YIFU IS AUCTIONNING? - page 13. | Bitcointalksearch.org

Tehfiend

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Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 01:13:10 PM

Regarding the 10 more blocks extension I think that is bit too much. It's an hour and a half, nobody has that much time to waste bidding, IMHO even extending one block at a time my lead to too long auctions and bidders losing interest, but it sure may be configurable and left to auctioneer to decide.

Yeah that could be an option at the discretion of the seller. If I was selling a house I would want 144 blocks (24 hours).

Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 01:13:10 PM

I'm not so antagonistic towards sniping because it saves bidders much time and effort, and people tend to like it. You leave your maximum bid and system is responsible to apply it but not disclose it to others, and off you go just checking latter if you won or not. It's a feature actually IMHO.

Bidders love sniping because it allows them to win at lower prices which is not good for sellers. There could just be many options for the seller to choose from since every auction will have different needs depending on what's being sold.

itod

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Quote from: ProfMac on October 15, 2013, 12:50:14 PM

Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 12:20:02 PM

Quote from: ProfMac on October 15, 2013, 12:06:55 PM

Quote from: ProfMac on October 15, 2013, 11:52:49 AM

I did not try to snipe. I was consistently ahead of several hundred bidders and my bid seemed safe. I monitored the auction on an ongoing basis. Their site failed to respond with several minutes remaining. I did not find a mechanism to increase my bid, only to cancel and re-open.

I was not able to express my intent to bid on their auction site. I am sure that this was true of others as well. Not only that, the site does not show the bidding results anymore, they were taken down when the auction was over. I think that an essential aspect of an auction is transparency, and the final results are not transparent.

I think there is a wide open field for anyone else to compete at auctioneering.

And Furthermore ...

Some of you may remember that I held an auction on the blockchain. It was a multi winner auction, and it ended at a certain block number. All bids included in or before that block were valid. I have had an interest in auctions for a very long time. It was trivial to increase a bid. It was less trivial to see standings during the auction, but that is an opportunity for someone to develop software to interpret a known auction address on the blockchain.

What is missing from my auction, and from this auction, is a mechanism similar to eBay where a maximum bid can be entered and the little bump bids are made automatically. That is also a feature that an auction companion could implement on the individual bitcoiner's machine.

In contrast to this auction, my auction results are still visible, as the bids and refunds are in the blockchain. The entirety of "approvals" to move payments within the TradeHill system seems to be a pointless labor cost to me. I need help to see the motivation or utility of it.

I have also considered developing such a service, had a very similar idea like yours, but there are two problems I don't know how to solve:

1) block finding times can oscillate for serious amount of minutes, so there can not be fixed ending time of auction, feature people like and may be essential for successful auction

2) some bids may fail to be included in the current block because:
a) it depends on which nodes broadcasted individual transaction (bid),
b) it is discretionary to the mining pool which finds the block if it will include any individual transaction or not, especially the ones close to the actual block finding time.

If you have any ideas how to solve these two issues I would very much like to hear them.

1. I saw disagreements in many auctions over the exact ending time. The use of block inclusion does not reduce the uncertainty of when to bid, but it does make after the fact auditing completely transparent.
I also had an extension mechanism, when a valid bid transaction was confirmed, the auction was auto-extended 10 more blocks past that block. I think any software would want to let this be an auctioneer decided option.

2. My instructions to bidders was to bid early, or pay a premium miner's fee. Many of my rules are a philosophically antagonistic toward sniping. In the event that many people bid at the last minute, the bid extension also helps mitigate any odd behavior from the miners.

I think that a good auction client would pay attention to any unconfirmed transactions paid to the auction's bid address. This would give notice of bids that could be included in the blocks. It should be possible for the auction client to pre-fill the auction amount to a winning value plus a safety amount, and the bidder could either click "Bid" or edit the value.

Regarding the 10 more blocks extension I think that is bit too much. It's an hour and a half, nobody has that much time to waste bidding, IMHO even extending one block at a time my lead to too long auctions and bidders losing interest, but it sure may be configurable and left to auctioneer to decide.

I'm not so antagonistic towards sniping because it saves bidders much time and effort, and people tend to like it. You leave your maximum bid and system is responsible to apply it but not disclose it to others, and off you go just checking latter if you won or not. It's a feature actually IMHO.

Thanks everyone for the input. Sorry for this off-topic chat. I may just decided on project to work in my spare time next few months. If anyone else is interested in this please PM me and we can discuss things off this thread.

