arch_8ngel

My 2007 Honda minivan is still kicking at 205k miles (just had the timing belt redone -- so hoping to keep it going long enough to make that maintenance worth it).

Not looking forward to current price markups when this thing needs replacing!

1 minute ago, karljobst said:

My original responses contained a lot of annoyance because I didn't come here to argue with people about my interpretation of a 1989 FTC ruling. I came here to answer questions and learn things from the people here that would help me in the future. Apologies for that.

Just letting you know I'm going to be doing a follow up video in September and all of the known inaccuracies (including this) will be corrected. 

Thanks for the update.

I'm sure it felt like you were taking slings-and-arrows from all directions.

1 minute ago, AdamW said:

Just like Jim Halperin has paid to settle a case with the FTC. And yet reputable newspapers still quote Moody's analysts all the time, but nobody bats an eye at that. Should somebody tell Seth it's a NATIONAL SCANDAL?

(tbh, I actually do tend to find it weird the extent to which the whole financial journalism industry is riddled with this sort of thing, and yet it's treated as an entirely reputable and serious enterprise and when - as you correctly point out - people are constantly found to be behaving unethically or outright illegally, it just gets sort of brushed off and the circus goes back around again. But that's what happens, and just about everybody in the US or Canada with some money has a chunk of it invested in that circus, whether directly or through a pension fund. And it doesn't get called a big scandal, except by a small number of people who are seen as being radical socialists or something. Weird, isn't it?)

The real question isn't whether newspapers quote Moody's analysts, though.

For a closer comparison -- are individual analysis held individually responsible for Halperin-like antics -- and THEN are they still treated as reputable and quoted in papers?  (genuinely don't have an answer for you, so not asking rhetorically)

1 minute ago, AdamW said:

I already gave my opinion on that, so you can go back and read it. I'm not interested in going round the same circle again. Today I posted an illustration of a different point that I made in passing before.

 

We're on page 118 -- if someone wants to say "go back and read it" then they owe a link  

3 minutes ago, MinusWorlds said:

He took that as me saying I’m making tons of money and labeled me a money grubber. 
 

I can't help but a get a chuckle out of this kind of comment coming from an "internet famous" "journalist".

It makes me sad to see people in the hobby, that are separate from WATA/HA as companies, that meant well and acted in good faith get lumped in and dragged through the mud.

I am sure it is unpleasant and unfortunate to become a sort of poster child for the damage that those companies being founded on conflicts of interest can cause.

I hope you come through all of this without suffering much harassment.

1 minute ago, AdamW said:

I didn't say it was a direct comparison, I said it was an example of a case where an obvious conflict of interest is not really considered to be a problem by anyone.

Let's bring it back to the primary topic - by your comparison are you suggesting that Wata / HA's conflicts of interest are/were not clearly problematic?

2 minutes ago, FenrirZero said:

In this case, my gripe is not the fact they say "Wata" as it makes them sound like they are trying to be hip.

We all know they were trying to lure in the Nolan's as early investors with their use of an exaggerated Boston accent.  Clearly they failed, so they pivoted to the Bruce Lee excuse as the next best thing.

10 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

I don't think any official due diligence was skipped, but what companies and the FTC believe are sketchy enough practices to be charged/fined for can differ wildly.  Also, Dain made a mention about meetings they were having about how the company was going to be set up, run, etc., and him having literal screaming matches with a woman who had  seemed to take charge of the whole thing.  Who's to say there were official transcripts, minutes, etc., of those meetings taken?  If there's no official recordings or documentation of what went on, then sketchy, "off" suggestions which bumped WATA toward doing things they shouldn't could be easily denied as a he-said/she-said type thing in court, again leaving WATA being the bag man since they're the ones who could potentially be demonstrated as acting in bad faith.  Is this something that a potential purchaser should have caught and had caution about when investing a prospective purchase?  Absolutely, but seeing as they have their own auction house, and the market bubble that the WATA/HA pairing created still going crazy, who's to say that they cared, that the risk was greater than the potential reward?  If they can make $50M off the acquisition before any potential hand is caught in the cookie jar and the type of fine from the 80s is the same ($1.2M then), that's a drop in the bucket and still a good investment.

