Has anyone here dealt with former member Mr. Miracle? (Nothing Bad Just A Question)

[Gyro123]

Mr. Miracle has some items listed on ebay that may be of interest. Remembered his forum name from here and wanted to get his contact info, but I see that his member status is listed as banned. Anyone know why?

[ironmanfan]

While I'm not sure why exactly Brett is banned from this site (it's a fairly large club), I do know he is a honorable guy and you should not have any hesitations to deal with him.

If you need his email address, PM me.

[geoff]

Brett is a friend of mine and have dealt with him many times.He was banned from this site but we still talk and I would do a deal with him in a heartbeat.He is true to his word and a good guy.


geof631@yahoo.com


Thanks
Geoff

[sox83cubs84]

Brett gets my endorsement, too.

Dave Miedema

[BostonSportsFan]

Mr. Miracle has some items listed on ebay that may be of interest. Remembered his forum name from here and wanted to get his contact info, but I see that his member status is listed as banned. Anyone know why?


About a year ago I reached out to Brett as I was pointed toward him as a very knowledgable Ripken collector. From what I was told Bill Haelig and Brett were among the very best in terms of Ripken guys. He proved to be very helpful to me on a couple of items I had questions on.

Ironically, I also saw that he was banned from here and asked him about it. As I recall he told me that he sent a very scathing email to the owner of this forum that pretty much called him out as a bad business owner who was clueless as to what he was doing. As best as I remember he mentioned several very knowledgable members that predate my time here, two of which however I know very well that were either banned or driven off. Rudy, Howard Wolf, and Steve Mears were the men in question. According to him he asked to resign in the email as an active member in protest and was outright banned by the owner for calling him out.

Obviously there are two sides to every story however I highly doubt that ownership will respond to the specifics of that question. Especially in light of the fact that the owner seems to be missing in action from his own forum.

For my two cents, Brett is a standup guy and it is really unfortunate that he and other once prominent members who frequented this forum have either been banned or driven off.

While I have never personally done business with Brett, I can say that he saved me from a purchase that I would have highly regretted had I not sought out additional guidance on. I would not hesitate to do business with him in the future.

Best

Joe

[ChrisCavalier]

According to him he asked to resign in the email as an active member in protest and was outright banned by the owner for calling him out.

Obviously there are two sides to every story however I highly doubt that ownership will respond to the specifics of that question. Especially in light of the fact that the owner seems to be missing in action from his own forum.
Hello Joe,

As an fyi, I am not missing in action and your comments are obviously an attempt to try to discredit and will not be tolerated. Please feel free to continue such attempts if you wish to find out if that is true.

To the rest of the members here, Mr. Herman was banned for his attacks against me, my faith and a number of vulger comments related to my beliefs. I have retained all the emails he sent me but will not post them because these things are not allowed on this site.

I had no intention of making mention of that but since Joe was so kind as to make the comments that he did I thought everyone should know the real reason for the banning.

If anyone has any further questions they can feel free to email me directly.

Sincerely,
Chris

[BostonSportsFan]

Hello Joe,

As an fyi, I am not missing in action and your comments are obviously an attempt to try to discredit and will not be tolerated. Please feel free to continue such attempts if you wish to find out if that is true.

To the rest of the members here, Mr. Herman was banned for his attacks against me, my faith and a number of vulger comments related to my beliefs. I have retained all the emails he sent me but will not post them because these things are not allowed on this site.

I had no intention of making mention of that but since Joe was so kind as to make the comments that he did I thought everyone should know the real reason for the banning.

If anyone has any further questions they can feel free to email me directly.

Sincerely,
Chris


Chris, I believe that you are the owner? I don't know you and as I said this was the conversation that I had with Brett Herman nearly a year ago and I said there are two sides to every story. I am not certain why you are essentially threatening me for those comments.

I am a very infrequent contributor and visitor to these boards as I travel quite a bit but in my experience on various forums in the past and current, the owners of the forums are usually the most active, sharing advice on collecting, sharing their own usually large collection of whatever the target of that forum is, improving the overall knowledge of that board etc. Perhaps I am missing something but I rarely ever see you post and I rarely see much in the way of general or specific collecting knowledge and experience being shared with the masses that frequent this forum. Why you choose not to do so is your business but I would think as the owner you would share your vast collecting knowledge on a routine basis in an effort to further the advacements of this forum as it was intended.

Perhaps like many other collectors that I am close with, Chris you prefer to keep your own HOF collection close to the vest. Several of my acquaintances prefer to keep those very expensive one of a kind collections behind their UV glass display cases and in some cases inside the vault's in their security patrolled estates. I cannot say I blame them as the value of some of those collections is far in excess of what most average workers would earn in their entire lifetimes. I would not want to advertise this to the collecting masses nor potential thieves that may patrol this or any public forum.