Tehfiend

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Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 12:49:59 PM

Quote from: Tehfiend on October 15, 2013, 12:37:59 PM

Also, in many auctions there is no "end time". The auction continues until nobody is willing to beat the highest bid (aka "going once going twice SOLD!!!"). Perhaps another option would be to end the auction after X blocks have passed since the last highest bid?

This is a nice idea. For instance: Auction lasts as long there are blocks with higher bids than the previous high. This may also solve "bids to close to the wire to be included" problem. In your opinion, should the system show the bids from the current (Edit: unsolved) block or publish them after the block is found?

I would say only bids included in solved blocks to avoid shenanigans.

Tehfiend

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Quote from: ProfMac on October 15, 2013, 12:50:14 PM

1. I saw disagreements in many auctions over the exact ending time. The use of block inclusion does not reduce the uncertainty of when to bid, but it does make after the fact auditing completely transparent.
I also had an extension mechanism, when a valid bid transaction was confirmed, the auction was auto-extended 10 more blocks past that block. I think any software would want to let this be an auctioneer decided option.

IMO that sound perfect!

goxed

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Quote from: greaterninja on October 15, 2013, 11:11:14 AM

Quote from: jermwerty on October 15, 2013, 11:05:56 AM

Auction OVER!

Tradehill lagged at the end. Almost was unable to re-bid. But got a few for cheap!

i bid 2.2btc per unit and lost by .01 btc. the site lagged out. if anyone wants to sell me one to five for cheap i'd be happy. just pm me or post.

they are holding 22 of my btc still too.

The input output delay at tradehill is huge. Deposited funds do not show up instantly. Lets see how long they take to release the held funds.

Loredo

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Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 12:45:13 PM

So, you would be interested in auction that may and in 5 mins or 20 mins, and nobody knows when? My hunch is that sellers would not like this, they love when bids jump high in the last seconds of the auction. Deny them that profit and they would not want to bring their goods to such an auction system.

Maybe. It could be the typical outcome would be the same; there are often flurries in end bidding in live auctions as well, particularly in items where there is no well-defined value (artwork, animals, bitcoin miners).

ProfMac might know of this man: an economist named Vernon Smith, who won a Nobel prize for his work in experimental economics. Smith would conduct experiments, replicating markets, with students and others, with incentives of real money gains, and obtained insights into those areas of econ where theory could not tread: those areas where "there were people in them."

Someone of Smith's school of thought would try auctions of both forms, and see if there really was a consistent expected difference.

dogie

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Quote from: Loredo on October 15, 2013, 12:12:09 PM

Quote from: Tehfiend on October 15, 2013, 11:49:28 AM

Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 11:48:19 AM

Quote from: jermwerty on October 15, 2013, 11:41:08 AM

Now a new problem, how to run 8600W of Avalons... thank goodness its winter!

Long, long time ago I used 6000W electric heater to successfully heat 3-room apartment in continental climate. Good luck with cooling all that equipment.

Easy, crack a window Wink

It's not just what to do with all the heat, though, right? The typical standard for US single family homes is 100 amp service, and less for apartments. With those machines running 24/7, it should leave around 25 amps for all the rest of the appliances and environmental uses in the house.

Isn't 'house heating' what he wanted though? Cheesy

ProfMac

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Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 12:20:02 PM

Quote from: ProfMac on October 15, 2013, 12:06:55 PM

Quote from: ProfMac on October 15, 2013, 11:52:49 AM

I did not try to snipe. I was consistently ahead of several hundred bidders and my bid seemed safe. I monitored the auction on an ongoing basis. Their site failed to respond with several minutes remaining. I did not find a mechanism to increase my bid, only to cancel and re-open.

I was not able to express my intent to bid on their auction site. I am sure that this was true of others as well. Not only that, the site does not show the bidding results anymore, they were taken down when the auction was over. I think that an essential aspect of an auction is transparency, and the final results are not transparent.

I think there is a wide open field for anyone else to compete at auctioneering.

And Furthermore ...

Some of you may remember that I held an auction on the blockchain. It was a multi winner auction, and it ended at a certain block number. All bids included in or before that block were valid. I have had an interest in auctions for a very long time. It was trivial to increase a bid. It was less trivial to see standings during the auction, but that is an opportunity for someone to develop software to interpret a known auction address on the blockchain.

What is missing from my auction, and from this auction, is a mechanism similar to eBay where a maximum bid can be entered and the little bump bids are made automatically. That is also a feature that an auction companion could implement on the individual bitcoiner's machine.

