Orri, not only did you not address a single point I was trying to discuss with you, but you are applying feelings to me that I didn't express and do not feel, then accuse me of not wanting to discuss things. I said nothing to the effect that people shouldn't express their bad opinions. Please re-read my response and if you want a discussion, discuss. Don't ignore everything I said and then start talking about fascism and whatever.
Perhaps you need a new way of doing that. I suggest making article writers, crossword puzzle creators, list makers, whatever, get their crap in by the SECOND week of every month. Starting from that point until the next time that gives them an entire month, AND you a full two weeks to work with the materials.
We had all of those things. At this point almost all of our assigned writers have dropped out. Deadlines were seldom met by more than one or two people in each issue. We had stringent guidelines early on in the e-Zine and the only communication I got from people by the deadline was "I can't make the deadline, guess it will be next month." The actual good articles came in their own sweet time, when the kind volunteers (emphasize volunteers) finally got time to sit down and do what they wanted to do. I found a happy medium whereby I'd keep personal contact with each member to find out what there intentions were for the next issue, and to see if they needed inspiration or wanted to work with ideas.
Mind you, every time I look at my articles I dream that a day will come when we have a battery of regular writers who fill their columns like AtariAge. Again, I wonder if our site and its userbase simply isn't mature enough for this yet. I'm not saying the people that are/were involved are immature, I'm just saying that the AtariAge community seems to have reached a level of veneration that we lack as a two-year-old site.
----
That said, the e-Zine will live on, and it will continue to be as good or as bad as the constituency here allows. Hopefully what I've set up with this issue's price guide will bear fruit in future issues when I have solid and easy data to look at. The overwhelming amount of the focus of this community is on commerce, and I've decided the e-Zine needs to reflect that from hereon in. There will always be fun articles from active users to help draw in and reward all readers, but I'll let the percentages dictate what content I include - and at this point well over 50% of posts on this site have to do with business. So be it.
Also, I quit the eZine effective immediately. Blame someone else next time.
I was only trying to help, you mentioned how much work you put into this and how al the critism was getting to you. I completely understand If you want to quit ... tho I wish I could help you out in any way possible. It really saddens me that it has come to this. All I can say is thanks for all your great work on the eZenes.
I liked the ezine. And its a good idea to stockpile articles for future versions. I have a feeling content will get light during the summer as people go on vacations, or are unable to type due to severe sunburns.
Be adult huh? I guess that makes sense then to QUIT. You quit? Give me a break. If you didn't notice, everyone in this thread was saying they LIKED the magazine, just that there were some things to change. If there was indeed as much editing as is being mentioned, you NEED TO MENTION IT WITH YOUR WRITERS. You can't just hack up their stuff, this happened with my Ghoul School artle awhile back and frankly, it pissed me off, but I kept giving you stuff anyway. There is plenty of space in it to dedicate to whatever you receive without cutting stuff, and any corrections should be mentioned to the writers, not just removed (unless minor spelling and grammar mistakes). And I can't believe you're lying now, I don't even care my comic is not in there at this point. I emailed the guy you told me to my file over two months ago. You said everything was fine. It didn't go up. I mentioned it, and there was some issue with you forwarding it or him converting the psd file or whatever. Fine. You said it would be there the next time, if you look back in the pre-June thread I mention it. According to the email you sent me it was received and would be in the next issue. And if you can't take criticism, then I guess you're not adult enough to be an editor, so good, go away, get someone in there who can take being told now and then that something they did wasn't up to par. If this is going to end up being a consistently good magazine with well-written articles, good organization and few mistakes, you need to expect people to bitch now and then so you know what to do better, that's kind of the process. But it's funny in this case because everyone said they ENJOYED AND LIKED THE MAGAZINE. No one said at any point, man this issue is suck balls or anything. Sure, there is some debate about the necessity in a price guide, but guide aside it looked just fine in there and there were a few organization issues that could have been worked out, but that's it. Article writers are free to put whatever they want in there, thus my comic. Dan quite liked the last one I did, and that's fine, but others didn't, also fine.
I liked it! I think you're doing a good service with the price guide and recognize that there is absolutely no way in hell that NA's information can alter the prices on eBay for anything but the highest ticket items.
