using existing price as standing argument against all price changes is bad doctrine

[naknak]

Example 1: recent BMOC suggestion and the classifieds -- current 12-13; suggested raise to 13 flat; lowest unsold 13.5; typical unsold 14.

Example 2: open v.Fan suggestion and outpost listings -- current 2.9-3; suggested lower to 2.3-2.6; lowest unsold 2.33; "typical" unsold 2.75.

 

In both cases, the suggested price reflects, more accurately than current price, what you can buy one for.  Yet we have moderators arguing against the changes. 

 

If you imagine existing price on BMOC was 13 and the new suggestion was 12-13, would it be accepted?  Seems unlikely.

 

Could v.fan be raised from 2.3-2.6 to 2.9-3 given market conditions?  I don't see how.

 

For the v.fan, a higher-than-market price is justified because the (lower) sell trades are too young.  For BMOC, a lower-than-market price is deemed correct because some quickbuyers (not even the highest ones, mind you, just arbitrarily selected ones) are offering 12 and possibly getting sells. 

 

If the definition of correct ranges from "what some buy trades are offering" to "what some sell trades are asking", it's possible to defend a very wide range  of prices, and the actual meaningfulness of the pricelist suffers. 

 

These examples are not exceptional.  I chose them because they are recent, and because I'm familiar with both items.

 

Existing price is a statement about the past.  Suggestions contain evidence of the present.  Systemic nostalgia and a lack of rigor have no place in the vetting of suggestions.

 

edit: bmoc sugg. link

[AwesomeMcCoolName]

Example 1: recent BMOC suggestion and the classifieds -- current 12-13; suggested raise to 13 flat; lowest unsold 13.5; typical unsold 14.

Example 2: open v.Fan suggestion and outpost listings -- current 2.9-3; suggested lower to 2.3-2.6; lowest unsold 2.33; "typical" unsold 2.75.

 

In both cases, the suggested price reflects, more accurately than current price, what you can buy one for.  Yet we have moderators arguing against the changes. 

 

If you imagine existing price on BMOC was 13 and the new suggestion was 12-13, would it be accepted?  Seems unlikely.

 

Could v.fan be raised from 2.3-2.6 to 2.9-3 given market conditions?  I don't see how.

 

For the v.fan, a higher-than-market price is justified because the (lower) sell trades are too young.  For BMOC, a lower-than-market price is deemed correct because some quickbuyers (not even the highest ones, mind you, just arbitrarily selected ones) are offering 12 and possibly getting sells. 

 

If the definition of correct ranges from "what some buy trades are offering" to "what some sell trades are asking", it's possible to defend a very wide range  of prices, and the actual meaningfulness of the pricelist suffers. 

 

These examples are not exceptional.  I chose them because they are recent, and because I'm familiar with both items.

 

Existing price is a statement about the past.  Suggestions contain evidence of the present.  Systemic nostalgia and a lack of rigor have no place in the vetting of suggestions.

Except there was no proof for the bmoc suggestion, and the mods can't possibly find all the proof for every proofless suggestion themselves. So unless someone finds proof for the suggestion, its going to get denied. 

 

And the problem with the v. fan doesn't have a lot of proof of its range aside from unsold proofs. 

http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/13437939 Sold for Blizz Bonk Boy-sweets (3.1-3.2 w/ overpay assuming the bonk boy price is still correct). Also, the mods have said 3 is too high, but there not enough proof supporting another range atm to warrant a change.

[Distinctively Vincent]

I imagine this one was intended for the BMOC link

 

http://backpack.tf/vote/id/520c436e4bd7b88b46000009

[naknak]

yes, edited

[MC22]

Well, BMOC 13 keys'll be accepted soon.

[naknak]

Well, BMOC 13 keys'll be accepted soon.

You're probably right.  I don't intend this to be a BMOC price thread, so let's assume, for fun, that that time has already passed and 13 keys is now a quicksell price. 

 

Then the doctrine of status-quo packs two punches: 1. someone needs to pass a suggestion and 2. they need to intentionally lowball it, or face the monumental task of proving a "large" jump (in actuality, a small jump plus a backlog of small jumps declined in earlier suggestion(s)).

 

If the goal is a smooth, non-spiky price graph, the correct way to accomplish that is to measure spot pricing accurately, and produce a moving average from those measurements. Not to bias all suggestions in favor of the previous (likewise biased) price.

[naknak]

It's ten days later and this practice has wrought a BMOC pricing farce exactly as predicted.

