New (old) Board Direction- IMPORTANT

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Posted By: davidcycleback

I'll support Leon. Until we give him a salary, we can't complain too much. I say we see how it goes. If Leon's direction means this board isn't hijacked by anonymous bat posters, I'll be happy.

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Posted By: Julie

Look at the first page of the Forum--two or three VERY interesting threads about OJs, a Pirate tin, ebay scammers, questions about identifying old cards, suggestions about giving people things, an informative column on the collectors of Zeenuts, a question on early baseball stamps, David Rudd's new e-mail newsletter, advertising for old cards in magazines---
The only things I'm getting tired of is all these threads about the direction of the board! Look at it; there's your "direction."

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Posted By: davidcycleback

In Seattle, they have the regularly show classic bad movies, with titles such as "Attack of the Killer Shrews," "The Giant Gila Monster" and "Eegah!" I'm not sure, but I think one of the movies shown was "Attack of the Anonymous Bat Poster."

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Posted By: jay behrens

Holy Bat-poster, Batman!!!

Jay- just to make Trevor feel welcome

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: Bryan Long

on this thread but I just want to say that Leon is doing a great job and keep up the good work. I like your ideas and I hope it works. I'll still post and lurk as much as ever.

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Posted By: Paul Koetz

Hello Board,

I am a full-time lurker but felt I should come out of hiding for this. I have been 'lurking' for a year and I e-mailed both Bill and Leon about my concerns about this board a week ago and I as well am a little irritated and confused by the change and I think most of it has to do with the way everything is worded and the way people tell me that 'everything will be like it is in the old days'.

I have re-read and re-read what Leon, Elliott and Trevor have to say and it's like having three bosses telling you something that isn't quite clear and I can see how some people can feel alienated.

Trevor, what I always understood is that you could talk about pre-war memorabilia and until a few days ago, the name of the board was 'Vintage Collecting Baseball'. Not cards. Today it's 'Vintage Baseball Cards' so does anyone really know if anything else will be discussed? If it's called 'Vintage Baseball Cards', THAT IS ALL THAT SHOULD BE DISCUSSED and everyone should respect it. The problem is that Leon doesn't want it to be 'cards only'. So how about a list of rules of things that can and cannot be discussed and how about changing the name back to 'Vintage Baseball Collecting'then?

Everyone says that this will be like the 'old board'. How old is the old board? Was I here for the old board? What was different from the old board and the board from a year ago when I came on?

If this is a 'pre-war Baseball card site' that's fine. But what is it?
Nobody seems to know. It's different to different people and that's what is truly alienating certain people from this board.

I think there are only about a dozen of you who are truly remarkable in your knowledge of pre-war cards and who live on the Board. If this becomes a pre-war Baseball card site, then this forum will basically be the twelve of you having a conversation and answering each other's questions. How fun is that? Do you want a bunch of 'lurkers' and that's it?

As I said, I will lurk for a while but I really hope that some names that I am fond of don't flee and give up on the site. The thing is, I think a few have and I think it's a shame.

Thank you,

Paul

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Posted By: martin dalziel

Personally i don't want to see a list of rules as once that happens all level of flexibility will go out the window. I like guidelines so that the board can be dynamic - the guildlines say 'baseball cards and related' and figure that if people will just give it a go we'll all find out soon enough what is good and what is better off somewhere else.

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Posted By: Trevor Hocking

Jay, Thanks. If your a collector we should chat off-line sometime.

Paul, By no means am I a "Boss" or for that matter a regular contributor. I am a collector who loves to talk about vintage cards. The board was always a card only site for a long time until about six months or so ago. I really could careless what we talk about I will just click on the posts I care about. I agree with Julie this is getting old and the site seems to be on the right road already. I just wanted everyone to remember why they came here in the first place. If you are new to the site I can understand the confusion. Paul, I don't think anyone is gone they just haven't had anything that interests them to talk about yet. I know I could never leave this site it's more addicting than baseball cards, ok maybe not but people just have to click. Stay with it. It took me a long time before I wanted to come back but I'm really looking forward to some great topics.

Trevor Hocking

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Posted By: jay behrens

Let me see if I can muddy up the waters some more. The primary focus of the this board has always been cards. Other things get discussed, but the one thing that brings us all together is the cards. There are very people that are truley card only collectors. I fall into this catagory only becuase when I returned to the hobby, I no longer had the budget to pursue everything I thought was cool and interesting.

If you only interest is autographs, memorabilia or other things that aren't related to cards, then this probably the wrong board for you. As Leon said, no one is gonna run off because of the occassional post about books, photos, scorecards, etc, as long as they meet the definition of vintage here.

The current thread about the Pirate Tobacco display is a perfect example of a non-card item that is a great topic here becuase it relates back to the cards. Posting about whether or not a Ryan rookie or a Mantle autograph is real will probably get deleted.

In reality, the only big change you will see is a tighter reign on the posts about 50s cards and other things that don't tie directly to cards somehow. And we should never have to see a game used authenticity question around here again since there is aboard now dedicated to that area.

It's sounds like there are big changes going down, and I was a bit worried about it myself, but realize that all that is going to happen is that there will be a bit tighter control on the content of the board. And this not meant to be a slight to Bill's work he did. He did a great job running the board and ran it as he saw fit and the the number of people that visit here grew enourmously becuase of it.

All I can suggest is give it a month, I really don't think you'll see that big of change outside of a tighter focus.

