just can't stop saying it can you...

I "thing" you are right

Ultimately I just can't believe people can get so worked up over pinball.

It's fine to walk away from an argument with the other person 100% wrong. You'd be surprised how often that happens to both people, and sometimes we all get to watch the excitement

You can call all my machines crap AND tell me I suck at playing AND should die in a fire or whatever. You're just simply wrong

So you are saying the price police are a positive member's of this site..... please. Only difference from RGP is that a seller is allowed to defend himself, here, not so much.

Would help if you start with the same people who feel the need to dump on a seller on a machine they arent even remotely interested in. Positive for me would let everyone post their products for sale, without the hassle of price police jumping into every thread the person throws onto pinside.

Wouldnt hurt at this point when it comes to the price police, you reward them for being negative on someone elses for sale post when you preach "be positive" all while banning the person who defended his business. Whats so positive about this ?

Yet you choose to award bans for swearing all while ignoring your own rules about personal attacks. Seems one sided here, but again, its your site, do as you choose.

Robin, i feel your job is tough enough running moderation on a site that groups of fanboys, resellers, collectors and modders butt heads every so often about their beliefs on whats right and whats wrong.

Id like to say i feel that people who put there machines up here for sale are a positive for this group, be it retail, over priced retail, restored HEP or collector restored or project no matter how much its listed for, its still a positive move for the group having an offering to buy machines. But for the life of me, i cannot figure out whats so positive about the price police making it their daily obsession to rag a person due to the fact that they dont like the price. The only person who should be chirping would be the crickets if you could "moderate" the price police as overpriced machines wouldn't sell here. **** The swearing ban you installed today wouldn't have had to be done if you would address the problem of the price police, plain an simple.****

That said, You have NSFW, Thumbs up and Thumbs down tabs for each post. Add a tab for people to report the price police, should give you an accurate list within a few months on who the repeat offenders are.

I think the whole, what is, and what isn't "trolling" discussion is pretty weak. It's possible to express a negative opinion without being an arsehole. A problem arises though when things are taken the wrong way. Sometimes somebody makes a quip that they intend to be funny, or sarcastic, and others are offended. Other times though... the offence is intended, and that's crappy.

It's pretty simple...

"I don't see what all the hype is about ACDC. I love the band, and I love many other Stern pins... Maybe I need to give it another shot?!"

Could be answered with "Dude, ACDC is my fav game of ALL TIME. Trust me, the more you put in to it, the more you'll get out of it. Give it another look!"

Conversely, "ACDC is a piece of garbage, and all you Stern sheeple just buy the same crap from Gary every time. Hyped game, broken code, excuses made, purchases defended... wash rinse repeat!"

Will be met by, "You JJP concubines are an insult to everything that's cool about Pinball! I could have made enough money to buy a private jet with the money you "invested" in Jack's Ponzi Scheme"

I kid, but the underlying point here is, just be a little more respectful. We're ALL here because we are among a (Thankfully growing) minority of people who care about Pinball. Pinside has proven time and time again that it's got an underlying heart. From raising money for kids, to helping out a complete stranger with some pretty esoteric electrical troubleshooting... this IS the place to be for Pinball enthusiasts.

It's OUR responsibility to make this a great community. It will benefit us all.

JDubbs, you do realize there is a classified ad section - the Market tab - for people to post "For Sale" ads for machines, and not open up discussion or make available the price policing crowd you are concerned about, aren't you?

who exactly does a made up word offend? does google offend people? Its called thin skin and second guessing crowd mentality rushing into buy a remake of a classic. I for one am not offended by refake. It is what it is.

What's so positive about all the 'great price', 'wish I was closer', 'this won't last long', etc posts people make to pump up the price? Neither side adds value IMO.

I'm not sure I understand why you act as if I endorse, applaud or even employ the "price police". These are simply Pinsiders ventilating their opinion on an item and its price. After all, Pinside is a discussion forum, not a classifieds website. I frankly don't believe the "price police" are that big a problem on this site. It's a perfect example of free speech to be able to (respectfully) post to a for sale topic that you think the price for a listed offering is way off. We have seen way too many folks selling pins here at absurd prices, which really hurts the hobby more than someone stating he thinks the price is too high. If you don't want feedback on your For Sale items, you should use the Pinside Market.

Anybody hear about the gay midget ??
He just came out of the cupboard......
NO offense if you're gay ( not that there's anything wrong with that!), or, a midget. Or live in a cupboard.

I didn't realize the JJP benefit plan included concubines.

