Blade Forums Auction

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nifman

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:) Thanks WOLFMANNN601 and Masterchef for the items you donated for the auction. Soon I want to put a item up. Everyone that is on BladeForums should get involved. It is for a very good cause. I better shut up I am feeling warm and fuzzy.
 
My apologise if it wasn't done properly! I only offered an item to an already on going thread that I assumed was ok'd by all!
 
I think this was done with good intentions. I would like to thank the folks again. Sorry if this is not allowed, but I think it was for a good cause. The world needs more people caring about their brothers.
 
It is simply an attempt to generate a 'fund' to keep some cash on hand should a BFC formite run into some financial difficulties due a health or family issue.

I had a knife that was NOT selling. I decided to use it to start this 'auction'. Mike [Masterchef] as ALWAYS was right there to make a donation.

Yiterp of course has offered to be the treasurer. He is one hell of a man.

I would hope this does not violate any rules of BFC, the intention is genuine. When I found myself in a serious jam, you all came to my aid. There were several auctions and it saved my butt.

I am now in a position to help and hope those that can do. A BFC fund is truly an important part of this community and if this is 'OK', I have a couple more knives to "auction".

Can we have a ruling?.......Thanks

Ira
 
Code, I just noticed that you closed that thread. I already donate towards new BFC hardware.

If I word a FOR SALE thread that says the "money shall go to a help the formite fund" How in God's name can that be ILLEGAL.

So I have a benchmade Darkstar and it goes up for sale and I add:

"The proceeds of this sale shall go to a fund that helps a BFC formite in need" That violates some rules.

When you are down on your luck, the world is falling apart, and life sucks, a few hundred bucks can make the difference. Your action in closing the thread is so typical of the BFC COMMUNITY.:mad:

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=227477
 
Nice E-mail Mike!!!!! Why do you think the money raised must go to the purchase of a new server? What is so illegal about putting a knife up and using the procees to HELP SOMEONE OTHER THAN SPARK?

The more I think of this, the hotter I get. It's semantics, the word 'auction'.

I have no problem with the concept of auctions being UNLAWFUL on BFC. My issue is with your use of moderator authority to lock a thread UNLESS the proceeds go to SPARK.

That, my friend is BULLSH*T:mad:

Ira

RANT MODE OFF
 
Always interesting to be an observer when someone who cannot handle responsibility is given a little authority. :rolleyes:
 
Many “Auctions” have been held on BladeForums in the past to help out members who were down on their luck. I feel that something should be done so that this is not against the rules. As has been stated, BladeForums is a community and a community has to look out for it's less fortunite members.

Mike, I don't think you are as cold hearted as the closing of that thread and your comments about the money going to a new server make you look. Yes we need money for a new server, but that is a totally separate issue. What is wrong with people wanting to help others? I understand the reasoning behind not allowing auctions, but this is for something really worthwhile.

Hopefully the moderators can get together in the Back End and come up with a ruling on this. If it is decided that these auctions can not be done, I would like to see the reasoning for this put forward.

This is a really good thing that Ira, Mike, Yiterp and everyone else that wants to help, are wanting to do and I for one am behind them 100%.

What is a problem here is that this is not really a BladeForums fund that is being established, it is a community fund being administered by members of that community, not the owners or managers of Bladeforums itself. That means that neither Spark nor anyone else that is associated with the running of this forum can be held accountable for anything that happens with this fund.
 
Keith,
There should be absolutely nothing wrong with members of this form conducting auctions to establish a fund, this needs to be put in perspective.

Michael is not cold-hearted, but his actions and remarks are COLD. To lock down a thread unless the money is used to finance a server is flat out COLD. Maybe he does not have a cold heart but his sure has taken a shallow view on one specific act of kindness.

When things were truly sh*tty for me, the "KNIFE COMMUNITY" rallied to my aid. There were several auctions and a boatload of compassion, kindness and caring. The outpouring from the best friends I have NEVER met was heart warming.

Well my life is slowly starting to return to order and I know far too well that I am not the sole holder of bad freaking luck. Since I had a knife for sale that was going nowhere, what better than to use it to establish a small fund to help the next BFC member who falls on hard times. It shall happen...............

Of course guys like Masterchef, Yiterp, Nifman, nifrand, Kingknives, and others jumped right in and the fund was established with a $60.00 purchase of my knife and one donated by Mike [Masterchef]. Yiterp was asked and agreed to act as the treasurer. We are not talking a six-figure some here, but simply a few bucks to possibly prevent a member from having to sell one of his/her favorites to help pay the bills.

So nifman says 'thanks' and CODE 3 responds with locking down the thread unless the money goes to buying a server. This is bizarre when I try to think of this forum as a COMMUNITY.

