quote:

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Originally posted by paragondave:
the mods have stopped moderating the BTA forum. The end is near.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Pail42:
Was there an announcement somewhere. If true this should be plastered all over the place.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mm1983:
What does it take to become a MOTL moderator? Being an active member with a high ref count should be enough these days.

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quote:

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Originally posted by paragondave:
Why would you want to board a sinking ship?

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I agree. Never catch a falling knive.

Heard anything in response to your e-mail to nouveaux?

__________________
I'm a geek, you're a geek. Let's trade.

quote:

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Originally posted by hilikuS:
It doesn't help the site when anytime a new member comes in they get hazed either.

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While true and I normally stick up for new members, some - like VoiceOfTheMeek - are/were idiots and deserve(d) it.

i'd be interested in seeing statistics for this site these days compared to in the past

So, the listed mods for each forum are
H/W
cerberus
junichi
Jazaray
nderdog
Tha Gunslinga

Non mtg
cerberus
junichi
Jazaray
nderdog
Tha Gunslinga

T/A
BoltBait
junichi
Jazaray
nderdog
Tha Gunslinga

Mtg discussion
BoltBait
cerberus
junichi
Jazaray
nderdog
Tha Gunslinga

Gen Discussion
BoltBait
cerberus
junichi
Jazaray
nderdog
Tha Gunslinga

Deck help
BoltBait
cerberus
Tha Gunslinga

T/V
BoltBait
cerberus
inca911
Tha Gunslinga

Sugg
Leshrac
BoltBait
Tha Gunslinga

BTA
inca911
junichi
Jazaray
nderdog
Tha Gunslinga

CBT
Inca911

Obviously seems a little out of date, especially since the founder Leshrac hasn't posted on motl since 2012 I think :-p

I feel like many/most of the mods are less active now. and some still have the moderator status, like Dannibal, who I don't even know if they still get on here nor do they appear to be mods in any specific forum.

Seems that we could use a new post like this http://classic.magictraders.com/ubb/Archives/Archive-000001/HTML/20040813-12-013005.ht ml
& this
http://classic.magictraders.com/ubb/Archives/Archive-000001/HTML/20040813-12-012405.ht ml
& this
http://classic.magictraders.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/017653.html

:-p

Surely the mods can find a couple of us cooler heads to help out with the work. Lots of people who've been here 10+ years...but that don't drive off people (so not Coolio )

Has anyone else experienced the 'currently browsing the boards' function showing old results? I often see it showing someone replying to topic from like 2005 give or take a few years. Is super weird b/c I know nobody is replying to those topics.

quote:

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Originally posted by hilikuS:
It doesn't help the site when anytime a new member comes in they get hazed either.

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True, but you don't want to mask the truth from them, too. Better go elsewhere until the site gets a Breath of Life.

__________________
I'm a geek, you're a geek. Let's trade.

quote:

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Originally posted by paragondave:
the mods have stopped moderating the BTA forum. The end is near.

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quote:

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Originally posted by AEther Storm:
True, but you don't want to mask the truth from them, too. Better go elsewhere until the site gets a Breath of Life.

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quote:

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Originally posted by hilikuS:
I mean, then tell them that part of it. Don't be all, BLARGH BOW DOWN TO A TRUE PIMP. Not you personally, but you get the idea.

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Yeah I understand. On the flip side, it's hard to filter out someone's sarcasm when a site that's a part of their social network (if you will) is dying. But I know what you mean.

quote:

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Originally posted by LandDestroyer:
FYI, I think many people are not aware there is a group someone created for MOTL on fb

https://www.facebook.com/groups/7111992674/

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I don't do FB, but indeed, I didn't know.

__________________
I'm a geek, you're a geek. Let's trade.

quote:

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Originally posted by AEther Storm:

Heard anything in response to your e-mail to nouveaux?

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The owner of MOTL doesn't care about the website like you might think, it is something he started he created it and probably enjoys that thought and doesn't want to give it up. I don't think it is a money thing, and that is also why he doesn't let someone take it over because of the loss of control/trust otherwise one of the mods would have that power.

I think that what you see here is true, it doesn't help that the USA dollar is so strong as the best thing that sold cards was overseas. When you have to deal with domestic only, Americans are notoriously cheap. I have been in sales all my life and people will try to save a 1.00 even to sacrifice quality or safety. IE trading with new members in the hundreds of dollars of cards.

MOTL is people to people, puca really isn't as you get points, if that site shut down you don't have anything. TCG is all sales where the lowest price wins regardless if they have zero feedback. I am actually surprised that ebay or a major store hasn't taken notice to tcg as I bet there are more standard cards listed then on ebay or close to it. The problem with MOTL is that things take time, the longest of all of them. The benefits are pricing usually and that if you have a problem you get to talk to the person and not through some random email. Get two people with OCD and it is no longer a benefit as neither could have made a mistake.

quote:

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Originally posted by slurpee:
I can't remember the last time a new mod was appointed.

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November 2012 I believe
http://classic.magictraders.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/017653.html

We also had the epic april fools joke
http://classic.magictraders.com/ubb/Forum12/HTML/017798.html

quote:

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I wouldnt want that thankless job. I think that they perhaps got together and said hey what do you want to do...the site is not as popular all we do is handle bad things that reality we can't really fix as that is a police thing. I would bet most have done what most of us have done...quit playing or gone casual.

