RE: A Modest Proposal

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

On Thu, 15 Feb 2001, Steve Avenell wrote:

> Hey ya'all
> 
> Well, I have been reading and thinking about the auction.  Yes, that guy was
> a real dork, but it seams that there is always some one who is a dork in one
> way or another.  Last year it was.... well you all know.  I don't think that
> that dorks are the fundamental problem you guys are having.  I think that
> the real problems is one of philosophy.

I think we've always done fine with the minor annoyances.  We grouse a
bit, make some adjustments (heck, the whole tagging thing is in direct
response to Sandy's "problems" with the last general auction).  

Every club has different ways they deal with these things; some of them
make you give up your driver's license until you pay.  Some even take a
credit card.  It's not "anti-dork" rules, it's just ways of enforcing the
rules of the event.

With that in mind, I choose to look at this problem as being one person
not being in control of his own spending.  He had NO idea of how much he
was spending.  I think a reasonable way to approach this would be Kathy's
suggestion of asking each bidder if they have a spending limit when they
register.  This is TOTALLY feasable technically, because the computer just
spits out a message when the person goes over their limit.  They could go
increase their limit if they wanted to, but it would at least make them
THINK about what they're doing.



> What exactly is the purpose of an auction?  It is an exercise in the raw
> forces of supply and demand.  The goal of an auction is to get the highest
> price possible for what ever you are trying to sell.  If someone wants that
> $2 plant more than they want their $10, they will get the plant and we will
> get the $10. We get our money and the person who wants that plant the most
> gets it, even if their wants are unreasonable. The only real way to lower
> prices at an auction it to increase supply (buy more plants) or reduce
> demand (have less people)

I think the plant auction has a slightly different goal than our other
auction... the purpose has always been to make cool plants available to
members.  If we make money, fine, but that was always secondary.  

At the general auction, our goal is to make money.  If this were the
general auction, I would have had no problem with Sasquatch buying $1200
worth of lighting fixtures.

The problem with supply & demand is that over the last few years the
supply has been enough that we could easily be there until 11 or midnight.
So we've made it lower key by not advertising as much. 

> If our goal truly is to get plants in the hands of
> people, then perhaps we need to consider a whole different format entirety.
> A straight plant sale for example, or perhaps some sort of strange plant
> swap meet where people pay $10 to get in we give them $10 worth of plants
> then they go and trade them with other people.  Something entirely
> different.

That is also an interesting possibility.  But of course, if it were a
straight plant sale, then same said dork might just buy up everything in
the sale too?  

I like the latter idea more; what's nice is that everyone would get their
plants as they come in, and we could overlay this on top of a "discussion"
or other type of meeting.  Some questions I would ask:

*how would we value the plants we give everyone for $10? "Blue Book"
value, or some form of plant roulette?

*Could people buy in at different "shares"?  I.e., $10 per lot, and up
to $50 allowed?

*Would we drop the whole split concept? Or have a flat rate?

   - Erik

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com