Some people need to learn when not to bitch. Sometimes complaints are warranted, most of the time, though it's just rude and uncalled for.
Some people need to learn when not to bitch. Sometimes complaints are warranted, most of the time, though it's just rude and uncalled for.
^^ Amen! ^^
There has been a steady stream of constant bitching here on the site for about the last month-2 months. Contructive crisisim is good, complaing is not. If you don't like how something is done then offer a solution to fix it rather that just bitching about it. Like the comments OldSchoolNES brought up, they were vaild questions and ideas that I assume several people had concerns about, which is great and what we need. Several of the other comments were just more of complainging about what we are doing. We (the admins/mods) have to make some hard decisions sometimes about the direction we decide to take as a site. We thought the price guide was a step in the right direction for the site. We know not everyone is going to agree with that direction but you can't please everyone all the time.
Sure actual price and perceived value aren't the same, but guess what....the actual selilng price is what the market has set. Do I think gas is worth $4.50 a galloon...no....but do I pay $4.50+ a galloon for it? Of course I do cause I don't really have a choice, just like you can either pay ebay prices or not buy the item. Since ebay is one of the driving forces behind this hobby setting the prices from the main sourse of goods is a pretty safe bet to gauge value on. Sure you can get stuff cheaper at garage sales or flea markets but that is getting stuff at below market value.
I totally understand Kevin's perspective on this as well. After you put hours of work into something and it gets released only to hear people complaing and moaning, it gets old. I had the same crap happen to me when I done the Color Dreams issue and people were like "blah, this sucks." I put hours of my time and lots of money into that stuff so we could catalog the info and perserve the history...only to hear complaints from people (I know most people liked it, and I know most people like the ezine) but the constant whining gets old (esp cause usually the people who whine are people who offer little or no help). So what if your article gets shortened a little, or a few things are left out; that is part of what happens when you try to publish something. Usually we are under pretty strict time contraints to try and crank this out anyways cause it is hard to get people to commit to doing an article, little alone trying to get with each writer to cross every T and dot every I. Kev if you think it is the right thing to do to leave the editorial staff then I support you decision. I really hope you change you mind and decide to stay though cause I don't think anyone on the site can do a better job than you do to be perfectly honest.
Stan I have no idea what happened to your comic, I haven't personally seen it at all. I do however thinkg sending a PM to Dangevin would have been a better venue to voice your concerns than stirring shit up on the boards.
Regardless...everyone cheer the fuck up, this is a hobby and is supposed to be fun ~~NGD
I have skimmed through the ezine and think it's great. I do some questions about the pricing guide (which i enjoy and thank you for saving me time to do it myself). I assume the prices are cart only, correct? And because it's driven by ebay, is shipping taken into account into the prices given? I only ask this because shipping within the US is a constant rate for 1 game and that would be different for international shipping which would concern international buyers and how much games would cost them. I'm sorry if this was mentioned in the ezine and in my skimming i missed it, if it is you can refer me to the ezine with no further explanation and i will find it myself.
Orri, not only did you not address a single point I was trying to discuss with you, but you are applying feelings to me that I didn't express and do not feel, then accuse me of not wanting to discuss things. I said nothing to the effect that people shouldn't express their bad opinions. Please re-read my response and if you want a discussion, discuss. Don't ignore everything I said and then start talking about fascism and whatever.
Wow - you couldn't be more wrong. Either you didn't read my post, or you're a selective reader.
You specificially said:
"Kevin, I think perhaps this site has outgrown the humble e-Zine. Perhaps it's just the nature of things to de-volve into Digital Press. With threads like this, and the repro threads, where people just have nothing but stark criticism for others trying to advance the hobby/community in some small way."
If that's not a dig, I don't know what is. What kind of a statement is that?
Did you not read the part of my response regarding the multiple items for sale? That didn't address anything you said? Give me a break.
Even now, in your reply above, you said:
"I said nothing to the effect that people shouldn't express their bad opinions."
Bad opinions? It's that kind of crap that I was addressing in my previous post. If it's not your opinion, it's bad.
If you truly wanted to discuss anything, you wouldn't have started the original reply with:
"Well Orri, it's here and it's a fixture, so you may as well stick your fingers in your ears and go "LA LA LA LA.""
