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Model Forum / General / Models / August 2005



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What in the world is going on?

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MQM107 - 10 Aug 2005 22:42 GMT
Of late all I seem to see is FA! Don't these guys get it? If we want to
buy something we know where to look for it. I doubt that this forum was
really intended as a "for sale's list". And if most of the crap, was
worth having, they would'nt need to advertise it here. I may get beat
up over this but, I like to use this site to see what people are
building and problems they be having and need help on. If you have
something to sell, put it on ebay and take your chances. Anybody agree?

Mike
crw59@earthlink.net - 10 Aug 2005 23:05 GMT
a few FA posts are ok if you list all you have for sale in one post.

The BIG problem is when people list only one kit for each post.
Now that is annoying.

Craig
gcmschemist@gmail.com - 10 Aug 2005 23:45 GMT
> a few FA posts are ok if you list all you have for sale in one post.
>
> The BIG problem is when people list only one kit for each post.
> Now that is annoying.

Why?  It's easy to not click on a link, or to set your newsreader to
"kill thread."

If it says "FA" in the title, I ignore it.  "FS", "OT" - whatever.

E.P.
Doug - 11 Aug 2005 03:11 GMT
As someone who has lately been posting some FA messages - one at a
time! - I'd like to comment.

I serve on the board of a very small nonprofit organization. A friend
was cleaning out his father's house and found a huge collection of
kits in the basement. He donated them to our organization hoping we
could use them to raise some money.

I had no idea what to do with them. (A side note: When I brought them
home, I had them on tables in the driveway, airing them out. A
neighbor thought we were having a yard sale and offerd a large sum of
money for the lot. I declined.) I posted some questions to this group
about selling the kits and folks were very helpful in getting me
started. As with most on-line communities, folks were kind and
generous and I appreciate it.

The eBay auctions last only a week. Unless folks troll eBay on a daily
basis, it would be easy to miss a kit that might be of interest. This
is a very select audience. By posting here, I make folks aware of what
we're selling.

I agree that it's a simple matter to ignore a message with a subject
line beginning FA. As for listing them in one message versus all at
once, it seems to me it's easier for someone looking for a particular
kit to glance at a subject line and read the message if interested.
Listing multiple kits in one message would be impractical from this
perspective since a subject line of "FA: A whole bunch of kits"
doesn't convey much. Individual messages serve as a sort of
pre-screening, since the subject line tells you exactly what's being
sold. It's not that different from other newsgroups in which hobbyists
swap gear, supplies, instruments, etc.

I try to provide as much information as possible about the kits -
including multiple pictures of the box and pictures of the parts on
our website - so prospective buyers can make an informed decision. I
minimize the information I post here since it's available on our
website. My bottom line is to raise money to fund our programs and do
it honestly and ethically.

My suggestion is to read the threads that interest you and ignore the
rest.

Just my opinion. Thanks for listening.

Doug
Kurt Laughlin - 11 Aug 2005 04:23 GMT
> My suggestion is to read the threads that interest you and ignore the
> rest.

That's just crazy talk.

KL
gcmschemist@gmail.com - 11 Aug 2005 06:13 GMT
> The eBay auctions last only a week. Unless folks troll eBay on a daily
> basis, it would be easy to miss a kit that might be of interest. This
> is a very select audience. By posting here, I make folks aware of what
> we're selling.

OR, what you *could* do:

Do a FA post, and then within that ONE post, list the auctions
separately with links.

I don't care one way or another, I ignore them all anyway.  But you'd
draw less ire if you followed my suggestion.

E.P.
Jim - 11 Aug 2005 07:19 GMT
Not here to bust your chops, but what I try to do is something like this.
FA: Armor/Aircraft/etc....

I recently listed 25 items on eBay, everything went except 2 sets of decals.
I then broke the info down in the post by category and scale.  I will admit
that it was a rather tedious process.  It doesn't really bother me one way
or the other though.  I get sick of seeing all the porn junk that gets
spammed all over hell.

Good luck with your auctions.
> As someone who has lately been posting some FA messages - one at a
> time! - I'd like to comment.
[quoted text clipped - 41 lines]
>
> Doug
crw59@earthlink.net - 11 Aug 2005 15:15 GMT
Actually RMS could use some good porn......
Bill Woodier - 12 Aug 2005 13:40 GMT
I suppose this was intended to be humorous but ..............  Oh, never
mind.
Signature

Cheers:  Bill Woodier
"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready
in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."
     My Home Page:  http://www.bill-woodier.com/home.htm
--

> Actually RMS could use some good porn......
MJ Rudy - 11 Aug 2005 11:37 GMT
When I was still selling on eBay, I would make FA posts here, but I'd
place all of my links to the separate auctions inside one or two
posts.  It saves posters from complaining.  

