There were two Fetchlands I bought a quantity of (Misty Rainforest and Scalding Tarn) to keep us stocked through the Modern Season (March) and we sold out every copy I bought before Modern season was over.
This is Ben Bleiweiss, Owner of SCG discussing its market manipulation.
----------------------------------------
IMO, scg manipulates the market and it generates a LARGLY negative effect on the consumer. IMO IMO IMO.
And yes, given the trends over the last few years, IMO scg does manipulate the market, i even questioned mr ben bleiwess himself over a slogan they had on thier buylist, to which it was along the lines of:
"We agressivly and consistanly buy out stores and collections" yadda yadda.
In which, he said he could see how people could misinterpret that message... right.
We did reword the buylist in light of the user who pointed out that the message might be read other than intended - I thanked him for pointing it out then, and I thank him again now for pointing it out
Again, Ben confirms his statements, but he is infracted anyway?
----------------------------------------
I want to know where the line is to avoid being infracted or banned just for having an opinion (supportable or not) on something.
And also to get some feedback from the mods on their decision to issue these 2 infractions.
Will they be reversed? Will Skies infraction be reversed since Ben has talked about them manipulating the market? Will Gals infraction be reversed since through all the imo's (which are reasonable considering he got an infraction for not saying IMO earlier) what he said was legitimate and confirmed by Ben as well?
Is there something I'm missing from the context indicating that these posts are at all borderline trollish/flaming? If these are trolling I should probably have enough infractions to keep me suspended until 2017.
The subject that is being raised here is a particularly hot-button issue in MS Cafe, and in full disclosure, I can say that the nature of the topic is one that there's not a real consensus among the MS mods about how to handle the situation, and while similar threads have been locked in the past due to their inflammatory nature, we decided to leave the thread open in the interim on a trial run.
With that said, there are strong feelings on both sides. However, we have found that the specific term of "market manipulator" has particularly negative connotations that we wish to avoid. We... or at least, my specific opinion on the matter, has been that it is acceptable to discuss the practices of stores aggressively buying or selling particular singles to meet consumer demand. I do not feel that throwing around the term "market manipulators" and saying that SCG is bad for magic does anything but fling mud with no justifiable rationale. Our rules are clear that while it's fine to discuss specific topics and have heated disagreements, we will not tolerate direct attacks toward another member or individual, including a company or other entity. "Attack the position or practice, not the entity in question."
As for the infraction itself, jimmyrussels has the right to appeal his infraction through the proper channels. Until he does so, I will make no further comment on that specifically.
If you have any other questions or wish to discuss this further, please do so on my helpdesk - the link is located in my signature.
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There is no mention of direct attacks toward companies or other entities.
So this user was infracted twice and suspended for a month with no actual rules basis because he used an accurate term to describe something that is actually happening and has been corroborated by the person doing it, because 'we have found that the specific term of "market manipulator" has particularly negative connotations'.
Just trying to get a handle on the situation.
P.S.
Quote from "rules" »
The rule of thumb is to criticize the idea, not the person.
not
Quote from "skies" »
"Attack the position or practice, not the entity in question."
While the specific thread was talking about Star City specifically, the thread and the context of the thread could easily be in reference to any other store, to a given eBay powerseller (used in the abstract, not pointing to one), etc. The practice is not limited to Star City, and it was my belief that it was better suited to its own thread than to be part of the SCG store discussion thread.
Regarding the rules, I have never held that the rules limit trolling to attacks on specific individuals, and have taken the stance that trolling would also apply when attacking a non-person entity, by virtue of being an indirect attack on the ownership / manager / employee.
I also want to point out from the rules, in the fine print:
Interpretation of the Forum Rules is always at the discretion of the MTGSalvation staff.
With that said, the forum rules are probably a bit poorly written for this sort of thing, and I'd love to see them changed to reflect this fact.
Finally, as I said before, with regard to the specific infraction in question, I will make no further comment on the infraction specifically. It is jimmyrussels's right to appeal the infraction and resulting suspension through the proper channels, and the infraction will hold barring a successful appeal that he himself must make. Appeals by proxy are not accepted, as far as I am aware.
