Auction Trade Questions

Absolutely love the changes. Too many times I end up failing at finding trades because i try and put a point system together, or try and be super specific. Not a fan of auctions, but I like being able to put up a bottle or two and just give a general idea of what i am looking for, most of the time I end up trading for something completely different than originally planned. Cheers to @Todd & Co. for listening to the crowd and putting forward a fix that will improve the overall trading experience. Auctioneers will be out for sure and if someone wants to run their trade like that, just ignore them and move on. The quality traders that have made this site (IMO) the best trading platform out there will continue business as usual.

 

Wow – that could be seriously useful.

On a related note, something that might complement the new changes well would be a button to ignore ISO:FT posts from another user (either for X days or permanently). No idea how viable it would be to implement, but if possible it could both help readers tame the ISO:FT firehose and discourage posters from putting up ridiculous offers.

 

Trading is about to get worse. I would love to see completed trades have to be posted. Not who did the trade, but what was traded. Say, when you officially agreed on a trade you would need to say what was getting traded. That would automatically get posted with no names to it, just the trade.

People would at least be able to look at those completed trades to see if the auctioneer was way out of line and it might bring the auctioneer back down to earth. I understand there is an option to post completed trades right now, just make it mandatory (no names).

 

I like this, but it would basically be building another giant database. I am sure it could be done, but that sounds like a whole lot of backend work to build something like that.

 

If they just did it going forward, not sure how big it would get because I'm not sure how many trades actually get done through the system. Once you have a regular trading partner, those go outside the system even though they are posted on the hauls thread (sometimes). They could also have trades automatically fall off after a certain period of time, maybe somewhere between 6-12 months. That would keep the size down and also keep the trades to reflect current "value", which is important if this will now be filled with auctions.

 

It would be interesting but thats about it. People could lie about a trade to raise the value of beers just like some may or may not do now. I don't like auctions either but to paraphrase Todd, we can make our own decisions who we want and don't want to trade with.

I'll look at the completed trades thread every now and then but ultimately I could care less how others "value" their beer. I'll give up what I'm comfortable with and if I get no responses I'll add or keep my beer. I think the one ISO every 24 hours really helps that mindset as well. I know people used to complain about having to wait ~3 days before posting a new ISO but I think 24 hours is very fair.

I'm not picking on you but I think the trade forum will eventually work itself out even though it may be a little rough at the beginning. I'll tell you this, if I think it's an auction then I'll send my offer. If he/she doesn't respond within say 30-60 mins after reading it then I won't do the trade. Or if it seems like an auction and someone feels they have a great offer and that's what they're comfortable giving up then so be it. If the "auctioneer" keeps coming back to you trying to get you to add and you don't want to then tell them to f off. As I said, I think it will be ok in the long run. Time will tell.

 

I certainly don't like auctioning beer, it's not something I support especially in trading. I agree it will eventually work out in the end and won't effect the trade forums. I'll add them to my do not trade list and trade with people I respect, it's that simple.

Also best idea ever.

 

"I have a lot of beers I'm interested in, and have tons of options to offer up. I'd hate to not include something and exclude someone who might be intrigued by the 87th entry from my cellar list."

Bullshit. 90% of the time this is an excuse to get people to make offers that can be screened behind the scenes. Sorry 10%ers, you get ruined by the sheer numbers. I want to trade, not enter a shady used car dealership.

 

Not to sound like a nerd, but I'm a nerd so here's the academic side. Our trading system is an example of Social Contract Theory, a notion suggesting that individual actors in a group or society form and/or share a common understanding of their moral obligations to one another. Social contracts exist widely in society. For example, consider your job. In exchange for monetary compensation, in the workplace individuals agree to arrive at a certain time, remain at work for a set number of hours, turn in work at predetermined times, and limit their absences to specific and reasonable circumstances. Doing otherwise violates the contract and potentially voids the individual’s employment. Similar to what you've stated about trading here, you don't have to show up to work if you don't want to show up, but you should (again, don't have to) understand the ramifications of breaking the contract.

