Author Topic: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?  (Read 38449 times)

Dread_Pirate_Mel

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History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« on: December 21, 2009, 08:49:17 AM »
I was just reading over some of the 60,000+ posts at the icollectmovieposters.com site, which shut down in July 2005.  I noticed some very familiar names - Tom Pennock, Phil Edwards, Dave Lieberman.

Can any veterans here expound on the history of movie poster forums?  I'm curious about how they developed, which came first (MOPO?), which didn't succeed, why new movie forums were started, etc. (I think everyone knows why this forum started, of course.)


Bruce

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #1 on: December 21, 2009, 09:21:59 AM »
MoPo (join at http://www.filmfan.com) was the very first. It is run by a great guy, Scott Burns. I think he made a major faux pax when he linked to every poster site and dealer imaginable but DIDN'T require they link back to MoPo, so he helped every other site grow, except his own. MoPo has around the same number of members it had 5 years ago, even though the hobby has grown considerably since then.

There is a massive amount of poster knowledge on MoPo, more so than on any other forum. The emphasis is on older (pre-1970) movie paper, and I hear there are some members there who look down on those who collect posters of the past 20 years!

Bruce

Dread_Pirate_Mel

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #2 on: December 21, 2009, 11:34:53 AM »
Thanks for info.  But how did NSFGE get started?  What happened to iCollectmovieposters? It looks like it went dark and MPF started at the same time (July 2005). What happened to Jon Warren and his Movie Poster Price Guide?

Offline CSM

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #3 on: December 21, 2009, 02:28:24 PM »
NSFGE was forged from the fiery depths of hell where blasphemous postings are not only tolerated, but encouraged (so long as they rank high enough on the hilarity metre).
Chris

Offline theartofmovieposters

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #4 on: December 21, 2009, 03:41:07 PM »
There used to be forum on icollect...I forget what it was called.
I think the guy who ran it got some flack from dealers because of what people were posting about them on the forum and then shut it down because he didn't want to deal with the mess.  Wasn't this where the Canadian poster terrorists were "born"?

This is when NSFGE and MPF started...as we all know two very different forums.
Ves

Online marklawd

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #5 on: December 21, 2009, 04:07:43 PM »
Movie Poster Talk (Icollect....) was the best poster forum bar none - it allegedly died because of a conflict of interest between unregulated free speech and the power of advertisers or potential advertisers.

Mark

Dread_Pirate_Mel

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #6 on: December 21, 2009, 09:09:50 PM »
There used to be forum on icollect...I forget what it was called.
I think the guy who ran it got some flack from dealers because of what people were posting about them on the forum and then shut it down because he didn't want to deal with the mess.  Wasn't this where the Canadian poster terrorists were "born"?

This is when NSFGE and MPF started...as we all know two very different forums.

How and why did they diverge?  NSFGE vintage posters, MPF modern posters?

Offline theartofmovieposters

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #7 on: December 21, 2009, 09:42:58 PM »
I think they just both started up at around the same time.  No forethought or planning to have say two competing forums.  It just kinda happened that two forums were created and developed different "personalities". 
Ves

morphine

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #8 on: December 21, 2009, 10:14:19 PM »
I seem to remember NSFGE coming first after the final lockdown of MPT, and then MPF.
MPC (Movie Poster Chat) was there as well, sometime after NSFGE came about, but it died.

Jason.



Offline Ari

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #9 on: December 21, 2009, 10:22:33 PM »
Ill give my perspective, as the owner of or PRESIDENT or ruler, or loser, whatever of NOT SUITABLE FOR GENERAL EXHIBITION.
Basically, at the time, Movie poster talk started deleting, and locking posts, there was a time when to post you submitted and then if approved it would go live. A member Ill call him B made one of the funniest and cleverest post ever to get by the censorship. There was a lot of adverters/sponsors, and some were getting angry that they were being "picked" on, for whatever reason.
Jon I think realised it was a headache and not worth the few bucks he earned.
I called or emailed, cant remember, Phil and we decided to start an alternative, mainly because we felt people should be able to speak freely (and as Holiday says within reason - I have deleted 2 posts in the last few years - apart from Spammers who get the trash), both were particuarly... hmm, well, forget just being racist or sexist, got a little worse.
We also decided that it should be advertising free, and over the years I have had MANY dealers email and ask to advertise, also dealers asking me for special favours regarding what people post about them.
End of the day read the disclaimer at the top of NS4 and then like it or lump it. I make no $ from it. Just like chatting with fellow movie fans.

