Subject:
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Re: Let's define what an auction announcement/update is
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.market.theory
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Date:
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Tue, 15 Feb 2000 01:08:06 GMT
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Viewed:
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893 times
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Todd Lehman wrote in message ...
> New thread here...on the coattails of a controversial thread in • .admin.general
> and in response to Frank Filz's post:
>
> http://www.lugnet.com/admin/general/?n=4474
>
> Let's define (as best we can) what constitutes an auction announcement or
> update. Then we can link to that definition from the Terms of Use page to
> further clarify it and give examples and counter-examples.
Sounds like an excellent idea. Something to think about, include some
pointers to examples in the permanent description.
> My (uncollected and random) thoughts:
>
> - Pointing to an auction for discussion or educational purposes is OK. For
> example, this is -not- an auction announcement or update:
>
> http://www.lugnet.com/general/?n=9370
>
> - Doing same with one's own auction for sneaky purposes, however, is not • OK.
> (This is probably too fuzzy and subjective since we can't read peoples'
> minds, but it's probably good to note anyway.)
Larry's post here:
http://www.lugnet.com/market/auction/?n=3608
is very clearly very near the borderline. Larry's intentions were honorable,
but we probably want to encourage a different way of opening such
discussions (and I think a post could have been crafted by Larry to open
such discussion which would have pointed to the eBay auction, which would be
acceptable).
> - An announcement of an auction is something which draws attention to one's
> own auction, either already running or to be launched soon. Mentioning
> that something (say, a set or some pieces) might be auctioned isn't
> necessarily an auction announcement, but if it includes auction-related
> URLs or talk of opening bids or auction launch dates or timeframes, then
> it probably is an auction announcement.
Sounds reasonable.
> - Sealed-bid auctions are "technically" (by name) auctions but in • fundamental
> principle are no different from "or-best-offer" straight sales. OBO's • are
> OK in .buy-sell-trade because OBO is a completely natural way to conduct
> this type of barter, but to avoid flamage, announcements of this type
> probably shouldn't use the word auction.
I'm going to toss a nitpick in here, and I think I'd like to actually change
policy and encourage these type of auctions to be considered auctions. My
reasoning: how is a "best offer by Thursday" different from the following
announcement:
For sale to best offer by Dec-21-99 20:52:49 PST,
go to this web page to submit your offer:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=218843966
(Sorry Larry, picking on you again.)
Would it be any more acceptable if the seller set up a web page on which you
could fill in your offer, and the offer would be logged for the seller to
later respond to everyone that the item was sold? Would it be more
acceptable if the seller only responded to the winner?
True, eBay gives you the option of going back to the website, and seeing
some evidence of all the other offers, and it will tell you when your offer
has been exceeded, but no one forces you to go watch the website.
Just something to think about.
> - Crossposting between .auction and .buy-sell-trade is not verboten, but in
> most cases is probably not the right thing to do. An example of • something
> which probably should be OK is a post-auction straight sale listing • things
> which didn't sell in an auction (after it has run its course and closed).
> Such a posting should probably have the 'Followup-To:' header field set • like
> this:
>
> Newsgroups: lugnet.market.auction,lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade
> Followup-To: lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade
Sounds reasonable. There may also be situations where one crossposts from
buy-sell-trade to auction, when one receives overwhelming response to an
offer. In this case the post needs to be carefully crafted such that it is
clear that the intention for posting to buy-sell-trade is to withdraw the
offer for straight sale/trade (and I don't want to discourage people from
posting that XYZ is no longer available, especially if they are still
getting requests for it). Of course the seller in this case must realize
that they will piss off a percentage of the potential buyers (so a better
way to do it may be this post of mine:
http://www.lugnet.com/market/buy-sell-trade/?n=3046
Though perhaps in some way it might be good to have another newsgroup for
soliciting interest (though these types of posts may be the most appropriate
type of market post to show up in a theme group).
> - An auction update is (roughly speaking) anything which includes • additional
> or new details about an auction currently underway. Outside of .auction,
> it is OK refer to an auction for the purposes of discussing or noting
> market prices, as appropriate (not to be abused, of course, for example
> covert spamming via repeated non-relevant references). A closed auction
> is also much more clearly a non-spam than a currently running auction,
> especailly if talking about one's own aution.
Sounds pretty clear. Can we also have a strong suggestion that every effort
be made to have auction updates threaded with the original auction
announcement?
> - It is OK to post an announcement to lugnet.announce about a new auction
> website or service -- but not to post individual auction announcements
> there. For example, IIRC, Mike Stanley announced his BRICKS auction
service
> to .announce once upon a time, and this would be perfectly OK.
Sounds good, should we also restrict such announcements to the owner of the
site, with the idea of cutting off several people ending up announcing the
same new commercial site because they didn't bother to check that someone
had already posted it?
