The Origami Forum

An interesting auction.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0048064321

Thank you for interesting link. Our origami society will discuss about it.

What models do these books contain?

For those that didn't notice, this is spam.

To Cupcake:
The third book is Origami Dokuhon I. It can be bought on the usual Origami stores and is listed on the Origami Database. For the other two books, I don´t recognize either of them.

To malachi:
I didn´t delete this post because of its Origami content, but I agree, its some sort of spam.

I noticed that too... But I didn't suggest deleting it for the same reason... Wierd

Oh, I see. Posts get deleted simply because they have (or quote) a "~", but obvious spam doesn't because it is technically origami related?

Isn't that just encouraging anyone that posts an origami book for sale anywhere to create an account here so they can post a link to it? Is that really the kind of "content" this board is for?

Why is this spam? Even if this user is just advertising his own sale, there is nothing in the forum rules against this. Also, it is almost certainly of some interest to an origami community when interesting, rare, or otherwise desirable books are available somewhere. I don't see the problem with telling people when books are available, especially considering that I often see topics started on what are good books to buy/where can they be found.

I have seen on other forums boards that members occasionally post links to their own ebay lots when they are selling something that is of interest to the members of the forum. If I had some rare origami books that I was trying to sell, I would certainly let the members of this forum know, and perhaps even have first dibs before placing the items on ebay. What is the problem with on-topic advertising?

By the way, in response to this:

malachi wrote:Isn't that just encouraging anyone that posts an origami book for sale anywhere to create an account here so they can post a link to it? Is that really the kind of "content" this board is for?

As the forum is now, anybody who starts an origami club anywhere has a special part of the forum to start a topic just to put a link to their club's website and advertise for their club. Furthermore, anybody who makes an origami website has a special part of the forum to place a link to their website. It seems that we allow these things because they are resources that are of interest to an origami community (which I completely agree with), and I simply don't see what's different about the availability of rare origami books.

Okay, now I'm confused. Everybody has such great points! Especially theorigamist. It's his website (or at least his own little part), right?

theorigamist wrote:Why is this spam? Even if this user is just advertising his own sale, there is nothing in the forum rules against this. Also, it is almost certainly of some interest to an origami community when interesting, rare, or otherwise desirable books are available somewhere. I don't see the problem with telling people when books are available, especially considering that I often see topics started on what are good books to buy/where can they be found.

There actually is a bit in the forum rules about spam, but it leaves it up to the moderators to decide. To that end, I am questioning thier judgement. I might see your point about letting people know where books could be found, or when they are being published, if this thread pertained to wider availibility. Since this is just a single auction, it isn't broadly informative. This isn't about where a book can be found but about someone trying to drive up the price of the item they are selling.

For that matter, ebay has some very nice notification methods if you are interested in books like this. You can find out about new postings when they happen. That way only people that are known to be interested are notified (e.g. not spammed) and they are more likely to find out about items of interest. If you are seriously looking for any type of hard to find item, I recommend that method.

theorigamist wrote:I have seen on other forums boards that members occasionally post links to their own ebay lots when they are selling something that is of interest to the members of the forum. If I had some rare origami books that I was trying to sell, I would certainly let the members of this forum know, and perhaps even have first dibs before placing the items on ebay. What is the problem with on-topic advertising?

This is a slightly finer line. Other online communities I participate in, such as boardgamegeek.com, take a fairly strong anti-spam position because it can easily get out of hand.

In this forum, I can understand being permissive of contributing members, but this particular post was made by someone who, fairly obviously, created an account simply to promote an auction, not to participate in the community in any other way. That is the main reason I would consider this spam.

The key indicators for me were:
1. The username is a self-serving domain name.
2. The user only made one post.
3. The user made that post to promote an auction on the day the account was created.

The problem with "on-topic advertising" is that allowing this kind of posting opens the door to allowing every single origami related ebay auction to be deemed as relevant. Currently there are 949 items on ebay that come up when I search for "origami". Why don't they each get a thread here?

These types of posts also don't age well. In a month, this will be a dead discussion with a dead link and text that doesn't even describe what books were up for auction.

theorigamist wrote:By the way, in response to this:

malachi wrote:Isn't that just encouraging anyone that posts an origami book for sale anywhere to create an account here so they can post a link to it? Is that really the kind of "content" this board is for?

