Disc Wars- The looser , the finder, and ebay

[Texas Made]

I think in this particular case... he saw his disc in the pics on the Ebay Auction...


Yup.
Thats the case.
and two others belonged to friends of mine as well.

[roadkill]

Then you ought to hit the contact seller button and give him a piece of your mind or if you know the seller's identity confront him and work it out.

I've found most people who do unethical things tend to be newbies. Straighten them out. They'll either conform or quit the sport. That's what I've seen over the years.

[Texas Made]

I started this thread as a poll, I wanted to get everyones opinion. And it worked.
The reaseon I know the guy removes names is that a friend of mine bought a "set" from this guy and one belonged to a good friend of mine. The name had been removed but you sould still see the ghost. One of mine is in one of his lots as well. With the discs that I found, 16 were returned. I made probly 25 - 30 calls, and they told to keep it. I know this is a touchy subject, and maybe it was a bad idea to start. But it still is a topic that exists, I just wanted yes or no opinions.

[roadkill]

Well the subject line wasn't phrased as a poll question.

I didn't know what the thread was about without reading your first post. And after reading the situation as it was described it left many blanks open. If you phrased the poll question something like " Do you think it's okay to sell discs you find without trying to contact it's owner", then it would be an objective question without having to read about your specific situation. I don't think you need a poll to figure out how people feel about it. Of course 99.9% think you should contact and offer to return the disc to its owner if there is info on the disc.

It sounded like a personal vent because you feel like you've been wronged, which I believe is true based on what you've just revealed. Venting is okay. You just don't need to disguise your venting as a"poll question". Confront the a-holes and then move on, it aint worth lost sleep.

[swel304]

and decide as a group what should be done with found no name, no number discs.

This is like the fourth time you have mentioned this but no one ever said anything about returning discs with no contact info.

as for someone who see's the best in people you certainly didnt give tex that courtesy, you instantly took him as a liar.

There's alot of reading between the lines done if you're convinced there's definite wrongdoing taking place based on vague hearsay in the initial post.

Even if this one particular incident is someone that is attempting to return them and/or donating them for charity....

best thing is to put them on eBay and then take the proceeds minus eBay's fees and donate it to the local club for course improvements

this is a good idea too

its like your just ignoring the parts where I agree with you so you have something to bitch about. As for the last post you made, how could you possibly read the first post and not understand the question?

Do you think it's okay to sell discs you find without trying to contact it's owner

this statement has nothing to do with what was just "revealed", so obviously you did understand the subject of the post, I just cant figure out why your so "up in arms" to defend people (who may or may not be but most likely are) doing stuff like this. Dont make SNAP decisions about people who are activly searching for lost discs to sell on ebay but jump all over someone who doesnt word thier post perfectly to suit you. Im sure this will bring on another visious retort about how wrong everyone but you is, but please, dont lose any sleep coming up with it coz i wont be back on to read it till tommorrow.

[roadkill]

Swel

I'm not "up in arms" with anyone and nowhere did I call Tex a liar(nor did I take him as one). And most of your last post seemed inflammatory especially since half of it misrepresented my prior posts.

And if you read my posts (or others) more carefully you'd realize that words mean things and skipping over one word here or there changes the context of a sentence......

Case in point:

Well the subject line wasn't phrased as a poll question.

I didn't know what the thread was about without reading your first post..

My apologies to Tex if I offended or insulted him.

I responded because the first post appeared to indicate someone was jumping to conclusions prematurely and then saying negative things that may have been unfounded. I've seen this type of thing before and know how it can create rifts on the local scene and wanted to warn Tex to be careful not to judge on very circumstancial evidence.

Poll questions shouldn't be predicated on a single situation, but instead be phrased in a clear objective way that applies to a common situation or principle.

Truce???

[Dogma]

We have a pond on our local course that is about 75 feet across, but only about four feet deep. It is very murky and muddy and unpleasant to go into. Suppose I throw a disc in (which I have more than once). Suppose I decide it isn't worth my time/effort/cold/whatever to go get it. Is my disc "lost"? I would argue that no, it's abandoned. I know exactly where it is, but it isn't worth the effort for me to go get it. Periodically some people go into the pond to harvest discs. Obviously, the fact that they can get a bunch of discs at once makes it worth their time. So my question is this: If I know where my disc is but don't bother getting it, and they know where my disc is and DO make the effort, whose disc is it? I would say it's theirs. It would be nice if they called me to give me first dibs on it (which they've only done once), but after the hassle of figuring out a time/place to meet them to get my Sidewinder back, I can see how calling dozens of people and trying to arrange dozens of meetings would be a big headache. It's not the same as just calling the occassional person whose disc you find along the course and hoping they'd do the same for you. I realize a pond is different from a river, but my overall point is that there is a difference between a disc that is unintentionally lost (despite efforts to find it) and a disc that is knowingly abandoned (despite knowing it's location).