re NS4g Vs MPF, yeah we snuck in by a breath, shame we didnt "borrow" all the email adresses from MPT (ahh bitchy)
« Last Edit: December 22, 2009, 12:01:34 AM by Ari »
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cinemarts

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #10 on: December 21, 2009, 10:40:03 PM »
yeah we snuck in by a breath, shame we didn't "borrow" all the email addresses from MPT

But you have to think like that to do that.

Offline theartofmovieposters

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #11 on: December 21, 2009, 10:43:36 PM »
Yeah, I was gonna mention the email bit, but um hmm...
Ves

Offline MoviePosterBid.com

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #12 on: December 30, 2009, 09:01:19 PM »
Movie Poster Talk (Icollect....) was the best poster forum bar none - it allegedly died because of a conflict of interest between unregulated free speech and the power of advertisers or potential advertisers.

Mark


Mark, the premise you have of why it was shut down are really incorrect, or at least off-base.

Jon had set up a forum that was very well populated & well used.. But it had become something Jon had nort intended it to be - a bashing forum.

Jon wanted the forum available for honest discussion and poster talk to forward the hobby we all love..
It worked for some time until it started becoming a forum for some members to bash dealers and other people they had a gripe or bone to pick with,. That really wasn't what Jon wanted. Then one of the forum moderators (or 2) became bashers as well at which point Jon, not wanting to have to deal with the work to keep the forum clean just ended it.

Unregulated Free Speech as you call it is not exactly what we have in these forums you know.. It is entirely regulated - as it should be - by the user agreement you sign off on when you join any group.. and while I agree that there is free speech on the sidewalk that is publicly owned, all forums have an owner. In this case (all poster) it's Holiday & Thierry. MPT was Jon warren. each of them can decide on their own what they will allow and Jon would not allow what he felt the site whouldn't have..

Scott Burns does a pretty good job keeping BS off the MoPo list.. I think it's a model that should be emulated. An honest gripe is allowable.. Slandering people is not. MPT was closed because it had indeed become slanderous in it's last days.. That isn't Jon's fault.. it's the fault of members who couldn't abide by simple rules and decorum.

Rich

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Online marklawd

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #13 on: December 31, 2009, 07:09:40 AM »
I used the word allegedly because it was my recollection that the conflict of interest I referred to was an opinion expressed by quite a few people following MPT's demise - but that it was only an opinion. I think the forums are regulated to differing degrees ranging from "entirely regulated" (e.g. MPF - where there are commercial interests involved) to "not regulated very much" (e.g. NFSGE - where there are no commercial interests involved) and it is entirely the forum owner's prerogative to operate the forum as he wishes and for members to abide by the rules or leave if they do not agree with them - or be asked to leave. Jon sadly chose to close his forum - with its wealth of information lost forever - rather than resolve his differences directly with the individuals he perceived to be causing trouble. I accept and understand he had had enough.

Mark   

Offline MoviePosterBid.com

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #14 on: December 31, 2009, 01:47:06 PM »
Mark.. at first Jon asked people to behave.. It didn't work because some people just can't behave. It finally got to be some much trouble that he felt the only way to go was shut down..  and yes, it is a loss.

I was originally going to add a forum to MoviePosterBid.. but I saw it as more work than I could handle to moderate a forum for the same reasons Jon shut his down..

90% or more of people are right-thinking and courteous.. the rest are generally as far to the opposite as you can get.. That 10% (or less) unfortunately ruin it for the other 90%.. it's the way of the world!!

