TOPIC: Going back to fewer auctions/non competing auctions?

It seems like we have reached a couple points that aren't advancing...
1. Why are a small number of people adamantly opposing taking a break from non-stop auctions to let others (especially unusual or charity auctions) happen on scheduled times? The ones supporting it are also almost exclusively people who have sponsored that same person's auctions?
2. Having an auction system that carries bids over secretly from one auction to another is almost universally frowned upon in these discussions (excluding the person who is doing it and his sponsors.) Most of the comments about it were that the information of the top bidders by pseudonym or forum name should be made available if that practice is done.
3. There is still support for auctions being done but newer people feel crowded out from being able to run one now.
4. Trust but verify as a concept is being repeated quite a bit (and even said directly once.) The community wants auctions that aren't a black box where auctioneers could artificially set higher minimum bids, artificially determine who wins on ties (a quarter of all bids), and hide who is actually behind the auction (the person funding it is as much responsible for how it is run as the auctioneer.)

Is there a way where we could agree to the following:
1. Take every other month off from running auctions (or 2 months on, 1 month off - whatever) to give others an opportunity to do so.
2. When 1 above happens, coordinate through a forum (or similar) thread on who would like to run the next ones and what they are looking to do (different auction ideas, timing, minimums, format, etc)?
3. Agree to try to be more transparent. This means revealing who funds auctions (if it isn't the person posting it), if there is a carry over to other auctions what the pseudonyms were of the top three bidders and their bids (with dates), and clearly state all rules for the auction on the first page - highlighting anything that is an obligation to the bidders.

I'll be the first to agree to all three of those terms and go a step further.
Personally, I run 1 auction per year and will still do later this year. I'm in a position where I don't need a minimum funding amount - it is just to increase chances of a golden ticket and to sell extras I don't need from my group's $8K orders as well as old URs+ I want to get back into circulation. There will be a charity component to mine this year if I can figure out a good way to do work it in as well (though - my best idea for that is to do the charity piece separate and include the extra URs and other similar stuff there unless someone gives me a better idea.) #1 - It's the only $8K auction I plan to run so frequency isn't an issue - if I help someone else, they will have permission to say so. #2 - I'll reach out to Druegar to create a sticky in the auction forums for $8K auctions. #3 - I'm (Fred) funding it. I'm also thinking of posting a sheet showing who the top three bidders were for everything by pseudonym assigned in the auction. I track in on a spreadsheet now so I might just post that. Everything will be clearly stated in the rules on the beginning of the auction thread. Easy enough.

Maybe this helps move things forward constructively.

Fred

Honestly, this thread should probably just be locked at this point.
Comments like

1. Why are a small number of people adamantly opposing taking a break from non-stop auctions to let others (especially unusual or charity auctions) happen on scheduled times? The ones supporting it are also almost exclusively people who have sponsored that same person's auctions?

just feel antagonistic to me at this point. It comes off like "iM jUsT aSkInG qUeStIoNs" and implies wrong doing that doesn't exist. The comment about charity stuff is also misleading, since it implies that someone is quashing it behind the scenes or would be adverse to supporting it. I believe the opposite happened last year?

I totally get that there are differing opinions on how things should be done - that's good and healthy. If the debates are going to continue, let's keep it intellectually honest.

Picc wrote: Honestly I've always struggled to see why people wanted monikers unless they were engaged in behavior they wouldn't want associated with their common names.

If I see Endgame "beats" me on several auctions in a row, I might take it personally and start to hold a grudge against him. However if I lose to Akita, Rush, and Kaluta, I'm not going to be as upset about it. I'll just go to the next auction.

Nothing shady is going on, it might just be poor timing on bid placement.

Grizwald wrote:

Picc wrote: Honestly I've always struggled to see why people wanted monikers unless they were engaged in behavior they wouldn't want associated with their common names.

If I see Endgame "beats" me on several auctions in a row, I might take it personally and start to hold a grudge against him. However if I lose to Akita, Rush, and Kaluta, I'm not going to be as upset about it. I'll just go to the next auction.

Nothing shady is going on, it might just be poor timing on bid placement.

You're making an assumption that can not be proven without data.
People are asking for the data so it can be proven.
That's what the argument is currently about. Providing the data that shows if the auction bidders ever had a chance or if the entire set of winners for item X were rollover bidders from the last auction.
Or were high bidders not honored even tho they bid before a winner.


Easy things to prove by making the data public. So why is there such a push to keep it private?

Arcanist Kolixela wrote:

Grizwald wrote:

Picc wrote: Honestly I've always struggled to see why people wanted monikers unless they were engaged in behavior they wouldn't want associated with their common names.

If I see Endgame "beats" me on several auctions in a row, I might take it personally and start to hold a grudge against him. However if I lose to Akita, Rush, and Kaluta, I'm not going to be as upset about it. I'll just go to the next auction.

Nothing shady is going on, it might just be poor timing on bid placement.

You're making an assumption that can not be proven without data.
People are asking for the data so it can be proven.
That's what the argument is currently about. Providing the data that shows if the auction bidders ever had a chance or if the entire set of winners for item X were rollover bidders from the last auction.
Or were high bidders not honored even tho they bid before a winner.


Easy things to prove by making the data public. So why is there such a push to keep it private?

Because nothing good can come from having the name data. People are getting bent out of shape over the concept and making demands about how things are being run in a thread where no money is involved. What do you think is going to happen when real money is on the line?

Rollover bids are easily identified immediately when you bid in an auction.