Some people need to learn when not to bitch. Sometimes complaints are warranted, most of the time, though it's just rude and uncalled for.
^^ Amen! ^^
There has been a steady stream of constant bitching here on the site for about the last month-2 months. Contructive crisisim is good, complaing is not. If you don't like how something is done then offer a solution to fix it rather that just bitching about it. Like the comments OldSchoolNES brought up, they were vaild questions and ideas that I assume several people had concerns about, which is great and what we need. Several of the other comments were just more of complainging about what we are doing. We (the admins/mods) have to make some hard decisions sometimes about the direction we decide to take as a site. We thought the price guide was a step in the right direction for the site. We know not everyone is going to agree with that direction but you can't please everyone all the time.
Sure actual price and perceived value aren't the same, but guess what....the actual selilng price is what the market has set. Do I think gas is worth $4.50 a galloon...no....but do I pay $4.50+ a galloon for it? Of course I do cause I don't really have a choice, just like you can either pay ebay prices or not buy the item. Since ebay is one of the driving forces behind this hobby setting the prices from the main sourse of goods is a pretty safe bet to gauge value on. Sure you can get stuff cheaper at garage sales or flea markets but that is getting stuff at below market value.
I totally understand Kevin's perspective on this as well. After you put hours of work into something and it gets released only to hear people complaing and moaning, it gets old. I had the same crap happen to me when I done the Color Dreams issue and people were like "blah, this sucks." I put hours of my time and lots of money into that stuff so we could catalog the info and perserve the history...only to hear complaints from people (I know most people liked it, and I know most people like the ezine) but the constant whining gets old (esp cause usually the people who whine are people who offer little or no help). So what if your article gets shortened a little, or a few things are left out; that is part of what happens when you try to publish something. Usually we are under pretty strict time contraints to try and crank this out anyways cause it is hard to get people to commit to doing an article, little alone trying to get with each writer to cross every T and dot every I. Kev if you think it is the right thing to do to leave the editorial staff then I support you decision. I really hope you change you mind and decide to stay though cause I don't think anyone on the site can do a better job than you do to be perfectly honest.
Stan I have no idea what happened to your comic, I haven't personally seen it at all. I do however thinkg sending a PM to Dangevin would have been a better venue to voice your concerns than stirring shit up on the boards.
Regardless...everyone cheer the fuck up, this is a hobby and is supposed to be fun ~~NGD
I actually started laughing a bit when I read through this thread -- can we all stop and just listen to ourselves for a minute? I think we all need to grow thicker skin (myself included) and try to keep in mind this is a video game site and hobby, not the end of the world!
I get criticized all the time: "I suck," remember? And yeah, it's not much fun, but it's been happening for a while now and I find a way to keep truckin'. I get more used to it everyday, and I've yet to quit, right? Sometimes it blows, but quitting isn't the answer (my momma used to say that, I think, or maybe I've watched too many movies). And I don't mean just K-Han -- I mean all the people who get rattled about this or that. This is supposed to be fun, let's try and all keep it that way, ya know?
I don't expect users to kiss ass, pat us all on the back, and say "gee, thank you!" or "high five, big guy! good job!" If some of the moderators expect that as part of the job they volunteered for, then they're going to be sorely disappointed. If you're doing this for power and/or recognition, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Just ask yourself that question, and if you answer "yes," you really should quit; otherwise, it'll get to you and eventually drive you batty (sorry Bacon!). If you're doing this for fun, for the sake of the site, or simply to help out, then you're in the right spot and I'm glad you're here to help.
As for the e-zine, if no one wants to do it, then there's no ezine. The people who build/write/organize it are the ones who control what goes in it, not me. I'm very flexible to new ideas, which is where the price guide came from. Dan asked if we should try it, and my response to anything new is typically, "Sure, why not?" So if you don't like what's in it, I'd ask that you get more involved and help change it. I don't censor the boards, and I don't censor the 'zine. In fact, I typically don't see it until about an hour before it gets released. There's an editors email list set up for this very thing, and if anyone wants to be on the creative/constructive end of it (Orri), or even just to help keep things organized (Stan), shoot me a message and I'll add you. Orri and Stan: you both have a lot to offer everyone here, so this is my direct invitation for you to help create change.