As someone else mentioned, if you have a local club maybe you could talk to the folks who control the river, and make sure some club members are the first ones out collecting discs. Then schedule a "Return Day" or something like that on the course where people can come get their labelled discs all at once. The leftovers could be used by the club to lend to beginners, use as giveaways, sell for funds, or something similar to help the sport or improve the course.

[swel304]

dogma, I understand what your saying, but if there is a name and number on it then it wasnt abandoned, it was lost. As pointed out befor, in many cases the owners will say "thanks for the call but you can keep the disc for all the trouble you went through" or " wow thanks, what kind of disc do you like, i'll give you one for your trouble (or beer, money, or whatever)". Mayby they didnt have time, or proper equipment to search for it or any number of factors that would keep them from locating it. Maybe they did spend lots of time looking and just couldnt find it. The question isnt are THEY allowed to keep it, obviously thats up to the morals of the finder. If there is contact info on it then they hoped that the finder would be a decent person and give them a call. If A PERSON wants to make excuses for why its ok to profit from others misfourtune thats THIER call. I would hope that some people like that would see a thread like this and at least think twice next time, but most likely that kind of person will remember the one lame excuse of why its ok to keep things that DONT BELONG TO THEM.

roadkill- I know you think I am just trying to hassle you and Im really not. I certainly did not intend to misrepresent anything you said but we cant all be perfect. If i understand you correctly now your saying you answered the poll question based only on the post title without reading the first post? or that you read the first post, voted no, and then decided to jump his case for "lack of evidence"? I just cant see the logic in that or how you even came up with an answer to something that wasnt a question. maybe liar was the incorrect term, but at the very least you were accusing him of unjustified slander. Now its not worded properly? no one else seems to have any trouble understanding what this is about. You could have just asked him to elaborate, or fill in what you saw as "blanks" in his statement. Even if it was a personal vent, isnt that what forums are for? Its not like he named names or pointed us to the auctions (actually, tex, I would greatly appriciate it if you PRIVATE mesagged me a link to the auctions so I can make sure not to buy anything from these lowlifes). disguised as a poll question? like the poll question is something sacred not to be tamperd with? Your obviously going to come up with anything you can to justify yourself, so have at it. congratz, you can have the last word (and I know you want it) because I wont be wasting any more of my time in this thread.I do agree with you on another point however... this thread is pointless. any decent person knows the answer to the question is, no, its not ok. It happens, it will continue to happen, but its not the proper thing to do. Asking the question just invites argument and wastes board space. In fact, at this point I would pay to see it deleted, its an embarassment to the dgr.com community.

[Dogma]

If you want to make excuses for why its ok to profit from others

I’m afraid you may have misunderstood my post. First, I presented a situation that was DIFFERENT than the one in the original post. Perhaps I should have made it a new thread, but to me it seemed related. Second, I tried to offer a solution to the problem described in the original post that respected the sport, the course, and the disc owners. I’m sorry if that didn’t come through with enough emphasis.

Regarding the situation I described, my point was not that it’s OK to take things that aren’t yours. My point was that in MY SPECIFIC EXAMPLE, some people intentionally abandon their discs. Perhaps this is a senseless philosophical distinction, but nonetheless it is one I find fascinating. When people throw into the pond I described they don’t say “I’ll be back soon” or “if only I had a long stick.” They stand on the edge, point to where their disc went in, and say “there is no way in hades I’d ever get in there.” And then walk away. That is what I call an abandoned disc. However, even then I believe, as I said, they should be given right of first refusal should the disc ever be extracted. When I got my Sidewinder back I gave the guy 10 bucks for it in hopes that he might contact others about their discs. I know that he didn’t though. He told me he pulled out about 20 discs and that I was the only person he called. I can even guess that the only reason he called me was because he couldn’t fully remove my name from the disc (it was obvious that he had tried) and so it would be hard to sell. Is he a jerk? In my opinion, yes. But is he stealing? In my opinion, no. I had no intention of ever going back for that disc, despite knowing exactly where it was. Contrast that to two other holes on our course that parallel a stream the entire length of the fairway. People go in the water get their discs all the time because it’s clear (unless it just rained) and it’s only about two feet deep. It’s also easy to lose a disc there because the banks are full of trees and brush. If you find a disc along or in the stream, it is assumed among people I know you will call the owner, because they obviously would have retrieved the disc had they known where it was. It was "lost" in the most traditional sense.

