Need help with info on vintage custom knife in presentation box

Delaine, you haven't been here long enough to learn and understand the rules. They aren't arbitrary. Most come from problems we need to solve.

This is not a free forum. Someone has to pay the bills to keep it on the internet. The owner decided to sell memberships, with privileges attached. One of those is selling in our Exchange forums. We had people decide to skip paying but hint they might sell items they were showing us.

That generated the rule: you need a membership that allows you to sell before you can ask the value of your item.
 
Delaine said:
I have viewed these forums for some time but only recently joined, I'm not a paying member as paying for membership is still a choice not an obligation. I was under the, obviously deluded, impression that forums were a platform in which people with a shared interest could exchange ideas and information. I had no idea that asking a question or requesting advice would be frowned upon such an extent that daring to do so might result in being informed that I would be unwelcome on the forum, unless of course I paid a fee for the privilege.
I have never encountered such an elitist attitude in a free forum. Fortunately I have viewed enough posts here to know that the behaviour exhibited in this thread is the exception rather than the rule. The vast majority of members seem more than happy to answer queries people may have - free of charge.
I am also surprised that some members feel they are being inundated by people asking questions, I don't believe Nicole directed her question at anyone in particular, no one had an obligation to respond, if you find replying such a hassle why not simply ignore the post altogether?

How welcoming and friendly she must have found this forum! I'm sure such attitudes will inspire others to feel comfortable about joining and engaging in forum discussions.

I would understand the point made in respect of seeking information for commercial purposes if Nicole has been requesting information from members on a regular basis, I quite agree she ought to pay however, if this isn't the case, I think she did not deserve the 'patently direct' response she unfortunately received. It doesn't matter how you dress it up, it was rude and discourteous and I wonder how the members who reacted that way would feel if they encountered that type of attitude after asking a question on a free forum.

I do hope to receive a barage of outrage that a non-paying member who has only written two posts, has been so bold as to comment on the behaviour of fee paying members. Who do I think I am? What right do I have? Incidentally, if any moderators think I am out of line, feel free to ban me, it's no loss to me, I didn't pay to join.
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Most forums have rules and to participate you have to abide by them, no different here. Have you read the below rule?
This is a needed rule because if not for it our "custom & handmade knives" forum would be littered with these "how much is my knife worth" threads from every yard sale, storage unit auction, estate sale, eBay dealer etc junkie in existence.

NEW MEMBERS :: Please read this :: WHAT IS MY KNIFE WORTH?

From Bladeforums rules:

WHAT IS MY KNIFE / GADGET / SPATULA / TUNING FORK WORTH ?!?!?!?!

In order to curtail potential abuse of membership privileges associated with the forums, questions regarding valuation of knives and collections are limited to those with a membership level which permits selling on this site. Accordingly, registered and basic members may not start or post in threads with such requests whether with the intent to sell or for informational purposes only. This rule applies throughout the site.

In other words, without a paid Gold membership, you don't get to ask about sale values. Too many people abused this question to hint they had a knife for sale, which you need that membership for.
 
Just to clarify, if I had a knife and simply wanted to know who the maker was, with no mention of seeking a valuation, Bladeforums is not the place I should go to for help in identifying the maker?
 
Delaine said:
Just to clarify, if I had a knife and simply wanted to know who the maker was, with no mention of seeking a valuation, Bladeforums is not the place I should go to for help in identifying the maker?
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You can ask who the maker is, what materials might have been used and when it might have been made. You cannot ask what it is worth.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Delaine, i think you summed up the events in this thread accurately. I feel embarrassed by the rude replies directed towards Nicole.
Knife collectors in general tend to be helpful & friendly and enjoy sharing information about knives. Why not simply post that questions regarding value cannot be asked until the correct membership is purchased ?
To say that as a non paying participant she is not welcome is not a view i hold and i think this applies to a majority of BF members. BladeForums should be the place for people to get definitive answers about a knife or knives. Many people may only need to do this once. I welcome these posts as often i learn something from the ensuing discussion.
There is no need to be confrontational or rude. You can state your point in a pleasant manner.
kj
 
kootenay joe said:
To say that as a non paying participant she is not welcome is not a view i hold and i think this applies to a majority of BF members. BladeForums should be the place for people to get definitive answers about a knife or knives. Many people may only need to do this once. I welcome these posts as often i learn something from the ensuing discussion.
There is no need to be confrontational or rude. You can state your point in a pleasant manner.kj
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You can state your point in a pleasant manner.

The statement was NOT that as "a non paying participant she is not welcome", the statement that if she was unwilling to become part of the community she was not welcome, and I believe that.

I have gotten older and less accommodating of the "tourists" over the years....those that come in, get the answers they require without giving anything back and leave.....you can feel free to be embarrassed by that...you can feel whatever you want....but an important question might be.....how do YOU contribute to the knife community, BESIDES paying for a BFC membership?

This is a question that all in the community should ask themselves.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
Thank you for your replies, I must have totally misread this thread because I honestly didn't notice Nicole ask for a valuation. I thought Nicole asked for information about the maker and said she wasn't asking for a valuation, she was given a valuation anyway and then told she wasn't welcome to have the valuation she didn't ask for unless she paid to join the forum, only then can she get information she doesn't want, however if she wanted to ask who the maker was, which was what I thought she did ask, then she can do that by joining the forum for free, whilst bearing in mind it's not a free forum.

I'm so relieved that has been cleared up......although I'll apologise in advance if I've misinterpreted the whole situation again, which I feel will probably be the case. :hopelessness:
 
Delaine said:
however if she wanted to ask who the maker was, which was what I thought she did ask, then she can do that by joining the forum for free, whilst bearing in mind it's not a free forum.