Heck people on here who have been around will buy/trade with new members and because they essentially are ripping them off trade wise do the deal. Then they wonder why the other person never sent...the worst that can happen is post their info for all to see on a website that fewer people visit.

The owner of MOTL doesn't care about the website like you might think, it is something he started he created it and probably enjoys that thought and doesn't want to give it up. I don't think it is a money thing, and that is also why he doesn't let someone take it over because of the loss of control/trust otherwise one of the mods would have that power.

I think that what you see here is true, it doesn't help that the USA dollar is so strong as the best thing that sold cards was overseas. When you have to deal with domestic only, Americans are notoriously cheap. I have been in sales all my life and people will try to save a 1.00 even to sacrifice quality or safety. IE trading with new members in the hundreds of dollars of cards.

MOTL is people to people, puca really isn't as you get points, if that site shut down you don't have anything. TCG is all sales where the lowest price wins regardless if they have zero feedback. I am actually surprised that ebay or a major store hasn't taken notice to tcg as I bet there are more standard cards listed then on ebay or close to it. The problem with MOTL is that things take time, the longest of all of them. The benefits are pricing usually and that if you have a problem you get to talk to the person and not through some random email. Get two people with OCD and it is no longer a benefit as neither could have made a mistake.

Given all of this what is MOTL really worth as a website? Collecting money for some feature is just going to run off people. Then what feature would people go and want to pay for to use it? My ideal would be to have things fixed that are broken with the matcher, price guide, I would also like a forum where it would do what mtg.gg does. You put in the card and it tells you the buy and sell price. I would like to see a presale area, a Magic online area. I would like to see hyperlinks work, where you could click on a name or address and it would search BTA to eliminate any of these duplicate user names/emails. But again would people pay money for that benefit or any? The problem with someone else buying it is that they would have to make money off of their investment. Simply owning it would probably not be enough as I can't see many putting money into it and still say everything is free.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mm1983:
As MOTL may be a "falling ship" people still need a place to go to do online trading if they can't at their local game store as most sites devoted to mtg are strictly for sellers or else already established online stores like star city or other stores already on tcgplayer who sell to other people. This is where MOTL had always been different from the others as it allowed for trading to be done instead of just buying and selling. However trading has become harder to do here which has led to doing more sales here to then just buying what I need later instead of going through the trading process to get what I need so in that sense I am still trading here.

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quote:

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Originally posted by spike777:
The day pucatrade installs a message board, adds foreign/FBB cards, and finds a way to use pucapoints themselves to pay for membership/ a way to more easily convert points to cash, MOTL will die entirely.

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quote:

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Originally posted by spike777:
The day pucatrade installs a message board, adds foreign/FBB cards, and finds a way to use pucapoints themselves to pay for membership/ a way to more easily convert points to cash, MOTL will die entirely.

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They are over half way to raising $50k from their members. We'll know soon if it's a cash grab or if the owners of the site are serious about fixing the inherent issues with their model.

MOTL could be fixed and maintained for a fraction of that cost and Pucatrade would die. How many members do you think Pucatrade picked up directly from MOTL?

How many of them are donating CASH to the site?
How much of that is directly driven by the lack of effort MOTL's admin/owner/mods are exerting on improving MOTL?

I have an account there and have done several trades. I have a list of about 5 major problems I see with Pucatrade and while you can throw points around to fix those temporarily, eventually that pyramid will crumble unless it's propped up with a value standard. It remains to be seen how much of that $50k they will use to fix that main glaring flaw.

I've received only 1 truly NM card so far from 5 that I've received from Pucatrade members. Grading continues to be a big issue for them as well as it is here on MOTL. As clunky and mind numbingly slow as their resolution process is, I can't believe they've raised as much as they have.

Trading is like kind of a pain in the butt for me, and I don't do it very often. Even in person. Puca for me is like, I ship this big money card out for points, and when I get a list of things somebody needs, I just add them to Puca and they arrive on my doorstep sometime later. Sometimes trades get confirmed in seconds of me adding the card to my wants.

I would imagine for a brick and mortar card shop the service could be a huge boon. Somebody comes in and goes, I want these. I know some of the shopkeepers around here ask around for the cards, or ask other people if they have them to sell on the spot. Now they can just be like, I'll have them in a week, and get them. It's reliable enough IMO to work that way, and the site is getting more steam.

quote:

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Originally posted by stab107:
Thanks for the heads up on the FB group.

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NP.

Fyi, I also created this Reddit sub last week to eventually help point people here. http://www.reddit.com/r/MOTL/

I think flawless made an important point that most of us from 'the golden age' were in college when we first came on here. Now we can buy most things we want. After my break from the game I came back here and bought some collections and stuff to get my collection back up real quick. But now it's easier for me to buy small stuff instead of losing money shipping. I used to sell stuff to friends in Canada through here but shipping is more expensive now and their currencies have fallen against ours it seems making them less interested. Plus, for stuff over $50 I've found the high end group on fb to provide me with better buying opportunities. I'm not sure why, but it has been the case. The variance is high there, I admit...you'll have 10 people selling a NM foil FOW for $750 but then others half a day earlier selling for $600.

I love this site, but it needs
- Search engine updated
- Mods helping with BTA cases