Stricter standards for large price raises

[Julia]

Every so often suggestions are accepted with significant raises on common items based on little proof. They are not frequent, but I feel they should be addressed.

 

Example #1:

Strange Tribalman's Shiv (1.22 ref -> 3-4 ref)

http://backpack.tf/suggestion/585b8b7c0e2cad32177b6605

 

This is a prime example. This was raised by roughly 186% from its original value and accepted in just a few hours. Why wasn't this questioned more?

 

As nice as it is to sell something for much higher than the suggested value, the sales could be deemed outliers, and more time could help identify outliers.

 

For items such as this I rely more on market prices over backpack.tf prices. While they represent two different markets, SCM is more real-time while backpack.tf lags behind before its prices are updated. Both systems are fine and have their uses.

 

In the case of the Strange Tribalman's Shiv, the backpack.tf price was 1.22 ref while the market price was roughly $0.16-$0.17 (~1.94 ref) around the time of suggestion. Market prices are generally higher than backpack.tf prices, so the prices were about in rhythm with each other. Keys were also greatly rising in refined metal value making a larger gap between market price and backpack.tf price. This was a good time for buying marketable items with metal and turning them into market funds. The new suggested price did not correlate well with the market price.

 

The Tribalman's Shiv has historically been one of the lowest-valued Strange weapons while the suggestion went against this.

 

Ever since this suggestion was accepted, this item has done nothing but drop down to around its original value over several suggestions. Almost as if it didn't need much change at all. The market graph for the Shiv shows little change since the suggestion was accepted as well.

 

Example #2:

Genuine Fortified Compound (6.66 ref -> 10 ref):

http://backpack.tf/suggestion/58ac51a1e33877743e6c3baf

 

Another example, this change also does not correlate with the market value.

 

I can also provide 2 sales a few days earlier at regular price:

 

 

This has many of the same problems as the prior example, except this suggestion was accepted with just a single sale. Back in my day, if we wanted to change prices by such a large margin (or at all), we needed more proof.

 

The Compound could also use a drop right now.

 

Simple solution:

Give suggestions with large raises on common items more time to mature, look more closely at market prices, and require more proof.

 

I believe most price mods already do this, but probably not all the time.

 

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Discuss.

[Axle Change]

Definitely agree with this. Lets just say that certain, ahem, people tend to make suggestions based on single or a few sales, and there happen to be no other sellers. In almost every case I end up using these as free suggestions when the price inevitably lowers. More sales, buyers, etc. should be required for common items to prevent artificial price raises.

 

Edit: my "d" key is so fucked up right now fixed spelling

[Kevin the Chicken God]

 

Simple solution:

Give suggestions with large raises on common items more time to mature, look more closely at market prices, and require more proof.

 

I believe most price mods already do this, but probably not all the time.

 

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Discuss.

 

imo the best solution would be the mods letting all suggestions on normal items have more time to mature. Most sales on items worth a few ref aren't viewable by the suggestor, so accepting normal item suggestions in a few hours limits how many people are seeing them, and the more people that see them the higher chance there is of someone providing additional proof.

 

But yeah, this is definitely a problem. Although I think mods should be able to accept large raises faster if the inflation is due to changes from an update, but this would really be the one exception

[Foamy the Fearsome]

Im likely not the mod with the most valuable opinion on this matter, since I generally do not handle unique item suggestions and the like, but here are my two cents

On rare occasions where I see regular item suggestions with weird or unrealistic large changes, I leave a mod comment to ensure it matures before being accepted, though only in specific situations where it is clear the sale is an outlier, or where it is very likely so.

In most situations where I dont, or simply situations where such suggestions are accepted, I think the system will end up fixing the problem on its own. As you indicated, the shiv continued to drop, so in the end, no harm is done.

If I look at the cases highlighted above, I do not think the shiv is a proper example here. The suggestion had 3 sales, and 2 more listed in the comment sections, to back up its value. That's quite a few sales, and especially seeing how most regular items I see are being updated based on buyers or sellers, I think that that's ample proof that at that specific time, that value was more appropriate than the value that had been set before.

The genuine compound is likely a better example here. I did not handle either of these suggestions to my memory (maaaybe the shiv as my vacation started that day and I handled a ton of any type of suggestions), but I assume the compound was accepted based on the fact that there were buyers at its current value, and a sale above it. I would definitely not be opposed to leaving a suggestion like that open for more sales.

However, I am not sure if this would be an issue that requires stricter rules to fix, simply because I question the severity of the issue and thus the need to 'fix' it by changing things. I think the system as it is is designed so that even if changes are made, they'll slowly change back to their original state. The same kinda goes for any uncraftable weapon suggestion: they're typically valued at ~0.05-0.11, yet some of them sometimes sell more frequently for 0.11, or maybe even more. If flat values as such end up being too high in the end, new suggestions can be made later on - the system allows the situation to be fixed automatically. The same goes with suggestions that were accepted, but where an overwhelming amount of counter evidence is provided later on (which was either not findable or was missed for whatever reason); new suggestions can be made to give such suggestions a range or a complete change afterwards. Since items such as these have very limited cooldowns and typically reflect a very specific point on its timeline, I think leaving them open could create a larger setback with them being lost in the backlog. 25-30 days later, the market may have changed drastically, and several suggestions can be made in the meantime to gradually drop the price again. I feel like a stricter rule would therefore mainly slow things down, and would have minimal advantages.

Though again, as stated, this is typically not a field in which I am active, neither trading-wise nor moderating-wise, so there are probably other moderators with a more interesting and thorough view on the matter than I have

[polar]

The phenomenon of steep price increases on stranges / genuines followed by a sharp drop-off thereafter has been going on as long as I've been a mod here. I don't see it as a "mistake" to be corrected by either looking at SCM for guidance or leaving suggestions up for longer. Rather, I see it as a way of pushing the item selling market forward. What do I mean by this? 

 

Pretty commonly, the item selling market on some stranges and genuines dries up and we're left with few sellers on the market. Any experienced traders knows what I'm talking about here, and Cashew had some first had experience with the Shiv. There were only 1-2 sellers on the non-killstreaked, non-parted shiv on the market at the time the suggestion was accepted. Cashew was the lowest seller at 3 ref and sold easily. This happens really commonly. It doesn't mean that we should wait to accept. At that snapshot in time, that's the item value. We already provide easy access / links to the SCM value, so it doesn't make sense to reject a valid suggestion based on SCM prices alone. We are pricing items off item sales. And waiting on suggestions like these hasn't helped before because the item market stays dry. 

 

Accepting these huge changes inevitably results in a flooding of the market with new sellers seeing the huge price jump. With a surge in supply, the new value becomes too high quickly and value falls closer to what it was originally. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. It provides a nice kick to the dry market and replenishes supply for people looking to buy. 

[Erik]

To be honest the Shiv suggestion looked fine. There were multiple sales to support the suggested price and at the time there were no sellers below the suggest price either.

[Julia]

Accepting these huge changes inevitably results in a flooding of the market with new sellers seeing the huge price jump. With a surge in supply, the new value becomes too high quickly and value falls closer to what it was originally. Is this a bad thing? I don't think so. It provides a nice kick to the dry market and replenishes supply for people looking to buy.

The price can be raised dramatically in just a day while it can take months for the price to lower back down to its realistic value from that raise. Prices only drop so much at a time. It's slow, and I don't think it's ideal.