The everlasting confusion of determining a quicksell.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

Hi! Before i begin, *heyah!*

 

What is a quicksell?

• Someone advertising their sale as a quicksell doesn't mean that it is one, sometimes they try to "quicksell" their hats for months without success.
• Time is only one factor used to determine a quicksell. If a hat sells within 1-2 days for its b/o in pure, one should be suspicious. However, it could just be a lucky sale as well.
• More important is how a sale relates to other sales. If a hat sells for less or around quickbuyer prices in pure or unusuals or for less than common trade points, that is likely a quicksell.
• Exceptions when buy orders don't necessarily counter lower sales
  • Numbers Matter - if there is only 1 lonely buy order and 3 sales lower than that it probably doesn't counter. Also generic buy orders (any effect) are usually buying more than 1 copy of a hat.
  • Common Trading Point - if there is a huge number of sales at or around buyer prices then it might be included in the price range. Sellers being close to buy orders is also an indication for that.
  • Market Shifts - timing of buy orders and sales matter: If a sale took place before a buy order was created the seller obviously couldn't just "sell it to the buy order instead".
  • Counter Buy Orders - Buy orders created after a suggestion was made with the sole purpose of countering the suggestion will be structually ignored.

aswell as: https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5b15768e44325a5c6d075852#comment-5b435572cf6c7558a4778c3c

 

 a snippet of the quicksell rules.

 

Okay, lets begin!

 

Just to be clear, obviously there are times when quicksales are fine to be accepted. When a hats price is suggested to drop and its low end is close to quickbuyers or at quickbuyers, it is accepted as per the

Quote

Common Trading Point

rule. Many times those low ends will end up too low, however market shifts are usually reported in a timely manner and a new suggestion is made soon after and the hats price at the end of the day will rise back up. But it does not work so fast and simply for hats lower in the existence, rarer.

 

Im pretty sure everything written in the quicksell rules is understood by basically anyone who has been in this community/trading scene for a while, but there has always been one part of the rules that has remained clouded, the infamous 

Quote

However, it could just be a lucky sale as well.

Now its not necessarily this part of the rules that causes mistakes, rather a factor that could fall into this part of the rules. Its called "Reporting this sale as is", aswell as "Reporting the suggested price as better than current". While those 2 independently are completely valid fundaments to accept suggestions on, when infused with the quicksell rules, often than not, they are invalid. Now, Price Moderators themselves have heavily disagreed with me on the just mentioned point and one of them encouraged me to discuss this further on a more public manner, either on bp.tf discord server or in the form of a forum post. I believe forum posts to be better for matters like these, less... off-topic flooding.  That was a while ago, what made me do this finally was the currently present mess you see here: https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5edc70ca7a465f05a169c345 Now to continue, why do i believe them to be invalid? Cause when we come back to the infamous part of the quicksell rules... What does "it could just be a lucky sale as well" really mean? Imo it opens doors to uncertainty and allows the factor, as i called it, that i spoke about above to be accepted even when the sale presented in the suggestion is a quicksell. So far, correct me if im mistaken, but literally the only times the quicksell dispution is awakened in suggestions comments is when a suggester is using a single sale to drop a hat, that in most cases is indeed a quicksell, as it sold quick. Now where does the confusion come in? To be completely honest, im not really sure whatsoever. As a very experienced quickbuyer, one of the most experienced out there, i dare say, a quicksell is as clear as the mid-day sunny sky to me and seems to be to almost all quickbuyers. There have even been attempts to paint us in a bad picture. Whenever we call suggesters, that try to drop a hat based on a quicksell out, and that suggestion is made on a hat we own, once that particular suggester runs out of arguments, sometimes they have told us "Look, youre just mad that your hat is getting dropped", yet all we really do is defend the legitimacy of this site, that updates hat based on upmost correct information. How can i say so certainly that thats the reason of the outrage, and that its actually not the fact that those suggesters are trying to drop our hats? Well i can't speak for everyone, but what i can say is ive made very clear that i don't care about dropped backpack value. Ive proven that by always making sure that once i resell my hat, i try to update the price to what it really is supposed to be at, not the price that was based off a quicksale. So my point is, if the value drop is quite literally always, in those cases, temporary, why would i be mad at people dropping the value of my hat? To continue, as i mentioned above, the few "factors", based on which some quicksells are accepted by Price Moderators to update a hat, i myself have fell victim to a numerous of these accepted suggestions. While i obviously don't remember to provide much more than a few examples, here is a suggestion which was accepted based on the point of "Reporting the suggested price as better than current": https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5c2e107844325a1e950780c3 - The suggestion was accepted off a quicksale, a "580" key hat, which even i believed and im pretty sure admitted to be a bit too high of a price, sold for 300 pure in less than a day. Guys, seriously, we are talking about an unusual worth hundreds and hundreds of keys, that sold for a price way lower than its at that time bp.tf price in less than a day. No matter what arguments based on it was accepted as 300 flat, it never shouldve been allowed to, it was blatantly incorrect. Obviously 580 was high, but in no way was 300 flat, using a quicksale, any better. Just as the suggestion was accepted based on the point "Reporting the suggested price as better than current", it couldve also been declined based on the opposite, something in the lines of "Calling the suggested price as no better than current, as it is based off a quicksale". Now obviously if the sale didn't sell as fast as it did, there wouldve been no outcry whatsoever. An issue only comes in, when a single quicksale is used to update the price of a hat (as i said, don't quote me on that, perhaps it is not the only time quicksales are misjudged and accepted as a new price incorrectly), stop reading too much into a simple quicksale and complicating its simplicity for everyone. There are also currently 2 suggestions open from 2 different experienced suggesters (one of which is so experienced, i was actually in awe, when he said he didn't see the sale being an obvious quicksale), on 2 of my hats that i made clear quickpurchases on (single usable sale on both suggestions, that is my purchase, which both sold i think in under and hour, not even a day), but they fail to see that, what is so obvious to me, and have disagreed with closing the suggestions. Now to end this example, i later on did update it back to its more accurate price after i sold it: https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5d8eb333678072081b2163a2 HOWEVER, some people may bring out a point of this sale being luck, as i did take a lenghty time to sell it (even tho the huge drop to the quicksell price i paid obviously became a complication to resell), so ill just in case show 1 or 2 more examples. Example numero 2: https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5deea17e363f117eab4aa46d - The hat was priced off a quicksale. There is no screenshot, but Mods know anyway. What Offline was saying is true, there was a in'n'out buyorder, a year old, at 36. Yet the hat was priced at 35. One of the Mods arguments was that the buyer was fine with the hat being priced, but it doesn't matter what the buyers think, we have rules we follow and it clearly states 