In contrast to this auction, my auction results are still visible, as the bids and refunds are in the blockchain. The entirety of "approvals" to move payments within the TradeHill system seems to be a pointless labor cost to me. I need help to see the motivation or utility of it.

I have also considered developing such a service, had a very similar idea like yours, but there are two problems I don't know how to solve:

1) block finding times can oscillate for serious amount of minutes, so there can not be fixed ending time of auction, feature people like and may be essential for successful auction

2) some bids may fail to be included in the current block because:
a) it depends on which nodes broadcasted individual transaction (bid),
b) it is discretionary to the mining pool which finds the block if it will include any individual transaction or not, especially the ones close to the actual block finding time.

If you have any ideas how to solve these two issues I would very much like to hear them.

1. I saw disagreements in many auctions over the exact ending time. The use of block inclusion does not reduce the uncertainty of when to bid, but it does make after the fact auditing completely transparent.
I also had an extension mechanism, when a valid bid transaction was confirmed, the auction was auto-extended 10 more blocks past that block. I think any software would want to let this be an auctioneer decided option.

2. My instructions to bidders was to bid early, or pay a premium miner's fee. Many of my rules are a philosophically antagonistic toward sniping. In the event that many people bid at the last minute, the bid extension also helps mitigate any odd behavior from the miners.

I think that a good auction client would pay attention to any unconfirmed transactions paid to the auction's bid address. This would give notice of bids that could be included in the blocks. It should be possible for the auction client to pre-fill the auction amount to a winning value plus a safety amount, and the bidder could either click "Bid" or edit the value.

itod

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^ Will code for Bitcoins

Quote from: Tehfiend on October 15, 2013, 12:37:59 PM

Also, in many auctions there is no "end time". The auction continues until nobody is willing to beat the highest bid (aka "going once going twice SOLD!!!"). Perhaps another option would be to end the auction after X blocks have passed since the last highest bid?

This is a nice idea. For instance: Auction lasts as long there are blocks with higher bids than the previous high. This may also solve "bids to close to the wire to be included" problem. In your opinion, should the system show the bids from the current (Edit: unsolved) block or publish them after the block is found?

itod

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Activity: 1974

Merit: 1077

^ Will code for Bitcoins

Quote from: FeedbackLoop on October 15, 2013, 12:33:17 PM

Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 12:20:02 PM

1) block finding times can oscillate for serious amount of minutes, so there can not be fixed ending time of auction, feature people like and may be essential for successful auction

If you have any ideas how to solve these two issues I would very much like to hear them.

I think people mainly want the rules to be the same for everyone. So fixed number of blocks might be better than fixed time.

It only goes against sniping but, in my view, that's a huge plus!

So, you would be interested in auction that may and in 5 mins or 20 mins, and nobody knows when? My hunch is that sellers would not like this, they love when bids jump high in the last seconds of the auction. Deny them that profit and they would not want to bring their goods to such an auction system.

Loredo

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Quote from: Tehfiend on October 15, 2013, 12:37:59 PM

I personally like the ambiguity that this system would introduce. A good auction system would produce a winning bid as close to "true market value" as possible and IMO sniping undermines that goal. This "blockchain" system would have a lot of unknowns that would be hard to game and thus encourage people to place their "max bid" well before the end of the auction.

Also, in many auctions there is no "end time". The auction continues until nobody is willing to beat the highest bid (aka "going once going twice SOLD!!!"). Perhaps another option would be to end the auction after X blocks have passed since the last highest bid?

That's an excellent point. The timed auction is the source of sniping in the first place.

In a live auction, the highest rate of bid arrival is at the beginning as the true floor value is being set. It ends only when, in the auctioneer's opinion (or in the signals of the last active bidders), there are no more bids.

Tehfiend

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Activity: 491

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Quote from: Loredo on October 15, 2013, 12:12:09 PM

Quote from: Tehfiend on October 15, 2013, 11:49:28 AM

Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 11:48:19 AM

Quote from: jermwerty on October 15, 2013, 11:41:08 AM

Now a new problem, how to run 8600W of Avalons... thank goodness its winter!

Long, long time ago I used 6000W electric heater to successfully heat 3-room apartment in continental climate. Good luck with cooling all that equipment.

Easy, crack a window Wink

It's not just what to do with all the heat, though, right? The typical standard for US single family homes is 100 amp service, and less for apartments. With those machines running 24/7, it should leave around 25 amps for all the rest of the appliances and environmental uses in the house.

