Subject:
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About auctions and newsgroups
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.admin.general
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Date:
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Mon, 21 Feb 2000 19:26:47 GMT
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Reply-To:
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rsanders@^stopspam^svic.net
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Viewed:
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129 times
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The current running topic (generally referred to as 'what to do about
auctions') got me to thinking. Most of the controversy has to do with
misposted auction announcements. Those seem to fall into two types. One
where the poster put it the wrong place (purposefully or forgetfully)
and the other where a post was tangenentally related to auctions (and
pointed at one) but was not meant to be. Yesterday I posted a message
about an auction that had a huge starting bid. Before posting it, I
wondered where would be the *most* correct place to put it. I chose
'general', because I believed that the large number of sets represented
was the 'newsworthyness' rather than the fact that it was an auction.
After reading some more posts today, I went back and reread the
descriptive line from the first post to lugnet.marketplace.auctions. It says...
lugnet.market.auction (group):
Auction announcements, updates, listings, and analysis.
More recently, this has been updated to read...
lugnet.market.auction- Auction announcements, updates,
listings, and analysis; NOTE: this group is the ONLY group where
auction announcements or updates are appropriate
Note that 'discussion' is not present. Discussion may fall under
analysis, but I'm not sure. It seems that there are a number of basic
types of posts in Marketplace:
o someone wanting to buy, sell or trade some Lego sets or parts (a
direct venue)
o someone running an auction (where lugnet (historically) has been the venue)
o someone announcing an auction (being run elsewhere)
o someone who found something while shopping (a sale, a markdown, a
pile of old sets, etc)
o jambalaya boxes
o discussion of market theory
o discussion of shipping techniques and issues
Analyzing the posts to lugnet.market.auction yields the following...
o the majority of the posts are one-shots, announcing an auction, with
no follow-ups
o the majority of the follow-ups are by the original poster and are
updating the status of the same auction.
o the minority of the traffic in auctions is discussion-based
(involving 2 or more posters)
My conclusions:
o we are using a threaded newsgroup system to carry what is primarily
'one-shot' traffic
o there is no keyword based mechanism to allow users to include/exclude
by venue
o there is no keyword based mechanism to allow users to find items of
interest (other than a brute-force search)
o there is no anointed place to discuss an third parties auction
(unless analysis covers this)
o discussions will most likely get lost in the parade of one-shot announcements
I have drawn my own conclusions. Others may agree or disagree. Topics
which (IMHO) should be considered are the one-shot nature of auction
announcements, the need for a designated place to discuss auctions (.d
?), a place to announce services, and the possibility of keyword mechanisms.
Ray
--
mailto:rsanders@svic.net
Experienced Macintosh developer seeks telecomuting position.
If you have such an opening, please contact me.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: About auctions and newsgroups
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| (...) Ya, discussion was always meant to fall under analysis. I'm not sure what kind of auction discussions aren't analytical of the auctions, but I suppose it should be added just for clarity's sake. OK, it now says: lugnet.market.auction - Auction (...) (24 years ago, 21-Feb-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
| | | Re: About auctions and newsgroups
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| In lugnet.admin.general, Ray Sanders wrote a bunch of good stuff that I just snipped. Let's see. Today, we've got: lugnet.market.auction lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade lugnet.market.jambalaya lugnet.market.shipping lugnet.market.shopping (...) (24 years ago, 22-Feb-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
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