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: jay behrens

Trevor, I don't collect anymore. I used to own a gaming and comic store in Sacramento for about 5 years. I really don't have much in the way of comics left, a FF4 annual #4 with the first full length Silver Surfer story and a run of Spawn from 1-50 and a complete run of Astro City. Also have a bunch of Millenium edition DC comics which thought was a really neat idea and cheap way to get to read some of the major Golden Era comics. Also have a TPBs of Astro City, Transmetropolitan and Lost in Paradise.

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: barrysloate

The new board is all about using good judgment. If it's an interesting topic that elicits lively discussion, it's appropriate. If it's about a vintage book, scorecard, photograph, or what have you, and the discussion is headed towards teaching everyone something new, it's appropriate. If it's about beanie babies or garbage pail kids, it's a no go. If the poster offers nothing worthwhile and is just there to start a fight with someone and is sarcastic or caustic (as a few posters do as a steady diet), then it's not appropriate. Use a little common sense and apply it to the board. All those who participate can easily distinguish a worthwhile discussion from a meaningless one, and Leon is going to recognize this immediately. There's no reason for old members to feel alienated. Leon will make sure this is a better board, so give him the benefit of the doubt.

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Posted By: ramram

I'll keep my fingers crossed. If the main focus is to keep the trash talking out, then I'm all for it.

Rob M.

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Posted By: Rob L

Okay, one last post in response to Eliott. I believe that this board will still be very sucessful, however, it is clear that Leon does mean "vintage cards primarily". After all, he did get pissed and break away from this board to start a cards only forum. As I recall, he was very vocal in the "too much memorabilia" and had a row with Bill C regarding his direction of this board. I think alot this got to Bill C and is one of the main reasons that he left. It was pretty clear when Leon took over, that this board would return to the "cards" only forum. It's too bad that it will end up going this way, but that's life. Times change. I don't collect cards (well, I guess I could post about the 28 T201s that I have) and therefore probably wouldn't have much to contribute. I will likely still lurk.

It was a fun run.

Rob Loeffler

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Posted By: jay behrens

Don't think that Leon's creation of a new board was what made Bill want to give up control of the board. He was thinking about it long before all that happened. It was something that was going on behind the scenes that only a few were aware of. As Elliot mentioned, about the longest anyone can tolerate moderating the board is 12-18 months. I'm sure that's about how long Leon will last before he decides he needs a break.

Jay

I've just reached Upper Lower Class. I am now officially a babe magnet for poor chicks.

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Posted By: Julie

Thanks Elliot, Bill , Leon and brian!

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Posted By: Jimmy Leiderman

Rob M,

Guess this will be my last post here as well.
Not that I post that much lately, but seems that our small hobby niche needs a new home.
I'm on vacation right now and I don't have the time to read every post on this thread., but do understand that new forum management could censor any photograph post if it's not card related.

Don't know if you guys (Rob M, Scott, Jason, etc) already started corresponding about this by email, since I haven't been able to catch up with my email accounts but will do so by tomorrow.

Good luck!


Jimmy Leiderman

jleiderman @ invertron.net

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Posted By: runscott

I'm guessing you will get what you need with the new version of the old board. Give it a few weeks and see. My concern is still about getting ripped a new one every time I post - looks like Leon is making it a priority to stop that sort of thing.

I still think we should set up a distribution list for non-card discussions and make it available to guys like you, Rob, Barry, etc. - sort of like SABR-L. There wouldn't be any fighting - de-weeding a distribution list is simple.

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Posted By: Sean Coe

As someone who collects both pre-WWII cards and autographs, I am somewhat saddened by the decision to narrow focus, but can understand the decision. Frankly, I'm bored with most of the autograph threads here, as they all usually fall in "is this authentic or look at this god awful forgery" category.The best threads to me have always been those that educate, whether it be about cards, photographs, Negro League items etc.. I don't collect photographs(I may start) but I read and enjoy David's posts because I learn something. If the combined knowledge of posters here was ever utilized properly the newbie entering the collecting field would never have to make an uniformed purchase. Where this board lost focus is with the endless bickering and bashing and unfortunately much of that involved memorabilia. Limiting subject matter seems a high price to pay, but perhaps its necessary.

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

A distinction needs to be made

There was previously a lot of bickering over "game-used" memorabilia, which is totally different from the "vintage memorabilia" that many of us on this board collect.

The "game-used" people now have their own board, and it's pretty much populated with experts in that area - very well-run board that Eric moderates. I think that most of the fighting over that type of stuff was because they were over here, mingled in with people who didn't know enough about game-used stuff to really be involved in the conversations. If you look over there now (game-used forum), you will find many "big names" in that hobby who never appeared on this board. Sure, they fight - but it's for the most part "educated" debate.

The "vintage memorabilia" collectors;however, do NOT have anywhere to discuss their items, and since most of them collect pre-war cards as well (in many cases, pre-wwi cards), we found this place very hospitable.

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Posted By: Eric

Hey folks
Just got an email from Scott regarding a home for vintage memorabilia discussion.
I have created a folder at http://www.gameusedforum.com for your needs. I welcome your visits and discussion.
The only things I as are 1) the discussions are based on fact- no personal attacks and 2) vintage game used discussion be kept in the game used folder and vintage memorabilia kept in the new folder.
Have fun and I hope to see you on the site.
Just so this doesn't get buried in this long thread, I will post this separately as well.
Thanks
Eric
Moderator gameusedforum.com

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Posted By: Scott Forrest

I'm looking forward to posting there.