> - Posting auction announcements to lugnet.market.buy-sell-trade is wrong, • but
> posting auction announcements to lugnet.announce or lugnet.general is • even
> more wrong. (The "off-topic-ness" of a post must be judged at least
> partially by how "far off" the newsgroup is from where it should have
been.)
Definitely should be a factor when considering responses to mis-posts.
> - Auction announcements in .off-topic.clone-brands are currently off-limits
> according to the LUGNET Discussion Group T&C. IMHO, clone-brand auctions
> are "reasonably related" to LEGO toys, and should (begrudgingly) IMHO be
> allowed in .market.auction.
Ok by me, lets just make it clear so the first clone auction doesn't
generate a flame war (or if it does, we can point to the "rules" to shut the
flame war down).
> - Within reason (this is highly subjective, but I'm sure we'd all recognize
> abuse when we saw it), auction announcements or updates CAN be posted to
> lugnet.off-topic.test -- but only for the purposes of diagnosing posting
> problems. I suppose that technically in this case, the announcement
> wouldn't truly be an announcement, but the charter for .off-topic.test
> probably still should be modified to account for this. To avoid flamage,
> it's probably best to cancel such a test-post after diagnosing the • problem,
> or to use .market.auction as the test area (weighing the two options • based
> on minimizing the maximum disruption, I suppose).
I don't think we have to worry about this too much. I don't think anyone's
going to get many hits from posting an auction announcement to
lugnet.off-topic.test. I don't think anyone should be flamed for anything
(short of flame bait trolling) which gets posted to lugnet.off-topic.test. I
doubt anyone reads it with the expectation of getting any value from what
they read, in fact, I doubt many people besides Todd follow this other than
checking to see what happend to the thing they just posted there.
> - Posting an auction announcement to the wrong group, followed immediately • by
> an apology, is worth tolerating, but if it becomes a pattern, then that's
> something not worth tolerating. Sincere intentions IMHO ought to count • in
> the beginning, but after repeated botch-ups, the intentions matter less • and
> less, leaving the actions to speak for themselves. Scotty on Star Trek
> once said, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."
> However, at least initially, people deserve the benefit of the doubt,
> and it shouldn't be assumed that initial transgressions are intentional,
> especially if the poster is a newbie.
I'd like to go one step further, and make have the following suggestions:
- if you see an auction posting (actually any posting) which you think is in
the wrong place, e-mail Todd and/or the poster, DON'T reply to the post
- if you post something in the wrong place, cancel it instead of adding more
off-topic traffic by apologizing. If you start getting flooded by complains,
then post an apology. If Todd starts getting flooded by complaints, he
should post a quick "situation dealt with".
Some thoughts on how to handle transgressions. I am in favor of blocking
posting to anywhere on Lugnet for a first offense until the offender has
demonstrated that they have read the T&C and associated rules, and
understand how they have violated the rules. Repeat offenses need to be
judged in the context of how bad the current offense was, and history of
past offences. Punishment should be mild if the offence was due to
mis-understanding some aspect of the rules if the offender demonstrates that
the wording was poor, though consideration must also be made for someone who
repeatedly manages to find new ways to misunderstand the rules (though in
such cases, we should look at whether there is a cultural or language
barrier which is making it difficult for the offender to understand the
rules). Punishment should be severe if there is a repeat offence of the same
type (in the admin.general thread, there was discussion of a $10 fine
turning into a $10 fee, well, if the person keeps doing it, the fee needs to
go up, or they need to be permanently evicted).
Another thing I'd like Todd to reconsider is canceling very out of place
posts. I was hoping I could find some reference to why this is done in IBM's
internal conferences, but couldn't find anything with a quick search (Larry,
have you seen anything?), so I'll try and describe my understanding of why
this should be done.
The basic reasoning for canceling/deleting inappropriate posts is that it
accomplishes several things:
- it removes the "attractive nuisance" of the post (i.e. a newcomer who
reads the history of the group will not see the inappropriate posts and come
to the conclusion they are ok)
- it keeps anyone who has not yet read the post from being offended
- it is not censorship, the poster is welcome to re-submit the post to an
appropriate forum (which may be another newsgroup within the same system or
some entirely different forum), or re-word the post to be acceptable for the
group originally chosen
- it shows that management has taken not of the offence, without opening the
floor for discussion of that response
This last item is probably the most critical. Considerable problems are
created when discussion starts over a misplaced post (just take a look at
the thread in lugnet.admin.general which prompted this new thread). A lot of
non-productive discussion is generated. The original poster may be unfairly
flamed. The rule which was broken may not be subject to discussion (for
example, there could be legal reasons why the rule exists).
Frank
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