Relentless Negativity

[Leon]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

The autograph people were already booted out of the memorabilia section for just that reason. Since they have their own forum I suppose they can do whatever they want. But no question there is a ton of arguing going on over here. They claim they love the autograph hobby, but you would never know it reading their posts.

Do I hear a motion to create a sub-sub autograph forum?

In all seriousness, this forum was actually created because many of the memorabilia guys were getting inundated with the negative autograph threads. I don't know what the solution is but there does seem to be more angst and unhappiness in this forum than elsewhere on the board. This is also the forum where I read the least threads, partly due to my interests and partly due to my general dislike of negativity. And as Adam said, I am in no way saying bad things shouldn't be pointed out but it seems they should be tempered with equal amounts (or more) of "happy" threads. Just my take......as I continue the overall board mantra of "I don't tell people what to say or not to say." Happy collecting!!

[MooseDog]

Originally Posted by Leon

...there does seem to be more angst and unhappiness in this forum than elsewhere on the board...

Leon -

Could be the psychological nature of we autograph collectors. We are certainly a different breed of collector, In general:

- We get rejected a lot (and not just by players);

- We are sometimes victims of fraud (fakes, forgeries, clubhouse sigs);

- Card collectors don't respect us as "real" collectors (we deface cards);

- Professional sports has caught on to our cash cow and now want to charge us an arm and a leg to get an autograph in person or mail (hello, Steiner?).

- Third party authenticators (the "good" ones) have created an environment where we can't sell our collectibles for proper value without "their" approval (and a fat fee for merely an opinion!)

- Some of the things on our want lists simply do not exist.

Still, I have more angst and unhappiness from life itself. My collection has been fun and a great source of enjoyment over the years.

[Runscott]

Originally Posted by MooseDog

Leon -

Could be the psychological nature of we autograph collectors. We are certainly a different breed of collector, In general:

- We get rejected a lot (and not just by players);

- We are sometimes victims of fraud (fakes, forgeries, clubhouse sigs);

- Card collectors don't respect us as "real" collectors (we deface cards);

- Professional sports has caught on to our cash cow and now want to charge us an arm and a leg to get an autograph in person or mail (hello, Steiner?).

- Third party authenticators (the "good" ones) have created an environment where we can't sell our collectibles for proper value without "their" approval (and a fat fee for merely an opinion!)

- Some of the things on our want lists simply do not exist.

Still, I have more angst and unhappiness from life itself. My collection has been fun and a great source of enjoyment over the years.

Plus, you are often worried that your balls aren't even real

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Leon

Do I hear a motion to create a sub-sub autograph forum?

In all seriousness, this forum was actually created because many of the memorabilia guys were getting inundated with the negative autograph threads. I don't know what the solution is but there does seem to be more angst and unhappiness in this forum than elsewhere on the board. This is also the forum where I read the least threads, partly due to my interests and partly due to my general dislike of negativity. And as Adam said, I am in no way saying bad things shouldn't be pointed out but it seems they should be tempered with equal amounts (or more) of "happy" threads. Just my take......as I continue the overall board mantra of "I don't tell people what to say or not to say." Happy collecting!!

That I did not know; makes sense, though. I have noticed that the memorabilia forum is 'funner' lately.

Here's a novel idea: let's just ignore the bummer threads and bummer posts--simply not respond. Let them wither away. Eventually the OPs will get tired of talking to themselves and stop.

[packs]

I agree with the sentiments of this thread. It's really annoying when a select few posters decide they're going to start an argument. I don't think people are supposed to sling personal insults on this board. Yet in every other thread the same people are relentlessly insulting each other. Maybe we could get those posters off the autograph forum?

[alexautographs]

Having just come back to this forum after an absence of a couple years, it seems everyone forgot the longest thread in history - the famous Morales-Frangipani epic of, I believe, 2010 or so. It helped fuel an FBI investigation that reaped great benefits and vindicated a fine dealer who had become a crook's victim.

Yes, there is an awful lot of mud-slinging here with people who have the same aim in the hobby attacking each other because they've aligned themselves with different "good guys". Who wins? Nobody....but the forgers.

Sure, the topic of frauds and forgers could be dropped entirely and the forum could become just "sweetness and light" - until the next giant fraud is exposed and everyone kicks themselves.

Maybe just a little more self-control and a little less needling is all that's really needed.

[keithsky]

Maybe Leon can start another forum called Mudslinging forum so these guys that want to call each other names and cut each other down can do it without bringing the rest of us down with them. I think it would have about 3 members that come to mind right off the top of my head.

Keith

[packs]

Nothing wrong with outing frauds. It's good for everyone to know who is selling fakes and what to stay away from. That's what I liked about the recent Drew Max thread. A board member carefully broke down what to look for in a baseball fabricated to look vintage.

However, in that thread certain board members also took the opportunity to relentlessly insult each other for another 4 or 5 pages, which is what, 50 posts? And by the time they put their rulers away the valuable information was buried.

There is such a thing as people doing more harm than good. Whenever I see a few posters in a thread I tend to avoid it without even reading whats going on. I'm sure I'm not alone.

[T206Collector]

Also, there are a lot of "experts" on here that like to share their opinions about whether an autograph is real or not. Why would you share your collection if you can expect a few people to chime in about how the signature doesn't look right to them?

Probably comes with the territory, but could you imagine if every time you showed a T206 card on the forum that two or three people were like, "Looks trimmed to me" or "Lettering seems off, might be a reprint". No one would share any more. And it would discourage collecting.

[Scott Garner]

Originally Posted by keithsky

Maybe Leon can start another forum called Mudslinging forum so these guys that want to call each other names and cut each other down can do it without bringing the rest of us down with them. I think it would have about 3 members that come to mind right off the top of my head.

Keith

Perhaps the Mudslinging Forum could be held at high noon? Seems like this would make good sense, FWIW....