On Tue, 22 May 2001, Marvin wrote:
> I, for one, think it is a great idea and have no problems at all with it!
> Among other things, it does away with the luck of being the first person to
> read a post and get the item. Also, it keeps the item in this community
> which is most likely a good thing.
Well, here's my take on it, at least with this particular instance in
mind.
Personally, if I saw something in a Goodwill that I wasn't familiar with,
and I posted about it to the list, and everyone responded with "GRAB IT!
R_at_RE!!!", then I would probably go grab it so that I could give it to
someone on the list. If there were multiple people interested in it and
it mattered, I'd do some sort of lottery (pick a number from 0 to 65535)
and then give it to whomever came closest (they pay shipping). I
certainly wouldn't decide to capitalize on this find and hold an auction
(greed). There's just something inconsistent with good taste and
community spirit about that.
Is this Canon Cat still at Goodwill? What happens if the guy holding this
"auction" goes back to get it and it's gone? Then everyone soiled their
pants over nothing, especially he, since his dreams of being able to make
enough money from this to afford that new microwave oven to cook his fish
sticks in are dashed!
On many occasions I have found things that I figured other people would
want and have paid my own money to acquire and then send to them, many
times without asking for reimbursement. I would hope for the same in
return from other members of this community (and in fact it has just
recently happened, thanks Rich B.!!!, and also many times in the past,
thanks Jeff H.!!!)
In fact, coincidentally, I once found a Canon Cat at a local ham fest.
Knowing that a friend had been wanting one, and being that I already had
one, I bought it for him and gave it to him (though I can't remember if I
made him reimburse me or not :) Does he owe me $100 or whatever the
current bid is on the one in question now? Well, if he feels guilty about
it (and he knows who he is ;) then I'll let him buy me a sandwich or
something the next time he sees me (or he can help schlep stuff around).
> Another approach is to use the pre-approved bidder list on Ebay, and
> only approve people on this list to bid. From my standpoint, that
> might penalize the lurkers since *I* would only recognize the people
> that have posted in the past. OTOH, it might encourage people to post
> once in a while :).
At least it would take it off CC where it doesn't belong and onto eBay
where it does :)
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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International Man of Intrigue and Danger
http://www.vintage.org
Received on Wed May 23 2001 - 09:38:08 BST