wpi.forsale.fisticuffs

It all started so innocuously.. a few magic cards, a few auction addicts, and an absurd amount of money. Nobody thought it had Christmas Tree-Like potential.

As the first wpi.forsale magic card auction waned another was spawned by a different entrepreneur. This second post ignited a simple plea for silence that would typically have gone ignored, if not for the brash bravado of the misled poster, Seoungjae Yim.

The First Shot

From ponch@wpi.edu Mon Feb 13 00:04:56 EST 1995
Article: 3065 of wpi.forsale
Path: bigboote.WPI.EDU!usenet
From: Seoungjae Yim
Newsgroups: wpi.forsale
Subject: Magic No More
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1995 14:08:20 -0500 (EST)
Organization: Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Lines: 4
Distribution: wpi
Message-ID:
NNTP-Posting-Host: wpi.wpi.edu
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

Am I the only one fed up and disgusted with all that Magic Auction crap?

- flame if you would, I usually respond with my fists, though.

The War

Fighting quickly spread to several flanks. Total warfare engulfed wpi.forsale with occasional skirmishes on test and flame, despite the original aggressor's pleas to move it to email.

The fray splintered into many separate threads, each enumerated in its entireity :

o Magic No More
o Magical Sale
o Magic Debate
o Idiots on Patrol!
o Ahhh..
o Re: Daka
o One last message
o Dinner at Tech?
o AEJ Speaks

The Peace Compact

If you thought the Dinner at Tech thread would come to naught, you are mistaken.

Photo Courtesy Jason Philbrook

Monday night a dozen gweeps and Ponch gathered at Tech for a clear the air session. Ponch spoke for at least a half hour. He commented on the positive and amusing aspects of the whole experience and indicated regret for some personally insulting statements he made while potentially less than sober.

Ponch also indicated he had received other encouraging letters advocating his, now renounced, policy of violence. He claimed concern for the future health of the attendees. The capstone for the evening was when Ponch had the nerve to pull a waiver from his pocket and suggest that all the attending gweeps sign that document that would protect him against any legal persecution in the future should one of the gweeps suffer injury. (This ostensibly to protect him from the circumstantial evidence of his previous posts because he would surely no longer do any of those things after having met us.) He garnered only one signature for his efforts.

Parting reactions ranged from satisfaction at his level of security to one participant who felt that the wholething was a backhanded slap in the face.

Mike " the victim" Sanders and Pat " the conspirator" McManus