Hope you have better luck with getting good prices on eBay than I did.
A few years ago it was great, then the bottom seemed to fall out of my
sales.  Now there are too many power sellers clogging up the listings
with junk listed week in, week out with no bids.

Signature

M. J. Rudy
mjrudy@hotmail.com
NEW ADDRESS:
http://www.geocities.com/mjrudymodels/

>As someone who has lately been posting some FA messages - one at a
>time! - I'd like to comment.
[quoted text clipped - 41 lines]
>
>Doug
Don McIntyre - 11 Aug 2005 14:15 GMT
<snip>
> Hope you have better luck with getting good prices on eBay than I did.
> A few years ago it was great, then the bottom seemed to fall out of my
> sales.  Now there are too many power sellers clogging up the listings
> with junk listed week in, week out with no bids.

MJ,
 I'm trying to figure out how some of these guys are "power sellers"
when they never seem to sell anything? I know one of these guys has
been advertising a lot of the same stuff for over a year now, and
hasn't dropped the price ona anything!

Oh well, I'll just keep plugging away trying to sell my stuff.

Don McIntyre
Clarksville.
Mad-Modeller - 12 Aug 2005 05:29 GMT
When I started selling stuff I figured the kits would bring the money in
but it's the built models that are bringing in the bucks.  
To some extent I wish I had charged a little more for some things I sold
in straight sales.  Oh well.
I know what Sister Mary means as I used to peruse the 1/144th listings
and I'd see the same kits week in, week out.  The seller must have
bought out a distributor.

Bill Banaszak, MFE
Jim - 11 Aug 2005 18:56 GMT
Then you have these guys listing an item as 1/35th Tiger I Dragon, Not
Tamiya etc......
Thought listing something with Not(insert company name here) was frowned
upon, if not against the rules on eBay.
> When I was still selling on eBay, I would make FA posts here, but I'd
> place all of my links to the separate auctions inside one or two
[quoted text clipped - 50 lines]
>>
>>Doug
MJ Rudy - 11 Aug 2005 22:03 GMT
It is, if you or I do it.  Our auctions will inevitably get
reported/pulled, usually reported by one of those power sellers who
smells some competition on "their" turf.

If a power seller does this (supposedly against-eBay-rules) thing, and
you or I report *them,* nothing will be done as eBay makes too much
money in fees from them.

Signature

M. J. Rudy
mjrudy@hotmail.com
NEW ADDRESS:
http://www.geocities.com/mjrudymodels/

>Then you have these guys listing an item as 1/35th Tiger I Dragon, Not
>Tamiya etc......
[quoted text clipped - 54 lines]
>>>
>>>Doug
Jim - 13 Aug 2005 06:26 GMT
Thanks M.J.  Somehow I let that little aspect slip by.
> It is, if you or I do it.  Our auctions will inevitably get
> reported/pulled, usually reported by one of those power sellers who
[quoted text clipped - 62 lines]
>>>>
>>>>Doug
dallison@mindspring.com - 11 Aug 2005 16:06 GMT
I appreciate everyone's comments. I want to respect the wishes of
others in this group and certainly do not want to annoy anyone more
than necessary.

I will make an effort to post *all* my listings in one message with a
subject line indicating vintage model car kits. I've been listing them
as I have a few moments, so it's been one-at-a-time over several days.
I will try to list the next few (I think I have three more ready to
go) at one fell swoop. And I'll plan to do the same with future
batches that I'm ready to sell.

I don't know what all is in the collection as I haven't been through
all the boxes. But I'm going to hold off listing the Mod Squad station
wagon for a while....

Thanks to all who made constructive suggestions!

Doug
Don Stauffer - 11 Aug 2005 15:25 GMT
>>a few FA posts are ok if you list all you have for sale in one post.
>>
[quoted text clipped - 7 lines]
>
> E.P.

Yeah, but why should we HAVE to get in there and do the effort to kill a
thread.  I also object to umpteen messages from the same poster.  Makes
more work scrolling through the rest of the messages too.
Mad-Modeller - 11 Aug 2005 06:23 GMT
I have no trouble not clicking on those.  The ones that bug me are the
FS when they really are FA.  One usually does not find that out until
the message is opened.  At that, I usually mutter some expletive and
move on.