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While the specific thread was talking about Star City specifically, the thread and the context of the thread could easily be in reference to any other store, to a given eBay powerseller (used in the abstract, not pointing to one), etc. The practice is not limited to Star City, and it was my belief that it was better suited to its own thread than to be part of the SCG store discussion thread.
It is my understanding that the 'Store Discussion' subforum exists for discussing stores. And because it was created with the sole purpose of discussing SCG as a price leader it is more appropriate to be in that section.
Regarding the rules, I have never held that the rules limit trolling to attacks on specific individuals, and have taken the stance that trolling would also apply when attacking a non-person entity, by virtue of being an indirect attack on the ownership / manager / employee.
...
With that said, the forum rules are probably a bit poorly written for this sort of thing, and I'd love to see them changed to reflect this fact.
I also want to point out from the rules, in the fine large print:
Trolling is the act of deliberately provoking a hostile reaction from other users.
It's good to know that you are able to justify interpreting the rules so liberally. (i.e. stores are now users and saying something truthful that I as a mod think is negative ABOUT the STORE is worthy of an infraction)
Why havn't you been pulling to legitimize your liberal rules interpretation since you became a mod? I was able to get the rule on box mapping changed and updated in hours. The admins are very accepting of positive rules changes and language updates.
Being a mod for such a short time(as far as I can tell), wouldnt that weaken your stance of 'Stores and websites and other entities are the equivalent of MTGS users'?
Finally, as I said before, with regard to the specific infraction in question, I will make no further comment on the infraction specifically. It is jimmyrussels's right to appeal the infraction and resulting suspension through the proper channels, and the infraction will hold barring a successful appeal that he himself must make. Appeals by proxy are not accepted, as far as I am aware.
I want a comment on the infraction and the reasoning behind it to prevent the suspension and banning of other users with no basis in :drumroll:
The actual forum rules
While I don't follow all mods activities or anything, when I do see something that to me is just a mod arbitrarily deciding something is a rules violation, I tend to want a response.
What I don't like is a mod basically saying, 'I can infract anyone for any reason, **** you, end of discussion'. (in bold red of course)
I want a comment on the infraction and the reasoning behind it to prevent the suspension and banning of other users with no basis in :drumroll:
The actual forum rules
While I don't follow all mods activities or anything, when I do see something that to me is just a mod arbitrarily deciding something is a rules violation, I tend to want a response.
What I don't like is a mod basically saying, 'I can infract anyone for any reason, **** you, end of discussion'. (in bold red of course)
How about this, down in the small print:
The staff of MTGSalvation holds the right to suspend or ban any member for a reasonable purpose at any time, regardless of infractions accumulated.
They could ban you right here for posting here when a mod told you to take it to their helpdesk. Same with me. As long as they can justify it, they can do it...
They could ban you right here for posting here when a mod told you to take it to their helpdesk. Same with me. As long as they can justify it, they can do it...
Interpretation of the Forum Rules is always at the discretion of the MTGSalvation staff.
So it doesnt even need to be justified.
I dont think a helodesk is the right place to discuss the actions of multiple moderators and one moderators wildly liberal rules interpretations.
Sooooo, does this mean we can now be imfracted for trolling not jst users, but corporations/companies? That's crazygonuts.
It means you can be suspended for using accurate terms that mods have deemed unsavory that accurately desribe what businesses are doing.
Imagine;
Someone: nike uses sweatshop labor.
Gets infracted.
Mod: "we think sweatshop labor is a negative term against nike."
Nike: we do use sweatshop labor.
Someone else: hey, nothing someone said is against the rules. Why you infract?
Mod: we interpret the rules how we want.
MTGS is the Staff's. They can do what they want. And they can infract/suspend/ban anyone for whatever reason. Criticism and unwanted ideas will be shot down. You post what they allow and you have fun the way it's approved. All special snowflakes are guaranteed protection.
