Posts Made By: Christine Canelos Welsh

Hiking among the towering redwoods. We were the only ones on the trail that day. It felt quite prehistoric. Hard to believe that bustling San Francisco was only a few miles away.

The AAVSO is largely amateurs, I believe, and these folks:
http://www.cometwatch.com/
have had some success with discovering supernovae among other things.

Wish I had the time!

Wow, so much to look at in this photo, it's outstanding!

Getting introduced to "Naya", one of the Shedd's female Beluga whales...

I'm sorry to hear of your loss. I've always enjoyed your posts about Gabby.
Regards,
Christine

Nice work, Linton.

The perspective on the settlers' community really gives me pause. Imagine trying to eak out a living in that sparse environment. Humbling!

Gary Carter said:

I hate resurrecting another rehash on this "auction vs. offer" issue but I've hit a few hard cases when it comes to urging folks to follow the spirit of AM's TOS on this point. I continue to see many ads, old and new, without a price listed and "make an offer" or "or best offer" selected. And many of these ads are by long time AM members with many, many excellent ratings. If one is expected to put a price on an item for sale (or else put it up in the auction category) then why is "make an offer" even a choice when placing AM Classified Ads? And why not force an entry in the price field? (I acknowledge that might present problems for ads with multiple items....) At least make this "set a price per item" requirement clear in the instructions...in simple terms.

And I'll be the first to point out and/or agree that the TOS rule:

4.2.3. Additional prohibitions include misleading offers that do not list the total purchase price or a “bait & switch� of products, advertisements listed in the incorrect category, make-money fast schemes, pyramid or chain letters, fraudulent or criminal offers including but not limited to registering another email address other than your own, or placing a fraudulent ad;

...does not clearly state that NOT putting a price on a (truly honest, in the intent of a seller) classified ad is expressly prohibited. And citing this as the rule is not well received by folks after-the-fact. They think they are being accused of shady dealings. This is a key point of confusion.

....and maybe this post belongs in "I like to complain about everything...."

Potential buyers don’t like the “make offer” ads for various reasons, and I don’t disagree. But that seems beside the point here.

Gary, you’ve answered your own question – Astromart’s classified template has “Make Offer” as one of the options for creating the ad in the first place. How is it then that this practice is “expressly forbidden?”

I think this is an over-interpretation of the above quoted TOS. An example of “misleading offers that do not list the total purchase price or a “bait & switch” of products” would be a seller saying, “hey I’m selling this Obsession telescope for $200” and then saying “oh, I only meant the mirror, the total price is really....” or “oh sorry I already sold that but can I interest you in....”, etc. I do not believe this refers to “make offer” ads at all.

When a person places an ad using the very options given by Astromart, and then receives a message that speaks to fraudulent and misleading practices, you can hardly blame them for being put off. Especially, as you note, many are long time members with expansive ratings. They didn’t get there by acting fraudulently.

People may not like “make offer” ads, but are they in fact against the TOS? It seems that if something is expressly forbidden it should expressly say so.

Floyd Blue said:

You know, if that were mine I would let you have half!

Oh, no way, that looks like a Beggin' Strip.

Personally, I never get tired of them. Marvelous shot - they look like something out of a sci-fi flick, don't they?

Awesome!