Ethics and Policies

[Rick]

Thanks Jeff ....


















I think .

[kai]

I agree on a moratorium: 3 months seem ok to me; 1 month is a bit short. (Make it months from the day of posting - there will always be some who inadvertently mess up counts by a day or two...)

I believe any new rules should apply to all EAAF fora - fishing for information to promote sales is not limited to keris and I believe the same standards should apply to the whole community here. (I believe this has been the intention in setting up and maintaining this wonderful resource - please correct me if I got it wrong, Lee!)

As already pointed out, it's fairly easy to spot repeated commercial behavior on this site; however, I'd be more concerned with info gained here and (ab)used elsewhere (ebay, etc.). Thus, if any info gained here were to be utilized freely elsewhere, I'd still need to frame my answers here on the forum accordingly (not different from the current situation). IMHO the moratorium should apply to all venues. We would certainly miss some offending sales; however, I'm confident that repeated offenders will get caught by the community.

I'm not yet sure how to deal with honest change-of-heart situations as pointed out by Detlef. There are also newbies who would like to get info on inherited pieces or souvenirs. Some realize that collecting is not their thing and decide to sell off the piece under discussion (many just prefer a little cash or want to get rid of the tourist trinket but there are also those who realize that a valued family heirloom may be better cared for in a specialized collection and may even aid research). I'm not convinced that imposing the moratorium in those cases would be sensible.

How about another subforum dedicated to identification of unknown, weird, and possibly-for-sale pieces? Comments in such a subforum could be considered free to utilize for possible future sale and answers framed accordingly by those choosing to give advice. I could also envision that threads posted in any of the other fora could be moved to this special "quarantine section" once the thread starter has acquired permission from all contributors. Moreover, it would seem suitable to me to be able to move an identification thread over to the swap forum (shouldn't be noticeably more work for the moderators, I guess). This would also allow an exclusive offering in the swap forum before a seller decides to move on to other venues (if such a separate - possibly 1 week - moratorium is deemed preferable). IMHO it should also be possible to move an identification thread over to the more pertinent subforum if the owner decides to keep it in his collection (for the next 3 months) and would like to get more detailed discussion.

In short: In-depth discussion of pieces deemed to stay in the own collection in the major subfora (Ethnographic Weapons, Keris Warung Kopi, European Armoury), offers and trades in the Swap Forum, and a flexible Identification Resource to fill the gap in between.

BTW, I still feel that keris sundang (Moro kris) and tombak (and rencong, and badek, etc.) should be an integral part of the Keris Warung Kopi. Arguably, it would make much more sense to include all stuff from the SEA archipelago (Malay culture in a very wide sense) here. Yeah, just nagging...

Regards,
Kai

[David]

Thanks for you comments Kai. I think some of it tends to get too complex and i am not sure that opening up other forums to deal with appraisals is really the way to go here. I know that all this talk get people worried about severe daconian rules, but i think that what Rick and i have in mind will in the end be the most simple solutions we can find to a rather complex issue.
Personally i am opposed to extending a moratorium on the sale of forum discussed items beyond the virtual walls of our little forum. As i mentioned before, i don't think it is our obligation or right to police the entire internet in these cases. My concerns are what goes on in our own backyard, the abuses that are happening right here. If someone decides to sell a keris on eBay even immediately after getting information from his thread on our forum that's fine with me as long as he does not quote any member's comments in his auction, make any allusion to his keris being "approved" or "validated" by our keris forum and he places no notice of his sale on eBay (or elsewhere) in our Swap Forum for at least 30 days.
Members who have an "honest change-of-heart" have numerous other venues to dispose of their unwanted keris other than our Swap Forum, ones that have a much larger audience than us as well. Detlef should feel no remorse for his actions because no such rule exists as of yet and he did not transgress in any way. But once a rule is in place however members will know differently.

[kai]

Hello David,

i am not sure that opening up other forums to deal with appraisals is really the way to go here.