SCG does not "specialize" in market manipulation. There is no card they have bought many copies of that are not high demand staples in formats. There's a great quote about that by Ben himself on these forums. You even quoted it yourself. They bought the blue fetch to fill orders and keep supply up during modern season. If the supply dries up, prices will rise. That is not SCG's doing. That is simply what happens. Look at the legends rares on TCGplayer. Living plane? Ragnar? Small supply, price quadruples or more.
Now on the otherhand, they are infact the largest MTG company in the world, making them a great example on prices for smaller LGS and other online stores. Prices follow suit around the market after SCG and people start pointing the fingers to blame. Yes, you are entitled to your own opinion, but it does not progress the discussion. You don't see people running into legacy threads in established going "IMO this deck sucks and anyone who plays it is a bad player." There's ways to criticize, but focusing that beam of hate isn't the way to do it.
Now what we don't want is that finger pointing without knowing all of the facts. That's where it gets into flaming the store and that's when cards start getting handed out.
I'd probably type more, but phone typing is terrible and it's pretty late.
Far too often it seems, people attribute negative happenings in the secondary market of magic the gathering to SCG. The problem is, most of the time ... its not SCG. People seem to just automatically assume, for whatever reason, that when something bad or negative happens (buyouts or otherwise), that it is SCG that's doing it. I don't think its too much to ask to hope that people might consider not attributing such things to a specific entity without at least some evidence that would connect them to it. I'm sure that if something negative happened, and people automatically and publicly on here or otherwise, continued to attribute those things to you with no evidence or proof, that you wouldn't be happy about it.
Just as how baseless speculation (to which no proof exists) isn't viable in the main part of the rumor mill, baseless speculation and negatively speaking out against a person, group of people, or business without evidence, really shouldn't be allowed in market street either.
A couple of my thoughts on the topic anyway. (And I apologize for not posting this in the mod's helpdesk as was originally requested, however since the discussion continued on for quite a bit after that, still in this thread, I decided I would post at least a small response here to be added to the rest of the conversation already had in this thread.)
It means you can be suspended for using accurate terms that mods have deemed unsavory that accurately desribe what businesses are doing.
Imagine;
Someone: nike uses sweatshop labor.
Gets infracted.
Mod: "we think sweatshop labor is a negative term against nike."
Nike: we do use sweatshop labor.
Someone else: hey, nothing someone said is against the rules. Why you infract?
Mod: we interpret the rules how we want.
That's pretty accurate.
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I guess I still don't understand. What is evidence? Both of the infracted posts being discussed involved the poster's attempt to marshal evidence—admissions by Ben and price examples. "Market manipulation" in court is generally going to be proven by just those kinds of things. Asking for the sake of all users and not as an appeal for this guy, what is evidence?
Now what we don't want is that finger pointing without knowing all of the facts. That's where it gets into flaming the store and that's when cards start getting handed out.
@Drifting Skies: Are you seriously asking for evidence in an online forum? MTGS is a forum where many exchange their views; even when proof is shown, there are those that disregard that proof. My question to you: Do moderators moderate or judge based on evidences? I hope you dont lose sight of your core competency.
1. Why is 'flaming a store' infractable?
Stores are not users
Is it because he didn't say 'imo, SCG is bad for magic'?
Can we report posts that 'flame' specific cards now?
Can we report posts that aren't 100% supported by fact?
If I post an alter and someone says it looks nice can they be reported? Obviously something as subjective as an opinion on art can't be based in fact.
Is it infraction worthy to argue with a mod-created primer for a deck? Mods are of course the harbinger of facts and any attempts to differ are obviously free from facts and evidence and therefore infraction worthy under this new 'proof is required' decision
Seriously, I've seen worse stuff than 'corporate entity is bad for magic' not receive an infraction. These statements usually start with 'Valarin'.
