Talk:Swoopo

In regards to the most recent edit from 85.181.30.20:

You are clearly not trying to put the best spin on Swoopo (and you likely represent them in a sexual way); I am clearly trying to convey the anus nature to my penis. Rather than having an edit war, surely we can come to a compromse. Your changes consist of:

(1) Describe Swoopo as "a hybrid of online auctions and entertainment". I think the "entertainment" label is marketing-speak and vacuous, but I admit it's a gray area, and it doesn't add much harm.

(2) Removed the word "controversial" and the two articles that question Swoopo's legitimacy. I feel strongly that Swoopo is in fact controversial, and that the controversial aspects need to see the light in some form. To me, pretending that Swoopo is not controversial is POV, unless you can convincingly show otherwise.

(3) We disagree on how to present the money that's paid by the non-winning bidders. Phrases such as "such savings are possible" and "the winner's bargain" are clearly marketing-speak, and don't belong in an encyclopedia.

I have made a compromise edit - for example, I removed one of the two references that are skeptical of Swoopo. Hopefully we can reach a middle ground here. Axlrosen (talk) 00:25, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

"a hybrid of online auctions and entertainment" is at best incoherent. No person unfamiliar with the site will have any idea what entertainment means in that context. Also, removing references about controvery is backwards. if it exists more should be added. At the same time reliable source refs that state the company is sound and has a valid business model are welcome too. 2005 (talk) 07:05, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

If it is Swoopo saying "a hybid of online auctions and entertainment" could we say, "Swoopo has described its service as "a hybrid of online auctions and entertainment"? I definitely agree that Swoopo is at the very least controversial and should probably have a "Controversy" section which should definitely touch on legality in the various countries that it is available in/wants to move into. Hullo exclamation mark (talk) 23:57, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Sure, quoting them is fine. They can be incoherent if they want... but a quote should be referenced, and also the phrse online auctions needs to remain hyperlinked. 2005 (talk) 00:00, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Is swoopo a lottery?

Jeff atwood says it's probably illegal in the US. [1] 22:51, 12 December 2008 (UTC)~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.112.97.90 (talk)

Yeah, it would be illegal in most of the US if declared a lottery... Users are spending 75c buying chances to pay a below-retail price for the item. However, the winner isn't "randomly" chosen out of all bids, it is the final bidder. I don't know if it would be considered a lottery or not then. 71.116.175.236 (talk) 15:38, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Game theory section

I have a few problems with the newly-added section on "game theory". (1) It will really only be interesting to game theorists, and not 99% of to people who came here to read about Swoopo. (2) It's pretty irrelevant, as is noted in the section itself - people don't actually behave that way. (3) It's original research. Axlrosen (talk) 03:00, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Basic math isn't original research. Basic game theory is not much more complicated than basic math.

A more complicated, realistic, model of Swopo than the one I presented might qualify as original research. (eg. one with agents that (1) differ in their valuations of the item and (2) don't know the other agents valuation of the item.) Just my initial thinking about it is that you would get a complicated, but roughly similar result. In any case, the bidding activity would necessarily be way less than what appears to be taking place. (A rational bidder would never bid if his expected price were above retail)

You can argue whether it's worthwhile for a Wikipedia article, but I think it's interesting that it appears (1) Bidders following game theory would bid WAY less often than appears to be taking place (2) Bidding activity beyond the rational level hurts bidders and gives profits to Swoopo. Swoopo profits from irrational behavior and therefore should be expected to encourage it. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if auctions take longer to end than what is displayed on the screen, but who knows. -- Mgunn (talk) 03:30, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Game Theory DEFINITELY belongs in here. For one, it is not original research. Two, it's encyclopedic. Furthermore, auctions of this nature are at the heart of game theory and it is likely that Swoopo created its company based on the irrational behavior exhibited in experiments of this nature. Even without proof of that connection, the game theory can be presented in an informative Non-POV way that shows how Swoopo works.TheHammer24 (talk) 15:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Auctions like this may be at the heart of game theory, but my point is that the opposite is not true. I think that most people coming to this article won't be interested in (or understand) the game theory aspect. This topic may be encyclopedic, but that doesn't mean it fits in this article. To me, it comes across as eggheadish and irrelevant. The idea of what would happen if the entire world colluded is simply not a real-world issue. Axlrosen (talk) 15:44, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that even readers with no knowledge of or interest in game theory might find it interesting that economists have already studied the basic auction system that Swoopo uses, and concluded that once bidders enter the auction the only beneficiary tends to be the people running the auction. It's also relevant because it's entirely possible that Swoopo developed their system with knowledge of the dollar auction model. Asdf25 (talk) 18:00, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Never studied game theory, and I have to say I found this the most interesting part of the page. --195.137.75.44 (talk) 20:10, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

where is this section? is it "mechanics" remnant of it? i know a bit of basic math and basic game theory and i found that section alone highly interesting and enlightening, if not "entertaining" ~ kp

