Originally Posted by Mark17
Please..... Did I say taking money from crooks is admirable or acceptable to me? What I said was, Leon owns his site, so he gets to make the call, period.
I primarily collect GU stuff. There used to be a great website called gameuseduniverse. I loved it over there. They had a bunch of really great members who were very helpful to me, like Mike Specht, Dave Meidema, and Bud Hillerich (who told me my GU Terry Felton bat was one of only 4 made for him.) I got to know Chris Cavalier and that's where I met Dave Grob and others. Really great group of people.
Well, Chris sold the site to Ken Goldin of Goldin Auctions, and right away the "Goldin Rule" was instituted. It said that criticism of items listed in Goldin Auctions was not permitted - and questions needed to be sent to Ken directly, and privately. As I watched that rule be enforced several times, I started to become uncomfortable with what I was seeing, and found net54 as an alternative site.
Some of you may remember the Babe Ruth catchers glove incident a few years ago. Goldin was auctioning a glove that was thought to have been used by Ruth as a teenager at his industrial school. Some members here pointed out differences between pictures of Ruth with his glove, and the glove being auctioned. Then, some of those who were raising questions were apparently contacted by an attorney, either issuing, or threatening, a cease and desist notice.
For me, that was it. Free speech was the norm over here, and over at gameuseduniverse, not so much. I stopped going over there.
On April 23 of this year, I received an email from Chris Cavalier, which begins: "I hope this email finds you doing well. Recently, there were a few people who tried to reach me through the Game Used Universe site. As the site's founder, I am sure it seemed logical to try to reach me through the GUU. Unfortunately, my account there has been banned by the site's new owner and I am no longer able to post there or respond to anyone trying to message me through the site."
Chris went on to provide his email address at Heritage, where he is now a Consignment Director. I wish him the best and consider him to be one of the many "good guys" who used to be at that site. Out of curiosity, I checked out GUU (had problems logging in as I'd forgotten my password.) It looks like a ghost town compared to what it used to be.
So........ When I see people jumping all over Leon because he didn't instantly ban one of his advertisers over this recently breaking scandal, and then when I see people who spend quite a lot of time enjoying this site (for free) imply Leon has no "cojones" and that he can be "bought," I think it is unfair to the extreme.
Running this website costs money, and maintaining civility among all of us must be rather challenging at times. I agree with a previous poster that Leon manages this site, and keeps us all in line, in a very calm and fair way. For example, the PWCC ad issue is now resolved, and as it turns out, Leon't patient approach, to let things play out, was better than some sort of knee-jerk reaction some here advocated.
What I don't want is for the aggravation Leon has to put up with to become so great that he starts looking for his own "Goldin Parachute." Imagine if he sold this site to another auction house, or even PSA (or for that matter, PWCC.) New rules might be instituted, the current moderators would quit as they wouldn't be able to stomach those new rules, and I would have to find another hobby website, rather than watch this site degenerate the way of GUU.
Bottom line is this: I am comfortable here. If at some point I become uncomfortable, I will simply leave. But I will not try to tell Leon how to run his site, and I certainly will not insult him. If you interpret that as me having no principles, so be it.
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