preventing rare items end up once more in the other bay, increasing its profits and weakening the community.

Please guys, please, the next time you feel the urge to go straight leg on a sensitive thread, wait just a moment and ask yourself if a different approach is possible, as it could help preserve another little bit of history and make this place even better.

 

[davideo]

At that point, a moderator jumped in and stated it was becoming a sh*tpost, so he first closed the thread, then moved it to the “sales archive”, and finally deleted it. Now the thread is nowhere to be found.

So you think that it's ok to go against the rules of AmiBay?

The original thread stated SOME systems for sale at 10,000 euro. How many is some? 2 or 22

There were no details of what was actually for sale - so what would you be getting for your money?

There was no other way to act other than remove all traces of the thread and the items being offered?

Maybe the moderator wanted to prevent other users from seeing the listing and contacting directly the seller,...

As I said in the thread it was a car crash waiting to happen. Other Mods and Admins agreed with my thoughts. That's why it was closed.

It has not been deleted and is still visible to all Mods and Admins.

Would I spend 10,000 euro of my hard earnt cash on something that I had no idea of what I was actually going to receive - NO

The original OP has been offered advice on how to re-list his items and hopefully he will but that's up to him.

 

[fitzsteve]

Hi, I know the thread, the seller went about it all wrong. The prices and items on offer were not clear nor were the terms of sale, thread had become very quickly a vulture fest. Seller should list the items with a clear price, provide detailed pictures in the thread (not by IM) don't forget peoples accounts can be hacked and then you're coerced into doing a deal outside Amibay on IM for example.

I'm not saying this is the case but the seller should have given more thought to selling such saught after hardware and not put up a post that in my opinion was to stir up interest and start a bidding war, not conduct a transparent and open sale.

I'd love to see these back in the site, sold with a fixed price. I would maybe even be interested in a nice C= A4000 but could not declare interest in such an unclear thread.

Sorry for any typos, I'm on mobile.

 

[Niezgodka]

I understand your thinking about it, but the form of that is just strange. You could remove the thread, archive it, delete its content, instead you took 1984 method. Earase it, like it never happened. Admins can still look at it, maybe somebody will make the deal, but not officially, and sorry, I will use your words: I’m not saying this is the case, but it could be done much more transparent.

 

[xyzzy]

Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post davideo, that’s much appreciated.

So you think that it's ok to go against the rules of AmiBay?

The original thread stated SOME systems for sale at 10,000 euro. How many is some? 2 or 22

There were no details of what was actually for sale - so what would you be getting for your money?

Absolutely not, I don't think it's ok to go against the rules of Amibay, my reflection was about the methods used to enforce those rules.

I feel that in some cases, like this one, the ones most damaged are those who actually tried to follow the rules.

I remember the details of the items (and photos) were specified, I’m not sure if in the first post or in one of the following messages. In other rare cases I’ve seen mods declaring void all declarations of interest prior to a certain post (which is still a “strong” intervention), but I don’t recall ever seeing a thread being unilaterally nuked as in this case.

As I said in the thread it was a car crash waiting to happen. Other Mods and Admins agreed with my thoughts. That's why it was closed.

It has not been deleted and is still visible to all Mods and Admins.

Would I spend 10,000 euro of my hard earnt cash on something that I had no idea of what I was actually going to receive - NO

The original OP has been offered advice on how to re-list his items and hopefully he will but that's up to him.

Maybe a car crash could be avoided with a semaphore instead of shutting down the entire road?

Nobody would spend 10,000 euro of hard earned cash on something that he has no idea of what it was. The seller specified it and declared the only option was to personally pick up the items, was it not enough of a guarantee to check the items in person prior to buying?

The thread has been deleted from the public forum, it’s good that Mods and Admins can still see it but it’s irrelevant to the Amibay community that cannot even use it as an example of “how not to post a thread”, if that was your intent.

Now that you’ve stated some of the reasons behind your decision, the situation is more clear and I think this helps everyone understand what happened.

Still I think that if similar situations were handled with a bit more softness it would help both to enforce the rules, educate the users and, as I previously said, prevent more valuable pieces of history end up in speculators’ hands instead of staying in the community of enthusiasts.

 

[davideo]

@xyzzy

You stated the following

Nobody would spend 10,000 euro of hard earned cash on something that he has no idea of what it was.

That was the main point of why it was closed and removed. 10,000 for SOME systems. As I said previously is that 2 or 22?

The OP was given plenty of opportunity to clarify his sale and decided to carry on regardless of the advice given.

Other members tried to offer assistance within the thread and several members also reported the thread.

The quickest and cleanest way to clear the mess up that had already occurred was to close it down and advise the OP to relist with improved information.

Part of our role is to protect the members of AmiBay from fraud. I'm not saying this is so in this particular case but it could have been.

All we can do is wait patiently for the OP to relist the items.

 

[arnljot]

It's not only for member protection, but also for keeping the sites trades, if not always simple, predictable for all parties involved.

Setting a high price for an undefined set of items would in the best case lead to public negotiations and discussions on what to pay for what and public reasoning on the bargaining. That would make it hard for the mods to enforce the "no price driving" rule as it would be much more case-by-case evaluations subject to each moderators discression.
https://www.amibay.com/misc.php?do=vsarules&cfrset=5

 

[Gambler]

sorry , i need to say something about this.
I wrote thats 3 Commodore A4000T and 2 A3000T...also i provided Images and also a Paper with my name and Date......
Later i put in a Price 1800€ for an A3000T only , yes it was later in the Thread , but its all there....
And please guys....i wanted people to collect (i didnt want money without the Items)
Please ask some guys in Amibay who visited me.....i never asked for money without Items ,
i gave high rated Amigas without money to let people test them and so on.....last was Corum , he paid after
he checked everything at home and paid some weeks later.....ask him , same to many others in here.
I also phoned with some guys and had contact via Whatsapp and believe it or not...some offered much higher Prices , but i didnt sell.....
I hope you guys check things and i also hope that i can put them in again , like some said....more important that they will be used
then much higher Prices on other bays.
I checked some and seems they all have no issues (A4000T)

 

[davideo]

@Gambler

You original post stated

i have some Amiga 4000T (Commodore Version, not Escom) , fully equipped and boxed
also some A3000T also boxed

and

so i let them go for 10.000€ but of course open to offers.

The main point being the word SOME which does not give any indication of what was for sale.

As I posted in the thread and in my PM to you - you are welcome to re-list them as long as you're clear on what actually is for sale and at what price.