I would hope that while BFC is not a democratic enviornment, members can rally to each other's need for assistance when the need arises. If I thought it required some form of 'blessing', I would have asked. If I viewed this as a true auction, where we haggled towards the final sale of a knife FOR PROFIT, I would NEVER have done it. What I did do was hold an 'auction' to raise a few bucks to keep available when the sh*t hits the fan for someone, and I never thought for one second what I was doing went outside the framework of this forum.

Maybe I am blind and cannot see the problem with this. Can someone explain why this cannot/should not/will not be allowed, AND

why does every penny raised on this forum need to go towards paying the bills. Sounds just like my wife:rolleyes: :p
 
Maybe its just me, but I read the rules and copyrights of BFC and see no clause or item that states that any auction's proceeds have to go to the upgrade of BFC or its owner. This auction's proceeds would go towards benefitting a member of BFC and as such would ultimately reflect well on BFC, but oh well.
Hence Mike, you are a heinous butthead.
 
I just want to say that although Wolfman maybe should have e-mailed or gotten permission to run the auction, I see nothing wrong with it. I think it's very admirable. Just recently my car got impounded and I was in desperate need of cash. I started selling off some CRKTs that I had lying around to try to get together the money in a hurry. Yiterp sent me $15 via PayPal to help me meet my goal and refused to take anything in return. WHY would someone do this??? Send $15 to someone he never met?? B/C he cares about the people in this community and thats what this auction was all about. I can't thank him enough, b/c even with all the Production knives I had sold that night, if it wasn't for that extra $15 Yiterp sent me, I would not have been able to get my car out, and $15 worth of fees would have been tacked on for another day, putting me even further away from my goal. I understand Code 3 possibly being upset b/c no one was notified about this and the rules had been broken. He did close the thread, but the auction was already over. So there was no real harm. In regards to his comments about using it towards the server, I think he was just responding to the comment Wolfman made about not knowing who it should go to yet, and didn't exactly see that there was a possible fund getting put together for future problems.

So in short, Can't we all get along :) And if possible, Spark and the moderators should get together and see if there is anything that can be done so this type of activitly could be allowed as long as its regulated to some extent.
(Meaning, some guy with 5 posts can't start some auction saying its for some BS fund):D
 
Originally posted by wolfmann601
Keith,
There should be absolutely nothing wrong with members of this form conducting auctions to establish a fund, this needs to be put in perspective.

Michael is not cold-hearted, but his actions and remarks are COLD. To lock down a thread unless the money is used to finance a server is flat out COLD. Maybe he does not have a cold heart but his sure has taken a shallow view on one specific act of kindness.

When things were truly sh*tty for me, the "KNIFE COMMUNITY" rallied to my aid. There were several auctions and a boatload of compassion, kindness and caring. The outpouring from the best friends I have NEVER met was heart warming.

Well my life is slowly starting to return to order and I know far too well that I am not the sole holder of bad freaking luck. Since I had a knife for sale that was going nowhere, what better than to use it to establish a small fund to help the next BFC member who falls on hard times. It shall happen...............

Of course guys like Masterchef, Yiterp, Nifman, nifrand, Kingknives, and others jumped right in and the fund was established with a $60.00 purchase of my knife and one donated by Mike [Masterchef]. Yiterp was asked and agreed to act as the treasurer. We are not talking a six-figure some here, but simply a few bucks to possibly prevent a member from having to sell one of his/her favorites to help pay the bills.

So nifman says 'thanks' and CODE 3 responds with locking down the thread unless the money goes to buying a server. This is bizarre when I try to think of this forum as a COMMUNITY.

I would hope that while BFC is not a democratic enviornment, members can rally to each other's need for assistance when the need arises. If I thought it required some form of 'blessing', I would have asked. If I viewed this as a true auction, where we haggled towards the final sale of a knife FOR PROFIT, I would NEVER have done it. What I did do was hold an 'auction' to raise a few bucks to keep available when the sh*t hits the fan for someone, and I never thought for one second what I was doing went outside the framework of this forum.

Maybe I am blind and cannot see the problem with this. Can someone explain why this cannot/should not/will not be allowed, AND

why does every penny raised on this forum need to go towards paying the bills. Sounds just like my wife:rolleyes: :p
Click to expand...


Ira, I'm really surprised you're surprised. Havent you been paying attention these last couple of years?
 
I don't know what to think about all this.

Auctions are not allowed on the exchange forums here. Several times members have gotten together and auctioned some knives in the Community Center forum to raise money for somebody we all know and like who's in need of emergency assistance, with permission of the moderators. Other times people we don't know have tried to sell knives without paying for a gold membership saying they should be allowed because they're in trouble, their car broke down, their dog ate all their money, whatever, and that hasn't been allowed.

This situation is unprecedented. As I understand it, Wolfmann was trying to sell a knife and it wasn't selling -- so he decided what the heck, I'll auction it off to benefit somebody in need -- don't know of anybody in need at the moment but somebody's bound to be in need sooner or later ... I can decide later who to give the money to. And posted that in the thread in the Knives for Sale forum where he'd been trying to sell the knife.

