

Signed copy of PG's "On Lisp" (out of print) - for charity - modsearch
http://listia.com/13l

======
yan
For those interested in the text itself, pg hosts a complete version online:
<http://www.paulgraham.com/onlisptext.html>

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modsearch
Autographed, new condition, from the box PG got when the book was published.
The book goes for over $200 without an autograph as its out of print and quite
rare. Its being auctioned off for charity by YC-funded startup Listia. If you
do buy credits to bid, but do not end up winning, we can refund your purchase
in full. enjoy!

~~~
pg
I think a lot of people may not realize how cheap this is. 700 credits is
effectively $20, because you get 500 free credits for signing up, and
additional credits only cost 10 cents.

~~~
mattyb
I want this, but when I signed up I only got 100 credits. I sent them an
email.

~~~
pg
That sounds like a bug.

~~~
modsearch
sorry about the wording. It's clear in all the FAQ and about pages, but I
guess we ran out of real estate where some of the text is shorter. Will get
right on this.

~~~
jacquesm
Dear modsearch, you guys have the right idea but the wrong way of implementing
it.

My advice would be really short and simple:

 _stop_.

You can launch exactly once. It doesn't matter if you are feature complete.
But it does matter if you're consistent.

You are building an e-commerce site of sorts, so reputation is really your
only real currency. The site right now is confusing.

Fix it! Now. Don't promote it any further than it has gone already, repair
those things, make it clear and consistent and then make your push.

Also, you should probably yank all the dummy auctions (or at least the stuff
that looks like a dummy auction) (a poorly drawn giraffe ? a floppy disk ?)
because they degrade the profile of your site.

I realize you guys are of good intentions but you are making a poor first
impression. You only get one chance at a first impression.

~~~
modsearch
We will implement consistency fixes asap. However, I don't think there are any
more giraffes on there :) all the auctions on there are from real users and we
try our best to moderate the fake or silly ones :)

~~~
jacquesm
Good one.

Let me know when you're done I'll give you a boost, email is in the 'about'
bit.

I've been hard enough on you ;)

~~~
jamesfong
No, your feedback has been great. We need to think about these things and
we're glad you brought them up. Thanks!

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jamesfong
I would be so on this if it didn't look shady for me to bid on my own site.

~~~
jacquesm
Hi James,

Well, if this is your site you are about to have an unsatisfied customer.

I thought of helping your auction along a bit, so I signed up and made a $100
deposit in 'credits' on the off chance that I would be winning the bid.

Only _AFTER_ going through all that (10 minutes of form filling, credit card
hunting and so on) and making my bid I'm being told that I'm already outbid,
because the highest bid shown is not the highest bid.

This sucks.

If the bid shown is not the highest bid you should say so _loud and clear_
before accepting payments or bids. Not afterwards, that's just plain scammy.
Sorry for the harsh words, but that is my opinion about this.

Now we'll get to see how well your return policy works.

Not impressed.

The refund option is somewhat hidden, care to point the way ?

EDIT: REFUND RECEIVED.

That's pretty good customer service, I'll give you that much.

~~~
modsearch
Hello, we implemented it this way since eBay is the most popular auction site
out there and that's how they've always done it. However we do understand the
confusion here. Do you think it's better to change the wording or simply move
away from a proxy style auction? We hae been debating this internally as well
but always deafult to eBay's functionality in these cases. You can use the
contact form to request a refund. Just give us your username and it will be
done right away. Thanks for the valuable feedback.

~~~
jacquesm
As to the changes in the wording, if you switch to a regular style 'highest
price' listed I think you'll find yourself doing a lot less in refunds, and
you won't need to change the wording.

Right now the only wording that would be acceptable before signing up or at
least before paying for credits should be:

"Beware, the highest bid you have seen on the item that you are interested in
may be an arbitrary amount over the bid displayed"

and

"Second highest bid" on the item page, or a big fat disclaimer that in spite
of the two-stage payment process you are using a proxy bidding system, which
means that the chance is very large that your bid will not be the winning bid
after you place it, and that you'll just end up buying a bunch of credits,
which you can only spend on 'poorly drawn giraffes' and other stuff of that
nature.

Or some way to test if your bid would be the highest bid before you commit to
buying the credits (that would defeat some of the advantages of a proxy bid
though, because it would allow people to figure out the real high bid).

Also, it is good practice to make it as easy to do a refund as it is to sign
up.

I know ebay does proxy bidding, I've bought plenty of stuff on ebay, but I pay
_after_ winning the bid. My obligation to pay starts with the bid, but I'm not
required to pay until winning the auction, my card is not charged until after
the auction closes.

The scenario to go through is the one where a new user of your system buys
enough credits to pay for the item that he/she is interested in. Only to find
after going through all that that the amount is not high enough and that you
need to buy _still_ more credits (but not how many) in order to place a
successful bid. You can't really do that imho, it feels like you're being
taken for a ride.

That request for a refund should be in your inbox.

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lacker
Things look really expensive on Listia, but just because the numbers are so
high.

I looked at that suit and thought "700! Jeez, who buys clothes that cost 700
bucks?" And then only later did I see, 1 point = 10 cents and your first 500
points are free, so really 700 points = $20.

It's silly and psychological but I bet most of your users don't actually
figure out what your "points" mean. Why not just make points equal to dollars.

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andreyf
Also, PG's old coat: <http://www.listia.com/auction/198>

Only 3 hours left!

------
andreyf
Some feedback here: <http://www.listia.com/auction/2067>

Really crappy that I can't edit this. The title says 512MB chip (which it is),
I pasted from the wrong notepad into the description which says 2gb (which its
not). But I cant edit it, or delist or anything.. Sorry (2 days ago by
suedehed)

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mlLK
Is this the charity? <http://www.pinestreetinn.org/> How are you affiliated
with this organization? I'm curious as to why you're even doing this, or how
the idea even came into fruition.

You are like the last person in my mind who would ever consider capitalizing
on his/her status as a _celebrity_ , but given it's for charity I guess how
you doing it (donating to charity) doesn't really matter.

~~~
pg
Yes. I'm not affiliated with them; they're a charity I donate to.

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fdesmet
Am I misunderstanding something? I have to sign up, _buy_ credits, and if I
lose an auction, I then have to _refund_ the unused credits? What a waste of
time and effort. I'd rather bid in an accepted currency, not some web site's
funny money. (Sad, too, because I'd really like to bid on the book, but can't
be bothered with all the buy/refund hassle.)