Yes that is true but I was only replying to his statement "Good luck with cooling all that equipment". Having the power to run them all is definitely the real problem Tongue

Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 12:20:02 PM

I have also considered developing such a service, had a very similar idea like yours, but there are two problems I don't know how to solve:

1) block finding times can oscillate for serious amount of minutes, so there can not be fixed ending time of auction, feature people like and may be essential for successful auction

2) some bids may fail to be included in the current block because:
a) it depends on which nodes broadcasted individual transaction (bid),
b) it is discretionary to the mining pool which finds the block if it will include any individual transaction or not, especially the ones close to the actual block finding time.

If you have any ideas how to solve these two issues I would very much like to hear them.

I personally like the ambiguity that this system would introduce. A good auction system would produce a winning bid as close to "true market value" as possible and IMO sniping undermines that goal. This "blockchain" system would have a lot of unknowns that would be hard to game and thus encourage people to place their "max bid" well before the end of the auction.

Also, in many auctions there is no "end time". The auction continues until nobody is willing to beat the highest bid (aka "going once going twice SOLD!!!"). Perhaps another option would be to end the auction after X blocks have passed since the last highest bid?

FeedbackLoop

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Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 12:20:02 PM

1) block finding times can oscillate for serious amount of minutes, so there can not be fixed ending time of auction, feature people like and may be essential for successful auction

If you have any ideas how to solve these two issues I would very much like to hear them.

I think people mainly want the rules to be the same for everyone. So fixed number of blocks might be better than fixed time.

It only goes against sniping but, in my view, that's a huge plus!

zerocode20

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Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 12:05:18 PM

Quote from: greaterninja on October 15, 2013, 11:50:08 AM

Anything over 6-7kw is a lot for even a house. I am not sure if your house will be able to handle 8600 watts in the circuits.

Confirmed, my 6kw heater needed special three-phase installation just for it self, with enhanced fuses on each phase. I suggest anyone ordered that amount of Avalons call's an electrician before plugging all that in the wall, otherwise some interesting side-effects may occur Cheesy

Yep, I take 2 legs off a 3-phase bus at work, running though independent AB breakers

Tehfiend

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Quote from: therustytrombone on October 15, 2013, 12:03:24 PM

No transparency and losing bid bitcoins NOT returned. F-

The auction has been over for a little over an hour. I'm sure they will return your BTC and I'll bet they publish the auction results eventually...

Quote from: ProfMac on October 15, 2013, 12:06:55 PM

And Furthermore ...

Some of you may remember that I held an auction on the blockchain. It was a multi winner auction, and it ended at a certain block number. All bids included in or before that block were valid. I have had an interest in auctions for a very long time. It was trivial to increase a bid. It was less trivial to see standings during the auction, but that is an opportunity for someone to develop software to interpret a known auction address on the blockchain.

What is missing from my auction, and from this auction, is a mechanism similar to eBay where a maximum bid can be entered and the little bump bids are made automatically. That is also a feature that an auction companion could implement on the individual bitcoiner's machine.

In contrast to this auction, my auction results are still visible, as the bids and refunds are in the blockchain. The entirety of "approvals" to move payments within the TradeHill system seems to be a pointless labor cost to me. I need help to see the motivation or utility of it.

That really would be an amazing auction system IMO.

Quote from: ProfMac on October 15, 2013, 12:11:43 PM

There is supposed to be some additional benefit for bidders following the auction. I don't really understand the announcement, but if I am locked out of that because I had to cancel then re-bid, I will view it as a source of frustration.

I feel a growing enthusiasm about working on auction software...

(I was using Chrome. I should have made some screenshots)

It sounds like you tried to change your bid in the final minutes which I personally consider "sniping" since you are withholding your true "max bid" until the very end. I do agree that a properly done auction should support sniping but I personally didn't feel safe attempting that on Tradehill. Your idea of using the blockchain would solve that problem perfectly...

itod

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Activity: 1974

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Quote from: ProfMac on October 15, 2013, 12:06:55 PM

Quote from: ProfMac on October 15, 2013, 11:52:49 AM

I did not try to snipe. I was consistently ahead of several hundred bidders and my bid seemed safe. I monitored the auction on an ongoing basis. Their site failed to respond with several minutes remaining. I did not find a mechanism to increase my bid, only to cancel and re-open.

I was not able to express my intent to bid on their auction site. I am sure that this was true of others as well. Not only that, the site does not show the bidding results anymore, they were taken down when the auction was over. I think that an essential aspect of an auction is transparency, and the final results are not transparent.

I think there is a wide open field for anyone else to compete at auctioneering.

And Furthermore ...