As the forum is now, anybody who starts an origami club anywhere has a special part of the forum to start a topic just to put a link to their club's website and advertise for their club. Furthermore, anybody who makes an origami website has a special part of the forum to place a link to their website. It seems that we allow these things because they are resources that are of interest to an origami community (which I completely agree with), and I simply don't see what's different about the availability of rare origami books.

Origami clubs and web sites have broader value and will generally be useful longer than a single auction of three "rare" books on ebay. I don't really see how that is a useful comparison. In the case of both clubs and web sites, people are actually making a contribution to the community and to the art. In the case of an auction posting like this it's just one person trying to make a few extra bucks with free advertising.

Perhaps, if the moderators think this type of posting is so valuable, it should have a special forum area so those of us that don't like to be spammed can ignore them all.

malachi wrote:The problem with "on-topic advertising" is that allowing this kind of posting opens the door to allowing every single origami related ebay auction to be deemed as relevant. Currently there are 949 items on ebay that come up when I search for "origami". Why don't they each get a thread here?

This is why I specifically mentioned rare items. As far as I know, these books are not widely available. I'm not talking about everybody who sells anything to do with origami being able to start a thread for it.

malachi wrote:These types of posts also don't age well. In a month, this will be a dead discussion with a dead link and text that doesn't even describe what books were up for auction.

I don't think it's a stretch to say that a one-time availability is of interest to this community, even if the thread will have to die. By the way, there are currently over 700 topics in both the General and Diagram forums. Of those, I'd say that about the most recent 15-20 are fairly active, with older topics coming back occasionally. If this thread dies, it will be pushed down to the bottom of the page pretty quickly, and then nobody will care that it's floating around.

malachi wrote:Origami clubs and web sites have broader value and will generally be useful longer than a single auction of three "rare" books on ebay.

I already mentioned that I think that notification a noteworthy one-time sale still has merit. This is a judgement call that, in the end, should probably decide whether the post is spam or not. I don't know why you put quotes around rare. To me, that suggests that you don't consider these rare, but I know that I have not seen any of them in any readily available real or online store, with the exception of Origami Dokuhon. If you were suggesting something other than this with the quotes, please let me know.

malachi wrote:In this forum, I can understand being permissive of contributing members, but this particular post was made by someone who, fairly obviously, created an account simply to promote an auction, not to participate in the community in any other way. That is the main reason I would consider this spam.

I don't think it should matter how obvious it is that this is just advertising with no other contribution from the member. Frankly, if we end up deciding that the information is of interest to the community, it will not hinge upon how much else the member contributes.

malachi wrote:In the case of an auction posting like this it's just one person trying to make a few extra bucks with free advertising.

Again, I disagree that the poster's motives should enter into our consideration at all. If the information is of interest to the community, then it is of interest regardless of the fact that the poster might make a little bit more as a result. If somebody in this community is willing to pay that money, then they clearly believe that the books are worth it and both the poster and buyer are better off.

I'd also like to make a quick note that if this were, for example, an auction for a collection of diagrammed Hojyo Takashi models, the thread would explode with "wow!"s and somebody from this community would likely end up buying it. I'd also like to point out that the first reply to this thread shows genuine interest in the auction.

Do not forget please (it should be really unbelievable) that exist people who does not have a clue about such things as internet auctions. And not each man has such amount of the time to explore each of 20 300 000 links about origami what resulted google to find it. So this information even it emulate rise of the price should be very valuable for non-internet fool origami enthusiasts.

malachi wrote:Oh, I see. Posts get deleted simply because they have (or quote) a "~"

Oh really? How often does this happen, I´m very interested to hear. The only time I´m aware one post was deleted because of containing such an item was because the poster provocated it and it was clearly mentioned before that this would happen. That was three month ago. You´re never forgetting something, do you?
If a posting is really quoting too much or a topic title contains too many special characters, the post gots edited and if it happens too often the poster will be reminded that this is against the Forum Rules. But without being warned previously no such post get´s deleted.

Because of this topic:
It won´t be closed or deleted or something like this just because one member feels annoyed. The main part of the users having written there seems to believe that it includes enough Origami content to justify it.

Thank you for confirming my opinion of this forum and the quality of its moderation.

No one's forcing you to stay or read all the posts on this forum.

Incidentally, I didn't see you making these kinds of comments on some earlier auction messages we had:
viewtopic.php?p=15181
viewtopic.php?p=6545