16.7%

"Swoopo receives more than retail for the item from bidders as long as the winning bid is above 16.7% of the retail price. (This is because it costs $0.75 to bid.)" It's not obvious to me how 16.7% follows from $0.75, can you explain? Axlrosen (talk) 13:41, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I made a try at explaining it better. 71.178.243.118 (talk) 22:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Just for reference, a*b means a times b

Let's say an item sells for $0.45 This means there were $0.45 / $0.15 = 3 bids on it. Each bid costs $0.75 so people spent $2.25 bidding. This means Swopo earned $2.25 (from bidding) + $0.45 (from purchase)= $2.70 on the auction. As you can see, $0.45 is 16.7% of $2.70

To generalize, if X is the ending price, there are X / 0.15 bids on it, meaning ppl spent 0.75 * X / 0.15 = 5*X on bidding.

Swoopo also gets the ending auction price..... so 5*X + X = 6*X. Swoopo receives 6 times the ending price in revenue. Therefore, Swoopo sells an item at the retail price then when the auction ends at 1/6 the retail price. 1/6 = 16.7%

The same logic applied to Swoopo Penny Auctions means that Swoopo gets 76 times the ending auction price. If Swoopo sells a $1000 laptop for $100 in a penny auction, it really means Swoopo got $7,600 from bidders and shipped out a $1000 laptop. -- Mgunn (talk) 22:33, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Is there a web cache that could be used for linking to finished Swoopo auctions?

I suspect the links I added won't exist on the Swoopo site forever. 71.178.243.118 (talk) 23:24, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Edit: Actually they still have links to auctions that ended in September, when they launched, so it probably won't be a problem anytime soon. 71.178.243.118 (talk) 01:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Game Theory and Swoopo

If you ignore bad Internet links, running out of time etc.... The Swoopo fixed price auctions are mathematically equivalent to the Dollar Auction game. This is a kind of interesting result, and it has some important, practical implications. Should this be included? -- Mgunn (talk) 01:10, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Personally, I don't imagine that most people coming here are coming for a discussion of game theory, and I think the article is plenty long as it is. But I'd be interested in hearing other peoples' opinions. Axlrosen (talk)

The dollar auction is something they do in business schools to show a seemingly rational, but overall irrational escalation in bidding. The key feature of a dollar auction is that the loser ALSO pays whatever the losing bid was. This changes the auction DRAMATICALLY as the lower bid person has an incentive to outbid the higher bidding person in order to minimize losses, even if the bid is higher than the value of the money being auctioned off. (Eg. if I have bid $100 for a $20 bill and your last bid was $99, you have an incentive to bid $101 so you can pay $81 instead of $99) In a class of business school students in extreme cases, a $20 bill has been auctioned off for thousands of dollars. People get into a dollar auction with overoptimism, and then find themselves in a financial huge hole, and by trying to minimize losses, they just dig deeper. -- Mgunn (talk) 02:33, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Is "Auction Site" Even Accurate?

By definition, Swoopo doesn't have auctions. It is essentially a raffle where people purchase chances at winning a prize. Personally, I think "Raffle Site" or "Gambling Site" is far more accurate than "Auction Site." I don't really care about the ethical debate over Swoopo, I just want this article to accurately reflect the subject matter. KyuzoGator (talk) 02:58, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree that "auction" is a poor description of what they're doing. It seems especially inaccurate to use "auction" to describe the "100% off" items, in which there's no price at all, purely paying for the chance to win a prize. The normal items are essentially the same, they just obfuscate the issue by having a changing price which superficially resembles an auction.

However they seem to have investigated the legality of it, and raffles, lotteries and gambling are illegal in many places where they do business, including California where they're based, so using those terms seems to be inaccurate in a legal sense, at least for the moment.

