response 28 of 90:

Jul 6 18:12 UTC 2001

I agree with Sara that the purpose of the Grex auction is not only to make
money for Grex but also to build ties within the Grex community.  Therefore
I think eBay is not a good model for us.  A church auction is more like it.

There ought to be some reasonable compromise here.  If I thought it would
work and not cause a lot of bad feelings, Sindi, I might agree that we
should require some kind of contact from a buyer within a week.  But my
experience with collecting money from Grexers is that they often disappear
for longer than that at a time.  (An sometimes the auctioneers get busy
for a week at a time and don't remind people enough.)  Believe me, I hate
being strung along at least as much as you do.  But one week is too short. 

How about a month, by default.  If we don't hear something from the buyer
within a month, and the seller is anxious, we'll assume the buyer has
abandoned the item, cancel the sale, and give the buyer a warning.  The
second time, we'll ban the buyer from biding in the auction.  Of course
we'll reserve the right to break that rule if there's a reason.

It's trickier when the buyer has paid but delivery is taking a long time.
But maybe a month with no contact is still a good model.

In general, I agree with Sara when she says that agreements to donate and
winning bids are promises, so when they are broken, I lose a lot of trust
in the breaker.  Therefore we shouldn't take breaking them lightly.  That
means being clear with people about what they're agreeing to, and giving
them a fair opportunity to come through.

BTW I still have several large boxes in my basement, containing a NeXT
computer that was won in the fall of 1998, paid for in April of 1999, and
not yet picked up.  (That's one of the reasons I don't hold onto many
donations anymore.) 

response 30 of 90:

Jul 6 21:18 UTC 2001

No argument that it would be considerate.  I think how the item is delivered
really needs to be decided on a case-by-case basis.  I think if a donor has
a strong preference that an item must be picked up, he/she should tell the
auctioners when donating it, and then we can put it into the item
description, so bidders know what they're agreeing to.

response 32 of 90:

Jul 7 02:58 UTC 2001

I don't like the idea of the auctioneer being in charge of mailing things:
we have enough to keep us busy, and I, for one, am far away from virtually
all Grexers, so can't mail anything.  In the past it's been understood that
donors would mail items to buyers who agreed to pay shipping; otherwise a
donated item can only be bid on by local people, which doesn't seem fair.
Obviously this doesn't apply to items like lawnmowers or apple pie, which
don't mail well.

I like the one month suggestion.

response 34 of 90:

Jul 7 18:20 UTC 2001

A farmer at the market is thinking of bidding on an antique tractor in eBay
and says it is the buyer's responsibility to pick up anything that cannot be
mailed.  Sellers with things that can be mailed tend to specify shipping
charges.

response 36 of 90:

Jul 9 18:54 UTC 2001

For your information, I delivered four out of the last five items that I
donated and am about to deliver another one, but I don't see how you can
require a donor to deliver anything.  And I cannot think of ANY excuse for
a winning bidder (who regularly participates in the conferences) not to take
the time to either read e-mails or the auction conference for a month after
bidding.  Do you consider a month too short for a bidder to bother contacting
the auctioneer and/or the donor?  Should someone be allowed to bid if they
never read their e-mail (or don't read it for a month at a time)?  
Does anyone object to requiring the high bidder to at least send an e-mail
within 2 weeks of winning the bid?  (On eBay it is 3 days).  If people are
planning to be out of town and inaccessible for more than that, should they
be bidding?

response 38 of 90:

Jul 10 03:41 UTC 2001

Sorry it took me so long to link this to coop.

I'm against most of the ideas that impose a heavy structure and rules on the
auction.  If someone is looking for a speedy disposal site for unwanted
property, the Grex auction is not currently set up to enforce that.

I'm not sure that we should be restructuring the auction rules to accomodate
a style that seems to have one loud, repetitive voice, and not a lot of
support from other posters.  We have, in the past, worked by consensus, and
my reading of this item as a single thread didn't lead me to seeing a
consensus around the rules and structure requested by Sindi.  