I just wanna thank you guys for inserting the blurb about Tic-Tac XO, that was pretty awesome of you guys! Loved the cats afterwards, too ; ) haha
EDIT: My post made the next page jump, and I don't want anyone to miss Dain's post, because I think it was well put:
Originally posted by: Dain
I actually started laughing a bit when I read through this thread -- can we all stop and just listen to ourselves for a minute? I think we all need to grow thicker skin (myself included) and try to keep in mind this is a video game site and hobby, not the end of the world!
I get criticized all the time: "I suck," remember? And yeah, it's not much fun, but it's been happening for a while now and I find a way to keep truckin'. I get more used to it everyday, and I've yet to quit, right? Sometimes it blows, but quitting isn't the answer (my momma used to say that, I think, or maybe I've watched too many movies). And I don't mean just K-Han -- I mean all the people who get rattled about this or that. This is supposed to be fun, let's try and all keep it that way, ya know?
I don't expect users to kiss ass, pat us all on the back, and say "gee, thank you!" or "high five, big guy! good job!" If some of the moderators expect that as part of the job they volunteered for, then they're going to be sorely disappointed. If you're doing this for power and/or recognition, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Just ask yourself that question, and if you answer "yes," you really should quit; otherwise, it'll get to you and eventually drive you batty (sorry Bacon!). If you're doing this for fun, for the sake of the site, or simply to help out, then you're in the right spot and I'm glad you're here to help.
As for the e-zine, if no one wants to do it, then there's no ezine. The people who build/write/organize it are the ones who control what goes in it, not me. I'm very flexible to new ideas, which is where the price guide came from. Dan asked if we should try it, and my response to anything new is typically, "Sure, why not?" So if you don't like what's in it, I'd ask that you get more involved and help change it. I don't censor the boards, and I don't censor the 'zine. In fact, I typically don't see it until about an hour before it gets released. There's an editors email list set up for this very thing, and if anyone wants to be on the creative/constructive end of it (Orri), or even just to help keep things organized (Stan), shoot me a message and I'll add you. Orri and Stan: you both have a lot to offer everyone here, so this is my direct invitation for you to help create change.
That "price guide" is remarkably similar to the Atari 2600 Newsletter guide which just shows results of past eBay auctions for the month. If you think of it like that, it's many hours of research that just shows up CURRENT MARKET VALUE.
If the title was changed to "MAY eBAY AUCTION AVERAGE RESULTS", I don't see what the issues is at all. Not one person in the Atari 2600 community has an issue with a FREE monthly newsletter mailed out to us.
Granted people can criticize and have opinions about the eZine, but if no one's paying for it, it's hard to argue with anything going on unless you are writing for the thing and being a part of the whole process. That would be an INTERNAL issue amongst the "staff" that should not be spouted off in public.
I worked at a newspaper in high school for almost 3 years, and a magazine for almost 8 years, and I don't think everyone understands the process of work involved with these things. Especially if it's being done for free and given AWAY for free.
I think it would be best to refer to it as a current market value list or something, instead of a price guide, but again, good job on it. What do you want me to do Dain? I can probably handle it. Got a lot going on with my application process currently, assembly, SMS tutorial and such, but it doesn't take too much work. Let me know what you need done. By the way, you didn't respond to my PM I sent you.
For future PDF encodings, it would be good if the URL links were active. Things like the Super NeSnake 2 links, email addresses, Age Expo page, and paid advertisements could all be real links and go to the correct target.
Orri, the argument we had months back had the same tone and I'm ending it right now.
You asked me to own up to my final comment in the response post. Do you remember that time you took something personally that I didn't even say with you in mind? I think we even looked at the timestamps and I couldn't have been responding to you. This time my aside to Kevin was following up a post containing a response to you, but it was not a dig at you. I addressed Kevin specifically because he's taken the most fallout, and was licking his wounds. Also, your beef was not with Kevin, it was with me since I generated the price guide. Moreover I chose the words "stark criticism" carefully, and with good reason. I think you perhaps have an impression of me as a person that will make backhanded and insulting comments right to people's faces in the middle of a thread, and deny it. I'm not that person. We resolved last time that I wasn't that person, and I can't believe my conduct in any thread on any part of this board in the meantime would have given you this impression.