Rich

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movieposterodyssey

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #15 on: December 31, 2009, 03:42:35 PM »
Aint that the truth,Rich.

I was gonna join MPT in it's last months of existence but it was such a train wreck I decided..... maybe I better not.

Anthony

Dread_Pirate_Mel

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #16 on: December 31, 2009, 03:48:01 PM »
Well the Movie Poster Talk Forum archives still exist and appear to be complete - 194 pages of threads, so the information there has not been lost.

BTW it is very unusual for a website that has been dead for five years to still be around....

Offline MoviePosterBid.com

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #17 on: December 31, 2009, 05:08:19 PM »
Dread pirate.. that's because Jon has his own servers and no need to free up disc space etc..

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Offline Ari

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #18 on: January 10, 2010, 10:27:44 PM »
theres sure some interesting threads on the ol' MPT.
And we all made a lot of friends.
and some enemies.
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Offline archie leach

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #19 on: January 11, 2011, 04:43:03 PM »

Mark, the premise you have of why it was shut down are really incorrect, or at least off-base.

Jon had set up a forum that was very well populated & well used.. But it had become something Jon had nort intended it to be - a bashing forum.

Jon wanted the forum available for honest discussion and poster talk to forward the hobby we all love..
It worked for some time until it started becoming a forum for some members to bash dealers and other people they had a gripe or bone to pick with,. That really wasn't what Jon wanted. Then one of the forum moderators (or 2) became bashers as well at which point Jon, not wanting to have to deal with the work to keep the forum clean just ended it.

Unregulated Free Speech as you call it is not exactly what we have in these forums you know.. It is entirely regulated - as it should be - by the user agreement you sign off on when you join any group.. and while I agree that there is free speech on the sidewalk that is publicly owned, all forums have an owner. In this case (all poster) it's Holiday & Thierry. MPT was Jon warren. each of them can decide on their own what they will allow and Jon would not allow what he felt the site whouldn't have..

Scott Burns does a pretty good job keeping BS off the MoPo list.. I think it's a model that should be emulated. An honest gripe is allowable.. Slandering people is not. MPT was closed because it had indeed become slanderous in it's last days.. That isn't Jon's fault.. it's the fault of members who couldn't abide by simple rules and decorum.

Rich

Let's be clear... it was a war between Bruce and his trolls and, eventually, he whined to Jon Warren until he gave up.  There is a reason that Bruce had ALL of his posts deleted from MPT.

This was after the first shutdown...
Quote
  Topic   
JON WARREN
Administrator
   


UNITED STATES
962 Posts    Posted - 04/21/2005 : 16:40:54   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, that was easy. I met with my programmers this afternoon and found a way to review all posts before they go live. It turns out that the feature is built into the forum software.

Like I said in the MPT Goes Offline post, I'm not the smartest guy around, so I didn't know I had this feature.

From now on, no post will go live until I have read and approved it.

That should allow me to retake control of the forum, wresting it from the hijackers who had taken it over for their own agenda.

The downside is that it will be a much bigger job to read/approve every post before it goes live. But it is the only way I see that I can control the content of the forum.

Another downside is that you will not be able to see immediate replies to your posts.

I want a happy, friendly place, not a grumbling bar brawl every day.

Thanks to all of you who sent me emails and calls. I really thank you from the bottom of my heart. I was really distraught over all this and it helped brighten a very grey day to get so many letters of support.

We will move forward, and continue to have a great place to sit around and talk about movie posters.

Best of all, none of us will ever have to read a Hate Bruce post again. Many of you emailed me privately to tell me that you were totally bored and sick of the hate Bruce posts, so now we never have to see them again. All you Bruce haters can go somewhere else to vent your hatred. Bye Bye.

To the MPT family, those good and decent people who love movie posters as much as I do, let's get back to normal and put this fiasco behind us.

Jon R. Warren
Warren's Movie Poster Price Guide
http://www.icollectmovieposters.com


Offline MoviePosterBid.com

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #20 on: January 11, 2011, 06:04:59 PM »
Let's be clear... it was a war between Bruce and his trolls and, eventually, he whined to Jon Warren until he gave up.  There is a reason that Bruce had ALL of his posts deleted from MPT.
This was after the first shutdown...

