Jalpert,

I noticed there's a 13,500 Tron LE thread you haven't policed yet. The community needs you to step in and protect us!

-JB

What ever happened to, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all?

The negativity in this place (when it comes to anything relating to money) is off putting. Going around and interjecting negativity into every for sale thread just breeds negativity, and it encourages people who don't really have a good understanding of value to pile on. It also discourages otherwise good sellers from listing here.

The disingenuous "nice price" posts aren't all that helpful either, but at least it's positive.

Here's the thing, there is a line between what's socially acceptable and what's not. Is it okay for you to go into a second grade classroom and say "which one of you little girls wants a mustache ride?" No. That's not okay. You would get your ass kicked for saying that. Just like you might get your ass kicked for interjecting yourself into a public sale.

Okay, maybe these are extreme examples but just because you CAN say something doesn't mean you should.

That's only because there's a computer screen to protect you from the seller.

It's also not against the law for you to go into a church on Sunday and tell everyone they're idiots for giving their money because god doesn't exist.

Using examples is part of debating. That's all I was doing. My points being:

1) Keep it positive
2) Just because the internet allows you say things you wouldn't normally say in real life, doesn't mean it's a good idea.

That's it for me.

Be accurate now. I said it wasn't all that helpful to price pump.

But yes it IS better because it's positive, as long as it's not deceiving. It's not all that difficult of a concept. When your co-worker has a nice shirt on you might say "hey, nice shirt". When your co-worker has a shirt that makes them look fat you don't say "hey, your shirt makes you look fat". This is just basic manners. I don't think either price policing or price pumping is appropriate in most cases though.

And let me be clear that I don't have a problem with price policing in the extreme situations. HOWEVER that is not how it's used here on many threads. It's common to see price policing on boarderline asking prices. Since prices of pinball machines are highly variable depending on all types of things, condition being the biggest one, but also mods, rarity, location, etc. etc., it's not fair jump in and say "I got that pinball machine for $500 less two weeks ago". Variables like this can boost or lower the sale price by thousands. These things are OFTEN ignored before people jump in with their commentary on how a pin is priced too high. This type of price policing just breeds misinformation and negativity, especially for a seller who's pin is being trashed on false assumptions.

The problem I see, as was pointed out above, is that a lot of members here have their threshold set too low. Crying foul casts some pretty serious dispersions on the seller and there should be more thought put into making that type of accusation before it's made. It's even worse when the accuser has no skin in the game. I've seen numerous threads where people say a pin is priced too high and then somewhere in the middle of the thread they figure out the value of the pin has risen dramatically in the past few years, or it's had significant restoration work, etc. That realization and appology by the price policer comes too late after potential sellers have been influenced by a fallicy and moved on.

In my opinion, it's really bad form to dump on a thread unless you're SURE its out of line.

Yeah, but on the other hand, you shouldn't be accusing anybody of rape unless your pretty damn sure they're a rapist.

He was using a hypothetical to make a point, not threatening to actually do that.