To address your point, the average nature of the numbers you see take into account all sales. If some games close a bit higher because people take advantage of combined shipping on multiple lots from the same seller, yes this is reflected in the numbers. But each of the commons and most of the uncommons have hundreds of individual data points figured into them, and there's no denying some games will close lower than average. Some games are beat up, some sellers have 10,000 feedback, and some have zero. All of these factors mess with the individual numbers, but as an average, these small price-affecting qualities are combined to produce the number you see. It's the only fair and impartial way of doing something like this. How would you control for these small factors?
For future PDF encodings, it would be good if the URL links were active. Things like the Super NeSnake 2 links, email addresses, Age Expo page, and paid advertisements could all be real links and go to the correct target.
For future issues the format may change entirely since I'm really not very good with PDF files at all, none of the software I own will print to PDF currently and the only desktop publishing I own is Microsoft D.P. 97
For future issues the format may change entirely since I'm really not very good with PDF files at all, none of the software I own will print to PDF currently and the only desktop publishing I own is Microsoft D.P. 97
I really think anything but PDF is a mistake. PDF is portable between systems, a single file to download, no layout/font problems like html. Something like doc will have versioning issues, especially for those without Office. An HTML layout is harder to save to the computer and doesn't scale or print well.
If just doing the conversion is the issue then there are many people including me (and anyone with MacOS X) that have completely free PDF creation. If the layout is done in an Adobe app like InDesign then there is much more control over the PDF file size by quality.
Comments
Also, I quit the eZine effective immediately. Blame someone else next time.
Dude, that sucks... thanks for all the work you did for ALL of us to enjoy! But I totally understand bro.
Perhaps you need a new way of doing that. I suggest making article writers, crossword puzzle creators, list makers, whatever, get their crap in by the SECOND week of every month. Starting from that point until the next time that gives them an entire month, AND you a full two weeks to work with the materials.
We had all of those things. At this point almost all of our assigned writers have dropped out. Deadlines were seldom met by more than one or two people in each issue. We had stringent guidelines early on in the e-Zine and the only communication I got from people by the deadline was "I can't make the deadline, guess it will be next month." The actual good articles came in their own sweet time, when the kind volunteers (emphasize volunteers) finally got time to sit down and do what they wanted to do. I found a happy medium whereby I'd keep personal contact with each member to find out what there intentions were for the next issue, and to see if they needed inspiration or wanted to work with ideas.
Mind you, every time I look at my articles I dream that a day will come when we have a battery of regular writers who fill their columns like AtariAge. Again, I wonder if our site and its userbase simply isn't mature enough for this yet. I'm not saying the people that are/were involved are immature, I'm just saying that the AtariAge community seems to have reached a level of veneration that we lack as a two-year-old site.
----
That said, the e-Zine will live on, and it will continue to be as good or as bad as the constituency here allows. Hopefully what I've set up with this issue's price guide will bear fruit in future issues when I have solid and easy data to look at. The overwhelming amount of the focus of this community is on commerce, and I've decided the e-Zine needs to reflect that from hereon in. There will always be fun articles from active users to help draw in and reward all readers, but I'll let the percentages dictate what content I include - and at this point well over 50% of posts on this site have to do with business. So be it.
Also, I quit the eZine effective immediately. Blame someone else next time.
I was only trying to help, you mentioned how much work you put into this and how al the critism was getting to you. I completely understand If you want to quit ... tho I wish I could help you out in any way possible. It really saddens me that it has come to this. All I can say is thanks for all your great work on the eZenes.
THANKS TO EVERYONE INVOLVED....
Al
Some people need to learn when not to bitch. Sometimes complaints are warranted, most of the time, though it's just rude and uncalled for.
Great job everyone, except whoever edited my article! You ruined my favorite line!
Don't worry, my article was severely and heavily edited as well... a whole bunch just excized... oh wells!
Oh yeah, I was just trying to pull K-han's chain a bit, but I guess my timing was bad...
