Ebay--this is bad

[lenoxxx]

Not to sound like a bad greek or anything....

But lets be realistic- SO what if some greek obsessed non greek or closet ritual collector finds out by surfing the oddball corners of the internet what the two rubies in "ABC" sorority mean.

"Con God Damn Ratulations" to them.

To me alot of the mystique of the GLO coms from when you are 18 years old at that time of your life anyway. Our ritual was awesome to me at the age of 18, you cant take that experience away.

Two KA's from somewhere in California came up to one of my brothers at an airport in Colorado in 1998 and told him some secret items from my fraternity's ritual. And he was mightily upset about it. While not desirable, did this ruin my fraternity experience? No. Did a brother somewhere along the way run his mouth- probably. Did I lose any sleep over it- not a wink

But there are such people out there that get their rocks off by looking for this stuff, and they did it before ebay and they will continue to do so. In my mind the real threats to greek life are apathy at the chapter level and a lack of alumni involvment.

To me that is by far more dangerous than someone hunting for the Theta Chi handshake on ebay.

again, just my two cents

JFL

[kddani]

Originally posted by texas*princess


Even though the auctions got pulled, does not mean he can't sell the items via email or just communicating with someone. if he chooses to, he can contact the highest bidder and sell the items without the help of ebay's listing...

but that's just a thought.

Actually if his auctions did get pulled, all trace of them is deleted, so unless he got the information beforehand or the bidders went out of their way to contact him, he wouldn't know who had bid.

[sugar and spice]

Originally posted by lenoxxx
Not to sound like a bad greek or anything....

But lets be realistic- SO what if some greek obsessed non greek or closet ritual collector finds out by surfing the oddball corners of the internet what the two rubies in "ABC" sorority mean.

"Con God Damn Ratulations" to them.

To me alot of the mystique of the GLO coms from when you are 18 years old at that time of your life anyway. Our ritual was awesome to me at the age of 18, you cant take that experience away.

Two KA's from somewhere in California came up to one of my brothers at an airport in Colorado in 1998 and told him some secret items from my fraternity's ritual. And he was mightily upset about it. While not desirable, did this ruin my fraternity experience? No. Did a brother somewhere along the way run his mouth- probably. Did I lose any sleep over it- not a wink

But there are such people out there that get their rocks off by looking for this stuff, and they did it before ebay and they will continue to do so. In my mind the real threats to greek life are apathy at the chapter level and a lack of alumni involvment.

To me that is by far more dangerous than someone hunting for the Theta Chi handshake on ebay.

again, just my two cents

JFL

I very much agree. Obviously people have told secrets for generations and it hasn't caused the collapse of the Greek system yet. While frustrating, it's definitely not that bad.

As long as the ritual means something to YOU, that should be far more important than somebody else finding out ritual secrets. Yes, it sucks that people are telling, but it's also inevitable that somewhere along the line this would happen.

We can't change the actions of people outside the Greek system who don't realize the importance of ritual, badges etc. What we can change is stuff that poses a real threat to the future of GLOs on college campuses -- as you pointed out, "apathy at the chapter level and a lack of alumni involvment," things like that. That's what we should be saving our frustration for.

Yeah, it sucks that somebody unrelated to my sorority might find out secrets related to it -- at the same time, does that change my sorority experience at all? No.

[FuzzieAlum]

I don't think the fact that this isn't the worst thing to ever happen to Greek life is quite the point. I'll agree, it isn't. But if your friend is miserable with a cold, do you say, "Cheer up, it's not cancer"? Well, I hope not!

Minor problems are still problems. Yes, there's a reason GLOs aren't dedicating all their resources to this sort of this, but that's no reason for individual members not to be vigilant. EBay has really exasperbated the problem by opening these markets up. If I wanted to sell a secret Mu Mu robe 20 years ago, I wouldn't have known where to go. Now, everyone knows you can sell anything on EBay. That's why, for example, aftermarket pin prices have skyrocketed.

So if someone else wants to worry about something like robes, I wouldn't discourage them. You can worry about what you think is most important, without knocking them.