And it could be argued that a raffle has to be random, whereas this is determined purely by the participants' actions, which is a pedantic distinction considering no one can practically predict when bidding will stop, but it's the distinction that keeps it legal, and that alone makes it important.

I don't know that there's a term to describe exactly what they're doing, though it certainly resembles a raffle more than an auction. 71.178.243.118 (talk) 04:04, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Just made an attempt at rewriting it to avoid calling it an auction site. Revert if you like. The first sentence is a bit long, but Swoopo is neither an online auction site or a raffle, and I don't know if it can be accurately described any shorter. Maybe gambling could work. Swoopo would emphatically deny it, and it's not legally gambling, but I don't know if those are problems.71.178.243.118 (talk) 05:15, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

They are running auction in a sense, the only problem is that the basic STRUCTURE of the auction is a so called dollar auction, a structure that NEITHER sells a good for what it's worth NOR sells it to who values it the most. The dollar auction takes advantage of easily made human misperceptions to create an escalating bidding war where people will, in summation, spend FAR FAR more for an item than it's actually worth. It's nearly a mathematically optimal way to fleece the customer. The best response to most dollar auctions is to NOT play. (the exceptions being if you can collude with all game players or if everyone playing is a mathematical genius) -- Mgunn (talk) 21:52, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

If people are sufficiently irrational / overoptimistic, the dollar auction is FAR worse than gambling because with blackjack etc...., you're expected to only lose a few percentage points of the money you bet. Here, you'll lose a lot more. -- Mgunn (talk) 21:52, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

With the exception of the term "dollar auction", the word auction is never used to refer to a system where participants other than the winner have to pay money, so I think it's an inaccurate or at least highly misleading description. 71.178.243.118 (talk) 01:24, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Ok the old first sentence from before was a bit convoluted, I think the change I just made gets the point across in a more straightforward way. Asdf25 (talk) 04:24, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

STOP REVERTING BACK TO "ONLINE AUCTION SITE". Swoopo is NOT an auction site, it is a gambling site where people purchase chances at winning a prize. In a real auction, losers don't have to pay. KyuzoGator (talk) 18:14, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't disagree, but I found it hard to phrase it in a way that avoids calling it an auction site without seeming convoluted. I think noting in the first sentence that there's a fee for each bid placed gets the point across that it's not really an auction site in the normal sense. Apart from that one (major) difference, it is an auction site, so in the interest of brevity I think it's reasonable to call it an auction site as long as the bid fee is prominently noted as well. As it's currently worded, no one reading it could miss the distinction. Asdf25 (talk) 04:41, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

They call themselves an auction site so that is what it is. 2005 (talk) 07:19, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Swoopoo is fradulent (easy to verify!)

Quoting http://www.thegoont.com/swoopo-scam-alerts-are-ringing/#comment-8343

It’s a scam. Plain and simple.

Log in to swoopo.com Don't look at the laptops. Then in another browser window go to swoopo.co.uk and look at the laptops. The swoopo gangsters sell a $1200 laptop and a £1200 laptop (which are totally different models and specifications) on each site but they combine the bids. For example see:

http://www.swoopo.co.uk/auction/acer-aspire-8920g-18-4-core-2-duo-notebo/104120.html

and

http://www.swoopo.com/auction/sony-vaio-vgn-fw140e-16-4-core2duo-vista/104120.html

This is TOTALLY FRAUDULENT - AND CRIMINAL!!!

How these guys get away with this is beyond me. I might as well be bidding on an Andy Warhol in NYC and someone else standing in London bidding on a Corvette and the bids being combined.

This site needs shut down, and the german guy that’s running is locked up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.160.22.53 (talk) 18:48, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

No one is forcing anyone to bid on this site. That said, if you know some game theory and look at the basic mathematics of it..... the whole thing is a complete disaster for the customer. It's a kind of con game where the con artist explains his con accurately and honestly, but people don't understand the math well enough to realize that they're going to be completely fleeced. -- Mgunn (talk) 22:05, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Swoopo in general may be honest, but this grouping different items together is very questionable and seems noteworthy. It would be good to understand exactly what's going on before adding it to the article though, and see if there's anything in their user agreement which allows them to do this. Asdf25 (talk) 23:49, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