Far too often it seems, people attribute negative happenings in the secondary market of magic the gathering to SCG. The problem is, most of the time ... its not SCG. People seem to just automatically assume, for whatever reason, that when something bad or negative happens (buyouts or otherwise), that it is SCG that's doing it. I don't think its too much to ask to hope that people might consider not attributing such things to a specific entity without at least some evidence that would connect them to it. I'm sure that if something negative happened, and people automatically and publicly on here or otherwise, continued to attribute those things to you with no evidence or proof, that you wouldn't be happy about it.
Just as how baseless speculation (to which no proof exists) isn't viable in the main part of the rumor mill, baseless speculation and negatively speaking out against a person, group of people, or business without evidence, really shouldn't be allowed in market street either.
A couple of my thoughts on the topic anyway. (And I apologize for not posting this in the mod's helpdesk as was originally requested, however since the discussion continued on for quite a bit after that, still in this thread, I decided I would post at least a small response here to be added to the rest of the conversation already had in this thread.)
First , let me start off by saying that I'm glad you took the time to write this post. I feel privileged to hear your insight on wait... what does this have to do with the topic in question? What's that? You just copypasted that part from another thread 20 minutes after you posted it just to increase your postcount? (imo, obviously I don't have any evidence to assert that he only did it to increase postcount. But can only speculate that it was for that purpose considering it has nothing to do with the topic at hand).
This discussion isn't about SCG in any way, it is about what can be said about SCG. Considering an admission of buying up all the stock of blue zen fetches within a 2 day period in october so they would "have stock" for march is actually manipulating the market.
What do we say instead of 'market manipulation' (which is suddenly a curse word with no warning or notice and infractable, also with no warning or notice)?
SCG is making happy fun time with secondary market?
SCG decide price too low?
unnameable entity ramping the market?
Glorious Price Leader does something we cant discuss for fear that secret police will take us to Kwan-li-so No. 18?
@Drifting Skies: Are you seriously asking for evidence in an online forum? MTGS is a forum where many exchange their views; even when proof is shown, there are those that disregard that proof. My question to you: Do moderators moderate or judge based on evidences? I hope you dont lose sight of your core competency.
Protection against flaming extends to non-users as well.
Flaming is a hostile verbal attack directed at another person or group of people. Trolling is the act of deliberately provoking a hostile reaction from other users.
I see plenty of trolling/flamiking of political groups, politicians, religious groups etc etc that go without infractions.
Someone: nike uses sweatshop labor.
Gets infracted.
Mod: "we think sweatshop labor is a negative term against nike."
Nike: we do use sweatshop labor.
Someone else: hey, nothing someone said is against the rules. Why you infract?
Mod: we interpret the rules how we want.
or rather
jimmyrussles77: 'SCG manipulates the secondary market'
INFRACTION CITY POPULATION YOU
Skies: 'we think market manipulation is a bad word'
SCG: 'we manipulate the market sometimes'
rezombied: 'why he gets infractions?'
Skies: 'We interpret the rules how we want.'
First , let me start off by saying that I'm glad you took the time to write this post. I feel privileged to hear your insight on wait... what does this have to do with the topic in question? What's that? You just copypasted that part from another thread 20 minutes after you posted it just to increase your postcount? (imo, obviously I don't have any evidence to assert that he only did it to increase postcount. But can only speculate that it was for that purpose considering it has nothing to do with the topic at hand).
This discussion isn't about SCG in any way, it is about what can be said about SCG. Considering an admission of buying up all the stock of blue zen fetches within a 2 day period in october so they would "have stock" for march is actually manipulating the market.
What do we say instead of 'market manipulation' (which is suddenly a curse word with no warning or notice and infractable, also with no warning or notice)?
SCG is making happy fun time with secondary market?
SCG decide price too low?
unnameable entity ramping the market?
Glorious Price Leader does something we cant discuss for fear that secret police will take us to Kwan-li-so No. 18?