And I laughed out loud.

LOL, I strongly disagree. But if you thought the opposite were true, would you still feel the need to create this thread? I doubt it.

What are you talking about? Sellers defend their prices vigorously on Pinside when the price police show up. Only problem is when the machine still hasn't sold after a couple weeks of the seller shamelessly self bumping the for sale post, it becomes a lot harder to defend. Do you have an example where a seller was banned? I'm sure there was another good reason for it.

Incidentally I've bought two machines on Pinside and both sellers never advertised the sale, they just hinted at it in conversation on random threads. The prices were very fair. I actually think a lot of the FS posts with high prices constitute trolling - these people post full well knowing the price police will show up and call bull(I guess we can't say this anymore).

Yes, understood. It is also where my one ad is, nowhere to be found in the discussion board as i dont remember putting it up for discussion.

OK.

I received a ban vote today about negativity robin so apparently it's already against the rules or a mod is abusing their power. It says negativity and being rude and I guarantee the other people being negative and rude didn't receive the same ban vote. Just favoritism; happens here a lot. All I was doing is defending my business which has been running well, very well profit wise, and been around a lot longer than pinside. Not that that really matters but when a company is open 42 years + and successful it shows the know what they are doing. I was defending myself like any business owner would do. What if you were a computer tech for your whole life and I bashed you or told you that you had no idea what you were doing or your prices were too high? Would rub you the wrong way. If they can dish out negativity and rude comments why can't I reply?

First, my prices are about average price for sales maybe a tad on the higher average. Now as a business where I have no "used pinball wholesale house" to buy pinballs cheaper than pinside prices (not even considering shipping to get them here) how can I find machines cheap enough to offer them at a rate that people won't troll and complain? Answer that. Pinside is the cheapest place to find pinballs. Plain and simple. So as a business how can I find these machines to offer the pinsides at their "pinside price bracket on each machine"? Or you're telling me I shouldn't offer games for sale here because it's my livelihood and business and I'm unable to give the same deals as people fire selling their game because they need money; or because it's only a "hobby" to them and not a business. If that's the case you're basically saying any dealer or operator is going to get flamed here as they can't match the cheap prices of people willing to lose money on their games. Not really fair. I do have my own collection of games, but when it's games I have received in trade or bought a quantity to resell, I can't lose money to come down to the latest lowest fire sale pinside price of a title. And guess what without people like me and other dealers, this hobby slowly dies. Just like it started to before this latest resurgence. And trust me it was dying. I was getting dot matrix machines for 800-1200 on average. I was also selling them cheaper than everyone at the time when no one wanted to buy these machines. JM and hs2 were common games not even fetching 12-1400. The collectors drove up the prices and popularity to where they are now, and now dealers can't even compete on the low price side of used games. The collectors benefitted from the crippled pinball economy in the past, then the demand came back, collectors set the price on pins and sucked the cheaper ones dry from remaining dealers and operators. Then we were left with struggling to find machines. Trust me collectors ransacked operators to find Afm, mm, mb, TZ, taf, etc when the prices started to rise. The operators and dealers weren't online knowing the huge increase in price as the machines never had been worth that in the past. It was their fault for not being in the know-how online but they never had to before sites like these. All business was local and prices were what us dealers set, not the trolls on the forums. And look how much cheaper games were back then.

This will be my last post defending myself, I'm sure someone will find something I've said wrong, or have a different opinion on what I've said, but I've lived this. Not a hobby. My 16 hour a day job. I haven't slept before 5am and woken up after 10-11am in years. It's all I do. I've tried avenues for buying / selling. I didn't know the all the sites and experiences and opportunities before but I do now. If I wouldn't have adapted to online for parts sales and advertisement the business probably would have closed. I'm sorry for anyone who I offended, but I assure you that you offended me or I wouldn't have said anything to you. When people talk about my business negatively it offends me. Just as it would offend any business owner.

My apology, i didnt mean to imply all that. And i cannot defend ElectricCircuit's lack of respect and name calling, the reason i suppose he is banned or up for a ban vote. Just saying, it wouldnt have happened if them opinions were used in a more positive manner. He was personally attacked and defended himself. What is the rule on personal attacks ?

Who says others didn't get ban votes? They are not publicly visible. I have seen a bunch of ban vote e-mails passing through my inbox today.

Me or the mods not reading every post on the boards does not automatically imply favoritism.

Rest assured when I say all the mods are doing their "work" to the best of their powers and I have never even suspected them of pulling favors for friends.