I'm not saying it makes them look squeaky clean, automatically, or anything.

I'm just saying it adds a pretty significant wrinkle, when you consider the scrutiny they were likely under for a company sale. (assuming it was done competently)

And again, recognizing that HA has been under no such scrutiny.

(and to reiterate, if it's necessary, I have no love for Wata, and thought it was a pretty major conflict of interest from the inception, in terms of how they were spooling up their original batch of grading -- and I don't know that it's a particularly "useful" service --- I'm just trying to stay a bit rational about what is "likely" versus what is simply possible, based on what we know)

12 minutes ago, darkchylde28 said:

 

Seeing as Halperin was a part of the company at that early stage, with his level of experience in such things (especially having been charged and fined in the 80s), it might have been naivete and enthusiasm on Deniz's part, but I don't really believe that everybody involved would (or should) have missed those issues.  I'm really left wondering why this wouldn't have been addressed by the parties on the various boards in the earliest days given their combined decades of business experience, especially, as I point out in an earlier part of this post, that it basically leaves WATA holding the bag in regard to FTC issues with providing the public valuations on items they're also actively grading.  HA is "only" auctioning the items, while WATA seems to be providing expert opinions on valuation.  Since both parts of the equation aren't combined this time, as they were in the 80s, the FTC might not be able to do anything this time around, or, if they do, they drop the hammer on WATA since they're offering valuation data in addition to providing what's supposed to be objective grades to everything passing through their hands.

 

Just quoting the part that was a reply to my earlier post.

The thing that is really interesting in all of this, is that I have a hard time believing that Wata managed to sell their company without the acquiring company doing necessary due diligence.  

I would never, ever, argue that there weren't heaping piles of conflict-of-interest from the outset.

But the question becomes: "Do you think that the acquiring company (a) didn't do due diligence? (b) didn't care about what they found? or (c) didn't find anything actually problematic?"

I think (a) is unlikely, at least.

Without their recent sale of the company, I'd have a less skeptical perspective in all of this.

That said -- they only sold Wata.  HA is still it's own thing, and could be doing all sorts of who-knows-what without compromising the sale of Wata.

17 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

I will literally shit my pants if drag00n shows up

dra600n? dra600n, dra600n...   

Just now, DefaultGen said:

Yes, I'm making fun of an article that original said he was a mystery man, possibly named Dan, lol but it was "uncovered" that his name was revealed! In the NintendoAge E-Zine like 14 years ago.

Ha!  OK, yeah, that one floated by me and I missed it.

1 minute ago, DefaultGen said:

Probably busy with dealing with his identity being blown.

Hasn't he publicly gone by his real name for awhile? (what with the fairly large FB group, and all)

1 minute ago, Generic said:

Honestly, I hoped @Brontywould’ve shown up more. 

Based on related posts in the FB art group, I'd be pretty surprised if he popped into this thread.  Then again, it's been a day of surprises.

4 minutes ago, TDIRunner said:

Todd Rogers and Billy Mitchell's stories are pretty different. 

I think it's pretty well accepted that some (if not most) of Billy Mitchell's scores were real, but towards the end he did some shady stuff and possibly cheated on a few of his records, which brings into question ALL of his records.

 

Yeah, they were definitely different situations, since Billy had a number of major achievements that he performed live.

But he still deserves to have any records stripped.

6 minutes ago, dr.robbie said:

It's been years since I read into anything to do with him so I could be way off base, but wasn't he the one that had a good number of scores that were absolutely unattainable even with tool assisted runs? If so, not sure I would even care to hear his side of the story. Cheaters in gaming are basically on the same level as counterfeiters in collecting imo. 

Are you sure you're not thinking of the Atari Drag Race guy?  That game (or whatever its name was) had a high score for awhile that was definitively proven to be impossible.

That said - I haven't kept up with any of Billy Mitchel's scores other than his DK (that was beaten by a 3rd newcomer, post-king-of-kong) and PacMan (where he had one of the earlier perfect-runs).

6 minutes ago, B.A. said:

You were completely absent from anything to do with the forum for the better part of a decade. 

Was it really that long?  I only distinctly remember a couple of years of apparent absenteeism on his part -- but I'm sure the shift was more obvious "behind the scenes".

