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Just found the site, been reading and reading, signed on to the boycott, though I don’t think a boycott is near enough this time. (2000 is way too low too. In the strike of 2005 we had 14,000 active participants and it still made no difference to GreedBay. They’d laugh at 2000.) I’m with SUBAT, I say we take it all the way, take back eBay for the eBayers and work together to plan and make the WeBay happen. We have nothing to lose now, GreedBay Administration is totally wrecking eBay. The sellers can do it, just like we made eBay the first time. I think it’s our only hope. A new campaign is planned and there’s a general SUBAT-type statement over in the Problems area now, under Discussion tab above…anyone know how to make a link to that?
Meredith — about joining SUBAT…SUBAT is a state of mind you know, of reclaiming your self-respect as a seller and believing that other sellers are good people, smart people, part of a Community that GreedBay has no right to push around like they do. Joining SUBAT at this point amounts to saying “Yeah, I’ve had it with GreedBay this time,” being on the mailing list (e-mail to <subat_forever@yahoo.com> with “Yes, I’m in!” in the title), and joining the Point campaign for WeBay, when it’s up (few days from now). Web-presence for SUBAT is a problem, just like it always was for the OLASU too, because GreedBay’s stable of lawyers is there for a reason. They swoop down whenever a site runs counter to GreedBay’s financial interests and they set to work figuring out what they can threaten to sue over. So far the list of caving, back-stabbing providers…AOL, Earthlink, Worldlynx, Wanadoo, BlueSky, Comcast, BlueWin…it goes on and on. We’re discussing now whether we want to gamble with unlimited webspace at Abacus Net. So something may appear there next week…or we may just settle down at The Point, where the management is friendly.
EBayers user IDs. All I can say is, disclose them publicly at your own peril because there is some chance of being terminated at eBay.com if found or believed to be associated with either a boycott/strike or a union. And Lord knows what they’ll do when word of the WeBay plan gets out. (Apparently Point campaigns can be set up to allow anonymous joining at first, until the tipping point is met and there is safety in numbers, so that’s something to consider in this case. We don’t want anyone who still needs eBay income to suffer for supporting SUBAT during the planning stage of the WeBay.)
Jul and I are out there already, though, shoulder to shoulder with Mike and getting slapped by GreedBay all the time for posting things to the boards, trying to answer questions honestly and help other sellers to understand what eBay is really doing to us this time. So over on eBay I’m geo-chic_vintage (jewelry) and Jul is fellow-travelers (antique furniture, primitives from Amish country, etc.), both on GreedBay since 1998, 100% feedback, and both getting ever more disgusted with eBay Inc. as the months passed so no sales now, just like so many others here. I still have a store over there, too, empty now, and I’m trying to decide the best date to close it or how to close it with the most resounding thud to GreedBay (…how I hate them!).
As a general thing, if you look at who is the most outraged, on the boards and elsewhere, you’ll find that it’s not the bad eBay sellers or even the new sellers who are raising hell, but the ones with the best feedback who have been eBay-selling the longest. Back in the day, eBay used to be fun, if you can imagine that, like a hobby/small business rolled into one. But not anymore…and it hurts me that they could ruin something that gave so many people such fun, for nothing, for a fast buck for themselves. This time eBay is striking directly at the people who made that site (see what they will do with feedback more than a year old now?), never thinking we might have learned some things over all these years. But we have -all of us- and anyone can see it by reading the posts here. GreedBay made a BIG MISTAKE this time.
Tomorrow I’m going back to the Problems area…to list some problems, things I think we need to decide, so if anyone has ideas. Also if anyone speaks good French we could really use your help translating idiomatic slogans. OLASU was popular in France during past seller-strikes so the eBay.fr boards are just crying out now to be plastered with calls to come to The Point and help out. We’ll have to hit the UK boards too, of course, and Australia, Germany, etc.
Night all!
Lily