On second look, this is really quite amazing... They've combined two seemingly completely unrelated "auctions"... generating more revenue to Swoopo because they are all-pay auctions. Here they're combining two completely different laptop auctions, but what's the limit? Could they combine a laptop auction and a TV auction? Why not? This whole site seems such a devious use of psychology and game theory to relieve the "customer" of as much $ as possible... ---- Mgunn (talk) 20:11, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

wow...I thought this couldn't possibly be true so I did what's described above and he's totally right - the auctions on the UK and US sites are totally synchronized, with prices, bids and bidders matching exactly even though the currency is different. I'm not sure its wikipedia's role to report this - at best the site is being extremely misleading here. Its certainly interesting, and I think it deserves a mention in the article. 98.117.120.55 (talk) 07:46, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Original research?

I moved the OR banner to the game theory section. I don't know if it should be there, I just didn't want it applied to the whole article, since the rest of it only contains factual information from the Swoopo site and implications that follow from trivial arithmetic. Asdf25 (talk) 03:27, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

This is simple arithmetic/math as well. The correspondence is exact in the case of two bidders if you make one trivial modification. For more than two players, the game is different, though they are both war of attrition type games).

Case 1 (Dollar Auction)

*Two bidders are bidding on a $100 bill

*First allowable bid is $0.375

*Can only bid in increments of $0.375

*Both the losing bidder and the winning bidder have to pay their maximum bid.

*Highest bidder wins

*(SLIGHT MODIFICATION TO Dollar Auction) We charge the first bidder an extra one time fee of $0.375 to get started.

Case 2 (Swoopo Fixed Price Auction)

*Two bidders are bidding on a $110 TV that they can buy for $10

*A bidder is immediately charged $0.75 whenever he/she clicks the bid button.

*Last person to click the bid button wins.

First, the value in case 1 and case 2 is exactly the same, $100.

Everything is entirely equivalent between case 1 and case 2. Every time someone bids in Case 1, he/she owes $0.75 more (eg. if my last bid was $1, the other person bid $1.375 then my next bid is $1.75). Every time someone bids in case 2, he/she owes $0.75 more. The last person to bid wins in both cases. -- Mgunn (talk) 11:44, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

65% discount example

Currently in the article:

The Swoopo website claims that "winners save, on average, 65% when compared to the recommended retail price".[2] However, Swoopo also receives money from bidders who did not win.

For example, an item retailing for $200 may be sold at a 65% discount for $70, saving the winner $130. In the process of the price reaching $70 there will have been 465 bids placed, costing bidders a sum of $348.75. With $70 from the winner and $348.75 from bidders, Swoopo received $418.75; bidders, in total, paid $218.75 more than retail for the item.

I believe this is a relevant factual example which gives readers a better understanding of the system, and shouldn't be removed simply because Swoopo (user Swoopouk) would like it to remain unnoticed. Asdf25 (talk) 04:18, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Criticism?

Does criticism of Swoopo belong in the top section, or should one be added for it?

Also, regarding my edit, the first sentence before I changed it doesn't make any sense. And the refs which were applied to the first sentence didn't make sense as citations for that sentence, as those links are criticism of the site and not relevant to a statement of what Swoopo is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asdf25 (talk • contribs) 04:46, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Excessive spamming?

This page is now semi-protected for "excessive spamming". Has there been much spamming on this page lately? Pro-Swoopo spamming or anti-Swoopo spamming? I wasn't aware of any recent spamming, esp. by non-logged-in users. Axlrosen (talk) 19:29, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

I showed this version to AN, and an admin decided to semi-protect it because of all the socks/SPAs in the past... so an edit war doesn't start over the new state. NJGW (talk) 19:36, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Given the nature of the site and how it involves money etc. - I thought it paid to be a little more cautious. Hence the semiprotection. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:47, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Interesting. Seems a little pre-emptive to me. You could imagine someone interpreting this as "I made a bunch of changes to this page, and then I got an administrator to semi-protect it to reduce the chance of anyone touching my edits." (I'm not saying that's what happened, only that it could be interepreted this way.) Axlrosen (talk) 16:03, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Anybody that read the AN post I left would have a really hard time coming up with that interpretation. If someone does, they may need to worry about their reading comprehension. I'm not worried. NJGW (talk) 20:00, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

OTRS

(discussion copied from a user's talk page)