It didn't bother me at all really. I loved just being able to contribute a tiny bit to the eZIne
Some people need to learn when not to bitch. Sometimes complaints are warranted, most of the time, though it's just rude and uncalled for.
^^ Amen! ^^
There has been a steady stream of constant bitching here on the site for about the last month-2 months. Contructive crisisim is good, complaing is not. If you don't like how something is done then offer a solution to fix it rather that just bitching about it. Like the comments OldSchoolNES brought up, they were vaild questions and ideas that I assume several people had concerns about, which is great and what we need. Several of the other comments were just more of complainging about what we are doing. We (the admins/mods) have to make some hard decisions sometimes about the direction we decide to take as a site. We thought the price guide was a step in the right direction for the site. We know not everyone is going to agree with that direction but you can't please everyone all the time.
Sure actual price and perceived value aren't the same, but guess what....the actual selilng price is what the market has set. Do I think gas is worth $4.50 a galloon...no....but do I pay $4.50+ a galloon for it? Of course I do cause I don't really have a choice, just like you can either pay ebay prices or not buy the item. Since ebay is one of the driving forces behind this hobby setting the prices from the main sourse of goods is a pretty safe bet to gauge value on. Sure you can get stuff cheaper at garage sales or flea markets but that is getting stuff at below market value.
I totally understand Kevin's perspective on this as well. After you put hours of work into something and it gets released only to hear people complaing and moaning, it gets old. I had the same crap happen to me when I done the Color Dreams issue and people were like "blah, this sucks." I put hours of my time and lots of money into that stuff so we could catalog the info and perserve the history...only to hear complaints from people (I know most people liked it, and I know most people like the ezine) but the constant whining gets old (esp cause usually the people who whine are people who offer little or no help). So what if your article gets shortened a little, or a few things are left out; that is part of what happens when you try to publish something. Usually we are under pretty strict time contraints to try and crank this out anyways cause it is hard to get people to commit to doing an article, little alone trying to get with each writer to cross every T and dot every I. Kev if you think it is the right thing to do to leave the editorial staff then I support you decision. I really hope you change you mind and decide to stay though cause I don't think anyone on the site can do a better job than you do to be perfectly honest.
Stan I have no idea what happened to your comic, I haven't personally seen it at all. I do however thinkg sending a PM to Dangevin would have been a better venue to voice your concerns than stirring shit up on the boards.
Regardless...everyone cheer the fuck up, this is a hobby and is supposed to be fun
~~NGD
Orri, not only did you not address a single point I was trying to discuss with you, but you are applying feelings to me that I didn't express and do not feel, then accuse me of not wanting to discuss things. I said nothing to the effect that people shouldn't express their bad opinions. Please re-read my response and if you want a discussion, discuss. Don't ignore everything I said and then start talking about fascism and whatever.
Wow - you couldn't be more wrong. Either you didn't read my post, or you're a selective reader.
You specificially said:
"Kevin, I think perhaps this site has outgrown the humble e-Zine. Perhaps it's just the nature of things to de-volve into Digital Press. With threads like this, and the repro threads, where people just have nothing but stark criticism for others trying to advance the hobby/community in some small way."
If that's not a dig, I don't know what is. What kind of a statement is that?
Did you not read the part of my response regarding the multiple items for sale? That didn't address anything you said? Give me a break.
Even now, in your reply above, you said:
"I said nothing to the effect that people shouldn't express their bad opinions."
Bad opinions? It's that kind of crap that I was addressing in my previous post. If it's not your opinion, it's bad.
If you truly wanted to discuss anything, you wouldn't have started the original reply with:
"Well Orri, it's here and it's a fixture, so you may as well stick your fingers in your ears and go "LA LA LA LA.""
Yeah, you were looking to discuss it.
Some people need to learn when not to bitch. Sometimes complaints are warranted, most of the time, though it's just rude and uncalled for.
^^ Amen! ^^
There has been a steady stream of constant bitching here on the site for about the last month-2 months. Contructive crisisim is good, complaing is not. If you don't like how something is done then offer a solution to fix it rather that just bitching about it. Like the comments OldSchoolNES brought up, they were vaild questions and ideas that I assume several people had concerns about, which is great and what we need. Several of the other comments were just more of complainging about what we are doing. We (the admins/mods) have to make some hard decisions sometimes about the direction we decide to take as a site. We thought the price guide was a step in the right direction for the site. We know not everyone is going to agree with that direction but you can't please everyone all the time.