Hey, don't worry about it. Maybe it was I who read your post the wrong way. Anyways, I guess I made my point about this. As far as I'm concerned FS topics on the Pinside forum have the exact same rules as just about any other post. And being a forum topic mean inviting others to comment/discuss. That's just the nature of this forum. I don't think price policing is a bad thing per se. If you want to comment on a price, you are free to do so. As long as you do it nicely, respectfully and without crapping all over someone's for sale thread. I have seen friends asking prices for games where I shook my head in disbelief for their asking price. Sometimes I tell them and they never get upset about it

Last thing robin you said "doing it without crapping on their for sale thread" that's exactly what they did to me. I have a rough start defending my prices and business when I came to this site. I chilled out waited a while to repost a big game for sale list. The first thing I get is people bringing up the past thread that was all negativity and bickering. How can I avoid this when I tried to conduct myself differently and I tried to wait a while to repost etc. It was thrown out there again and they never gave me a chance. Worst part none of their complaints were about bad business. It was all about price, my lack of getting pictures and ones responded to, and them calling me out because I tried to defend myself. Where else is there a place people can knock you and your prices / ethics and you aren't allowed to respond back? That's why when I first came here it was hard to hold myself back in responses. Before forums I dealt in real life matters, no one would say those things face to face. They hide on here and do it. In real life people simply pass on the game and don't buy it. The comments aren't necessary. What do the comments do other than make enemies and people mad. On my classic car forums no one goes to the threads of cars priced a little too high and craps on them.

keep-calm-and-use-paragraphs-1.png

vvv

Aurich i can read. I'm just stating my opinion. Can you tell me what good can come from negative comments or why they ARE necessary? Instead of just repeating what robin said that there's the market place, tell me what good comes from all the negative comments which apparently are allowed here yet I was ban voted for. No need for paragraphs. I'll never be forced to write another paper in my life in paragraph form lol.

Man, I am A-D-D...lost in the zone, when things get this long..can't do it. sigh.

Sure, though I didn't read your thread, or any of your other ones, so I can speak to your specifics. I pasted Robin's comment not be snarky by the way, but to point out that the owner of Pinside has spoken, so there's no point in debating. Anyways ...

Commenting is how we learn and exchange knowledge. This is a community, not an auction house. When a game is overpriced it's beneficial to the community for it to be pointed out. It's maybe not beneficial for the seller who was hoping to maybe make more than strict market value, but the goal of the forum is not the make sure the sellers are as enriched as possible.

If you're a seller and you're in the forums you need to have thick skin. Every price police comment is a free bump. It's an opportunity to show your character to people who might buy from you.

All I'm getting here is it's more important to let people troll, be negative, and bash people in for sale threads forcing those people to use the market ads which hardly anyone looks at than it is to have a happy market portion of the forum where no one argues. If there was no negative comments allowed on for sale posts there would be a lot less arguing and negativity period. No good can come out of a person posting the things they do in for sale posts. Nothing. Some good can come out of having more happier pinsiders and less people fighting over what's right and wrong in prices, etc. I know this is a forum and opinions are allowed but this is a pinball site of which buying and selling is part of pinball. You would think this is debate forums.

This should apply to everyone not just sellers…

Should be a sticky!

Very good points, I would like to add... what about the people that constantly post the same praise--over and over. I dont believe in knocking something just to complain about something but sometimes it warrants attention. I also believe you can cause just as much damage by giving something praise when its not warranted. If I read the initial threads from lets say Sterns point of view on how people are claiming best game ever on the first week of launch, do you think I would be hesitant to spend more money and resources adding to the code or any other updates to a game. Remember the code on XM the first month it was launched, now go back and read the best game ever posts. Game has evolved greatly, quite a number are complaining now, but not then.

With the prices of games soaring the last 2 or so years, I have felt some of the needless post praise, in some way may be people experiencing Cognitive Dissonance. By posting its the best game ever, it gets people to agree with their statement; reinforcing their decision.
Its interesting the more prices have hiked the more you see of it, very different view points and the way most express their feelings on Pinside compared to RGP and that going back to the year 2000.

just my .02 cents, take it or leave it,
Scott
Detroit Pinball

I'd love to comment in this thread but I have a pin for sale so I need to access the site.

As a recent first-time buyer I'll second that both "positive" and "negative" comments in the For Sale section are valuable to the community. It's a chance to get some sense of what a range of reasonable prices are and assistance in spotting issues with a game that might not be apparent to someone new to pinball (or new to a particular game).