Jason, yu have the reasons bass-ackwards
Reality: People are supposed to act with at least a modicum of good behavior. It wasn't Bruce's fault anything, it was the trolls who feel free speech allows them to say anything they wish and this is incorrect. Free speech allows you to say things that are not defamatory. When you say defamatory things you are breaking civil and possibly criminal laws depending on how rooted in provable fact your statements are or aren't. Truth is not actionable, but how you tell that truth can be.

and to be sure, I'm talking about fairness. I don't think Bruce is fair to Heritage all the time, but he doesn't flame them when he criticizes them and he doesn't tell "lies". But I do question his version of the truth when he talks about Heritage and there is a difference betyween his attacks on Heritage and the MPT attacks on Bruce by a considerable margin.

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Bruce

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #21 on: January 11, 2011, 07:30:21 PM »
There were countless fake IDs created, and I was not the only target. There are a few prominent gay collectors/dealers, and there were "funny" derogatory posts about them.I told Jon I could no longer participate, with lots of outrageous daily posts from fake trolls, and I asked him to remove my posts (because I felt leaving them there would imply I approved of what was going on), which he did. He was threatened with a lawsuit by someone, and that made him decide to have every single post approved, which he soon decided was ridiculous, and he closed the forum.

This is nothing new to online forums. There have been pathetic trolls on NSF and on MoPo, but when they find that others don't appreciate their brand of "humor", they take a rest for months or years. Every good online forum I have been on since 1998 has eventually been ruined by the actions of a few trolls, because even though they are banned they keep signing up with fake accounts.

And of course, eBay has had countless millions of fake bidders who go on a bidding spree and never pay.

Jon's forum had some of the very most knowledgeable experts posting on it on every subject imaginable (not pseudo-experts as appear on TV shows). and it was a wonderful resource for every collector, and it could be replicated on this forum. But none of those knowledgeable experts were paid anything, so I don't think it was too much to ask for common courtesy.

Rich, point to anything I have written about any of my competition that is not factually true.  Heritage has a graph on their site showing that their entire site gets hundreds of times the visitors mine does (of course 99.9% of those visitors have zero interest in movie posters). But I don't complain about that because it is correct that their  entire site gets hundreds of times the visitors mine does.

Bruce

Dread_Pirate_Mel

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #22 on: January 11, 2011, 08:19:27 PM »
Well Bruce has strongly implied many, many times that Heritage knowingly allows shillers and consignors to inflate their auction prices.  The guy (Gary Hendershott) who actually sued them claiming that ending up getting one of the worst legal @ss-whippings I've ever seen. He dropped the case by settlement but had to EXPRESSLY admit as part of the settlement that his claims against Heritage were FALSE.  You rarely rarely see any admission like that in a settlement.  Usually the parties just "walk away" with no admissions of liability or blame.  

Offline MoviePosterBid.com

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #23 on: January 11, 2011, 08:20:05 PM »
Bruce, you know where I disagree with you on Heritage. Specifically where you have said they bid up proxy bids to their bidder's max based on a few people (or however many) claiming everything they won was at their top bid. It hasn't happened to you, so it's second hand info and even though one of the people I'm referencing is a good friend of mine, I still disagree with him and you on this issue. It's something that is not my experience and except for the one guy, I've never heard the same complaint from anyone. Ergo, I define that issue as a dubious claim.

Keep in mind though, when you gripe about Heritage, it's at least in an adult way which is not what was happening at MPT, which was my explanation in my previous post.

It's like political debate: you don't have to agree, but you  should debate as adults and not yell and stop being friends with someone over their political beliefs. You can have disagreements without demonizing others.

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Offline MoviePosterBid.com

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Re: History of movie poster forums - anybody have the full 411?
« Reply #24 on: January 11, 2011, 08:22:47 PM »
and Bruce.. where's that graph? I've never seen it

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