Bill Banaszak, MFE
Mike G. - 11 Aug 2005 14:44 GMT
I have no problem with "FA's" listed on here separately, it helps to find
interesting items that way.
I just don't open those of no interest.
What I do hate is to open a "FS" only to find it's really a "FA" as someone
else said.
Wastes my time!
Now granted, if there are like 20-30 posts, then that's taking up a lot and
not really fair to others.
Those could be combined into 2 or 3 posts and labled as "aircraft", "tanks",
etc.
Just my 2 cents worth.....
MG
Mike G. - 11 Aug 2005 14:48 GMT
"Oh, also, if it's like for Doug's org. (non profit), then I see no problem
with that at all.
It's for a good cause!
Good luck on your auctions Doug, sure wish I had the money to bid on some of
those, would love to have them!
MG
Mad-Modeller - 12 Aug 2005 05:33 GMT
> "Oh, also, if it's like for Doug's org. (non profit), then I see no problem
> with that at all.
> It's for a good cause!
> Good luck on your auctions Doug, sure wish I had the money to bid on some of
> those, would love to have them!
> MG

I agree.  Sure wish I'd bought that '70 Charger kit back in the '70s
from Ott's Hobbies for a whopping $5. ;/

Bill Banaszak, MFE
Wayne C. Morris - 11 Aug 2005 19:02 GMT
> Of late all I seem to see is FA! Don't these guys get it? If we want to
> buy something we know where to look for it.

Just because I *want* to buy something, doesn't mean I want to waste a lot
of time looking for it.  There are a bunch of kits I want, and they're rare
enough that I'd be lucky if even one of them shows up on eBay within the
next 6 months.  And I'd have to do a separate search for each kit, because
they don't have enough in common to be combined into one search.

I *like* it when people promote their model auctions here, because I read
this newsgroup every day.  It guarantees that I'll learn about the auction
before it ends, and saves me the trouble of doing fruitless searches on a
regular basis.

I also greatly prefer eBay auctions over private sales.  With eBay there's
less worry about whether I can trust the seller.

That said, I *don't* like the following kinds of FA/FS posts:

* Subject line doesn't mention what kinds of models are being sold (e.g.
aircraft, armor, SF, anime, Star Wars, ...)

* Message doesn't give any information about the kits being sold, just a
link.  I want to know what he's selling *before* I click on that link.

* One seller posting a dozen FA/FS messages in one day.  Splitting a really
long list can be okay if done logically (e.g. aircraft in one message,
scifi in another), but don't go overboard.

> I doubt that this forum was really intended as a "for sale's list".

Not *just* that, no, but FA and FS posts are not prohibited by the charter
nor the FAQ, and are considered on-topic here if the merchandise is model
kits, tools & supplies.  Once in a while someone like you complains, but
every time it's discussed, the final consensus is that such posts are
acceptable here.

If you don't like FA posts, learn how to filter.  If your newsreader is any
good, it should be easy to create a few filters that will block all the FA
and FS messages so you'll never see them again.

> And if most of the crap, was worth having, they would'nt need to
> advertise it here.

If it's worth having, it's also worth advertising.  And they *do* need to
advertise it here if they want to reach people like me, who have better
things to do than repeating the same eBay searches every day and wading
through the inevitable long lists of false hits and bootlegs.
Gray Ghost - 12 Aug 2005 02:54 GMT
> Of late all I seem to see is FA! Don't these guys get it? If we want to
> buy something we know where to look for it. I doubt that this forum was
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> Mike

I emailed that guy Tom and suggested he would be less
annoying if he put all his ads in one post, but he apparently
has a degree in marketing which says being annoying helps
sales. I just put him in the killfile.

Frank
Doug Wagner - 13 Aug 2005 18:44 GMT
> I emailed that guy Tom and suggested he would be less
> annoying if he put all his ads in one post, but he apparently
> has a degree in marketing which says being annoying helps
> sales. I just put him in the killfile.
>
> Frank

I found his multiple posts annoying too.
A simple "block sender" and I'm no longer annoyed.

Doug Wagner
Stephen Tontoni - 13 Aug 2005 05:42 GMT
> Of late all I seem to see is FA! Don't these guys get it? If we want to
> buy something we know where to look for it. I doubt that this forum was
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
>
> Mike

I disagree entirely as long as the items for auction or sale are related
to modeling, or even just a common interest. Having auction and sale
notices here is a public service.

Regarding the recent spate of FA postings, those are very unusual kits
of interesting aircraft that I would *never* have thought to look for in
eBay, nor would I have expected to find them. Having the FA posting
helps us find the really cool stuff that is out of the mainstream.

You may set up a killfile that seeks the string "fa" and thus not have
to see these posts if they annoy you too much. As for me, I like it.

----Stephen Tontoni
Seattle, WA
 
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