 

An open 17-18 key suggestion was passed over in favor of a 16-17 suggestion, for no reason other than one of them was closer to current price.  The accepted suggestion wasn't better supported by evidence.  And it wasn't closer to actual market price (18+ keys at time of acceptance; as I write this, the best classifieds deals are a white and a black for 20 each and quickbuyers are paying 18).    

 

The casual, one-off BMOC who trusts your suggested price is losing out while knowledgeable traders sell, successfully, for 3-4 keys above the current high price.  This serves as a concrete example of why existing-price bias is harmful and wrong.

[♠Derpeh♤]

It's ten days later and this practice has wrought a BMOC pricing farce exactly as predicted.

 

An open 17-18 key suggestion was passed over in favor of a 16-17 suggestion, for no reason other than one of them was closer to current price. The accepted suggestion wasn't better supported by evidence. And it wasn't closer to actual market price (18+ keys at time of acceptance; as I write this, the best classifieds deals are a white and a black for 20 each and quickbuyers are paying 18).

 

The casual, one-off BMOC who trusts your suggested price is losing out while knowledgeable traders sell, successfully, for 3-4 keys above the current high price. This serves as a concrete example of why existing-price bias is harmful and wrong.

It was accepted wasnt it? Please check again.

 

It's tricky for items like this which suddenly explode in demand mainly due to traders buying thinking they will profit. If suggestions were accepted so shortly after each other it might lead to bp leading the market rather than trying to follow it. I assume this was why the 17-18 suggestion was left up for half a day.

 

With rapid suggestions being accepted it pushes forward speculation on items and leads to a heard mentality where everyone jumps aboard for profit...bubble bursts soon after. Eg the s. reserve shooter, suddenly shot up from 2 refs to like a key, everyone jumped aboard and soon after it crashed and dropped a few refs.

 

Someone correct me if im wrong

[naknak]

Yeah I read Vincent's post too, and made a reply explaining why he's wrong. 

I don't follow (heh).  Suggestions are supported by evidence.  The evidence is there, or it's not.  
 
I think what you mean is that frequent updates may cause the pricelist to show transient maxima/minima more often, and that that's undesirable.  I'd disagree for two reasons, one: the three day lag between suggestion and approval is a defacto cooldown that dampens these transients; and two, quoting myself: [snip moving-average quote from this very thread]
 
Limiting suggestion frequency is really a form of existing-price bias (using the time domain instead of price domain).  Everything I said in the linked thread [this one] applies here.

 

With rapid suggestions being accepted it pushes forward speculation on items and leads to a heard mentality where everyone jumps aboard for profit...bubble bursts soon after. Eg the s. reserve shooter, suddenly shot up from 2 refs to like a key, everyone jumped aboard and soon after it crashed and dropped a few refs.

You're adding more wrongness by overestimating bp.tf's influence.  The professional suggestor class imagines themselves tugging the puppet-strings of the economy; the reality is that no one asked bp.tf's permission to buy and sell bmoc for 21 keys when suggested price was 16. 

 

Rather than excuse deliberately "conservative" (aka wrong) price updates with a nightmare scenario involving hordes of traders chasing brief price spikes, why don't we consider the very likely scenario of a single  uninformed trader coming here to value his hat?  He gets bad information and he sells it too cheap.  

 

My scenario involves one person responding rationally to misinformation.  That's what makes it likely (certain?) to happen.   Yours is a pile of domino effects and a crazy perfect storm of consequences that the benevolent suggestors and mods could have wisely averted with their central planning.  That's what makes it a fantasy.

 

When a price increase happens, it is not the job of bp.tf to prevent positive feedback (and there's no evidence that it even can).  The job is to report prices accurately, period.

[puddingkip]

On the case of the b.m.o.c. this thing is so hugely unstable right now it might even be a good idea to remove the price as a whole. Within 2 weeks it rose 70% and I have no doubt it will crash even harder in 1-2 weeks from now. 

[naknak]

It's not "unstable," it's "rising."   Valuing items is not complicated and never has been -- look at what sellers are asking and buyers are offering, cull outliers, adjust low end to suit whatever the definition of "excluded quicksell" is on that day.  That's the range.

 

I agree that removing the BMOC price would be preferable to what's happening, but this problem of existing-price bias affects every single item. 

 

Look at the current Bill's suggestion, for example.  You have blind polar bear saying the low end of advertised price is too low to include in the range, because it's possible to sell for more.  Whereas on BMOC, the low advertised price is apparently too high to include in the range, because it's too far away from the current suggested price.