The thing that’s weird about our pond is that there are a lot of discs in one place, and very few people feel like they are worth retrieving. Maybe this is such a strange and isolated example that it should have been a separate thread or possibly not even mentioned at all. But here on our course the debate about “pond ethics” goes on ad nauseum, and I just thought I’d put it out there as a different example.

Regardless, something I was trying to point out and probably failed at is that returning a very LARGE number of discs at one time is a daunting task and is in itself a disincentive to contacting owners. Retrieving discs from unpleasant places takes time and effort (obviously, or else everyone would do it). Those who do so are generally looking for something in return for their effort. Usually they want free discs. I’m not trying to encourage their behavior. In fact, my goal is the opposite. Recognizing that people are sometimes selfishly motivated, I’m looking for incentives for those people to make the effort to call owners, rather than just erase names. Something like an organized “Disc Return Day” may be helpful in overcoming that obstacle. We haven’t succeeded at making it happen here, but since retrieval in the original post happens at a very specific time, maybe it would work there.

[roadkill]

I wont be wasting any more of my time in this thread.I do agree with you on another point however... this thread is pointless. any decent person knows the answer to the question is, no, its not ok. It happens, it will continue to happen, but its not the proper thing to do. Asking the question just invites argument and wastes board space. In fact, at this point I would pay to see it deleted, its an embarassment to the dgr.com community.

Thank You

[swel304]

dogma, i didnt mean to imply that you are out hunting discs down for selfishness. Just to point out that if any discs not found or recovered by the owner is an abandoned disc then whats the point of putting contact info on them. the disc cant tell you if it was lost or given up on, and even an educated guess is not a definitive answer. I personally just dont see that there is any "gray area" to this topic, and discussing any reasons that would make it "ok" (other than no info on the disc) just seems like a way to make people who are doing it feel better about what they do. I can see that some of my reply to you was poorly worded (I've made some corrections in caps that I hope will make it more clear), and I assure you I wasnt trying to offend you. I'm really letting this topic get the best of me and I apologize.

[-Frank-]

If you are not willing to go in to get the disc you have abandoned it. I don't know about the river that is in discussion, but if it is anything like the rivers around where I play, it's not too hard to find discs in there. If I throw one in, I will go get it if I want it back. I've only lost two discs, and they were crap that I just left behind. I abandoned those discs and forfeited ownership of them. I have found every disc that I have lost, even if it means forfeiting the time that I had to finish the round. Every time I've hit water I've gone in.

Tex, you're going to give yourself a heart attack if you worry about stuff like this too much. And so is everyone else who is getting really wrapped up in this thread.

[twmccoy]

If you are so pissed off about losing discs on water holes, throw ones you don't care about. I return what discs I can, but I'm not going to go to extraordinary measures to return every disc I find. If you toss a disc in a lake, leave it and expect it to magically return to you, most often you will be disappointed.

I find lots of discs with phone numbers crossed out and others added. Half the numbers I call aren't the right ones anyway since the disc has been handed down or found by someone else.
But really, save a stash of beat DX discs for the hazardous water holes.

[Texas Made]

Yeah I guess it was my mistake to stir up contreversy.

And if anyopne knows how to delte this topic I am all for it.
I just wanted opinions, I didn't want everyone to go into a tissy over all this ethier.

I just think that greed rules in this sitation, but I forget as I often do, that most people are not as nice and understanding as I am. Most just take the first opportunity they can to capitalize on any given sitiation.

And by the way, I will be donating all of the DX discs I found to a local youth organazation. This way, somebody wins off of someones loss in a good way.

This will be my last post on this topic, if it gets deleted, thats fine by me.

[swel304]

So every unrecoverd disc is abandoned and up for grabs then. there is no reason to put contact info on them, because once you walk away you give up ownership. and picking up a telephone and dialing a number is an extrodinary measure. So when should you call the contact number and make an attempt to return the disc (sounds like never to me)? If someone doesnt have time to make a few calls then where are they getting the time to dredge rivers and ponds and treelines for discs? If they have that kind of time and needs money/discs that bad they should just get a job! The lengths people will go to just to avoid saying, "I dont return other peoples discs because I want to keep them and/or sell them" just amazes me. If makeing excuses to justify this type of action helps them sleep at night then more power to them, but they cant expect people not to point out that it is not the decent thing to do. I know I said I wasnt going to post here anymore but it just burns me up to see people continue to say this or that makes it ok. BLAKE I will send you 20$ to delete this thread !