And as a recent first-time seller, even if you price below market value you'll probably get comments criticizing the condition of your game and/or your pricing. This being a pinball forum it seems fair to expect people to express the opinions to which they are "entitled," even though some of them will be inane. If you've priced your game appropriately it won't matter, you'll sell it anyway.

"Zealot" just wasn't a funny enough word!

I actually find the term "refake" both accurate and entertaining. It's not often I get to agree with TeeKee.

And OT, but I think the MM refake has already done significant damage to the momentum this hobby was building and it will get worse. More people dumping entire collections now that the "collectibility" factor has been seriously tainted .. combined with the market being flooded with very expensive new titles equals a market crash for pinball. Short-sighted.

It may do damage to the "price momentum", but that's a win for PLAYERS (vs "collectors/flippers").

If anything, the rabid purchasing of games sight unseen (from Stern and the other one) has removed accountability from the manufacturers and done more "damage" IMO.

Both of you quoted me and then started talking about a specific word. I said in the quote it is NOT a specific word, it is how those words get used. Words mean nothing, the context they are used in is what is the problem at times. Everybody is going to have a different level of tolerance.

When I was in the USAF, there was no clear line for favoritism in the workplace. What is came down to was perception. If others perceived there was favoritism and said as much, then it was favoritism. It was not allowed and if confronted, must be stopped or risk the penalties that came with it. Trolling is the same way, we know what it is by definition, we just have to make the call and balance that against all information.

Fantastic. As a recent entrant into this hobby, I welcome that fantasy. It is of course an unlikely outcome, but let's run with your notion.

Dump your machines now. Cut your losses. Move to high ground before the inevitable flood.

Let's see who the short sighted idiot is then.

Stop calling people names, that does not work out well. Not just the post above, there are others.

No. It's a MAJOR loss for players. Pinball was clearly dying in the late 90's. Starting in roughly 2000 ... with only 1 pinball manufacturer barely surviving ... there was a major shift for pinball from being a money earner in arcades/locations (a business for others) to being a direct money earner for Stern BECAUSE people suddenly started COLLECTING games for home (and the internet enabled us to troubleshoot and collaborate with other pinheads.) Well, guess what ... the MM refake has seriously tainted the "collectibility" part of pinball that has caused the resurgence in the first place and the WHOLE REASON NEW MANUFACTURERS ARE GETTING INTO THE GAME. Just wait ... manufacturers are probably already starting to feel the pain and it will only get worse if refake #2 is announced and the trend continues. It's terrible.

Well then, as a "recent entrant into the hobby" you clearly have no clue what you're talking about and how we got where we are and where we are heading.

Sorry electro city but we are not letting you post ridiculous prices for newbs to think is common practice around here. MArketplace and feel free to post but otherwise you must know how we feel about your shenanigans .
P.s way to dump on the thread.

Thicker skin would do us all some good.

Carry on.

After reading all the drama on here today....... I really cant wait to go home and play some pinball.

Anyone want to play some pinball? I'm buyin.

Edit, horse has been beaten to death in the last 5 hours

Just close and lock the threads. This one is a perfect example.

In before the lock

Well, sure. The market is clogged up with overpriced machines that would invite price police drama in the forums. People bring the good deals to the forums and they sell instantly.

Who says they are over priced though? Why is this site king on price? If you get a deal cool but why if one game sells for x amount is that considered the right price? Try to open a shop selling pins for "pinside deal" prices and see how fast you're out of business. If we went by pinside prices in life anyone who bought tf LE and Xmen LE to distribute to the community would be out of business. And if they were out of business who would distribute the pins?

I feel the problem here isn't the people who criticize Stern or JJP, especially if it's a legitimate concern. It's the people who attack other people personally because they disagree.

You have a 'be nice' slogan... yet you allow posts in For Sale posts that are completely un-constructive, add no value, and generally are disrespectful towards the person trying to sell an item. I fail to see how any of that falls under your 'be nice' or trying to create a positive community.

The problems with certain posts and trends are not about 'pro' or 'against' things.. it's that people are intentionally derailing threads with their ad-nauseum interjections about the same stuff over and over. By not nipping this stuff in the butt the behavior evolves to trolling and sucks others in. And lets be honest... the worst offenders know they are doing it and love the attention. That's when it evolves to trolling. Let someone say their peace.. but do they need to do it in every single thread on the subject when all it does is derail the thread? Moving all that crap to a sandbox thread does wonders for that behavior. Want to keep revisiting the same topic? Throw all those posts into the same thread and eventually people get the hint and tire of talking to themselves.