E-bay trauma

E-bay: Protectionism or laissez-faire... an old, old debate. I personally *hate* e-bay for No Good Reason, and choose not to participate... not the least Bad Reason of which is my own financial health. I buy enough Stuff via the Net as it is. But that's just Me. Philsophically... E-bay is Capitalistic and Darwinistic. One can rail against the concept or embrace it. C'est la Vie. I spent some years in the Electronic/Aerospace surplus business, and I have been in thousands of auctions of every type. It's like This: Ya win some, an' Ya lose some. I know exactly, precisely how it is to have counted every penny one has to put on something Really Really desireable, only to be outdone at the last moment by some schmuck with deeper pockets. And of course, I've been that schmuck, too. E-bay is a 'public' forum, ie. access is not restricted. This is a 'private' list (sorta), and is (lightly) regulated; I am violating those regs right now. What the crux of Dougs' and Marvin's contretemps [where's all this Francais coming from...?] is the Morality of providing a 'heads-up' to this List of an item on e-bay which might be of interest to one or more listmembers. My tuppence: If I find a nice juicy PDP-11 system for sale, I will either buy it myself, and crow about it here afterwards, or pass on it and announce it here for others to consider. Then, IMHO, the same situation obtains: someone will be successful and the others will be dissappointed. C'est la Vie X2. I see no difference if the Item is languishing on a lonely loading dock or represented on a public auction forum. Private Note to Doug and Marv: Could you please patch this up prior to TRW Saturday (the 30th)??? I'm buying lunch for everyone in the group (after the T-hunt) and I'd like to eat peacefully... ----> ;} <----- Cheerz John