Quote

If a hat sells for less or around quickbuyer prices in pure or unusuals

Quote

that is likely a quicksell.

But do keep in mind, that the mentioned above argument the Mods brought up is one of the weakest ones, it by no means was the only point they had for accepting the suggestion. Its just, i can't be bothered to quote out the other arguments as there is no arguments against a situation that perfectly meets a concrete quicksell rule. There is no "Reporting this sale as is", 35 was a quicksell, if there was a buyorder at 36.

 

There are more examples, but i just can't recall them. Yet again feel free to post your examples (and thoughts too ofc) below!

 

TDLR; What do i want and believe vast majority wants being done about the whole situation? I want the quicksell rules to be updated, to be more clear so that these spam suggestions of clueless (in regards to quicksales) suggestors, suggestors who have barely dealt with quickbuy trading at all, stop (I myself have refrained from posting probably around tens of suggestions, cause before doing so i realised that the only usable sale was a quicksale. Can't help but to wonder how many of those wouldve been accepted, had i posted them tho ) and that Mods stopped accepting very controversial quicksales as valid sales for updating a hat. Imo the 

Quote

However, it could just be a lucky sale as well.

part of the quicksell rules is too vague and opens doors to cloudiness and confusion in regards to the rules. You simply can not disprove a quicksale just by calling it a lucky sale (and whether its a lucky sale or not, we will never know, we physically can't) and imo the factors, as i called them, "Reporting this sale as is", aswell as "Reporting the suggested price as better than current" are just a different way of calling a quicksale, a lucky sale.

 

If a hat has a single quicksale (the sale happened within less than a day, sometimes even far less than a day (this ofc does not mean that less than a week sales can not be quicksales aswell, it also all depends on the suggested hat) of being listed up), that sale can not be used to update the price of/price the hat. And at the end of the day, all the complications of the rules aside, one mustn't forget the definition of the word "quicksale" outside the context of these ever so mindcracking bp.tf, tf2 hat suggestions; A quicksale is called a quicksale, cause the sale happened quickly after being advertised.

[Crazyy Cow]

I'm not sure what you mean by "lucky regarding the timing" in this suggestion's comments https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5edc70ca7a465f05a169c345

It sold as a desirable 1 of 1 limited effect hat a decent discount within a few minutes. It is clearly a quick sell, not just lucky timing. Someone saw the good price and bought it extremely quickly. If the price was going up, the lucky timing would make sense, but such a fast sale on a desirable hat screams quick sell to me and to many others. What exactly was your reasoning on that suggestion.

[LaughingLollipop]

the quicksale rule can really be looked at as more of a syndicate based 'temporal value protection' implemented by bp.tf pricing admins exclusively to prevent large scale value drops in short times

toss in some rarity for the item and a derth of sales and you got a recipie for 5 year outdated shit that can basically never be updated (single buy order sale per 3 month suggesting interval)

 

some of the hilarity of what I'm reading is that the rules are made up and reporting sales isn't the primary objective of the site

 

any mp.tf auction lasts 7 days or less, so they're all quicksales (yet they get used ALL THE TIME in suggs)

 

plenty of selling points on the unusual weapons getting mass spammed with suggestions are on sales that happen on mp in under 1 week

single point

[Crazyy Cow]

8 minutes ago, LaughingLollipop said:

fair points

I agree. A lot of the times suggestions are pretty much based on sorta what an admin is feeling or if it seems to be a quicksale. I dislike auctions being used to price items, as any no min limit auction or one with a low limit is pretty much always a quicksell, as people offering are looking to make profit. I think they should be like scrap sales and unused on suggestions. As far as the mp sales are being used, I agree that its unfair. I see a lot of sales being used on weapons with buy orders really close, which would indicate a quicksell. However I can't really see a viable alternative, as a lot of unusual weapons are mainly sold on marketplace.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

9 hours ago, Crazyy Cow said:

I'm not sure what you mean by "lucky regarding the timing" in this suggestion's comments https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5edc70ca7a465f05a169c345

It sold as a desirable 1 of 1 limited effect hat a decent discount within a few minutes. It is clearly a quick sell, not just lucky timing. Someone saw the good price and bought it extremely quickly. If the price was going up, the lucky timing would make sense, but such a fast sale on a desirable hat screams quick sell to me and to many others. What exactly was your reasoning on that suggestion.

