One of the most frustrating things about the misprint community it how quickly people shift back and forth between different community norms on a whim.

The most recent example of this was a few days ago, when someone posted some high-end cards for a very cheap price. I reached out to ask if I could buy a single card, and when they declined, I offered to buy the whole set. Several hours later, someone else tried to buy the set, and complained when the seller no longer wanted to sell it to them. A bunch of drama ensued about how the seller should honor their posted price to the first buyer, eventually getting some of the other group admins involved, who pressured the seller to sell the cards to the other person.

When I found out about this and asked the seller what was going on, they were apologetic, but said they felt like they had to sell to the other person because the group admins had told them to do so.

This sort of thing is pretty common in the misprint group. Someone will post a card for some price, someone else tries to buy it, the seller realizes their price was too low, and there's an argument over whether they have to sell for that price or not. I think it's about 50/50 whether they do or don't; either people claim "BIN offers should always be honored, it's scummy to back out", or people claim "Sellers shouldn't be punished for their ignorance, it's scummy to take advantage of them by trying to buy their card too cheaply". Which one occurs seems to be largely arbitrary, based on who feels like arguing how hard. Either way, a community consensus rapidly emerges that this was the right thing to do, and it should always be handled this way.

This sort of thing happens with regards to other norms as well. I remember one instance where someone (the same person actually) said I was scummy for sniping an auction and tried to start some drama about me, despite the fact that they themselves had also sniped several actions around the same time.

This makes it really hard to know how to behave. When I try to take the "nice" route, I just lose out to the "sharks". When I instead try to hold people to their word more strictly, those very same people accuse me of being too sharky.

I don't think I've been great about trying to balance these. I can remember some times where I was clearly too strict when I should have let someone out of a deal. But I feel like at least I'm trying. When I lost an auction for a rare foil-backed card and the seller accidentally tried to sell it to me anyway, I sent it to the rightful winner instead.

(In this most recent situation on the other hand, I reached out to the buyer to let them know that I had actually been the first BIN offer, and as I expected, their supposed principles about honoring deals went out the window as soon as it was no longer in their favor to espouse them.)

One of the things I often push for (in various domains) is clear and consistently-enforced rules, and this is an example of why. When people get to pick and choose what rules or guidelines to follow, they mysteriously tend to pick the ones that benefit themselves the most, while always having some non-selfish-sounding reason for each choice they make. This disadvantages people who are worse at playing this sort of social game.

This has been an issue in the misprint community ever since I joined it, and usually I just don't make a big deal out of it. But this recent instance hit me really hard. I've been looking for an albino Island for so long, and when one finally became available, my purchase wasn't honored, nor did I get the chance to bid on it in a public auction, all because someone else decided to be more pushy than I was willing to be, and I didn't want to risk abusing my position as an admin of the group, and the rest of the community and the group admins decided to back them up on this.

I think it's finally starting to take its toll on my on an emotional level. There's only so many times one can be attacked for trying to follow the letter of the law too strictly while a bunch of other people are also behaving the exact same way and not encountering the same pushback just because they have better instinctive social skills.

I don't really have a point to this post, I'm just feeling sad and annoyed and I wanted to say something about it after having put up with it silently for so long. I do still really enjoy misprints, and I don't want to stop collecting them. I'm just not sure whether I want to keep being a part of the *community*; it seems like it might not be a good fit for me.