Here at BA, we agree upon terms in trades with the understanding, as you've alluded to, that failure to live up to your obligatory action will label you as amoral. Receiving an amoral label through violation of our social contracts results in raising the ire of the community, damaging an individual's potential to continue to use the sit, and just plain sucks.

 

I can only speak for me. I HATE haggling. I negotiate things at work all day, it's a pain in the ass and i'd rather not do it in a hobby that' s SUPPPOSSED to be fun.

my iso ft threads tend to be very specific for that reason, and yeah, sometimes that makes it hard to get a trade done but that's okay too.

sometimes I respond to these list list threads, or borderline auction threads because a beer, or beers, is listed that I want. I'll entertain the convo until it starts going south with things like "what else you got", or "so and so offered this", etc etc.

my experience is that list list and auction posts create annoyance, stress, whatever you want to call it . that's me, but that's one persons' answer to your question

 

I have never had a good experience when I reached out to someone that posted a list/list or vague trade offer. It's almost always the same routine... op looks at my message, 10 mins later sends something back, I respond instantly, they look at message again, 30 mins goes by, op keeps stalling to collect more messages/offers.

Most of my trades now come when I post because of what I stated above. With the new rules, if I see someone post a clear auction thread I will likely block them so I don't have to deal with them in the future.

 

Didn't think of blocking, excellent idea

 

As a newbie to beer trading who hasn't been indoctrinated by This Is How the Way Things Should Be, please indulge me for a minute as a make two contrarian viewpoints. You can flame me afterwards.

Point 1: There seems to be this (rather annoying) idea that the Beer Trading Oligarchy somehow gets to set prices and trading values on beer. The beer trading forum should be the purest form of capitalism that there is. I have a Product, here's what I am willing to exchange for that Product, if it doesn't interest you then move on, else agree to the trade. Nobody is being forced to trade and everyone places different values on different beers. Just because trading a BA Abraxas for a Dorothy isn't worth it to you, doesn't mean it's not worth it to someone else.

This is where the Beer Trading Oligarchy steps in. They want to be able to comment on trades or they want to send offers of Bud Light and overload someone's inbox. Why do this? Beer Trading Protectionism. The BTO wants to protect and inflate the values of "their" beers while deflating the value of everything else. As with any Protectionism, the BTO often couches it in magnanimous terms: We only want to help people from being ripped off. If two people come to mutually agreeable terms (essentially on a public forum, no less), then nobody is being "ripped off". Just because YOU don't value those beers in that particular way doesn't mean somebody is getting ripped off.

I have a real-time example of this. A local brewery, The North, is releasing a maple coffee stout called Sunday in bottles tomorrow. This beer is absolutely phenomenal (I was lucky enough to get a pre-release sample). It is a very limited release, a few hundred bottles, 1 bottle per person. A guy who will be getting a bottle posted a FT post on Facebook. He wanted to go 1:1 for Dark Lord. This is what it was worth to him to trade away his bottle of Sunday. The VERY FIRST response was: "You're asking too much".

SAYS WHO?

Beer Trading Protectionists. This guy, who has never had this beer from The North and has no idea what it's about, has the gall to essentially say that he knows the value of the beer better than the guy who has the bottle in his hand, has had it before, knows how good it is, and is posting what it is worth to him to trade away. The guy who responded had no interest in "fairness" or preventing someone from being "ripped off", he's just greedy and wants to protect his Hype Train beer. It was only a matter of minutes before someone agreed to send a 2010 Dark Lord for Sunday. Doesn't seem like he was asking too much to me.

