I guess I was just curious how come it made front page news when GG respectfully asked not to repost it.  I'd think JD would "officially" want to respect that, on the front page anyway.  The fact that you got the info secondhand and didn't know about the request not to repost it from Gentle Giant, I suppose makes it a lot more "ok".

I disagree with Josh simply because you're never going to be able to stop scalpers.  We all see them at our local stores and we've all dealt with them.  Some people may even know one.  Posting the links on the page helped those who may not have even known about the collector's club/society.  It didn't aid the scalpers cause I guarantee you they already are on that email list or have friends who alerted them as well. 

I agree that it probably helped lots of collectors who wouldn't have otherwise known about it.  I also agree that no one person can stop scalpers.   

Still, the news broke on Rebelscum, and within a few hours the thread itself had 1000 views.  I know EVERYONE who looked didn't buy one, but imagine if they did. That's half the run right there.  Then add on to that any traffic the links on JD generated......that's a lot of people who may have not seen it otherwise.

I'm not saying don't tell your friends.
I'm not suggesting don't post the news.
I'm just saying that in the future, if GG asks not to post the link, maybe it would be cool to honor that so that the people who took the 5 seconds to join the collector's club truly get the first shot at these things.

I'd take the links down, but it's all water under the bridge at this point for those two...

Agreed.   It's in the past, and I'm sure by now....every club member who wanted one already got one. They're still not sold out yet, and they're already up on Ebay....so whatever's  going to happen has already happened. 

So I gotta ask...what's with posting the collector's club links on the front page?
I know that the club is not exactly a secret society (we got into the same debate over at RS after the post was reported and the mods removed the links).....but doesn't it say right there in the mail not to reprint it?  Unless of course you have permission, which I wonder if GG gave out.

Personally....I think the news ougtha be spread in the "Check your mail" fashion....not in the "Hey, here's the link on the front page" newsflash.  I'm sure curious parties who aren't members could PM the topic starters.

I'm not saying I didn't like hearing about the info today. I only heard about this because someone at Rebelscum popped in and started a thread.  I got my bust and my bust ups.  But the thread had over 300 views before I did. Now it's over 1000. That's a lot of people who probably got an order in thanks to the link being posted.


I just don't get the urge to share the link so publicly when all GG asks is not to spread it around.  That's all.



Anyway, as for the bust itself, I was really hoping I'd get to add this unique character (as opposed to some chromed out version of a regular one) to my collection after I saw the holiday one and now that I can, I won't miss the Santa hat version at all.   That and the hard to find chase bust ups all in one shot, in one day?

Gentle Giant really racked up some points from me today.

All in all, Josh, you hit it on the head, it'a all in the moderators. I have never, ever seen one moderator step in a specifically say that scalping talk is frowned upon, and when I report scalping talk, I never see the issue addressed. I think that says a lot about the moderators as well. That said, I'm sure an increase in scalping outrage would cause a policy change, but given the current climate, I don't think there's nearly enough support from the community

Yeah. I guess it's up to the members to try and continue to fight against it.  I still do, by reporting it when I see it, and that's all I can do.  When I was a mod, I fought against scalping pretty hard.  I watched those classified ads like a hawk. Unfortunately, I also fought against things like the post count and the "Durges" of the site....and that made me not as popular.  I just wanted to clean that place up.   Still do actually......and every once in awhile, I miss those padlocks.   

I don't think that Rebelscum as an entity has started supporting scalping or something.  I think there are a lot of people there (myself included) that still believe in "Collect to Collect".

The problem isn't with the philosophy.  It's simply that they don't have enough good moderators left to shut down every instance of scalping that pops up there. I still report posts when I see them, and I have a feeling if everyone else did too.....those people that think it's ok to do that would eventually get the hint and leave. 

I actually went out looking for Sirius radio last weekend. The radios are sold out everywhere.  I figured there might be a jump in demand since Stern was about to come on, and boy...was I right.

I couldn't find one anywhere in my area that I wanted. They had some of the less "cool" models, but I was thinking the sportster or one of the walkman ones would be the one I wanted to get.

Oh well....guess I continue on with regular radio for now.

It would be interesting to know what the logic looked like that was in the code that generated those matches.  You could potentially have all sorts of things like that happen on any number of e-tailer sites.

Don't blame the code. It was probably a not-so-funny joke by one of the programmers running the website.  Sort of like when you go to google and type in "moron" then click  "I'm feeling lucky" you'll get a site that has something to do with George Bush. 

It's not-so-subtle humor from the guys that build these search engines.  It used to be that they'd put in a little easter egg.....but when you do something that blatanly racist on a site that huge.....the company deserves to get in trouble.

People like that shouldn't have jobs where their work can be seen.

StarWarsshop.com has decided to completely screw me over on this one it looks like.  I ordered within the first few hours of it's sale, and when they shipped it to me, I got the stupid regular Gold one I already have.

I immediately wrote them for a return, but they're out now and they won't help me.


Does anyone have one to sell?  Anything under Ebay would be great, so I don't have to go there.  Retail of course, would be better than great....but I'm not expecting that. 

Know what I mean?

Well, yeah.  But that's the thing. I wasn't interested in that thread to tease the guy, I was genuinely interested in why his entire hobby was worth giving up because the employees of the company that makes them got a gift he can't get.

I saw people saying the same thing last year about the Gentle Giant stuff and it just perplexes me.  I've seen some pieces in private collections that will never see the light of day, and that I'll NEVER own....but it hasn't caused me to want to quit collecting altogether.

So yeah, that topic was interesting to me, because there was someone quitting their entire hobby because he couldn't have one figure.  Then the topic went away.