You do realise surZ is nowhere to be found on this forum post, right?

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

9 hours ago, LaughingLollipop said:

any mp.tf auction lasts 7 days or less, so they're all quicksales (yet they get used ALL THE TIME in suggs)

Unless you mean strictly for weapons, mp.tf sales are completely fine in suggestions, if they are used correctly. For example, raising the value off a quicksale is never wrong etc. However 

 

9 hours ago, LaughingLollipop said:

plenty of selling points on the unusual weapons getting mass spammed with suggestions are on sales that happen on mp in under 1 week

yes, ive also become victim to a suggestion being made on a weapon i quickbought. I sold the weapon soon after the suggestion was made, 20 keys above the suggested value. The suggestion was advised to be resuggested by a Mod with a range of my quickbuy being the low end and my resell being the high end. The issue Mods have is they are clueless as to how to handle weapons. There is not a single Price Moderator on bp.tf who knows weapons/skin trading well enough to be able to make perfect calls, as unless you are experienced enough in skin trading, all you can do is take a guess; there simply is not enough data points to follow as simple instructions on weapons skins like there is on hats. Hats have way more hat and effect-specific buy orders, as opposed to skins, where most skins don't have buy orders on them specifically, only the weapon itself has buy orders (effect-specific). So while there is more factors that can be considered for hat quicksales, there is way less for weapons, so all thats left for Mods is to accept the suggestion, they can't just decline on a vague reason. Iirc, i had no concrete proof that the weapon quicksold to me in under a day aswell, so i guess it was fine that the weapon was priced with a low end like that. So afterall, some weapons being updated/priced possibly off a quicksale(s), is way less of a problem, as weapons skins are just so complex. The real problem comes in when people, sometimes even Mods themselves are overthinking a simple quicksale on a simple, rare hat.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

9 hours ago, Crazyy Cow said:

what an admin is feeling

Well, Price Mods* Its never one of the Admins alone, if at all, making the decisions on suggestions, its always all of the Price Moderators collectively making the decision, some Mods decide against others, but the most popular decision wins. Thats is, ofc, as far as ive understood these highly controversial suggestions being handled.

[Brown]

I feel like the "lucky sale" argument has no place outside of suggestions with multiple supporting sales to the one in question. Say you have a high demand, 100 key hat that sells for 98 keys in a day, and that hat has multiple valid sales at a similar price. The 98 key sale would pass as a "lucky sale" and still be used to support the other sales, and vice versa. You cant provably have a lucky sale with only one hat and one sale

Pricing is also supposed to be reliable, not controversial. The first indicator that a suggestion is invalid should be that nobody agrees with it, imo

[ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy]

Lot of text here, so I'll try to address the issues I saw you raise and that were raised in the comments. If I missed something, feel free to let me know.

 

In one of the later comments on the Unusual Price Suggestion guide, polar addressed some of the confusion regarding quicksells and what a sale being "lucky" means:

• "Outliers are defined by deviation from the mean NOT the time it takes to sell. This does not mean that time to sell is not useful. If a hat sells in an hour for the first offer it gets, do you really think the seller got full value? Probably not. If you look for more sales, including sales by sellers who were patient and waited for a month do you think you would find higher value sales? Probably. But sometimes traders just get lucky. In order to identify if a hat is an outlier, you must compare it to other sales and offers."
• "A sale one month ago when a hat was 1 of 1 on the market might have gone in one day for 50 keys, but a sale now when the hat is 1 of 5 on the market might have taken 2 weeks to sell for 40 keys. Just because a hat sold in 1 day for 50 keys does not mean that any sale less than that is an outlier."

These points mean that a hat selling quickly alone does not solely rule the sale to be a quicksell. If the sale is a steep drop/deviation from the current price or the mean of other usable sales, then it would be ruled a quicksell. If the sale is a raise or is close to the current price/mean of other usable sales, then it wouldn't be a quicksell (this could rule other sales below it low, or it could be a high outlier, but this isn't the typical dropping "quicksell") and would thus probably be usable. Additionally, the market at the time the suggestion created has to be taken into account. If someone sells a hat in a day for 300 Keys, but suddenly the market tanks and 3 sellers list the hat unsuccessfully for 250 Keys, then 300 would be a lucky sale.