Sure actual price and perceived value aren't the same, but guess what....the actual selilng price is what the market has set. Do I think gas is worth $4.50 a galloon...no....but do I pay $4.50+ a galloon for it? Of course I do cause I don't really have a choice, just like you can either pay ebay prices or not buy the item. Since ebay is one of the driving forces behind this hobby setting the prices from the main sourse of goods is a pretty safe bet to gauge value on. Sure you can get stuff cheaper at garage sales or flea markets but that is getting stuff at below market value.
I totally understand Kevin's perspective on this as well. After you put hours of work into something and it gets released only to hear people complaing and moaning, it gets old. I had the same crap happen to me when I done the Color Dreams issue and people were like "blah, this sucks." I put hours of my time and lots of money into that stuff so we could catalog the info and perserve the history...only to hear complaints from people (I know most people liked it, and I know most people like the ezine) but the constant whining gets old (esp cause usually the people who whine are people who offer little or no help). So what if your article gets shortened a little, or a few things are left out; that is part of what happens when you try to publish something. Usually we are under pretty strict time contraints to try and crank this out anyways cause it is hard to get people to commit to doing an article, little alone trying to get with each writer to cross every T and dot every I. Kev if you think it is the right thing to do to leave the editorial staff then I support you decision. I really hope you change you mind and decide to stay though cause I don't think anyone on the site can do a better job than you do to be perfectly honest.
Stan I have no idea what happened to your comic, I haven't personally seen it at all. I do however thinkg sending a PM to Dangevin would have been a better venue to voice your concerns than stirring shit up on the boards.
Regardless...everyone cheer the fuck up, this is a hobby and is supposed to be fun
~~NGD
Well said NGD
I get criticized all the time: "I suck," remember? And yeah, it's not much fun, but it's been happening for a while now and I find a way to keep truckin'. I get more used to it everyday, and I've yet to quit, right? Sometimes it blows, but quitting isn't the answer (my momma used to say that, I think, or maybe I've watched too many movies). And I don't mean just K-Han -- I mean all the people who get rattled about this or that. This is supposed to be fun, let's try and all keep it that way, ya know?
I don't expect users to kiss ass, pat us all on the back, and say "gee, thank you!" or "high five, big guy! good job!" If some of the moderators expect that as part of the job they volunteered for, then they're going to be sorely disappointed. If you're doing this for power and/or recognition, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Just ask yourself that question, and if you answer "yes," you really should quit; otherwise, it'll get to you and eventually drive you batty (sorry Bacon!). If you're doing this for fun, for the sake of the site, or simply to help out, then you're in the right spot and I'm glad you're here to help.
As for the e-zine, if no one wants to do it, then there's no ezine. The people who build/write/organize it are the ones who control what goes in it, not me. I'm very flexible to new ideas, which is where the price guide came from. Dan asked if we should try it, and my response to anything new is typically, "Sure, why not?" So if you don't like what's in it, I'd ask that you get more involved and help change it. I don't censor the boards, and I don't censor the 'zine. In fact, I typically don't see it until about an hour before it gets released. There's an editors email list set up for this very thing, and if anyone wants to be on the creative/constructive end of it (Orri), or even just to help keep things organized (Stan), shoot me a message and I'll add you. Orri and Stan: you both have a lot to offer everyone here, so this is my direct invitation for you to help create change.
That said, I'm gonna go build some stuff...
EDIT: My post made the next page jump, and I don't want anyone to miss Dain's post, because I think it was well put:
I actually started laughing a bit when I read through this thread -- can we all stop and just listen to ourselves for a minute? I think we all need to grow thicker skin (myself included) and try to keep in mind this is a video game site and hobby, not the end of the world!
I get criticized all the time: "I suck," remember? And yeah, it's not much fun, but it's been happening for a while now and I find a way to keep truckin'. I get more used to it everyday, and I've yet to quit, right? Sometimes it blows, but quitting isn't the answer (my momma used to say that, I think, or maybe I've watched too many movies). And I don't mean just K-Han -- I mean all the people who get rattled about this or that. This is supposed to be fun, let's try and all keep it that way, ya know?
