Yesterday Alec Peters, CEO of PropWorx, banned me as a member of his “Star Trek Props, Costumes, and Auctions” discussion forum. Since bans from discussion forums are public acts – presumably as a consequence of bad behavior – I thought it would be appropriate to make a note of this here, to memorialize my perspective.
The ban appears to be the result of a single post I made one day prior in the “Authentic or Not” subforum.
There was a discussion about the authenticity of items offered for sale on eBay by an unknown seller. One question under debate was regarding the plausibility of a Profiles in History Certificate of Authenticity (COA) being lost by the seller (per his claims).
Below is an archive of the one post I made in the topic (and the only post I’ve made on the forum in months); “Linnear” is the screen name used by Alec Peters on his forum:
In short, I merely published links to on topic, factual information from an existing discussion on the very same forum, along with select quotes and the photo of the example Profiles in History COA from the older topic, in an effort to share relevant information with fellow collectors.
Consequently, in conjunction with being banned from the forum, I received a critical e-mail message from Alec Peters.
I have also learned, from an active member of his forum, that my post above was deleted in its entirety and without public explanation.
More, Mr. Peters reportedly edited his own preceding post as follows.
Original Post By Alec Peters:
As noted previously, Profiles doesn’t give COAs and they would be worthless anyway. I have busted them for selling fake Star Trek props before.
Revised Post By Alec Peters: (changes/additions marked in bold)
As noted previously, Profiles generally doesn’t give COAs (I have never gotten one) and they would be worthless anyway. I have busted them for selling fake Star Trek props before.
In recent weeks, I took time away from the Comic Con event to meet with Alec Peters off-site and, in fact, granted him a 45-minute interview to promote PropWorx, share news about his business, and provided a platform with which he was able to express his personal opinions about the hobby; the published PropWorx video product was longer than that of both the Profiles in History and the Prop Store of London video interviews combined (see San Diego Comic Con 2009: Video Interview with Alec Peters, PropWorx).
More, the same “Star Trek Props, Costumes, and Auctions” forum was very favorably reviewed on the Original Prop Blog two years ago (see Website Review: Star Trek Prop, Costume & Auction Message Board), as was his blog (see Website Review: The Star Trek Prop, Costume & Auction Blog).
Efforts have also been made to provide significant coverage of PropWorx since its inception (see Original Prop Blog PropWorx Coverage), with over a dozen articles about the sale of assets from just the one television program, Battlestar Galactica.
In any event, I will continue to provide objective and balanced coverage of PropWorx and its endeavors, regardless of Mr. Peters’ views of myself and/or the Original Prop Blog.
In closing, I do not take the ban and accompanying missive personally. I was hesitant to make any note of this on the OPB, but given the lack of transparency and public explanation, as well as the revisionism on display on the Star Trek forum (deleting my content and editing his own), I thought it would be appropriate to make a public statement as to my experience.
Jason DeBord