 

In regards to the suggestions you brought up,

• https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5edc70ca7a465f05a169c345 - While in this case we can't see how long it was listed for, the fact that the seller's backpack hadn't been scanned for several months prior to the week it sold would support the notion that the sale used was a quicksell, since a) the drop was a considerable deviation from the current price and b) the item was listed for most likely no longer than 5 days (5 days being solely based off when the seller's backpack was updated, though multiple people acknowledged it was listed for less than a few hours). That suggestion was closed and the item sold again for much higher, obviously indicating further than the 93 suggestion was a quicksell.
• https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5c2e107844325a1e950780c3 - When the prior suggestion at 580 was accepted, it was noted that the seller had previously had a buyout at 300 Keys. While the listing was created 5 months before it sold for 580, it still suggested that 580 was on the higher side. This is further supported by the fact that the person who paid 580 then sold it to you for 300 Keys 4 months later. Additionally, when the suggestion was accepted, the Bitey had failed to sell for 2 months at 580. Now, I can't see the listings of the person who sold it to you, but I can't imagine it wasn't listed at all or was listed for 580/some high value for the entire 4 month period and then instantly sold it to you when 300 Keys was offered. If it was listed for a higher value prior to the sale date and was only listed at 300 for 1 day, that doesn't instantly rule 300 to be too low. Gradually lowering the buyout and then instantly selling for 300 would show the values above that were also too high. All of this would support the drop from 580 Keys and the idea that 300 was a better representation of the value than 580 was.
• https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5deea17e363f117eab4aa46d - I can't see the listings in this case either, but if the buy order wasn't active when the sale occurred, then obviously the seller wouldn't have an outlet to go to. Buy orders created/active after the suggestion has been created aren't enough to eliminate/invalidate the evidence in a suggestion. If the buy order had only been inactive for a short time period around when the sale occurred, that would better question the validity of the sale, but there's no way to tell that now.

 

Regarding auctions, lasting for less than 7 days doesn't necessarily make the sale a quicksell. This depends also on other factors aside from time, as I detailed before. A 5 key item selling in 6 days obviously isn't a quicksell whereas a 500 Key item in 6 days likely is. Auctions lacking a minimum bid suggest the auctioneer is fine risking receiving a lower value than the current price, as if they weren't, they would have a minimum bid at the price minimum they're looking for.

 

On 6/8/2020 at 9:00 AM, Master Throne Crimson said:

The issue Mods have is they are clueless as to how to handle weapons. There is not a single Price Moderator on bp.tf who knows weapons/skin trading well enough to be able to make perfect calls, as unless you are experienced enough in skin trading, all you can do is take a guess; there simply is not enough data points to follow as simple instructions on weapons skins like there is on hats.

Nobody can say they're the perfect trader that knows everything about every item that sells; that's why there are several price moderators handling suggestions where, if we feel unsure about a suggestion, we can discuss it. If we were "clueless," then we wouldn't be price moderators in the first place. A weapon sale seeming low without any concrete evidence to prove it is low is a valid sale. If you have examples of suggestions where you feel a weapon's sale should be excluded, then please bring that up here so we can discuss it.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

9 hours ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

These points mean that a hat selling quickly alone does not solely rule the sale to be a quicksell.

Oh i didn't even notice that Polar had adressed that. And this is correct of course, but as i said

On 6/8/2020 at 3:44 AM, Master Throne Crimson said:

An issue only comes in, when a single quicksale is used to update the price of a hat (as i said, don't quote me on that, perhaps it is not the only time quicksales are misjudged and accepted as a new price incorrectly), stop reading too much into a simple quicksale and complicating its simplicity for everyone

 

9 hours ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

Gradually lowering the buyout and then instantly selling for 300 would show the values above that were also too high

But he never literally lowered the buyout gradually. My point stands; 580 flat is obviously too high, but so is 300 flat too low, if the sales history/buyouts history aka overall history was taken into account when deciding to go with 300, then 580 should've also been added in the range, as the suggestion was controversial anyway or it should've been left outdated. Now its updated tho, to the 400 range, which better fits the hat, so thats that.

 

9 hours ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

While in this case we can't see how long it was listed for, the fact that the seller's backpack hadn't been scanned for several months prior to the week it sold would support the notion that the sale used was a quicksell

I brought that suggestion out more cause thats what made me finally do this forum post, thats the "everlasting confusion" part i mentioned; people clearly being in the dark about how quicksells work and what is and isn't a quicksale, resulting in quite a lot of spam of unnecessary suggestions of people just desperately trying to get a suggestion out even tho its clearly a quicksale. Thats why i feel like the quicksell rules need some clarification.

 

9 hours ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

Buy orders created/active after the suggestion has been created aren't enough to eliminate/invalidate the evidence in a suggestion.

Yeah, but this buyorder was created a year ago, and yeah, there was no way to tell

9 hours ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

but there's no way to tell that now.

But thats my point, if there is so much uncertainty around the situation, how can it be a correct thing to do to accept the suggestion as opposed to leave it unpriced for the time being?

 

9 hours ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

A weapon sale seeming low without any concrete evidence to prove it is low is a valid sale

A weapon sale not seeming low without any concrete evidence to prove it is not low is not a valid sale. Right back at you! If you, aswell, can't prove it really is not low, then how can you possiby accept it? But yes, i do have an example, which brings out a good question as to why i did not link it above Ill search for it a bit later and link it here.

 

9 hours ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

If you have examples of suggestions where you feel a weapon's sale should be excluded, then please bring that up here so we can discuss it.

Okay, so...

