OT: Am I in the wrong? (long)

[calimus at techography.net (Calimus)]

Basicly I just want a general opinion since I hate getting into things
like this.

Recently my wife and I got ripped on e-bay.  It's been almost 2 months
since payment was made and the first month the seller gave a few excuses
for not shipping which we took with a grain of salt be still kept good
faith.  This second month the seller won't return any e-mail.  Weel, due
to the ammount of the time Pay-pal can't/won't do anything so my wifedid
what she knows best which is skip-tracing.

She found the sellers car had been entered at the ND show, got some info
and pic of his car.  Using the info she got, she was able to track him
to VWVortex and more directly to the Golf/Jetta IV forum.  So she posted
a thread giving a small summery of the dealings and asking if anyone
knew him and how he might be contacted.

Many of the Texers were sympathetic and some even IM'd her with good
info.  Her main reason for this was hopefully to get the seller to
actually respond so the matter could be cleared up.  However, the forum
moderator locked the thread before it was even 24 hours old.  Giving the
statement that is didn't belong on the forum since it had nothing to do
with the tex.  That kinda irked me so I started an IM session with the
moderator and here is the result of that.  Mind you I stayed 3rd party
and didn't say anything about being married to the the person that
started the thread.  I've also changed the moderators handle just out of
courtesy.

Calimus (4:20 PM 6-19-2003): You locked the following topic
http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=899205
And I would like to know wh?. The reason that it doesn't have anything
to do with vortex is not very valid. Vortex is a community where the
users talk about many topics not related to vortex. The person tracked
the seller to the show at ND and to vortex. So they asked if anyone knew
the seller, what good is a community if you can't tap it as a resource
to help others not get taken by someone that is a member of the same
community?

 Calimus (4:22 PM 6-19-2003): it may very well be a bit trivial, 
but as a member of this community I think thread locking is something
that should be used when something unsavory is being planned or talked
about. Not when someone is trying to warn others not to purchas things
from a fellow texer.

 monderator_person (4:37 PM 6-19-2003): We only saw one side of the
story - we don't know what happened. It is never good to have these
types of posts, and that is speaking from almost 4 years experience
dealing with this website. 

 Calimus (4:56 PM 6-19-2003): we given the fact that you locked the
thread, the other party doesn't get a chance to respond do they? Nothing
was said that gave any indication to violence or slander. They were
simply trying to track the person down. As for the 4 years, I'm really
happy you've been here that long, but if anything 4 years should have
taught you that humans are anything but predictable and that there is no
general rule to them.

 moderator_person (5:03 PM 6-19-2003): The fact of the matter is that
forum is for discussing the G/J IV, not what some user did on e-bay. The
topic does not need to be on our website. E-bay can handle that since
the transaction was done on that website. 


Personally I felt that I got brushed off, but thats ok.  I just want to
make sure I wasn't really in the wrong by pressing the issue just a
tad.  I think I did well in not attacking anyone or coming acrossed
nasty.  I'm just really glad that the rocco forum admins arn't like this
or who knows how many ppl would be gettin ripped off by fellow texers.

But, was I in the wrong?

William
-- 
88' Scirocco 16v (Crabby 16v)
89' Cabriolet 8v (pretty bunneh)
71' Karmann Ghia (air sucker)

http://www.techography.com/scirocco (s.org forums)
http://www.techography.net:82/scirocco/  (my rocco's site)