I am one of those who has taken a more casual approach to the auction: slow
to actually pay my bids (sometimes because I'm waiting for several items to
be completed so I can make a single payment); and not unhappy when it takes
bidders quite some time to make arrangements with me to pick up items. 

I see no reason to make rules about who is responsible for pick up: I agree
that the buyer and the seller can and should work this out between themselves.
Most items that I donate have been sitting around waiting for the auction to
begin; I have a running storage space for auctionable items, and don't have
the urgent need to get rid of them.  

response 40 of 90:

Jul 10 13:50 UTC 2001

Re #36: How long before you admit that this is really just about a
personality conflict you have with one particular user here?

response 42 of 90:

Jul 10 15:01 UTC 2001

#39> If they go out of town and have a standing bid they're likely to win,
they should contact auction officials to let them know that before they leave.

General> I think it's amazing that we're willing to reject the opinions of
a regular contributor to the auction because we don't even want to accept a
few simple, polite policies. I know that, after reading this item, I'd be
loathe to contribute anything to Grex because of the hassle involved... Grex
wants the money, and once it gets the money, the donor and the bidder can go
to Hell, but won't you please donate something else in the future? this isn't
a "dumping ground for unwanted goods," but what else, pray tell, would someone
donate to an auction but unwanted goods? HELLO? If the goods are still
valuable to me, I'm SELLING them, not giving them away.

Sheesh.

response 44 of 90:

Jul 10 16:12 UTC 2001

Sorry, Mark, that wasn't directed at you or Sara, but at the attitudes I'm
seeing in this item. You do a marvelous job of nagging me, for instance,
considering how bad I am about actually getting my own payments in (I pay,
but it's *eventually*).

The hassle comments was also in response to the atmosphere being created (in
my opinion) in this item, not to the real world; I apologize for forgetting
that, temporarily.

response 46 of 90:

Jul 10 17:54 UTC 2001

"Out-of-town" issue: I'd say two months if the person hasn't logged on in that
time, and one week if the person has, for the winning bidder to at least make
contact with the auctioneer and the donor to indicate that they're still
interested. All other deadlines (payment, delivery, etc.) should be hashed
out on a case-by-case basis. In the case in question, happyboy logs on every
day, several times a day, there was no reason he couldn't have at some point
said, "ok, great, I won, I'll be getting my money together and letting you
know how to get it to me."

response 48 of 90:

Jul 10 18:15 UTC 2001

If someone only logs on once in two months and does not read their email for
two months, should they be bidding???  'You gotta be out of your gourd.  No
way, Jose' (says Jim).  Jim asks is anybody considering establishing some
defaults for payment and pickup?  Are we discussing whether there should be
defaults at all, and then vote on it?  In the meantime, he will attach his
own defaults to any donated item - 1 week for contact and payment, 1 month
for pickup, unless something else is arranged.  He points out that we have
a history of being flexible and considerate to anybody who contacts us.  We
have stored things for more than a month when someone out of town arranged
for a friend to pick it up, we have delivered to friends of out of town
buyers, but the buyers have contacted us immediately with their plans and
stayed in contact.  The auctioneer emailed them, they emailed back both of
us, and there were no problems.  It is the attitude of the buyer that makes
a difference.  The auctioneers are of course doing a more-than-perfect job.

Jim points out that if he wanted to sabotage the auction, he could log in with
a different name every time, bid high on every item, and never answer emails
from the auctioneer.  This is abusing the donor, the auctioneer, and the next
highest (serious) bidder.  Do people really want to wait two months before
giving up on his bid?  In the meantime the next bidder has gone out and paid
more for the same thing somewhere else, losing, and grex has lost money, and
the donor has lost time and space.  Jim has taken a bid on his three Jeeps
from someone who told him last November that he was going to buy them and only
picked up the first of three last week - but he came out to see them, and kept
in touch by email.

response 50 of 90:

Jul 10 20:25 UTC 2001

Grex is an organization built on a certain amount of trust, it's true.  I
already said my piece about what I think the defaults should be.  I guess we
should ask to what extent we'll accept items which have a lot of strings
attached.  I don't object to that if it doesn't require a lot of the
auctioneers' time, but I'm afraid it might.