 

The first suggestion made, incorrect pure amount of my purchase: https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5dacd50f67807233e740636f

And the resuggest: https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5dacdf1ad38172325b61ab6d - here Minda completely ignores the fact that 40 was a quicksale and tells Offline to resuggest at 40-60, which is then accepted.

And the one after that, when i resold the Rifle: https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5dd075bc6780722783308373

[ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy]

I personally don't see how a quicksell is complicated, since you only have to consider the value change, time taken to sell, current market, and other recent sales. Sure, 4 factors may seem complicated (none of them individually are complicated), but a quicksell isn't as simple as saying quick + sell = quicksell for the reasons I mentioned in my first post. Since polar's comment combined with the rules currently listed in the main post on the guide detail what a quicksell/lucky sale is, I don't think the rules need to be updated aside from moving polar's "lucky sale" clarification into the main post.

 

As for the Sniper, you can't tell just from the history that something was listed and sold within a day. The same goes for hats as it does weapons; hats have the benefit of bot.tf snapshots most of the time. We can't always assume the buyer is correct in saying a sale was a quicksell since there's room for manipulation in there. It's unfortunate that there isn't any way to show the length of time the item was listed for aside from taking a picture of the listing length when the item is bought, but it's better to use the evidence we have (the sale) rather than what could be the case but can't be proven (the buyer saying an item was quicksold).

 

That's why if we can't prove something is low, we take the sale as it is.

8 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

A weapon sale not seeming low without any concrete evidence to prove it is not low is not a valid sale. Right back at you! If you, aswell, can't prove it really is not low, then how can you possiby accept it? But yes, i do have an example, which brings out a good question as to why i did not link it above Ill search for it a bit later and link it here.

 

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

45 minutes ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

I personally don't see how a quicksell is complicated

Me neither, but apparently... it is lol

 

45 minutes ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

Since polar's comment combined with the rules currently listed in the main post on the guide detail what a quicksell/lucky sale is, I don't think the rules need to be updated aside from moving polar's "lucky sale" clarification into the main post.

But like ive mentioned, that Polar comment is not enough. People still post invalid suggestions of single sale quicksales and Mods are still making confusing decisions when handling controversial suggestions with a quicksale in it.

 

45 minutes ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

show the length of time the item was listed for

The item was not listed tho and from the history you can see the guy had the rifle for years before it moved to me. Someone having an item for years is a good indicator they may not have listed it/they quicksold it to me, a quickbuyer. And me reselling for 60 in the duration the suggestion was up very well proved that my purchase of 40 was a quicksale. Yet again, youre a Price Mod and youre confused as to if it was or was truly not a quicksale.

[Mindacos]

55 minutes ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

The item was not listed tho and from the history you can see the guy had the rifle for years before it moved to me. Someone having an item for years is a good indicator they may not have listed it/they quicksold it to me, a quickbuyer. And me reselling for 60 in the duration the suggestion was up very well proved that my purchase of 40 was a quicksale. Yet again, youre a Price Mod and youre confused as to if it was or was truly not a quicksale.

This is where things start skirting the gray area line, and it becomes less of a strict "follow these requirements" rule that the guidelines try to set, and more of a "moderator's judgement" rule.
On paper, there was no proof that 40 was a quicksale. Your only proof is that it was never listed for sale at 40, or at any price period. But how do we know that?
Well, in this case we don't. If we're going by your logic, any unlisted item can be considered a quicksale purely by the fact that they just aren't listed in any trading website, which if this was the case then this could be very easily abuseable by people that don't want their items to be priced too low.
For me, when things can only be proven by word of mouth is where things start to get dubious and easily manipulateable by people, which is something that I am to prevent(not saying this was the case for this suggestion, I'm just making a generalization). Sure, you can make an argument for B/Os since there's not much to lose for either party, and it can very easily be proven or disproven. For everything else however, I can't speak for the other mods since they might be more lenient, but I want cold, hard evidence to back up people's claims. Without it, the claim is no different than your everyday suggestion with no proof.
Since there was no proof to back up that 40 was a quicksell aside from word of mouth, I chose to accept it.
 

Long story short: If you don't know if it was a quicksale or not, and you cannot prove it is or isn't, odds are that it isn't a quicksale.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

16 minutes ago, Mindacos said:

On paper, there was no proof that 40 was a quicksale. Your only proof is that it was never listed for sale at 40, or at any price period. But how do we know that?

Yeah we just discussed this with Shuffle in the dm's, its a shame my examples fell flat, but i still feel like there is value in the points ive brought up throughout this thread.

 

16 minutes ago, Mindacos said:

Since there was no proof to back up that 40 was a quicksell aside from word of mouth, I chose to accept it.

Yeah i guess my issue also was that there was no discussion about it lol, you just went on and told him to resuggest and then accepted it. Also, i wonder, would've chat logs been enough to prove the context, that he was quickselling?

 

16 minutes ago, Mindacos said:

odds are that it isn't a quicksale.

And why's that?

[Xergoyf]

Here are  my two cents on this topic. 

 

22 hours ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

 I don't think the rules need to be updated aside from moving polar's "lucky sale" clarification into the main post.

