Posted By:
JoannOK Steve. I think I just had this huge logic collision in my brain. It may have broken something.
Your item 2 says something properly categorized is always ok to out - suspect status does not matter.
Your item 3 says something not properly categorized is never ok to out - suspect status does not matter.
Items 2 and 3 together describe the entire universe of auction listings. All items ever listed would be either properly categorized per item 2 and okay to out, or miscategorized per item 3 and not ok to out. All auctions anywhere are either a 2 or a 3.
Therefore, there is no room in the logic for item 1. Whether something is suspect is completely irrelevant. The ok or not ok for outing an auction is driven purely by whether or not it is properly categorized.
And that's why it's the best statement yet of the unwritten rules. We have struggled in the past over suspect or kind of suspect or for sure suspect or almost positive suspect, and that's why it can be so hard to describe the boundaries.
But saying that the issue is resolved by proper categorization is much simpler, and it also gets to what bothers many people about outing auctions - which is the number of people that know about it.
And then Brian further develops the idea by distinguishing between mainstream auction houses versus middle houses down to the boutique kind of auctions.
Howard - my view on not outing miscategorized auctions is based on how hard some people work to find them. I have some searches that I do for some items regularly, but for the most part my finding cards is pretty much lazily browsing through the pre-1930's Singles category.
Others spend a lot of time trying to find miscategorized items, and I think it's unfair for me to get the benefit of their efforts by either following them around via bidder searches or having someone out the auction here. I think that these folks may search days and weeks and only occasionally run across a great miscategorized item. I don't know b/c I don't do it, but I suspect it doesn't happen every day. If 3 or 4 people have worked hard and been patient to find these items, I don't think it's fair for 500 people to catch right up in two seconds because one of them decided to ask a question here.
So! Based on the great definition provided by Steve and nuanced by Brian to give crystal clarity to this issue ... let the bickering over what is and what it not miscategorized begin!
Joann