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NASC Auction Rules??

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Ok, so I very carefully read the rules for bidding on an auction and it said that all auctions ended at 10pmest, which to my understanding, meant that at the stroke of 10pm it's closed. I have now seen many auctions claiming the winner to be the person who made their bid AT 10pm and not before. There is even one where the admins claimed a winner who bid at 10:01. Is it just me, or when they say it ends at 10pm, wouldn't the final bid have to be in BEFORE 10?! It SPECIFICALLY states in the rules, and I quote, " Winner is high bidder at auction close at 7:00 p.m. PST (10:00 p.m. EST)". I'm sure I'm not the only one with these concerns. :/
 
That's the way it has always been. Anything after the closing time is invalid.
 
NaN the question is what is the closing time? is it 9:59pm or is the auction still open through 10:00pm till 10:01pm? Technically anything past 10:00:00pm is past 10pm as stated in the rules.
 
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This is a NASC deal, not a TF thing... But I'll give my view on it and how it has been working.
Saturday April 2nd, through Saturday, April 16, 2016 closing at 7 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (10:00 p.m. EST).

The actual opening and closing of the Auction forum will be as close as possible to the actual times, but may not be exact, as it is done manually. However, VALID listings and bids will go by the post time stamp (i.e., a bid that is entered past 7 p.m. PST on April 16 will NOT be valid even if the Auction Forum is still open for posting.)

"i.e., a bid that is entered past 7 p.m. PST on April 16 will NOT be valid" So the question is what time is PAST 7 p.m.? 7:01 would be past 7 p.m. You may say 7:01:01 is past 7... But we can't see seconds so it has to be rounded up to essentially 7:00:59 so any bid 7:01 or later is invalid.

[MENTION=12118]3b430mom[/MENTION] is this the deleted post you mentioned in PM? It was moved to its own thread, probably to get better exposure rather than being hidden within the thread in the auction.
 
Then the rules really mean that the auction closes at 7.01 pm PST as you're allowing bids made after 7.00.00 pm PST
 
Exactly, thank you Fred! That's all I'm saying. I wasn't trying to have the rules changed or bent to benefit me.
 
Well, these rules are open to interpretation since that is what we are doing here, I guess good thing is I did not really pay too much attention to that portion of the rules and kept bidding past 10pm till 10:01 :)


P.S. ALL OF THIS IS MY HUMBLE OPINION so feel free to ignore: If forum time format would be hh:mm:ss anything past 10:00:00pm is past the deadline. So 10:00:01pm is the 1st second of 11th hour and is thus past the deadline:) Since forum software displayed time format is hh:mm while the internal format software uses is hh:mm:ss, the last bid before 10:00pm (if there are no more bids) or the first bid shown at 10:00pm should be effectively the ending bid. Makes sense? But yeah, NASC, please clarify the rules so that this could be avoided in the future.
 
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Here's the important bit - closing at 7 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (10:00 p.m. EST). If closes at 7.00.00 then any bid with a
timestamp showing 7.00 is invalid as it's closed
 
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Not exactly Fred. You can't leave out the second part... I'll agree that the first part and the second part can be interpreted to not mean the exact same thing, but I think this will explain why it is the way it has been.

Saturday April 2nd, through Saturday, April 16, 2016 closing at 7 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (10:00 p.m. EST).
I try to close the forum AT 10 on the dot... But:
The actual opening and closing of the Auction forum will be as close as possible to the actual times, but may not be exact, as it is done manually. However, VALID listings and bids will go by the post time stamp (i.e., a bid that is entered past 7 p.m. PST on April 16 will NOT be valid even if the Auction Forum is still open for posting.)

And so any bids that do manage to squeak in between me closing the forum and 10:00:59 are still valid. And yes, I was a bit late turning it off this year. :blush: Perhaps the goal in future auctions would be to remove the human part (me shutting the forum down) and just leave it to a deadline time on the bidding... It's good to discuss this so the NASC can update their rules to something that can't be interpreted different ways, but no matter what I don't think it's changing the way that it is interpreted this year (like has been said, which is the way it has been for all these years).

I think there is too much emphasis on being what can be done this year, rather than looking to improve future auctions, the rule will be changed for next year.
 
  • #10
Ahh next year!!! I haven't received this year's stuff yet but am already looking forward to next year's :) This was fun. Until about a couple of days prior to the end of this auction I never tried to snipe bid before. An exhilarating experience!
 
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  • #11
I think this was the first year I had even changed forum settings to allow it. Normally there is a 30 second delay between posts this year I removed it. But don't count on it being removed next year, it may or it may not! It's never a good idea to COUNT on the ability to snipe. ;-)
 
  • #12
I might be wrong but it looks like even with sniping the items reached similar (if not higher) prices when compared with previous years. I browsed the threads to see what to expect and it helped me settle on how high I was willing to bid :) My hands were shaking at the end hehe. My wife was giving me concerned looks throughout the evening! Ah the adrenaline!!!
 