As I understand it when Code 3 saw that thread he thought, hey, auctions aren't allowed here! Under special circumstances we've allowed some charity auctions in the Community Center with permission of the moderators, but this isn't in the Community Center and as far as I know no moderator has given permission to make an exception this time.... So he locked the thread.

So, where are we now? Do we want to raise a fund for Wolfmann to keep on hand waiting for somebody to have an emergency? If we want to raise a fund how do we want to raise the money? How will we decide who to give it to, under what circumstances? What if somebody seems to be having an emergency and some of the people who contributed to the fund want to give it all to him, and others don't, and maybe some want to give part of the fund to him....

Do we really want to raise money now and decide what to do with it later? Would that make more sense than waiting for a need to arise so everybody knows what they're being asked to contribute to? If we do want to raise a fund in advance of need, how should we administer it?

I don't think anybody has given this idea much thought so far. I know I haven't. Everyone involved is acting from the highest motives -- we all know Wolfmann, we all know Code 3, we all know both are honest and sincere. Let's stop yelling at each other and start thinking about this idea.
 
Another question is how can we raise money to keep Bladeforums going? Do we want to is not in question; we have to. Membership fees just about cover the monthly expenses of running the site, and as more members join, traffic rises and the monthly expenses go up, more basic members decide to become paying members too, so we can expect to keep up with the monthly bandwidth charges -- but with nothing left over for hardware upgrades. As traffic grows we have to upgrade the hardware too or Bladeforums will get so slow it'll be unusable. We've come close to that point lately. We've had to make brutal sacrifices to keep this place running -- most recently we had to sacrifice a lot of old posts and all attachments more than nine months old. We can't go on pruning like that or we'll have nothing left.... It's not a static situation. Traffic grows and the load on the server gets worse every month.

When Code 3 said why don't you give the money to Bladeforums that might have sounded to some people like he was saying why don't you give it to me -- but that's not what he was saying. We're not trying to raise money for the moderators -- the moderators don't get any money and don't want any; we contribute our time and energy to Bladeforums because we love Bladeforums.

If we can raise $14,000 somehow we can get a new server and gang it with the current one and we'll be all set for a good while to come -- but where can we get $14,000?
 
Ira's intentions were never in question. By Code 3 or anyone who has posted. I'm sure everyone who has read this, including myself, think it's a noble idea. The problem comes with the fact the proper channels were not taken to set up this fund. If it's going to be established, then guidelines will have to be set. A Policies and Procedures would need to be drafted. If I'm not mistaken, taxes would have to be paid on any ammount of money over $600 if tax exempt status was not aquired for the fund.

This is all above and beyond simply not asking for permission to start this fund. The bottom line, doing a fund like this without going through the proper channels is asking for trouble.

As far as Mike suggesting money be raised to fund a new server... where is the issue here? It was a simple suggestion. The idea for the fund was to raise money for someone in need. Well, BFC as a community is in need of it wants to continue to exist. I firmly believe Mike was not cold nor evil about the locking down of the thread, nor the suggestion for the use of the money. No single cause had been determined, so Mike made a simple suggestion.

Also, Cougar brings up some great points. If this fund is to be established, how and who gets to decide where the money goes. Do we form a committee of a few BFC members in good standing and let them decide together? Do you invest the money to gain interest on the dollar so more money can be raised for the fund? There's too many questions left unanswered.

As noble of an idea this is, Code 3 did his job. It may have been an unpopular decision, but the thread can always be unlocked later. He didn't end the world by locking the thread. In the end, the locking of the thread may save a lot of headaches for the fund by forcing the establishment of guidelines and procedures. I'm all for setting up the fund and would be more then happy to contribute to it. I just want to see it done the proper way.

JR
 
I think that a good dose of common sense was needed here, but didn't make it into the equation. Anyone, and I do mean ANYONE, that knows Ira, knows that he is one of the most outstanding memebers of this forum. If it had been some jackoff that nobody knows, well, then I guess it would make sense to close said thread. HOWEVER, it was Ira that started this auction, being the stellar individual he is, so care should be taken to look at the circumstances. He explicitely posted what would happen the proceeds. He even made sure that a second party would be a treasurer for this. The intent was to help good people that are worth helping. If you cannot see that, you are stupid! A well respected member of our forum gust got $hit on due some blind bumbling of an over zealous moderator that hasn't got a lick of sense. I guess the saying "No good deed goes unpunished" is applicable here. Shame on the Code dude. Use your brain, dipstick! I know you have one, as you have shown it in the past. This time you stepped on your dick! Think hard before posting something that will only make this situation worse.
 
KnifeBomber, I think your a little off base. As I mentioned, I have been the recipient of goodwill from a fellow forum member and think the auction was a great idea; however Code3 was just doing his job and enforcing BFC rules. There is nothing wrong with that, hell the auction was long over when the thread was closed, the BFC rules need to be looked at and possibly amended, not the procedure for enforcing them.
 
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