Auction started - Bidding opens and rollovers exist

PYP starts off - (Rollover bids are at 95)

Person 1 - Bids on PYP and Starts at 90.
Auctioneer informs bidder they are not winning at 90.

Person 1 - Bids again and goes to 100.
Auctioneer informs bidder they are winning at 100.

Person 1 - Now can deduce the previous rollover bid was 95.

All of this can be done within the first 5 minutes of an auction. Also I don't see there being any reason I can't just send an auctioneer to say I want to put in a bid on something that is a losing bid just in case the winning bidder doesn't pay when its funded and if they do just roll it over.

All that said, if you don't like it, don't bid or start your own auction. Pretty easy to do. We're all gamers here we dont need perfect data to learn the system and how to get the information you need.

Grizwald wrote:

Picc wrote: Honestly I've always struggled to see why people wanted monikers unless they were engaged in behavior they wouldn't want associated with their common names.

If I see Endgame "beats" me on several auctions in a row, I might take it personally and start to hold a grudge against him. However if I lose to Akita, Rush, and Kaluta, I'm not going to be as upset about it. I'll just go to the next auction.

Nothing shady is going on, it might just be poor timing on bid placement.

Or it could indicate a pattern of behaviour that might hurt someone standing in the community. Either way I stick to the advice my grandpa gave me. If you feel weird about it spend your money elsewhere. It hasn't steered me wrong yet.

I'm also not going to use a name here since I've got no beef with the person who is being used as an example.

Also this thread has been greatly entertaining XD

The thread started about just asking people to show some respect for the community by taking turns. It’s first grade civility folks. Let’s focus on that. It isn’t unreasonable to give other people a chance to do these as well. It had always been considered polite and appropriate to do so until Utaku was asked not to try and steamroll people and just doubled down on it.

This started out very civil and polite just asking for everyone to go back to lessons from the lunch line in first grade because seeing the auctions run by different people benefits both a larger variety of people running them as well as the community as a whole.

Separately, helping to ensure ethical auctions is important and ending questionable practices like secret roll-over bidding and running anonymous auctions matters as well. The reality is the people who defended it appeared to all have financial stakes in having it continue (with 1 possible exception but you can’t tell due to anonymous sponsors.) The claim that nobody is profiting further adds to those questions since we know it isn’t accurate based on their own comments. The solution there is just to avoid auctions of anyone you feel is questionable and let others know to avoid them especially if you feel like the bids may be manipulated by the auction system.

So - can people learn to cooperate on organizing these? (yes down to 1 request from 3 on my earlier post.)

Fred

If it is that important to get others running auctions instead of the same person, the simplest solution off the top of my head is to make patron benefits non-transferable.
I would suggest still allowing adventurer guild to be transferable to allow for a group of friends to pool together for the 8k bonuses...but whoever gets the patron code will have to be the one placing the order.

kurtreznor wrote: If it is that important to get others running auctions instead of the same person, the simplest solution off the top of my head is to make patron benefits non-transferable.
I would suggest still allowing adventurer guild to be transferable to allow for a group of friends to pool together for the 8k bonuses...but whoever gets the patron code will have to be the one placing the order.

That would (I hate making this argument) legitimately hurt sales / quite probably trigger an S-storm that would make this thread look like a one pager.

kurtreznor wrote: If it is that important to get others running auctions instead of the same person, the simplest solution off the top of my head is to make patron benefits non-transferable.
I would suggest still allowing adventurer guild to be transferable to allow for a group of friends to pool together for the 8k bonuses...but whoever gets the patron code will have to be the one placing the order.

Possible results from that suggestion. Now all other items in the 8k have a price increase since the Patron Pin is now effectively worth $0 to a group buy causing more auctions to fail to fund.

Also nothing is to prevent me from sponsoring an auction run by someone else and just dumping the 8k charge through my account and have it shipped to whomever I have running the auction. The only thing that does is allow me to get a Patron Pin for next to nothing since everyone will think its worthless anyway for the person running the auction.

Just seems like that would result in increased prices to everyone when I bet most of us want to see URs and the like more accessible and affordable.

Fred K wrote: The thread started about just asking people to show some respect for the community by taking turns. It’s first grade civility folks. Let’s focus on that. It isn’t unreasonable to give other people a chance to do these as well. It had always been considered polite and appropriate to do so until Utaku was asked not to try and steamroll people and just doubled down on it.

This started out very civil and polite just asking for everyone to go back to lessons from the lunch line in first grade because seeing the auctions run by different people benefits both a larger variety of people running them as well as the community as a whole.

Separately, helping to ensure shady things aren’t happening is important and ending questionable practices like secret roll-over bidding and running anonymous auctions matters as well. The reality is the people who defended it appeared to all have financial stakes in having it continue (with 1 possible exception but you can’t tell due to anonymous sponsors.) The claim that nobody is profiting further adds to the shadiness since we know it isn’t true based on their own comments. The solution there is just to avoid those auctions and let others know to avoid them since it sounds like the bids may be manipulated by the auction system/organizing.

So - can people learn to cooperate on organizing these? (yes down to 1 request from 3 on my earlier post.)

Fred

I understand you aren't a fan of the rollover auctions but maybe ease back a bit on claims that all people who support his auctions have financial stakes in them and that something shady is going on. I have never been a sponsor for one of his auctions and I do not have a financial stake in them. I participate in many different auctions, including Matt's. I win sometimes and I'm out bid sometimes. I don't lose a wink of sleep over it. As for these auctions being shady I can see how one could be skeptical. A new player enters the community and starts doing something that costs him time, effort and $$ without asking for compensation in return. Seems to good to be true but maybe he's just a good guy. I don't know, time will tell.