This topic, and the infractions that led to it being created, were from an SCG related thread in Market Street. Within that thread, the user who got infracted, made a direct accusation that SCG was directly responsible for what happened with Chord of Calling. The user had no evidence of this and was using that as reasoning to justify calling out SCG as being "bad for magic" among other comments. In that instance, they made a very clear Accusation without proof (which incidently, is exactly what this thread is about, especially looking at the thread title). Had the user focused on say, the one instance (the Scalding Tarns/Misty Rainforests) incident that we know SCG was a direct cause of, then that wouldn't have been an accusation without proof, because even SCG themselves had admitted doing that in the past, in order to make sure they had enough supply of those fetches to get them through the modern season. Instead of the user focusing on chord of calling they could have focused on the fetches and instead of saying that SCG was "bad for magic" the poster could have simply asserted that they didn't believe such mass buyouts were good for the players of the game, because the sudden increase in price can lead to the creation of an even larger barrier for entry than what already existed.
As for post count, I'm not even sure posts within CI add to post count (for whatever reason I seem to recall that they didn't), but either way I can assure you that my posting was based upon the above paragraph, and not simply to add to my post count.
Given the general use of the term "market manipulation", most people tend to view that term usage in a negative context. The term is used to imply that SCG's intention was solely to ratchet up the price of those particular zen fetches, rather than simply trying to bring in enough stock to allow them to keep up with demand so they could at least get through the modern season (As was the case). The end result of raising their buy price and buying up stock below that buy price in order to assure their stock in those fetches was enough for their projected demand from their customers, was that the price indeed did rise on them, almost immediately from the old prices the fetches were going for, up to about $25 each (or $5 above their buy price, but $5 below their sell price) on ebay anyway.
Discussing such incidents when there is clear evidence that they were involved, and asking whether such actions on such a large scale are good for magic, is in and of itself fine. Its when people start bashing away at SCG for doing such things, without stopping to think about a potential logical and non-negative reasoning as to why they took the action that they did, where the problems begin, oftentimes. I know I was taught growing up to dig deeper, make sure I had all of the available information, to always ask why something happened, or why someone did something. In the case of SCG and the fetches, I was able to see immediately the reason why they did what they did. Their stock of fetches was running low. They being the largest of the online stores, and running the Open tournaments every weekend, meant that the demand they were seeing on a weekly and monthly basis was huge. I saw demand of the fetches at the shop I sold at being strong and steady, but with almost no one willing to trade them into the shop, leading to my supply quickly dwindling. If not for SCG doing what they did, its entirely likely I would have run out before the end of the year last year, and been forced to look online to buy a bunch at whatever lowest price I could in order to restock, and then raise my price up somewhat accordingly. Now in this instance, you could certainly have claimed that I too was "manipulating the market" when in fact my only intent would have been to restock the shop with 50+ of each of the two fetches in hopes that I might have been able to keep up with demand. SCG is much much larger than our shop, so they have to take greater actions to be able to keep up with their own customers demand. Thusly I understood WHY they did it, and that it wasn't simply to manipulate the market by raising the prices on the cards, it was more simply to fully restock.
Anyhow, I'll leave it at that for now, Ill likely have more to add later.
Protection against flaming extends to non-users as well.
So, no one answered my question. We can now be infracted for "trolling" companies, groups, and other non tangible entities such as but not limited to political parties, interest groups, etc? That's insane. What about all the posts in entertainment criticizing those in the entertainment industry or sports world?
Wow.
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So, no one answered my question. We can now be infracted for "trolling" companies, groups, and other non tangible entities such as but not limited to political parties, interest groups, etc? That's insane. What about all the posts in entertainment criticizing those in the entertainment industry or sports world?
Wow.
Flaming them? Theoretically yes. As long as they are people, or a group of people*.
Trolling them? No**. The current rules specifically define trolling only in relation to users.
*Corporations are legally recognised as people, and could therefore fall under the definition of 'people, or group of people'.
**Not under my interpretation of the flaming/trolling rules found in the main forum rules. Subforums may have different rules that modify this and the staff's interpretation of the rules may differ from mine. Additionally, the staff have reserved the right to issue penalties different from what is suggested in the rules, should a situation call for it.
How is this an accusation of anything and deserving of an infraction? Is it because he didn't say imo in his post?
