Secret Sightings Section idea

[Lint]

I don't think anyone has said that. Ozformers is a community, not a general service to the public. If anyone wants to be part of that community, then I welcome them to join. But saying a lurker (who may or may not be a scalper) should enjoy all the same benefits from a *free* online community that its members do, isn't something I agree with.

My point is people, such as myself, would not have joined if there wasn't a *free service* to attract me to the community. Maybe it's just me but I'd rather miss out on a toy than deprive this board a mechanism by which to gain new members.

To be clear, I think the proposition (which isn't a new one) is for ultra rare and low production items only. I'm pretty sure the intention would still be to have general access sightings threads for 99% of the TFs sold.

You're still endorising a policy which is justified by you deserving the ultra rare low production items over, as someone said, "some random mook". This is elitism. I really got back into transformers because I was gifted a high quality TF on my 21st as well as retail releases of Masterpieces. You could be depriving potential fans of these opportunities. Besides which, where do you draw the line with ultra rare and low production? Does it apply to short-packed figures and army-builders? I can see this restriction relaxing to "whatever we desire that is in short supply"

I don't necessarily have the time to go hunting for toys. Wollongong has 1 TRU. The next nearest is Miranda. 1 hour up the road. After that it's Campbelltown, and further into the city. That's a lot of 'hard yards' to put in to go look for a toy. This is why the sightings thread is so awesome, it saves us the time of spending potentially hours in the car. We can go straight to the sighted store. WIN

I sympathise with your logistical disadvantage. I come from WA where we have like 3 TRU's. Sightings can help a lot. But still, you want the sightings of things you want to be exclusive to you and not others. I still don't think this is fair.

You can't tell me that the days that MP-10 went on sale, that scalpers werent the ones buying them up. We have reports of 6 going from one store via one person, 4 from Wollongong, etc. Add to that the fact that TRU had a 25% off coupon for that time and that would make a pretty attrative deal for those who are that way inclined. Hell, you couldn't import them for that price!

Agree with you that it was a good price as I scored it myself. Sounds like you have a NSW scalper problem. Scalpers always gonna scalp though.

And it's not that much effort anyway. How hard is it to once a day look at a bookmarked page to see whats new? I do it nearly every day, so could anyone.

To keep on top of sightings, especially for something like MP-10, you'd have to be checking multiple times a day. Blink a day and you could miss it. Maybe the scalpers might not know this but if you exerted this kind of effort on the stock market or maybe even finding/trading antiques they could make far more money. It's not that much effort, but it seems to be an absurd amount of effort to make a small profit in my opinion.

I doubt this.

Seen this happen with my own eyes, not for TFs mind you, but still...

But if we post in the sightings thread, it's usually because we have just been to that store, seen that toy and bought it. And now we'd like to share that info with other board members who are as exited as we are. It's like me with MP-10, I saw 5 in TRU on a Thursday arvo. Didn't buy one myself as I wasn't sure whether I wanted it enough. About half an hour later posted on here that I saw it. 1 board member got one, the other 4 were bought by one other person, as far as we can tell, not of these boards. And this happened within an afternoon! While not conclusive evidence, it is certainly suspicious. And I am a glass-half-empty sort of person, so assume the worst.

I'm a glass-half-full sort of person, especially for something like this. I'd say it was either a syndicate composed of board members, or at least someone buying them up for friends/associates. It is annoying for the rest of us, but is there really anything we can/should do to stop it besides beat them to it?

It's hardly elitism. If we werent concerned about missing out on these toys and then seeing an abundance of them at the next Parra Fair for double the price, this thread would not exist. It's about fairness, and trying to hinder those that abuse the system.

Not trying to pick a fight, just pointing out our differences of opinion.

Given such eyewitness accounts I have to agree that you have a Parra Fair scalper problem. Only thing I can say to that is, don't feed the scalpers?


The other problem with a private sightings section is what to do about the regular sightings section? Is it going to be moderated to delete sightings of 'exclusives?'. Do I have to visit the private sightings section to check what I can and can't post in the regular sightings section? What happens when a sufficient number of members have access to the private sightings and hence 'in-the-know demand' once again outstrips available supply? Do we have a super private sightings section?

I still think this is a poor solution for an unfortunate but not-that-prevalent problem. It seems the real problem here is that supply of exclusives is not meeting the demand more than anything.