Just to clarify: the proposed Identification Forum was mainly intended for identification of "unknown" pieces - I think it would make sense to unite the combined knowledge of our members in a single dedicated subforum. For example, I'm not able to visit the European subforum often due to limited time and only check out threads which seem of interest; thus, I'd be unlikely to stumble over a Filipino dagger which may have been posted there for identification. For newcomers it's obviously quite tough to choose the "correct" forum to solicitate responses and also seasoned collectors have placed pieces in wrong fora. Of course, we can just shuffle threads around if needed - however, a dedicated subforum for identification seems to have advantages IMHO and would certainly be more user-friendly for new members.

Personally i am opposed to extending a moratorium on the sale of forum discussed items beyond the virtual walls of our little forum. As i mentioned before, i don't think it is our obligation or right to police the entire internet in these cases.

Well, we can't stop anyone selling anything. However, if there were a consensus that a self-imposed rule seems to be beneficial to our community, then it should be no problem to state that not following the rules is incompatible with membership here. As Dizos mentioned, nobody expects the moderators to "police" the internet; blatant breaches of conduct will be soon spotted by the community though.

My concerns are what goes on in our own backyard, the abuses that are happening right here. If someone decides to sell a keris on eBay even immediately after getting information from his thread on our forum that's fine with me as long as he does not quote any member's comments in his auction, make any allusion to his keris being "approved" or "validated" by our keris forum and he places no notice of his sale on eBay (or elsewhere) in our Swap Forum for at least 30 days.

The main problem with exploiting information gained here is that the information won't be supplied anymore and this affects the whole community adversely: It doesn't matter where the sale is taking place. If we wan't to promote communication and gaining knowledge, I believe we can't restrict our efforts to the Swap Forum only.

Regards,
Kai

[ward]

I do not post in the keris forum,but I do in the other forums. I am a dealer and a collector for many years, but I do not post items that I am going to sell in the discussion forums only items that are from my personal collection. The use of the forum as a catalog or as a sales advertisement has been happening with more frequencey the last few years. The result being that I do not respond to post very often any more. Why should I do a dealers research for him ?

[JeffS]

I'm not a frequent poster here but I greatly enjoy the site and am the "new collector" type discussed above. I am also a moderator on another forum so know well how difficult it is to enforce sweeping policies, particularly if there is a time component to them. I really appreciate the easy going helpful atmosphere of EAA and strongly support your desire to keep shills and exploitative activity away.

It occurs to me that the member base fanatically watches all of the internet accessible sources for ethnographic weapons and little goes on in that arena that members here won't observe. You could simply set a policy that members are not authorized to use EAA for appraisals for items slated for sale and that such activity will result in a ban. The member base will take care of monitoring and reporting suspected abuse. At least on the forum I moderate on, members are more than happy to report rule violations.

I would caution against setting up a policy with time limits. As others mentioned it is usually pretty easy to tell the difference between a dealer using the EAA as an appraisal resource from collector deciding to flip a piece. Suspected violators could be contacted via PM with a warning. If their behavior continues, then the ban is applied. Problem solved.

[A. G. Maisey]

There has been some good, solid input to this discussion.

Its great to see such a reaction on a topic which affects us all.

I endorse completely Rick's and David's declared intention to keep things simple.

I can understand David's stance that what happens outside the bounds of this site are not the concern of the people who regulate activity on this site. In fact, this was my own attitude at the outset of this discussion, however I am no longer certain that this attitude is the desireable one. It is certainly the most simple attitude to adopt, but I do have a problem with covert dealers extracting information to use in a sales pitch in another place.

Let me state up front that this would make not the slightest difference to me, because I do not buy in the same places that collectors buy. I have only ever bought two keris from Ebay , and both were keris that I had previously sold. I have never bought from the Swap Forum.

However, if a covert dealer extracts information by use of this Forum to assist his sales pitch, and thus the price realised, of an item he wishes to sell, he is in fact using the information supplied by collectors against those collectors.

I consider this to be unethical behaviour.