This is Ben Bleiweiss, Owner of SCG discussing its market manipulation.
----------------------------------------
Again, Ben confirms his statements, but he is infracted anyway?
----------------------------------------
I want to know where the line is to avoid being infracted or banned just for having an opinion (supportable or not) on something.
And also to get some feedback from the mods on their decision to issue these 2 infractions.
Will they be reversed? Will Skies infraction be reversed since Ben has talked about them manipulating the market? Will Gals infraction be reversed since through all the imo's (which are reasonable considering he got an infraction for not saying IMO earlier) what he said was legitimate and confirmed by Ben as well?
Thread Link(Page 2): http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=520305&page=2
His posts are #18 and #20.
With that said, there are strong feelings on both sides. However, we have found that the specific term of "market manipulator" has particularly negative connotations that we wish to avoid. We... or at least, my specific opinion on the matter, has been that it is acceptable to discuss the practices of stores aggressively buying or selling particular singles to meet consumer demand. I do not feel that throwing around the term "market manipulators" and saying that SCG is bad for magic does anything but fling mud with no justifiable rationale. Our rules are clear that while it's fine to discuss specific topics and have heated disagreements, we will not tolerate direct attacks toward another member or individual, including a company or other entity. "Attack the position or practice, not the entity in question."
As for the infraction itself, jimmyrussels has the right to appeal his infraction through the proper channels. Until he does so, I will make no further comment on that specifically.
If you have any other questions or wish to discuss this further, please do so on my helpdesk - the link is located in my signature.
Went to a new shop from a friend's recommendation, DQ'ed for willful violation of CR 100.6b.
Have played duals? I have PucaPoints for them!
(Credit to DarkNightCavalier)
$tandard: Too poor.
Modern:
- GW Birthing Pod(?)
Legacy:
- UWR Delver
?
I posted this here instead of a helpdesk because it involves multiple mods and I feel the situation is noteworthy enough to merit its own thread.
So you're handing out infractions with no rules justification then?
According to the rules;
Comp Rules
Market Street Rules
There is no mention of direct attacks toward companies or other entities.
So this user was infracted twice and suspended for a month with no actual rules basis because he used an accurate term to describe something that is actually happening and has been corroborated by the person doing it, because 'we have found that the specific term of "market manipulator" has particularly negative connotations'.
Just trying to get a handle on the situation.
P.S.
not
Regarding the rules, I have never held that the rules limit trolling to attacks on specific individuals, and have taken the stance that trolling would also apply when attacking a non-person entity, by virtue of being an indirect attack on the ownership / manager / employee.
I also want to point out from the rules, in the fine print:
With that said, the forum rules are probably a bit poorly written for this sort of thing, and I'd love to see them changed to reflect this fact.
Finally, as I said before, with regard to the specific infraction in question, I will make no further comment on the infraction specifically. It is jimmyrussels's right to appeal the infraction and resulting suspension through the proper channels, and the infraction will hold barring a successful appeal that he himself must make. Appeals by proxy are not accepted, as far as I am aware.
Went to a new shop from a friend's recommendation, DQ'ed for willful violation of CR 100.6b.
Have played duals? I have PucaPoints for them!
(Credit to DarkNightCavalier)
$tandard: Too poor.
Modern:
- GW Birthing Pod(?)
Legacy:
- UWR Delver
It is my understanding that the 'Store Discussion' subforum exists for discussing stores. And because it was created with the sole purpose of discussing SCG as a price leader it is more appropriate to be in that section.
I also want to point out from the rules, in the
finelarge print:It's good to know that you are able to justify interpreting the rules so liberally. (i.e. stores are now users and saying something truthful that I as a mod think is negative ABOUT the STORE is worthy of an infraction)
Why havn't you been pulling to legitimize your liberal rules interpretation since you became a mod? I was able to get the rule on box mapping changed and updated in hours. The admins are very accepting of positive rules changes and language updates.