I'm so relieved that has been cleared up......although I'll apologise in advance if I've misinterpreted the whole situation again, which I feel will probably be the case. :hopelessness:
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She said she didn't want a valuation which was fine, but then she wanted to state that she was making between 2-4 hundred/knife that she was selling.....which was not a smart thing to say, as it lends itself to disagreement.

SOME people pay for memberships to help BFC stay in business....it is not a non-profit....if YOU don't want to pay for a membership, that is your option.....for the most part, that is not a problem for anyone.

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
A paid membership does not signify or correlate to "joining the community".....participation does.
The young lady never asked for a valuation, but was given a patently biased and rude valuation along with an admonition about supporting he same site upon which she was so rudely treated.
 
Karda, it's been my experience that general inquiries of this type are of more than one type, some of which never lead to value, but some of which almost seem to be pointing in that direction step by step, which is how I read it. Most of the time, these two types of inquiries - the direct and indirect - are treated vastly different by the membership, with the response tailored differently. Typically, with a straightforward value inquiry, we see members post the link that explains the problem, and the thread ends, as it should.

Seems like the problem here is that the inquirer "inferred" her intentions toward seeking a value by mentioning that the others she was selling off from a collection had a $200 - $400 value. So seems to me one would draw the conclusion that the thread was meant to draw out a value, resulting a more direct and pointed response. The most difficult thing to prove in a prosecution is intent, but it appears to me the intent to seek valuation appears here, without the direct question having been asked.
 
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Quote: ".how do YOU contribute to the knife community, BESIDES paying for a BFC membership?"
I have been collecting Traditional style knives for about 55 years, so i participate in BF by posting when i know something pertinent to the discussion and i post pictures of one of my knives to add interest to a thread. I have also bought many knives direct from maker in various BF forums.
I also have BF friends whom i communicate with in a mutually supportive manner, mainly to do with 'the rest of life'.
My contribution is not huge, but it is present.
kj
 
betzner said:
Karda, it's been my experience that general inquiries of this type are of more than one type, some of which never lead to value, but some of which almost seem to be pointing in that direction step by step, which is how I read it. Most of the time, these two types of inquiries - the direct and indirect - are treated vastly different by the membership, with the response tailored differently. Typically, with a straightforward value inquiry, we see members post the link that explains the problem, and the thread ends, as it should.

Seems like the problem here is that the inquirer "inferred" her intentions toward seeking a value by mentioning that the others she was selling off from a collection had a $200 - $400 value. So seems to me one would draw the conclusion that the thread was meant to draw out a value, resulting a more direct and pointed response.
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I actually read her mention of the prices she was getting as a counter to the low valuation she never asked for but got anyway.
Either way, it is usually customary to wait until the question is actually asked before quoting the rules and probably would serve the community better if such admonitions were done in a less rude and confrontational manner.
 
Karda said:
I actually read her mention of the prices she was getting as a counter to the low valuation she never asked for but got anyway.
Either way, it is usually customary to wait until the question is actually asked before quoting the rules and probably would serve the community better if such admonitions were done in a less rude and confrontational manner.
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I think over time we've become jaded by all the inquiries and while handling each type differently while trying to self-police the subforum, we've perhaps become more "direct" and all could do with a reminder. However, I think this inquiry did border on "intent for value direction" which in my book is as close to asking the question directly as it could be. In fact, if the intent was agreed to be actual, it's probably worse than a direct question because it would then be viewed as devious. If one noticed the link to her instagram image and read the content, it was obvious from the start that she bought/sold merchandise from yard sales, etc - rather than a collector of knives. But rather than write a book about it, I hear ya.
 
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kootenay joe said:
Quote: ".how do YOU contribute to the knife community, BESIDES paying for a BFC membership?"
I have been collecting Traditional style knives for about 55 years, so i participate in BF by posting when i know something pertinent to the discussion and i post pictures of one of my knives to add interest to a thread. I have also bought many knives direct from maker in various BF forums.
I also have BF friends whom i communicate with in a mutually supportive manner, mainly to do with 'the rest of life'.
My contribution is not huge, but it is present.
kj
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Cool enough.
Karda said:
A paid membership does not signify or correlate to "joining the community".....participation does.
The young lady never asked for a valuation, but was given a patently biased and rude valuation along with an admonition about supporting he same site upon which she was so rudely treated.
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How come Esav "got it", and you didn't, Al?

Best Regards,

STeven Garsson
 
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betzner said:
I think over time we've become jaded by all the inquiries and while handling each type differently while trying to self-police the subforum, we've perhaps become more "direct" and all could do with a reminder.
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this is good.
 
For me I see it as the community just ran off someone that could potentially find one of us a knife we've been looking for. I could see us benefiting more by telling them how the forum benefits them and how we would like to see whatever knives they find here first before putting them up for sale elsewhere. Which in turn could sell a membership much easier.
 
Bob leaves it by accusing her of being devious in her intent. I think he has it wrong..

betzner said:
... However, I think this inquiry did border on "intent for value direction" which in my book is as close... In fact, if the intent was agreed to be actual, it's probably worse than a direct question because it would then be viewed as devious.
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Plus, she was treated rudely here. Why not leave out the collector snobbery for new members/users ?
David
 
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2knife said:
Bob leaves it by accusing her of being devious in her intent. I think he has it wrong..
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We all have the freedom to express our opinions openly in this forum. I stand by my comments, and as for yours, I have already given them the attention they deserve. I'm sure you mean well in your own peculiar way.
 
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