I (nor any of the others) never once said that 
people could not inquire about certain cels or 
items.  They have every right to post requests 
here and are more than welcome to do so.  Please 
get that story straight or you will already get 
yourself lost in whatever point you were trying 
to argue.

The only tricky part here is that you should try 
to respect not only those who ask for help but 
also other members of the cel community.  There 
are collectors (just like you and me) who would 
like to maintain their best chances to get the 
cels they want whenever possible (sounds natural, 
right?).  So as a result they would tend to 
prefer to keep the disclosure of any information 
about ongoing auctions as minimal as possible.  
Even if you may not be interested in the same 
item, don't you want to be respectful to a fellow 
collector who might be?

What Drac, I and others have advocated from the 
very beginning is to simply keep auction 
information private (between those who asked for 
help and those willing to help them).  This is 
the best compromise possible.  No one else but 
you Chi have displayed any opposition to this 
specific idea (please revisit the threads; get 
the story straight).

Through this simple practice of common courtesy, 
everyone still gets what they want and without 
fear of annoyance from others.  I'm baffled: just 
what exactly are you so opposed to here?

No one should hold anything against 'sensei' for 
trying to help out and replying as he/she did 
this time around.  But if 'sensei' and other 
folks knew about a better way to handle requests 
like shelby's, then why shouldn't they learn 
about it in case for the next time?  That was the 
only intention for explaining about using private 
e-mails to trade auction information.

This way achieves everyone's goals with minimal 
hassle.  It's not a controversial idea; no one is 
being persecuted or censored.  In fact, this 
practice strives to prevent any of that nonsense 
from happening in the first place.  If you have a 
specific problem with this practice, though, you 
should really try to pinpoint it exactly rather 
than just lash out in general to a piece of 
opposing but friendly advice.