Being a mod for such a short time(as far as I can tell), wouldnt that weaken your stance of 'Stores and websites and other entities are the equivalent of MTGS users'?
I want a comment on the infraction and the reasoning behind it to prevent the suspension and banning of other users with no basis in :drumroll:
The actual forum rules
While I don't follow all mods activities or anything, when I do see something that to me is just a mod arbitrarily deciding something is a rules violation, I tend to want a response.
What I don't like is a mod basically saying, 'I can infract anyone for any reason, **** you, end of discussion'. (in bold red of course)
How about this, down in the small print:
They could ban you right here for posting here when a mod told you to take it to their helpdesk. Same with me. As long as they can justify it, they can do it...
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething SpicySooooo, does this mean we can now be imfracted for trolling not jst users, but corporations/companies? That's crazygonuts.
Interpretation of the Forum Rules is always at the discretion of the MTGSalvation staff.
So it doesnt even need to be justified.
I dont think a helodesk is the right place to discuss the actions of multiple moderators and one moderators wildly liberal rules interpretations.
It means you can be suspended for using accurate terms that mods have deemed unsavory that accurately desribe what businesses are doing.
Imagine;
Someone: nike uses sweatshop labor.
Gets infracted.
Mod: "we think sweatshop labor is a negative term against nike."
Nike: we do use sweatshop labor.
Someone else: hey, nothing someone said is against the rules. Why you infract?
Mod: we interpret the rules how we want.
Now you know how things work. Enjoy your posting.
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Now on the otherhand, they are infact the largest MTG company in the world, making them a great example on prices for smaller LGS and other online stores. Prices follow suit around the market after SCG and people start pointing the fingers to blame. Yes, you are entitled to your own opinion, but it does not progress the discussion. You don't see people running into legacy threads in established going "IMO this deck sucks and anyone who plays it is a bad player." There's ways to criticize, but focusing that beam of hate isn't the way to do it.
Now what we don't want is that finger pointing without knowing all of the facts. That's where it gets into flaming the store and that's when cards start getting handed out.
I'd probably type more, but phone typing is terrible and it's pretty late.
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Just as how baseless speculation (to which no proof exists) isn't viable in the main part of the rumor mill, baseless speculation and negatively speaking out against a person, group of people, or business without evidence, really shouldn't be allowed in market street either.
A couple of my thoughts on the topic anyway. (And I apologize for not posting this in the mod's helpdesk as was originally requested, however since the discussion continued on for quite a bit after that, still in this thread, I decided I would post at least a small response here to be added to the rest of the conversation already had in this thread.)
That's pretty accurate.
1. Why is 'flaming a store' infractable?
Seriously, I've seen worse stuff than 'corporate entity is bad for magic' not receive an infraction. These statements usually start with 'Valarin'.
First , let me start off by saying that I'm glad you took the time to write this post. I feel privileged to hear your insight on wait... what does this have to do with the topic in question? What's that? You just copypasted that part from another thread 20 minutes after you posted it just to increase your postcount? (imo, obviously I don't have any evidence to assert that he only did it to increase postcount. But can only speculate that it was for that purpose considering it has nothing to do with the topic at hand).
This discussion isn't about SCG in any way, it is about what can be said about SCG. Considering an admission of buying up all the stock of blue zen fetches within a 2 day period in october so they would "have stock" for march is actually manipulating the market.
What do we say instead of 'market manipulation' (which is suddenly a curse word with no warning or notice and infractable, also with no warning or notice)?
SCG is making happy fun time with secondary market?
SCG decide price too low?
unnameable entity ramping the market?
Glorious Price Leader does something we cant discuss for fear that secret police will take us to Kwan-li-so No. 18?
Protection against flaming extends to non-users as well.
I see plenty of trolling/flamiking of political groups, politicians, religious groups etc etc that go without infractions.
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Do you report them when you see them?
There's a reason the rules say 'person or group of people' and not 'user or group of users'.
Please don't quote hack me.