I don't expect users to kiss ass, pat us all on the back, and say "gee, thank you!" or "high five, big guy! good job!" If some of the moderators expect that as part of the job they volunteered for, then they're going to be sorely disappointed. If you're doing this for power and/or recognition, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons. Just ask yourself that question, and if you answer "yes," you really should quit; otherwise, it'll get to you and eventually drive you batty (sorry Bacon!). If you're doing this for fun, for the sake of the site, or simply to help out, then you're in the right spot and I'm glad you're here to help.
As for the e-zine, if no one wants to do it, then there's no ezine. The people who build/write/organize it are the ones who control what goes in it, not me. I'm very flexible to new ideas, which is where the price guide came from. Dan asked if we should try it, and my response to anything new is typically, "Sure, why not?" So if you don't like what's in it, I'd ask that you get more involved and help change it. I don't censor the boards, and I don't censor the 'zine. In fact, I typically don't see it until about an hour before it gets released. There's an editors email list set up for this very thing, and if anyone wants to be on the creative/constructive end of it (Orri), or even just to help keep things organized (Stan), shoot me a message and I'll add you. Orri and Stan: you both have a lot to offer everyone here, so this is my direct invitation for you to help create change.
That said, I'm gonna go build some stuff...
If the title was changed to "MAY eBAY AUCTION AVERAGE RESULTS", I don't see what the issues is at all. Not one person in the Atari 2600 community has an issue with a FREE monthly newsletter mailed out to us.
Granted people can criticize and have opinions about the eZine, but if no one's paying for it, it's hard to argue with anything going on unless you are writing for the thing and being a part of the whole process. That would be an INTERNAL issue amongst the "staff" that should not be spouted off in public.
I worked at a newspaper in high school for almost 3 years, and a magazine for almost 8 years, and I don't think everyone understands the process of work involved with these things. Especially if it's being done for free and given AWAY for free.
You asked me to own up to my final comment in the response post. Do you remember that time you took something personally that I didn't even say with you in mind? I think we even looked at the timestamps and I couldn't have been responding to you. This time my aside to Kevin was following up a post containing a response to you, but it was not a dig at you. I addressed Kevin specifically because he's taken the most fallout, and was licking his wounds. Also, your beef was not with Kevin, it was with me since I generated the price guide. Moreover I chose the words "stark criticism" carefully, and with good reason. I think you perhaps have an impression of me as a person that will make backhanded and insulting comments right to people's faces in the middle of a thread, and deny it. I'm not that person. We resolved last time that I wasn't that person, and I can't believe my conduct in any thread on any part of this board in the meantime would have given you this impression.
To address your point, the average nature of the numbers you see take into account all sales. If some games close a bit higher because people take advantage of combined shipping on multiple lots from the same seller, yes this is reflected in the numbers. But each of the commons and most of the uncommons have hundreds of individual data points figured into them, and there's no denying some games will close lower than average. Some games are beat up, some sellers have 10,000 feedback, and some have zero. All of these factors mess with the individual numbers, but as an average, these small price-affecting qualities are combined to produce the number you see. It's the only fair and impartial way of doing something like this. How would you control for these small factors?
For future PDF encodings, it would be good if the URL links were active. Things like the Super NeSnake 2 links, email addresses, Age Expo page, and paid advertisements could all be real links and go to the correct target.
For future issues the format may change entirely since I'm really not very good with PDF files at all, none of the software I own will print to PDF currently and the only desktop publishing I own is Microsoft D.P. 97
At KHan
^^^ sorry, can't do that but I can give a hearty "gee, thank you!" or "high five, big guy! good job!" like Dain thinks you all need or want :-D
For future issues the format may change entirely since I'm really not very good with PDF files at all, none of the software I own will print to PDF currently and the only desktop publishing I own is Microsoft D.P. 97
I really think anything but PDF is a mistake. PDF is portable between systems, a single file to download, no layout/font problems like html. Something like doc will have versioning issues, especially for those without Office. An HTML layout is harder to save to the computer and doesn't scale or print well.