eBay idiocy/vcf idiocy et. al.

"Everybody said they'd stand behind me When the game got rough But the joke was on me There was nobody even there to call my bluff I'm going back to New York City, I do believe I've had enough." Sellam is not the only one who has expresses some dissatisfaction with eBay! But, he tried to do something about it. He set up a "competing" system. 'Course he badly underestimated the "critical mass" factor. You can build a better mousetrap, and the world will still beat a path to MICROS~1's door. If ENERYBODY had enthusiastically participated in VCM, then maybe it might have been able to get off the ground. But, "I'm looking for stuff that shows up on eBay more often". "I need to get maximum dollar, and that's on eBay." "there isn't enough activity on VCM" There are plenty of reasons, many quite valid, for sticking with the industry dominating big guy. Sellam mis-estimated the level of that. Now, he feels disappointed, and even a little betrayed by the fact that he never got the level of support for it that people had expressed, or even promised. That was inevitable. He lashed out in frustration. We don't want to be blamed for the failure of his attempt to do something, but, even so, the vocabulary used is hardly the real issue. Yes, he is brash, and even abrasive, in his email rants. But, he devotes his life to this stuff, and in person can be VERY helpful. When I had to close down the operations of XenoSoft, (mostly due to health collapse), Frank McConnell, Uncle Roger, Eric Smith, and Sellam were the only responses that I got in my desperate need to move out 1000 square feet of computer stuff. The Humane Society was glad to get my office furniture, but who would want "obsolete" computers, "obsolete" peripherals (It isn't easy to give away monitors and printers!), and bizarre ephemera from more than 20 years of computer faires, Comdex's, etc. Even Computer Currents and Microtimes had no interest in a collection of their own back issues. Comdex directories? Who would WANT a Diebold motorized rotating file cabinet that holds a thousand 8" diskettes? My best friend tried to help, but he has congestive heart failure. If not for Sellam's efforts, I would have had to pay big money in hauling and disposal fees. Can you IMAGINE how depressing it would be to have to haul your entire collection to the dump? Although my house is now barely habitable, absolutely NOTHING was dumpstered! The four collectors paid me money for some items, and made their own arrangements to pass on some items that they had no use for. But, they also gave me realistic estimates for everything on how much I "could" get for each item on eBay, etc. None of them fell into the temptation to take advantage of my situation. Yes, the totes full of Epson HC20 and Gavilan stuff could have fetched far more on eBay, but the few hundred dollars cash was at the moment more preferable. Frank even went and got me more totes wehn my Costco ran out. When Don Maslin needed some help figuring out the file system of NEC "Stand-Alone BASIC" diskettes, Sellam put us in touch with each other, and we succeeded in deciphering the disks. I won't condone Sellam using "coarse" language in a situation where people are easily offended. I can't make excuses for him lashing out in frustration and disappointment when things didn't work out. (although I will tell HIM, "I told ya so!" (VCF works, but VCM is faced with insurmountable inertia)) If my only contact with him were to have been his email posts, things might be different. But, his actions are far better than his words, and therefore, I'm not ashamed to say that I consider him to be a friend. -- Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com