This topic, and the infractions that led to it being created, were from an SCG related thread in Market Street. Within that thread, the user who got infracted, made a direct accusation that SCG was directly responsible for what happened with Chord of Calling. The user had no evidence of this and was using that as reasoning to justify calling out SCG as being "bad for magic" among other comments. In that instance, they made a very clear Accusation without proof (which incidently, is exactly what this thread is about, especially looking at the thread title). Had the user focused on say, the one instance (the Scalding Tarns/Misty Rainforests) incident that we know SCG was a direct cause of, then that wouldn't have been an accusation without proof, because even SCG themselves had admitted doing that in the past, in order to make sure they had enough supply of those fetches to get them through the modern season. Instead of the user focusing on chord of calling they could have focused on the fetches and instead of saying that SCG was "bad for magic" the poster could have simply asserted that they didn't believe such mass buyouts were good for the players of the game, because the sudden increase in price can lead to the creation of an even larger barrier for entry than what already existed.
As for post count, I'm not even sure posts within CI add to post count (for whatever reason I seem to recall that they didn't), but either way I can assure you that my posting was based upon the above paragraph, and not simply to add to my post count.
Given the general use of the term "market manipulation", most people tend to view that term usage in a negative context. The term is used to imply that SCG's intention was solely to ratchet up the price of those particular zen fetches, rather than simply trying to bring in enough stock to allow them to keep up with demand so they could at least get through the modern season (As was the case). The end result of raising their buy price and buying up stock below that buy price in order to assure their stock in those fetches was enough for their projected demand from their customers, was that the price indeed did rise on them, almost immediately from the old prices the fetches were going for, up to about $25 each (or $5 above their buy price, but $5 below their sell price) on ebay anyway.
Discussing such incidents when there is clear evidence that they were involved, and asking whether such actions on such a large scale are good for magic, is in and of itself fine. Its when people start bashing away at SCG for doing such things, without stopping to think about a potential logical and non-negative reasoning as to why they took the action that they did, where the problems begin, oftentimes. I know I was taught growing up to dig deeper, make sure I had all of the available information, to always ask why something happened, or why someone did something. In the case of SCG and the fetches, I was able to see immediately the reason why they did what they did. Their stock of fetches was running low. They being the largest of the online stores, and running the Open tournaments every weekend, meant that the demand they were seeing on a weekly and monthly basis was huge. I saw demand of the fetches at the shop I sold at being strong and steady, but with almost no one willing to trade them into the shop, leading to my supply quickly dwindling. If not for SCG doing what they did, its entirely likely I would have run out before the end of the year last year, and been forced to look online to buy a bunch at whatever lowest price I could in order to restock, and then raise my price up somewhat accordingly. Now in this instance, you could certainly have claimed that I too was "manipulating the market" when in fact my only intent would have been to restock the shop with 50+ of each of the two fetches in hopes that I might have been able to keep up with demand. SCG is much much larger than our shop, so they have to take greater actions to be able to keep up with their own customers demand. Thusly I understood WHY they did it, and that it wasn't simply to manipulate the market by raising the prices on the cards, it was more simply to fully restock.
Anyhow, I'll leave it at that for now, Ill likely have more to add later.
So, no one answered my question. We can now be infracted for "trolling" companies, groups, and other non tangible entities such as but not limited to political parties, interest groups, etc? That's insane. What about all the posts in entertainment criticizing those in the entertainment industry or sports world?
Wow.
I wasn't making an assessment about weather any post(s) do or do not contain flaming; I was just pointing out a fact.
But don't worry, I can with the best of them. I just prefer to keep silliness out of srsbsns.
Flaming them? Theoretically yes. As long as they are people, or a group of people*.
Trolling them? No**. The current rules specifically define trolling only in relation to users.
*Corporations are legally recognised as people, and could therefore fall under the definition of 'people, or group of people'.
**Not under my interpretation of the flaming/trolling rules found in the main forum rules. Subforums may have different rules that modify this and the staff's interpretation of the rules may differ from mine. Additionally, the staff have reserved the right to issue penalties different from what is suggested in the rules, should a situation call for it.