auctopsy

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

I have the adjusted auction results now online at
http://search.thekrib.com/cgi-bin/auction

Our net after splits is somewhere around $1754.  Cool!

I need lists of donators.  I have so far:

Snubber's
Puget Sound Fisheries
Burien Pet Center
Amerpet
Pilgrim Pet
Midway Pets

African Northwest
Denny's Pet World
Flying Fish Aquariums

Aquarium Concepts
Maser's
Amazon Pet Place

Fin and Feather
The Fish Store


I think everyone did a great job!  Everyone kept cool even when things got
a bit hectic or sour.  Steve's beverage cart was hillarious.  Seems like
most of the software glitches we had in the Plant auction were repaired.

I was initially a bit bummed about the whole thing with a few of the
splits getting missed (Sandy was, btw, full of CRAP about being off by $30
-- There were only 3 items incorrectly marked unbid, total $16.. or $9.60
for her, and I found the remaining one by doing a "Find in Page" on
Internet Explorer (hit me upside the head, Bob -- we could have done that
last night!)).  But then I got to thinking... in the "Classic" GSAS
auctions, we've never dealt well with the splits.  In fact, we've just
kind of had them on the honor system if at all.  So now I feel a lot
better, especially after going through all the unbid items and locating
them. Next time, if we have someone demanding corrections, let them write
down on a piece of paper what they think they should be, and we'll do it
the next day without them breathing down our collective necks. 

Scott, what I did for the plant auction (for the splits) was to start with
the "people" page, then click on every person with a seller ID, and do a
"Print" (from the browser, not the Pay button. :) of the web page for
each. Then I took them, along with the checks you had written (or in this
cas will be writing) and stuffed them in envelopes.  If you want, I can
take care of printing out everything, and just drop them by your house
sometime this week.

OK, so without further ado, here's my list of suggestions for next time:

 - Start auction 1/2 hour earlier.
 - Bring big rubberbands in lieu of filling out multiple dots for same
   bidder.
 - Limit 20 lots per seller.
 - Way to somehow rebid on partially-bid lots later
 - Search function to locate lost items
 - "Merge" function when we find a generic item is actually
   supposed to be a "split" item.
 - Re-evaluate or restate primary purpose of auction: Benefit club, not
   sellers.
 - Add "No Whining" to seller form.
 - Have "Golden Handtruck" certificate for bidder #139 or equivalent.

That's all... good to put this thing to bed for another year.

    - Erik

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com