In whatever fallout Chris and Brett Herman had that is certainly between them. Again to the original question, in my own experiences Brett was most helpful and I would certainly recommend him should you decide to question him related to Orioles or Ripken items or purchase from him in the future.

Best

Joe

[MarkakisMania]

Hello Joe,

As an fyi, I am not missing in action and your comments are obviously an attempt to try to discredit and will not be tolerated. Please feel free to continue such attempts if you wish to find out if that is true.

To the rest of the members here, Mr. Herman was banned for his attacks against me, my faith and a number of vulger comments related to my beliefs. I have retained all the emails he sent me but will not post them because these things are not allowed on this site.

I had no intention of making mention of that but since Joe was so kind as to make the comments that he did I thought everyone should know the real reason for the banning.

If anyone has any further questions they can feel free to email me directly.

Sincerely,
Chris


I too post on this forum very infrequently but would like to add that I have done some business with Mr.Miracle Brett Herman who is banned from this forum. Brett was very helpful to me in the past in securing several very nice Orioles game used pieces and also saved me from buying some real garbage in a couple of cases.

I highlighted a section above, not sure I guess Chris you are the owner of this forum? What I am a little mystified about in your response above to Boston is it would seem that unless I am reading this wrong that you banned a member for sending you emails? In looking over the forum rules, I must have missed where it exactly states that sending private emails to a forum member, administrator or anyone would lead to that person being banned. I have been on numerous card collecting forums, and other hobby forums and unless you posted lewd photos, comments or personal or vulgar attacks on those forums you were not banned for emails that had nothing to do with the forum itself. I even at one point ran a very small collectors forum and honestly when members sent me emails criticizing the operation of the forum, I looked at them as ways I could improve my product even if I did not totally agree with their content.

I am sure other members are curious can you please post the examples on this forum of exactly what comments mr.miracle made on this very forum that forced his banning not in private email messages he sent to you? I would be curious what rule on the forum he violated such as personal attacks, fanning the flames, inciting arguments, posting lewd or vulgar photos or comments etc. If any of those examples can be referred to on here then certainly it makes sense to ban any member however short of that it seems shortsighted to say the least.

If miracle or any other member for that matter broke none of those rules, I am not certain how he or any member could be banned just because anyone does not like the private emails sent to them. I believe that is referred to as holding a grudge and allowing personal feelings to interupt good business sense.

Add me to the group that considers Brett a friend and would highly recommend him to anyone considering buying from him or selling to him.

If anyone needs Brett's contact info. please let me know I will be happy to provide it.

Jeb

[ChrisCavalier]

What I am a little mystified about in your response above to Boston is it would seem that unless I am reading this wrong that you banned a member for sending you emails? In looking over the forum rules, I must have missed where it exactly states that sending private emails to a forum member, administrator or anyone would lead to that person being banned.
Hello Jeb,

Here is the rule I believe you are referring to:

No Personal Attacks. Do not harass, belittle, threaten or “flame” another member. Do not call other members names, even in jest. You may dispute opinions and facts, but do so with facts and not by taking it to a personal level. This forum is intended to operate in a positive environment. Please help us achieve that goal.

To answer your question, we will not allow explicit attacks in the form of emails simply because they are not posted on the forum. As you can see from the rules, they have been established to to maintain a positive and constructive environment. They were not created so others could try to look for ways to circumvent them.

In addition, here are the relevant adminstrative policies as stated on the site:

Your membership on this forum is subject to the rules detailed above and the rules are subject to change without prior notice. Breaching these rules can result in post or thread deletion, and continued breaches can result in your account being temporarily locked or permanently banned.
The decision to warn or ban a member will depend on the infraction and is solely at the discretion of the Administrator.
Administrators have the final say in any rule dispute.As such, we reserve the right to take adminstrative action in instances that relate to the forum rules. In this instance, the emails that were sent were very clearly in violation of the spirit of what we have created and it was deemed appropriate that the member was banned for these actions.

Obviously, members are free to do what they like outside the forum. However, if anyone is going to participate here they will need to abide in the rules that have been established and act it a way that is consistent with the objective of keeping a positive environment. That obviously did not happen in this case.

Sincerely,
Chris

[MarkakisMania]

Hello Jeb,

Here is the rule I believe you are referring to:

No Personal Attacks. Do not harass, belittle, threaten or “flame” another member. Do not call other members names, even in jest. You may dispute opinions and facts, but do so with facts and not by taking it to a personal level. This forum is intended to operate in a positive environment. Please help us achieve that goal.

To answer your question, we will not allow explicit attacks in the form of emails simply because they are not posted on the forum. As you can see from the rules, they have been established to to maintain a positive and constructive environment. They were not created so others could try to look for ways to circumvent them.