Some of you may remember that I held an auction on the blockchain. It was a multi winner auction, and it ended at a certain block number. All bids included in or before that block were valid. I have had an interest in auctions for a very long time. It was trivial to increase a bid. It was less trivial to see standings during the auction, but that is an opportunity for someone to develop software to interpret a known auction address on the blockchain.

What is missing from my auction, and from this auction, is a mechanism similar to eBay where a maximum bid can be entered and the little bump bids are made automatically. That is also a feature that an auction companion could implement on the individual bitcoiner's machine.

In contrast to this auction, my auction results are still visible, as the bids and refunds are in the blockchain. The entirety of "approvals" to move payments within the TradeHill system seems to be a pointless labor cost to me. I need help to see the motivation or utility of it.

I have also considered developing such a service, had a very similar idea like yours, but there are two problems I don't know how to solve:

1) block finding times can oscillate for serious amount of minutes, so there can not be fixed ending time of auction, feature people like and may be essential for successful auction

2) some bids may fail to be included in the current block because:
a) it depends on which nodes broadcasted individual transaction (bid),
b) it is discretionary to the mining pool which finds the block if it will include any individual transaction or not, especially the ones close to the actual block finding time.

If you have any ideas how to solve these two issues I would very much like to hear them.

Loredo

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Quote from: ProfMac on October 15, 2013, 12:14:14 PM

My plan in Minnesota was to distribute them to the nearby apartments of students and elderly, and pay for the increased electricity.

I suspect that would have worked, and would have been good on a number of levels.

ProfMac

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Activity: 1246

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Quote from: Loredo on October 15, 2013, 12:12:09 PM

Quote from: Tehfiend on October 15, 2013, 11:49:28 AM

Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 11:48:19 AM

Quote from: jermwerty on October 15, 2013, 11:41:08 AM

Now a new problem, how to run 8600W of Avalons... thank goodness its winter!

Long, long time ago I used 6000W electric heater to successfully heat 3-room apartment in continental climate. Good luck with cooling all that equipment.

Easy, crack a window Wink

It's not just what to do with all the heat, though, right? The typical standard for US single family homes is 100 amp service, and less for apartments. With those machines running 24/7, it should leave around 25 amps for all the rest of the appliances and environmental uses in the house.

My plan in Minnesota was to distribute them to the nearby apartments of students and elderly, and pay for the increased electricity.

Loredo

full member

Activity: 238

Merit: 100

Quote from: Tehfiend on October 15, 2013, 11:49:28 AM

Quote from: itod on October 15, 2013, 11:48:19 AM

Quote from: jermwerty on October 15, 2013, 11:41:08 AM

Now a new problem, how to run 8600W of Avalons... thank goodness its winter!

Long, long time ago I used 6000W electric heater to successfully heat 3-room apartment in continental climate. Good luck with cooling all that equipment.

Easy, crack a window Wink

It's not just what to do with all the heat, though, right? The typical standard for US single family homes is 100 amp service, and less for apartments. With those machines running 24/7, it should leave around 25 amps for all the rest of the appliances and environmental uses in the house.

ProfMac

legendary

Activity: 1246

Merit: 1002

Quote from: Tehfiend on October 15, 2013, 12:00:14 PM

Quote from: ProfMac on October 15, 2013, 11:52:49 AM

I did not try to snipe. I was consistently ahead of several hundred bidders and my bid seemed safe. I monitored the auction on an ongoing basis. Their site failed to respond with several minutes remaining. I did not find a mechanism to increase my bid, only to cancel and re-open.

I was not able to express my intent to bid on their auction site. I am sure that this was true of others as well. Not only that, the site does not show the bidding results anymore, they were taken down when the auction was over. I think that an essential aspect of an auction is transparency, and the final results are not transparent.

I think there is a wide open field for anyone else to compete at auctioneering.

Yeah unfortunately you could not increase a bid. You had to cancel your existing bid and make a new one. What browser where you using because in Chrome the page dynamically updated for me (no need to refresh) which was nice. Right up to the end I saw the minimum price creeping up towards my bid amount and I believe it ended at 2.21BTC. Their site does leave much to be desired but I'd still give it a B+.

There is supposed to be some additional benefit for bidders following the auction. I don't really understand the announcement, but if I am locked out of that because I had to cancel then re-bid, I will view it as a source of frustration.

I feel a growing enthusiasm about working on auction software...

(I was using Chrome. I should have made some screenshots)

Topic: YIFU IS AUCTIONNING? - page 13. (Read 22106 times)