3 minutes ago, karljobst said:

 I would love it people want to discuss or teach me something about video game collecting.

This isn't really the thread for that...  

3 minutes ago, BriGuy82 said:

That's how I view it. I asked a few simple questions on NA and got gang banged. You saw it happen. 

I was referring to the bit in the middle of his post.

Don't disagree with you, at all, that questioning WATA at NA was clamped down on way too hard.  Pretty sure I was right there with you on pointing out the problematic conflicts of interest.

5 minutes ago, Zach said:

lol you can live in denial all you want but it's literally what happened. The video is out. It's viral. Everyone is seeing it. WATA is being drug through the mud all over social media and there's nothing you or the rest of your little clique from NA can do to stop it. Get over it. 

What on earth are you talking about?

13 minutes ago, karljobst said:

2) Did it though? Most people aren't this pedantic. The video basically got universal acceptance. I haven't really seen any criticism of being sensationalist.  the great thing about the video is that it wasn't really my statements that get people upset. It's the evidence I present. My opinion really carries little weight. The video did exactly what it was intended to do, start a conversation about what's happening. It brought awareness to the situation, and almost everyone agrees something fishy is going on and it should be looked into.

This is definitely something we will disagree on, but if you are such a perfectionist that everything has to be literally true it will be a big hamper when it comes to creating videos with a narrative you want to express. 

Look, I'm not into the YouTube video scene, so I don't know you from Adam.  But evidently (reading this thread, and other commentary) quite a few people actually do care about your opinion and the fact that you covered this topic.  Whether you want the responsibility, or not, of being an apparently trusted source of information, you seem to have stumbled into it.

I have no interest in creating "videos with a narrative I want to express", so it isn't particularly hampering to me to expect to be truthful and accurate.

So my main disagreement with your posts, that you seem to want to wave away as "pedantic", is that while you claimed to go to great lengths to supply factual information, you then chose to make statements that weren't accurate (and just wave them away as "well a 'reasonable person' would have jumped to that conclusion anyway").

Just didn't see a reason for it, personally.

2 minutes ago, Zach said:

Karl Jobst did a 52 minute long video exposing fraud and market manipulation with WATA and Heritage Auctions. 

Some of the guys from NintendoAge showed up (most of whom are involved in the scam themselves) and tried to dismiss, ignore, or deny the facts in the video. Everyone else roasted them. Dain came in and showed that he left WATA before he sold everything off.

 

Back in the NintendoAge days, these people controlled the narrative, and now they can't. If this was a thread on NA, it would have been immediately locked and half of us would have been banned. 

 

That's certainly an "interesting" interpretation of events...

5 minutes ago, karljobst said:

I believe I have a good understanding of how youtube viewers take in information because it's my career. You're not wrong, these things aren't the same. But if I said 'charged by the FTC for fraud' the impact on the viewers would be the same.

I guess my issue with this specific item (completely separate of my opinion of the people you're discussion) -- in the same amount of time in the video you could have told the literal truth, rather than make what is a technically false statement (which to people who DO know the difference, makes you look sensationalist and brings your other statements into question)

I just see no valid reason to not stick to the actual truth.

The average Youtube viewer, I agree, would make the (technically incorrect) leap from "charges" to "guilty", regardless.

But when you do it for them, actual discerning viewers don't really get a chance to decide that for themselves.

1 minute ago, ICrappedMyPants said:

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment.

Thought you might.

And I don't know in what universe I would ever consider the typical viewer of a youtube video to be a "reasonable person", in the sense of how they interpret information.  That really seems to ignore everything we know about online media and the insanity of crowds. 

6 minutes ago, karljobst said:

The FTC believed them to be guilty and charged them. I'm happy to agree on these facts, but I don't see the point of us arguing about what words you think I should have used in the video that's already posted? I believe my statements to be substantially true (i.e it would change nothing if I said 'charged by the FTC', vs 'found guilty') to a reasonable person watching the video.

While I recognize that the government doesn't generally go off half-cocked when they file charges -- having charges filed against you is still NOT equivalent to "found guilty".  

And I think you give the average person watching your video way too much credit...George Carlin has a great stand-up bit about it.

I certainly don't trust Halperin, or his motivations, though.

nevermind...