Posted 20-Apr-07 15:26:39 BST
I used to belong, fairly briefly, to a group on ebay that was set up for people in the same line of business. I joined in a few discussions, learnt some stuff and tried to help where I could. Somehow it all went wrong, and I concluded that leaving quietly (I've never been much of a one for flouncing out, you just risk tripping over the doorstep!) was the way to go. Today I thought I'd tiptoe in and see if things had calmed down, and if there was some interesting chat going on.
Most of the chat seemed to be about how awful the latest revisions to groups are, but spotting a particular discussion that looked of interest to me I went for a look... and discovered one of my own listings being discussed. One chap offered useful advice that a price could go up (it won't, in fact, as I'm happy with the mark-up to the one I've used, and prefer things to move swiftly, but it was nice of him to mention it). The rest of the exchange appeared to be concentrating on insulting my kitchen work-surface! What? Okay, not everybody likes granite, but is this good use of anyone's time, I wonder? Or anybody else's business? And speculation about why I needed to hold some pages open but not others, on this book. Well... books are like that. Some old books have uneven stretching on the spine, where pages (typically, those with plates) have been more firmly opened than others. So sometimes it's necessary to hold some pages open, and not others. Now that's not rocket science, and it's not particularly controversial... so why the discussion? And how did they manage to make pointing out the difference quite so insulting? As if there was some sort of cheat going on, maybe? What? What?
I'm grateful to the chap who mentioned the book price, and who's passion for this particular book meant I knew what I was looking at when I saw it for sale, but as for the rest... I don't think reading that stuff counts as spending my time wisely. So having let the door close quietly behind me, I think I'll leave them to it. It's a funny old world, eh?
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