Ward has already pointed this out and said that it is the reason he no longer posts comment very often.

Think about this:-

all knowledge costs money and time to acquire

if a collector passes that knowledge on to somebody he regards as a fellow collector, he is giving that fellow collector a gift of his time, money, indeed of his life

if he passes the knowledge to a dealer who has posed as a collector in order to gain the knowledge, and who then uses that knowledge to increase the price of something he wishes to sell, then in my view, the dealer has stolen the knowledge from the collector; he has obtained the knowledge by deception.

in short:- the dealer has acted in an unethical fashion.

I believe that this Forum should attempt to assist its members by a policy of identifying unethical behaviour by dealers. I am not suggesting for one moment that such dealers should be identified openly. Nobody wants potential issues for litigation. But I am suggesting that unethical dealers should be denied the fellowship of this Forum. Keep them out.

Now the question is this:-

how do we identify a dealer?

to my mind the answer is simple:-

we ask

The relevant question could take a bit of thought to frame in an adequate fashion, but it could be done.

If a member states that he is not a dealer, and then demonstrates dealer-like behaviour he should be asked to explain, and if the explanation is inadequate, action should be taken against him.

Where a known dealer has acted in an unethical fashion that dealer should be asked to explain and if the explanation is unsatisfactory then action should taken against him.

All of this may sound complicated and possibly draconian, however in action it need not be. I believe that with thought, a simple administrative system could be put in place that would involve absolutely minimal work for our moderators and would return immeasureable benefits to our members.

On the other hand, if things continue as they have been, how many more collector/dealers like Ward, and I also fall into this category, will simply say:- "enough is enough, I'm not passing my knowledge along to other dealers". If this happens the pure collectors here will suffer great loss, because in general, dealers have access to more knowledge than people who do not deal.

PS--- I was about to post the above, and noted the post by Dizos. What he has written is very close to what is in my mind.

[kai]

Hello Alan,

I can understand David's stance that what happens outside the bounds of this site are not the concern of the people who regulate activity on this site. In fact, this was my own attitude at the outset of this discussion, however I am no longer certain that this attitude is the desireable one. It is certainly the most simple attitude to adopt, but I do have a problem with covert dealers extracting information to use in a sales pitch in another place.

Yes, I agree that asking and communicating with members may help to minimize unwanted exploitation of the community.

Ward has already pointed this out and said that it is the reason he no longer posts comment very often.

Yes, and he's certainly not alone: There are several recent examples of threads which suffer from less-than-usual feedback obviously due to the perceived intention of fishing for information.

Regards,
Kai

[Naga Sasra]

A large part of the problem is how to identify sellers, and yet keep it simple Alan had a good suggestion: Just ask them!

I also think that perhaps it would be prudent to develop a line of pertinant questions which have to be answered as people register to join the forum, and with this perhaps stop potentially new members from abusing the rules.

As it is presently, all a new prospective member have to do is to select a username, password and email address.

Perhaps a format that include a form with questions to the prospective member is in order. One of those questions of cause would be, Are you a dealer? yes__ no__, Do you regularly deal in edged weapons? yes__ no__ , Are you a collector of edged weapons who only deal in order to enhance your own collection?yes__ no__, etc. etc. etc. etc.

It is my belief that prevention is a powerful tool, and if the questionere is molded correctly, a great deal of the existing problems could be avoided.

Just a suggestion

[kai]

Hello Dizos,

I would caution against setting up a policy with time limits. As others mentioned it is usually pretty easy to tell the difference between a dealer using the EAA as an appraisal resource from collector deciding to flip a piece. Suspected violators could be contacted via PM with a warning. If their behavior continues, then the ban is applied. Problem solved.

I agree that communication with a perceived offender may be preferable over applying strict rules carved in stone. Sometimes it may be more a matter of getting acquainted to the rules and ethics of our community rather than deliberate misconduct since we're coming from fairly diverse socio-cultural backgrounds.

Regards,
Kai