and I would like to add that the majority of posts in the "Angela" thread were discussing the implications of shill bidders in the abstract and were not aimed at the actual and unknown events that caused certain accounts to be revoked by Ebay.

I made only one post that I can remember and was merely responding to a position taken by Archie, whose opinion I respect, but respectfully disagreed with in that instance. I didn't even know who Angela was referring to at the time (I am still not completely sure who she meant, although I read Mike C.'s posts), and my comments had nothing to do with those people. I thought the majority of the thread was a well-reasoned presentation of both sides of the issue. I, for one, am not ashamed at my participation in it. I was certainly disturbed to see later posts by James Campiglia in others which called into question the truth of some statements about him.

I sincerely hope that no one was harmed by false statements made on the board, if any. If false statements were made, well that person or persons should be ashamed. As to others who participated, I am stunned to hear that their posts could have contributed in any way to your decision. You said "Archie was the only bastion of sanity in the whole mess." Are you suggesting that you have no problem with actual shill bidders (we were not discussing people falsely accused of shill bidding simply because they bid on the auctions of people they know)? Most only said it was a bad thing that harmed the legitimate bidders. Why would it sadden you that others may think that? In my opinion, it is "crap" like shill bidders that can artificially drive up prices and ruin the hobby. If there is a weakhess in the shill bidding rules on Ebay, that is their failure, and it should not be blamed on this hobby. Maybe you should just give up ebay, instead. There is no need to attack the hobby as a whole.

JMHO.

Michael Siskin