Point 2: I feel like there may be a lot of people who can't comprehend my second point because it is a completely different mindset from what most have around here. I am not a Hunter, I am not a Chaser. You will probably never see me post an ISO thread. I have no Wants. My only Want is to drink good beer. I have recently completed my first two trades. Both were with people seeking God Complex. I have God Complex, they want God Complex, and if I can do something to get people beer that they really want, that is all I'm interested in. For me, it is more enjoyable to help others in that manner than to seek out whatever beer is leading the Hype Train this week. Did I get "ripped off" by BA standards? I have no idea. Did I get ripped off by my standards? Absolutely not. I traded good beer for good beer. And with the extras that were thrown in, I feel I did the ripping off. But what do I know, I'm a newbie.

IF I ever post a trading thread, it would most likely be in the mold of FT: God Complex ISO: whatever. I am occasionally able to obtain extras of sought-after beers. If someone really wants Heady Topper, I am happy to provide it when I have it. Here, I have Heady, let me know what you are going to send me for it.

I assume these opinions are not exactly popular on BA, but it's good to read a different perspective every once in a while.

 

I personally am extremely disappointed in the decision to allow auctions..It does nothing but absolutely bring out the worst in people/traders..Trading these days is hard/bad enough already..Now it will be basically people holding up trades for days/weeks while people wait for an answer hoping to come...While I understand the decision on less moderating, and have no problem with that..Opening up auctions is one of the worst decisions this site has made for us who trade...

 

Personally, you couldn't give me a bottle of Darklord; I hate it, but people really over-value it because they bought tickets and stood in the cold to buy it; but that is just my opinion!

We have clashed before over the value of time, and hyped beers, but on all the above, I agree completely - beer is worth what it is worth to the individual when trading. If someone wants Sunday and is willing to send a Dark Lord, the comments are just trolling. The only purpose for comments / feedback are if someone isn't getting a deal done they think is fair, and asks the community for some feedback along the lines of "I thought this was fair, but I am not getting any bites - any suggestions?" Around here, before they disabled comments, I would guess only 1 in 100 were constructive feedback - 99% were just trolling and protectionism just as you say.

All that said, I am planning on simply ignoring any traders who post egregious auctions - I don't care about the auctioning (more power to them) I am just not interested in wasting my time - there is going to be so much back and forth and subjectivity to negotiating auctions that are beer for beer.

Hopefully, if auctions take over they can get a 'non-auction, old school' bottle for bottle thread started up where it is less of a free-for-all, and people can just post like your buddy did - 1:1 on a bottle, take it of leave it.

 

I definitely agree with the points @elucas730 and @pagriley made. I also like the new changes and see no issues with them. If there's a few traders obviously out just to win trades, get best offers, rip people off, etc then I'll just ignore them so my time isn't wasted. I love comments being disabled because of the whole "protectionist" thing. I hated having people post in my threads saying how I'll never get a trade done for what I wanted and was offering. I don't need someone to tell me that since I'm pretty sure the lack of messages from traders will clue me in. I also hated seeing "Don't do that trade offer, you're not getting enough". If someone offers a beer and is ISO of something and wants to do the trade then don't come in and comment telling them otherwise. Those messages seemed like more butt hurt than anything because someone was jealous they didn't have the beer at that time to pull off the trade. Maybe someone really wants to try something, has an extra of a really sought beer, and is willing to take a hit on that trade to get it done. Let it go. If two people are happy and have no issues or bad feelings then the trade was a good one. Am I going to give up Vanilla Rye for Treehouse? Hell no, but if someone else wants to then that is their choice.

 

I don't understand the angst.

Yes, auctions suck. But I know that personally, as someone mentioned above, if I get a whiff that someone I'm trying to do a deal with is running an auction, I'll bail. No harm done except a few minutes of wasted time & someone added to my "Dipshit List".

Don't like auctions? Don't participate in them or deal with those who do. Ultimately we can only control our own actions, not those of other traders, so I'd suggest focusing on that & keep trading fun, like it's supposed to be.

 

The more I think about it, the less I think this will be a bad thing. Hopefully since auctions are allowed, people's original FTs will make it obvious what is an auction and what isn't, and thus easier to avoid auctions if you want.

 

General consensus of the thread: (from the same people)

1. Auctions suck
2. I don't care if they have auctions