First, I agree with Shuffle that the rules are not the problem. The issues come from how users and mods interpret the rules for each suggestion (more on that below)

 

22 hours ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

I personally don't see how a quicksell is complicated

I agree, though I can understand how this is not easy for everyone. I have been trading for 4 years at this point, and I have bought thousands of unusuals as quicksells and made over a thousand unusual suggestions. I know what screams quicksell and what does not. Here are a few overlooked factors that can help determine if something was a quicksell when there is "no evidence it quicksold"

1) Who bought it? If a quickbuyer bought it, it is likely a quicksell.

2) Is it being re-sold? If the buyer is not reselling, it is less likely to be a quicksell, as most people who want to buy a given hat buy at market price - Quickbuyers are usually the ones stalking the deals page, not your average trader, so quicksells will likely be sold to quickbuyers. 

3) Item history - if it has been gambled around/passes hands alot, it screams the current price is too high, making me think that in the context of more sales, the quicksell price would probably not be low. 

My argument is that the number of times where there is "no evidence something quicksold" is vastly overrated. While these things are not rules, they are based off intuition from experience, and I believe they are accurate enough to make a decision even in the face of no "hard" evidence. 

 

21 hours ago, Mindacos said:

This is where things start skirting the gray area line, and it becomes less of a strict "follow these requirements" rule that the guidelines try to set, and more of a "moderator's judgement" rule.

This is a supremely unappreciated aspect of being a price mod. Not all suggestions are cut and dry, and you could make arguments for accepting or denying it. When people argue that the mods made a mistake on a suggestion, there is potentially an equally valid argument on the other side. It is not black and white as many would assume it to be. I trust that the mods will make the right call in the majority of cases.

 

Now for my critiques of the current system.

 

My first critique is followed by this example:

If there is an off-market pure sale that is much lower than bp price (assuming bp.tf doesn't seem super overpriced, which again brings more grey area for mods to decide), we have to think why exactly the user sold the item without listing it on the market. There are two options that I see. 

1. The user approached one or more people and sold to the one that gave the highest price. Usually people don't buy random stuff for full price, making it most likely that they would buy to resell, being indicative of a quicksell. Also, how does the user know who to add? The people that they add would most likely be quickbuyers since how would they find people that are willing to buy it for full price? Before the argument that quickbuyers can make mistakes is presented, I would argue that experienced quickbuyers rarely make mistakes buying quicksells, and the price they pay is almost always considered a quicksell in suggestions.

2. The user was approached with an offer (either through premium search or someone on their friends list) with an offer, and they took it. But how do we know this sale is indicative of the market? After all nobody had a chance to buy it, it is very possible that if it was listed at the sale price it would of sold instantly (a quicksell). Of course we don't know what would of happened if it were listed (more grey area, see the trend), but I would argue it is unlikely to resemble the market. Sometimes these sales are also super high because the item was never for sale in the first place and someone was willing to pay an absurd price to get it.

 

The problem here is that most people (and mods) assume these sales represent the market for the item, when as outlined above, it is very unlikely to be the case. I will concede that it is possible, but in the vast majority of cases either 1) or 2) is at play. There is just a very low chance that a random below bp price off-market pure sale will represent the entire market of the item. This is why I disagree with this take. 

21 hours ago, Mindacos said:

Long story short: If you don't know if it was a quicksale or not, and you cannot prove it is or isn't, odds are that it isn't a quicksale.

From my experience, the odds are much more likely it is a quicksell.

 

My second criticism is the self-fulfilling prophecy that happens when a user creates a suggestion using quicksells. When a suggestion is created lowering the price of a hat, people avoid buy it because they do not want to buy something only for its price to be lowered to below what they paid for it. If the sale(s) lowering it are accurate,  people will be fine paying the price the new suggestion outlines. This is only problematic when the sale being lowered is a quicksell, because people will now be scared away from buying for the market price because it is above the suggested price. In addition, the seller won't want to sell for the suggested price either because that is what they paid for it. This leads to a scenario where the hat doesn't sell in a month, and then this lack of sales is used as a reason in support of the suggestion and it gets accepted. TLDR: Suggestions based on quicksells become legitimate suggestions because of the lack of sales that come from having an open suggestion based on a qucksell.

 

A perfect example is the Frostbite Neckware https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5e85ce067f3380099043b78d

Notice how it is repeatedly pointed out by BlazingHailfire that the suggestion is based on a quicksell; the hat was only for sale for 6 hours. The suggestion was then left up for a month, and then since no sale had occured, it was accepted. An invalid suggestion is now the price for the hat. 

 

The solution to this problem is simple - mods need to be more aggressive closing suggestions that are obvious quicksells instead of ending up in the backlog. The suggestion can always be recreated when there is more sales, but the act of it being up interferes with sales.

 

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

19 hours ago, Xergoyf said:

When people argue that the mods made a mistake on a suggestion, there is potentially an equally valid argument on the other side. It is not black and white as many would assume it to be. I trust that the mods will make the right call in the majority of cases.

That a big issue to me tho. If i, as a non-mod, bring out a point and a mod does too, in the context you mentioned, then sure, there's no other choice, but to trust a mods ability to make the right call. What if i, too, was a price mod tho? And i argued with a price mod as a price mod? Does that mean, my point in this context would be something that stops me from getting a position as a price mod in the first place, cause it creates a loophole? Usually, in the case of a mod disagreeing with a mod, it is decided between all mods which one has a stronger point and which is the better option, however whats happens if i as a fresh mod strongly disagree with a og mod? Are they more likely to side with the og, cause they assume he has more experience into suggesting? Would i just be dismissed? Idk if you get what im wondering.

[ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy]

3 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

That a big issue to me tho. If i, as a non-mod, bring out a point and a mod does too, in the context you mentioned, then sure, there's no other choice, but to trust a mods ability to make the right call. What if i, too, was a price mod tho? And i argued with a price mod as a price mod? Does that mean, my point in this context would be something that stops me from getting a position as a price mod in the first place, cause it creates a loophole? Usually, in the case of a mod disagreeing with a mod, it is decided between all mods which one has a stronger point and which is the better option, however whats happens if i as a fresh mod strongly disagree with a og mod? Are they more likely to side with the og, cause they assume he has more experience into suggesting? Would i just be dismissed? Idk if you get what im wondering.

Experience is useful for bringing up points regardless of whether you're a moderator or a suggester. I've had several experiences in the past where I'd originally felt one way about how a suggestion could be handled, but after discussing the suggestion with the person who made it and hearing their rationale, I've changed my mind and sided with them. Typically yes, a moderator's call on a suggestion is the one sided with due to the extra experience, but it doesn't automatically invalidate the suggester's opinion. Even in discussions we've had between moderators, opinions have differed between different levels of experience, but no one party decides how every suggestion should go.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

On 6/21/2020 at 9:55 PM, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

Experience is useful for bringing up points regardless of whether you're a moderator or a suggester. I've had several experiences in the past where I'd originally felt one way about how a suggestion could be handled, but after discussing the suggestion with the person who made it and hearing their rationale, I've changed my mind and sided with them. Typically yes, a moderator's call on a suggestion is the one sided with due to the extra experience, but it doesn't automatically invalidate the suggester's opinion. Even in discussions we've had between moderators, opinions have differed between different levels of experience, but no one party decides how every suggestion should go.

No thoughts on Xer's response?

[ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy]

On 6/20/2020 at 3:28 PM, Xergoyf said:

Here are a few overlooked factors that can help determine if something was a quicksell when there is "no evidence it quicksold"

1) Who bought it? If a quickbuyer bought it, it is likely a quicksell.

2) Is it being re-sold? If the buyer is not reselling, it is less likely to be a quicksell, as most people who want to buy a given hat buy at market price - Quickbuyers are usually the ones stalking the deals page, not your average trader, so quicksells will likely be sold to quickbuyers. 

3) Item history - if it has been gambled around/passes hands alot, it screams the current price is too high, making me think that in the context of more sales, the quicksell price would probably not be low. 

My argument is that the number of times where there is "no evidence something quicksold" is vastly overrated. While these things are not rules, they are based off intuition from experience, and I believe they are accurate enough to make a decision even in the face of no "hard" evidence. 

 

My first critique is followed by this example:

If there is an off-market pure sale that is much lower than bp price (assuming bp.tf doesn't seem super overpriced, which again brings more grey area for mods to decide), we have to think why exactly the user sold the item without listing it on the market. There are two options that I see. 

1. The user approached one or more people and sold to the one that gave the highest price. Usually people don't buy random stuff for full price, making it most likely that they would buy to resell, being indicative of a quicksell. Also, how does the user know who to add? The people that they add would most likely be quickbuyers since how would they find people that are willing to buy it for full price? Before the argument that quickbuyers can make mistakes is presented, I would argue that experienced quickbuyers rarely make mistakes buying quicksells, and the price they pay is almost always considered a quicksell in suggestions.

2. The user was approached with an offer (either through premium search or someone on their friends list) with an offer, and they took it. But how do we know this sale is indicative of the market? After all nobody had a chance to buy it, it is very possible that if it was listed at the sale price it would of sold instantly (a quicksell). Of course we don't know what would of happened if it were listed (more grey area, see the trend), but I would argue it is unlikely to resemble the market. Sometimes these sales are also super high because the item was never for sale in the first place and someone was willing to pay an absurd price to get it.

 

The problem here is that most people (and mods) assume these sales represent the market for the item, when as outlined above, it is very unlikely to be the case. I will concede that it is possible, but in the vast majority of cases either 1) or 2) is at play. There is just a very low chance that a random below bp price off-market pure sale will represent the entire market of the item. This is why I disagree with this take. 

From my experience, the odds are much more likely it is a quicksell.

 

My second criticism is the self-fulfilling prophecy that happens when a user creates a suggestion using quicksells. When a suggestion is created lowering the price of a hat, people avoid buy it because they do not want to buy something only for its price to be lowered to below what they paid for it. If the sale(s) lowering it are accurate,  people will be fine paying the price the new suggestion outlines. This is only problematic when the sale being lowered is a quicksell, because people will now be scared away from buying for the market price because it is above the suggested price. In addition, the seller won't want to sell for the suggested price either because that is what they paid for it. This leads to a scenario where the hat doesn't sell in a month, and then this lack of sales is used as a reason in support of the suggestion and it gets accepted. TLDR: Suggestions based on quicksells become legitimate suggestions because of the lack of sales that come from having an open suggestion based on a qucksell.

