Quote:
Originally Posted by I Only Smoke 4 the Cards
There have been a few threads lately where members have been especially rude and vulgar to each other. Often times the comments don't have anything to do with the thread topic or baseball in general. This got me to thinking....
Personally, I come to the board as a stress reliever. I am passionate collector and there is something relaxing about talking cards. I have met several people on this board who I consider friends and I am grateful for those relationships. When I see people act so vitriolic it detracts from that experience.
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Alex, I agree with your overall sentiment, or at least what I think prompted you to start this thread. Whether it's at all realistic for things on the board to remain mostly positive and without devolving into name calling, pile jumping, witch hunts is another topic... but I sure know it would be nice if there was less drama and more cards. I'm like you in that my cards and this board are a stress reliever for me, a nightly escape, and ideally an opportunity to learn and to connect with a few cool people who share this passion. I don't come here for drama.. there's plenty of that to be had in real life.
Anyway, your thread here made me curious enough last night to search out the Joey thread on the memorabilia side, which in turn made me curious enough to Google some of its contributors. One word follows that- "WOW"
. Won't go into details, but I will say I went to bed (and awoke) with an unsavory feeling, and that my point of view on here has been influenced. I also know there are some posts I will either take with a grain of salt or totally dismiss going forward.
I'm not naive to the fact there are a lot of scammers and I truly appreciate it when legit scams/scammers are outed here. I also for the most part appreciate the folks who do the investigating and outing, and have tried to do my bit when I can. At the same time, this act often seems to go awry and after reading all of that thread, I wished I had not. Separately, I trust my own judgement when shopping for cards (as I think most here do theirs), and like to think I'm diligent enough to avoid the major scam (thanks in large part to board members who have generously shared knowledge). If not??? oh well, I made the choice to take that "risk" and I'll live with it. It certainly won't kill me... and please excuse me if my adrenaline doesn't spike if I get duped/shilled up $10 on eBay, or if someone doesn't pay for an auction. I never want to take this hobby (or myself) too seriously, or to allow the worry or drama to outweigh the enjoyment. As for the stolen memorabilia thread, I'd bought a card from "pre-scandal" Joey and then exchanged a few harmless emails about cards and our mutual affinity for T202. All exchanges were nice and cordial and if he was a true scammer, I definitely didn't feel threatened. Now he's banned, so I guess there's little chance he'll have a chance scam anyone here. Maybe that's a good thing
On that note here are some cards---