In addition, here are the relevant adminstrative policies as stated on the site:

Your membership on this forum is subject to the rules detailed above and the rules are subject to change without prior notice. Breaching these rules can result in post or thread deletion, and continued breaches can result in your account being temporarily locked or permanently banned.
The decision to warn or ban a member will depend on the infraction and is solely at the discretion of the Administrator.
Administrators have the final say in any rule dispute.As such, we reserve the right to take adminstrative action in instances that relate to the forum rules. In this instance, the emails that were sent were very clearly in violation of the spirit of what we have created and it was deemed appropriate that the member was banned for these actions.

Obviously, members are free to do what they like outside the forum. However, if anyone is going to participate here they will need to abide in the rules that have been established and act it a way that is consistent with the objective of keeping a positive environment. That obviously did not happen in this case.

Sincerely,
Chris

So to sum it up you can simply just change rules as you go along to suit your needs at that time. To me it seems a bit childish that one would let personal vendettas influence how they choose to do business. Obviously as an owner you are in a position to do whatever you want if you don't like what someone has to say to you personally offline. It is just not a professional way to do business but that is your choice. If most business owners operated that way they would quickly find themselves out of business.

I don't know you or any of the forum owners but I do know Brett and I am going to trust him in this instance. He emailed me a few minutes ago and thanked me for my support. He also stated that he no longer has any desire to do any dealings on this forum and does not wish to have his good name associated with it in any capacity. He stated he would be happy to help anyone in any capacity offline and to simply email him in the future. He told me that he along with other forum members who no longer post or are banned have solid reputations that need no backing as they stand on their own merit. HE also stated that as people know him from past dealings they should not let the misguided agenda of one person influence who they choose to do business with.

Whatever dealings you had with Brett I don't know but Brett asked me to challenge one final thing. If anybody who he has ever had any dealing with him on this forum or otherwise has anything negative to say please come forward. He stated his dealings both as a seller and buyer have been at the very highest levels of professionalism and said that anybody should base their dealings on that reputation the same as they should for other former members Howard Wolf, Steve Mears, KindJammy, whoever those guys are. I have only heard their names I don't know them personally. He also asked me to ask you as the owner why exactly those professional gentlemen and others no longer are welcomed here. He said that other forum members will quickly detect a pattern of behavior when it comes to dealing with those who question authority on this forum.

I don't believe that I will be back on this forum. I am not sure I like the way it is run either. To each their own.

The very best to each in their collecting.

Jeb

[jobathenut]

Chris is the owner of the site,so yes he can change the rules as he see fit.And also can ban any memmber he wants.I mean it's his site so it should be that way....I see no problem in that at all.And its amazing that two "members" one with 62 post since 2010 and the other with 15 posts sicne 2010 can be taking such a stand against the way chris runs HIS forum.I mean i had a friend on here "skyking" and he was banned for whatever reason.But i would'nt send a post in the open forum to call out chris.But i guess i have respect for a person who's site i am a member on.I sent him a private email asking why the member was banned.I mean if you two have a problem with the way chris runs his site,have him delete your membership and go to those other boards you rave about.

[jobathenut]

And i know chris by posting this i have broken your rules.But i could'nt take it anymore.You dont deserve to be called out by two "members" like that.Its disrepectful to you and your forum.But i understand i broke the rules.So i know you could ban me for it and i would understand it.But at least i did it for a good reason....
Chris is the owner of the site,so yes he can change the rules as he see fit.And also can ban any memmber he wants.I mean it's his site so it should be that way....I see no problem in that at all.And its amazing that two "members" one with 62 post since 2010 and the other with 15 posts sicne 2010 can be taking such a stand against the way chris runs HIS forum.I mean i had a friend on here "skyking" and he was banned for whatever reason.But i would'nt send a post in the open forum to call out chris.But i guess i have respect for a person who's site i am a member on.I sent him a private email asking why the member was banned.I mean if you two have a problem with the way chris runs his site,have him delete your membership and go to those other boards you rave about.

[ChrisCavalier]

Hello Butch,

Thank you for your posts. To answer your question, no there won't be any banning of anyone who has posted on this thread. We do not take banning lightly and there have actually not been very few members banned given the number of people we have as members of this site.

To summarize, you and Jeb are correct that it is our site and we will run it as we see fit. That is not to say we are not open to suggestions but there are certain things we will simply not tolerate. Sending hateful emails with profane references to the owner of the forum is one of them.

I am going to close this thread as I am not interested in getting into a discussion about how we should administrate the forum. It appears some think they can do it better as they have "at one point ran a very small collectors forum". If so, it might make sense for them to go back to running one themselves and they can figure out what works for them.

If anyone would like to email me directly with any additional thoughts they may feel free. However, even if you don't agree with things, I would suggest not doing it in a way that would be inconsistent with the rules for posting on this site.

As always, I hope everyone is benefitting from the resources available through the forum and that what we have worked so hard to create is useful to them.

Sincerely,
Chris