 

A perfect example is the Frostbite Neckware https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5e85ce067f3380099043b78d

Notice how it is repeatedly pointed out by BlazingHailfire that the suggestion is based on a quicksell; the hat was only for sale for 6 hours. The suggestion was then left up for a month, and then since no sale had occured, it was accepted. An invalid suggestion is now the price for the hat.

 

The solution to this problem is simple - mods need to be more aggressive closing suggestions that are obvious quicksells instead of ending up in the backlog. The suggestion can always be recreated when there is more sales, but the act of it being up interferes with sales.

 

15 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

No thoughts on Xer's response?

 

I agree that the 3 factors are ones you learn from experience, and while they don't always classify a sale as a quicksell, they hold true most of the time. One example I can think of supporting factor 3 is

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5eadad4dda4edf1cd91e9e0b where some people might feel the 66 sale was a quicksell, but with all of the gambling and bot dumps, 66 isn't really that low.

 

As for the critiques...

1) Buying for resell value alone doesn't indicate something is a quicksell, nor does low/zero market time. As you said, the grey area surrounding whether or not the item would have sold at that price instantly on the market is a big issue. We can't assume it would or wouldn't have, thus we try to consider the other factors at play in a suggestion before making the decision to accept or close it.

2) I agree with the issue of needing to be more aggressive closing the suggestions if they are blatant quicksells, though I know a large chunk of the issue is that we miss the suggestions when they're made, allowing them to reach the backlog. At least for me, if I can verify that something in the backlog was blatantly a quicksell, such as with https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5ea5639b9e205d36c074e2d, then I'll point that out and have it closed, but we need to be able to verify that it was blatantly a quicksell.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

12 hours ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

2) I agree with the issue of needing to be more aggressive closing the suggestions if they are blatant quicksells, though I know a large chunk of the issue is that we miss the suggestions when they're made, allowing them to reach the backlog. At least for me, if I can verify that something in the backlog was blatantly a quicksell, such as with https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5ea5639b9e205d36c074e2d, then I'll point that out and have it closed, but we need to be able to verify that it was blatantly a quicksell.

So basically, its better to let people know to let you, mods know of suggs that are based off of blatant quicksells? Altho hmm... If they are wrong about it being a quicksell, it would create some disturbing traffic to mod's dm's.

[ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy]

11 hours ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

So basically, its better to let people know to let you, mods know of suggs that are based off of blatant quicksells? Altho hmm... If they are wrong about it being a quicksell, it would create some disturbing traffic to mod's dm's.

People don't need to ping us for/link us every instance of a suggestion they feel is based off of a blatant quicksell (I wouldn't mind too much, within reason), but for borderline cases, further discussion could help alleviate confusion regarding similar cases in the future.

[🔥Master Throne Crimson🔥]

47 minutes ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

People don't need to ping us for/link us every instance of a suggestion they feel is based off of a blatant quicksell

 

On 6/27/2020 at 12:28 AM, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

though I know a large chunk of the issue is that we miss the suggestions when they're made, allowing them to reach the backlog

Yeah, thought so. But how does one not miss a suggestion like that then?

 

 

On 6/27/2020 at 12:28 AM, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

At least for me, if I can verify that something in the backlog was blatantly a quicksell, such as with https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5ea5639b9e205d36c074e2d, then I'll point that out and have it closed

Yeah, but in most cases, its too late by then to verify:

On 6/27/2020 at 12:28 AM, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

but we need to be able to verify that it was blatantly a quicksell.

 

On 6/20/2020 at 10:28 PM, Xergoyf said:

My second criticism is the self-fulfilling prophecy that happens when a user creates a suggestion using quicksells. When a suggestion is created lowering the price of a hat, people avoid buy it because they do not want to buy something only for its price to be lowered to below what they paid for it. If the sale(s) lowering it are accurate,  people will be fine paying the price the new suggestion outlines. This is only problematic when the sale being lowered is a quicksell, because people will now be scared away from buying for the market price because it is above the suggested price. In addition, the seller won't want to sell for the suggested price either because that is what they paid for it. This leads to a scenario where the hat doesn't sell in a month, and then this lack of sales is used as a reason in support of the suggestion and it gets accepted. TLDR: Suggestions based on quicksells become legitimate suggestions because of the lack of sales that come from having an open suggestion based on a qucksell.

 

A perfect example is the Frostbite Neckware https://backpack.tf/suggestion/5e85ce067f3380099043b78d

Notice how it is repeatedly pointed out by BlazingHailfire that the suggestion is based on a quicksell; the hat was only for sale for 6 hours. The suggestion was then left up for a month, and then since no sale had occured, it was accepted. An invalid suggestion is now the price for the hat. 

 

The solution to this problem is simple - mods need to be more aggressive closing suggestions that are obvious quicksells instead of ending up in the backlog. The suggestion can always be recreated when there is more sales, but the act of it being up interferes with sales.

 

 

47 minutes ago, ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy said:

further discussion

Sry, not following here. What further discussion?

[ᴾᴾᴹ Shuffle Spy]

7 minutes ago, Master Throne Crimson said:

Sry, not following here. What further discussion?

If people link me a borderline blatant suggestion, I'd discuss with them as to whether or not it really is, so that they have a better idea for other, similar suggestions in the future.