  • #13
hahaha I've been there, for sure! Well, it's more of a worry about a drain on the server.. but lately I've been paying for server upgrades for the auction to prevent issues. This year I added 5 extra CPU cores and 8GB extra ram. Seemed to keep up without any problems from what I saw :)
 
  • #14
Yep! I saw no lag at all. And I had a couple of devices with me constantly refreshing pages, sorry :blush:. Also kicked everyone and everything non-essential to bidding off from the network so that there would be no interference.
 
  • #15
I'm just glad you didn't snipe me. I too kept refreshing until 10:01 and there were quite a few "snipers".
 
  • #16
Not exactly Fred. You can't leave out the second part... I'll agree that the first part and the second part can be interpreted to not mean the exact same thing, but I think this will explain why it is the way it has been.


I try to close the forum AT 10 on the dot... But:


And so any bids that do manage to squeak in between me closing the forum and 10:00:59 are still valid. And yes, I was a bit late turning it off this year. :blush: Perhaps the goal in future auctions would be to remove the human part (me shutting the forum down) and just leave it to a deadline time on the bidding... It's good to discuss this so the NASC can update their rules to something that can't be interpreted different ways, but no matter what I don't think it's changing the way that it is interpreted this year (like has been said, which is the way it has been for all these years).

I think there is too much emphasis on being what can be done this year, rather than looking to improve future auctions, the rule will be changed for next year.

Why are they still valid? They are after the auction closure. All bids have a timestamp.
Have you ever tried walking through a door at 7.00 when it closed at 7.00?
 
  • #17
Again. The first part of listing period says "closing at 7" then in the second part is says "However" That word is used to modify something... So because that word is there (even if it were by accident) it is modifying whatever had been said prior. So this part "However, VALID listings and bids will go by the post time stamp (i.e., a bid that is entered past 7 p.m. PST on April 16 will NOT be valid even if the Auction Forum is still open for posting.)" is now saying that "a bid that is entered past 7 p.m. PST on April 16 will NOT be valid" so as I said earlier... What is PAST 7 p.m.?? 7:01 p.m. That is why *I* have always believed the bids were accepted through 7:00 and invalid at 7:01.
But AGAIN I agree the first part and the second part should not seem to say two different things to different people, and that is why the rule will be modified for next year (the NASC have told me this). But at this point, the horse is dead...
*Drops microphone and walks off stage* lol

PS Yes, I have walked through a door at 7:00 when a place closed at 7:00... even quite a few minutes later. ???
 
  • #18
The door Andrew not the place.

Ny final word on this.

When is 7.00 not 7.00?

When it's 7.01 :0o:
 
  • #19
I posted this in General Discussion but thought since it's being discussed here, I should also post it here.



We would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who participated in our auction this year. Not only through your generous donations, but your active bidding as well. We normally give the majority of the auction total to other organizations like The Nature Conservancy who are better equipped than we are at maintaining wild populations of CPs. This year is no different. We are paying to install a gate at a TNC property to stop poaching with the proceeds of this years auction.


I would like to take this time to address a concern that was sent to us regarding the timing of when auctions end. There was a difference of opinion concerning the interpretation of when the auction ended. They believed the auction should have ended at 9:59:59. We handled this years end of auction time as we have for many years. Here’s our interpretation of the rule. We Interpret the rule to mean that all auctions with the time stamp of 10:00 are legal bids. Each minute is 60 seconds long. So NASC Interprets 10:00:59 still to be 10 pm as the time stamp does not reflect seconds. 9:59:59 is not 10pm. Here’s an excerpt from the rules concerning the listing period.




LISTING PERIOD: Saturday April 2nd, through Saturday, April 16, 2016 closing at 7 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (10:00 p.m. EST). The actual opening and closing of the Auction forum will be as close as possible to the actual times, but may not be exact, as it is done manually. However, VALID listings and bids will go by the post time stamp (i.e., a bid that is entered past 7 p.m. PST on April 16 will NOT be valid even if the Auction Forum is still open for posting.)

This has been the rule for years and until now has served us very well as written. I can assure you that this rule will be further clarified for any future auctions. NASC is a volunteer organization. Every board member volunteers their time to run NASC. None of us are ever paid for our service. We do this because of the passion we have for the plants that we all love. None of us are lawyers, so when we write the rules they may not be perfect, but we believe they can easily be understood, with our intent clear. We were accused of Interpreting the rules in such manner that we maximize our profit. I can assure you that this and all rules are applied equally to all people and auctions with the intent to achieve fairness, not profit.


NASC is open to all members. We encourage members or even nonmembers to our weekly board meetings held via skype. We are what we have always been, a group of people who loves CPs that is doing what we can to save them.


There were disparaging remarks made toward myself and NASC. I made every effort to resolve this issue in a professional manner and will continue to do so.


The individual who lost the auction in question also had items up for bid. We thank her for her donation, however she has chosen to withdraw her donation and not honor the bids made. So if you won one of her auctions contact me for a refund. A very sincere thank you to the two winners that decided to not ask for a refund and insisted we consider it a donation. I want to thank all of our supporters who again made our auction a success. Without you we couldn't save the plants we love.


Mark Todd
NASC President
 
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  • #20
I have now seen many auctions claiming the winner to be the person who made their bid AT 10pm and not before. There is even one where the admins claimed a winner who bid at 10:01. /

Show me the auction in question.
 
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