Discussion about B.S.T. Auction End Times and Determining an Auction Winner...

[sox1903wschamp]

Originally Posted by Matt

Brad's issue was that if the auction closes at 10:06 then there was ambiguity as to whether bids with a 10:06 timestamp count or not since they are passed 10:06:00 which is when the auction ended. If you want to say that "auction ending at 10:06" actually means 10:06:59 then you could do that without a 5 minute rule as well. The 5 minute rule does nothing to address Brad's point unless I'm missing something...

Edited to add that Rob beat me too it. Exactly.

I see your points but since we do not go down to the second on the time stamp, I think a bid that comes in at 10:06 is valid. 10:07 is not valid. So if we had a bid at 10:01, anything 10:06 or before is valid and anything stamped 10:07 is too late. So the minutes of 10:02,3,4,5,6 add up to 5 full minutes passed without a bid and the auction is over.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by sox1903wschamp

I see your points but since we do not go down to the second on the time stamp, I think a bid that comes in at 10:06 is valid. 10:07 is not valid. So if we had a bid at 10:01, anything 10:06 or before is valid and anything stamped 10:07 is too late. So the minutes of 10:02,3,4,5,6 add up to 5 full minutes passed without a bid and the auction is over.

But that's no different then ending at 10 PM and saying 10 PM means bids including those with a 10:00 time stamp will be counted. No need for a 5 minute rule to address this concern.

And just to reiterate - this is an ambiguous issue and up to each seller to decide for themselves how they will handle it.

[sox1903wschamp]

Originally Posted by Matt

But that's no different then ending at 10 PM and saying 10 PM means bids including those with a 10:00 time stamp will be counted. No need for a 5 minute rule to address this concern.

And just to reiterate - this is an ambiguous issue and up to each seller to decide for themselves how they will handle it.

Matt: If you end at a straight 10pm the bidders have no shot to respond to a bid placed right before the 10:01 timestamp. Correct? On the BST, with a hotly contested auction, your screwed if someone gets that last bid in just before the time stamp changes to 10:01. At least with the 5 minute rule, you can react... right? Am I missing something? It sounds like you are saying "get your best bid in by 10:00" but I would think the seller would prefer someone to be able to react against a high bid coming in at the last moment.

And I agree, it is an ambiguous issue that is up to the seller and I am basing my thoughts off of Frank's outlined plan.

[Matt]

Originally Posted by sox1903wschamp

Matt: If you end at a straight 10pm the bidders have no shot to respond to a bid placed right before the 10:01 timestamp. Correct? On the BST, with a hotly contested auction, your screwed if someone gets that last bid in just before the time stamp changes to 10:01. At least with the 5 minute rule, you can react... right? Am I missing something?

Mike - a 5 minute rule does allow time for another bidder to react but that wasn't Brad's issue in his post.

I'll leave this thread alone at this point; just wanted to clarify that Frank's suggestion doesn't do anything to address Brad's concern.

[leftygrove10]

The 5 minute rule may not solve the time stamp problem, as mentioned above. However, the 5 minute rule would give bidders who have been outbid the chance to come back with another bid. They have 5 minutes to decide whether or not to put in another bid. In that 5 minutes, some bidders will decide to bid again and some will decide to pass. If nothing else, the 5 minute rule will REDUCE the chances of having issues determining who the winner should be because everyone has more time to decide whether or not to bid. It will not totally eliminate the problem with the time stamp.

As others have mentioned above, it should be the responsibility of the seller to clearly establish the rules of the auction up front. It also should be the responsiblity of the seller to determine the winner in the event of any questions brought on by snipe bids. The moderators should not have to make that decision.

[sox1903wschamp]

Originally Posted by Matt

Mike - a 5 minute rule does allow time for another bidder to react but that wasn't Brad's issue in his post.

I'll leave this thread alone at this point; just wanted to clarify that Frank's suggestion doesn't do anything to address Brad's concern.

Okay Matt, I will hang it up also. Sorry for the long winded discussion and I was mostly reacting to Frank's plan. I think the seller just needs to be SPECIFIC when there are no hard and fast rules. In Brad's original note, the seller could say "All bids up to and including 10:00pm". With that said, the 10pm bidder would win, 10:01 would not. Really, that is what Brad is saying in his original post. Be specific so there are no fights later. Regards, Michael

[FrankWakefield]

It doesn't matter if it is 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 2 minutes or what... but the seller does need a RULE about it to avoid problems.

I agree with most of what's above.

Here, at this site, our time is incremented in minutes. Not minutes and seconds. So if there is a 5 minute rule, and the last bid was at 10:01, any bid that showed a 10:06 posting could be accepted, even if it was actually more than 300 seconds after the post. Precision at this site is by the minute, I think that's what a seller has to go by to minimize problems.


And posting a time zone is a must.


As for the demise of sniping with auctions here, I think that is a good thing for the seller. It's more like an auction. Think about a real estate auction. They start at a specified time. You have to figure that if they start at 10am there will be a few minutes of preliminaries, and eventually some bidding. The auction doesn't end until the going, going, sold. That's an auction. What eBay does is a hybrid auction, even though they want to call it an auction. An auction here with a 3 or 5 minute rule is much closer to a true auction.