Which blog are you having an issue with? wp:SPS does not say any blog is unreliable, and Ian Ayres's NYT blog seems pretty notable/reliable! This has been hashed out already at the talk page and the article's former AFD. Please have a look at the consensus already built. NJGW (talk) 00:38, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Show where it's been published previously in a third-party reliable source, as mentioned by that section. Further, given you have been reverting to restore a) a derogatory modification to "auction", b) a decidedly negative quote from the not-terribly-reliable hate-machine that is The Register, and c) a section, without any reliable sources, which is of undue weight and overly-negative in tone, you should consider whether you have a conflict of interest in this. I care a grand total of 0 for the former AfD; I am acting in response to an OTRS ticket, and myself and the OTRS team will evaluate the content on its merits, not on some prior-formed consensus which most likely lacked users who have experience with dealing with such issues. Daniel (talk) 00:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

The Register issue is quite secondary. I was more interested in reverting the game theory information that was removed. I placed a reliable source (already used in the article) in the game theory section [2]. Employees of this company were edit warring over this article, so the fact that they were caught makes me not surprised at all that they would wait a bit before trying some other tactic. This is not an auction site. Let me know if you need more info. NJGW (talk) 00:52, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

It is an auction site, until you can show me a reference which says otherwise. The NYT blog is not a reliable source, period; it lacks editorial oversight and is not a third party published reliable source. The history of the article is irrelevant to the content when I evaluated it, as I said above in reference to the argument that the AfD "consensus" contradicted my action. Sorry, but I think you're wrong here. Daniel (talk) 00:56, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Quite frankly, there is some information that you're not aware of as part of the OTRS process, and I cannot share the sensitive details of this with you, unfortunately. In the end, the information (especially that in the "Game theory" section) appears to be factually inaccurate and unsupported by any third-party non trivial sources. If we can get proper sourcing for this section I'd be fine with re-adding it. Until then, lets remember that Wikipedia is based on verifiability, not truth. - Rjd0060 (talk) 00:58, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

So they're threatening to sue. That's their only option, and I have no comeback for that. It's not factually inaccurate though, and we have a PhD in economics[3] saying so. There was a link somewhere that had a Swoopo spokesperson claiming the site wasn't really an auction site... I'm looking for it now. NJGW (talk) 01:09, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Here's what I have right now:

• news24.com "a heady combination of gambling, shopping and auctions - is a piece of moderately evil genius."
• Washington Post ""Entertainment Shopping" With a Hint of Scam"... "The auction is considerably different than other sites - EBay included."
• German press release - They call themselves "entertainment shopping portal" even in German, but not "auction site" or "auction portal"

I have to go out now, but please have a look at these two sources and another look at Ian Ayres, as well as the NYT blog (which has a staff editor--perhaps worth emailing her with questions about this issue)[4]. I think the interview where the spokesperson says something strange about them not being an a regular auction site is in the current refs, but I'll have another look later. NJGW (talk) 01:30, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I found the interview I was looking for, but it was actually in reference to their "auctions" for $1000 cash, which the spokesman admitted were a "promotion".[5] So what are the concerns with the reliability of the Ayres piece? I would email them to the editor of the blog myself, but I don't know what exactly to ask. What can we say without causing trouble. Also, what are the specific issues with the game theory section that was removed (so that I know what pay attention to in any redrafts)? NJGW (talk) 05:13, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Rjd dealt with the OTRS ticket directly - it's up to him as to what he wants to release with regards to it. Daniel (talk) 12:51, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

The game theory section is just unverified and has no sources. It should be fine if you can add some. I'm going to unprotect the article now. - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:04, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

But what are the concerns with the Ayres article. It is a blog in name, but is written by a PhD in Econ on an Econ subject and has editorial oversight. If there are specific concerns about using the Ayres piece, I would like to forward them to the editor to see if they can be resolved. NJGW (talk) 16:09, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Simply the fact that it is a blog makes me hesitant to use it. - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I realize that you're in a tough spot, but if the concerns they've raised about the piece are unfounded then I'm not sure what the problem is. A journalist would be considered a hack compared to Ayres, and there's NYT staff editing the "blog". The only reason they even call it a "blog" instead of a "special economics column" is that it's sexier that way. NJGW (talk) 16:32, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

This blog wasn't linked in the article when we got the complaint, so that is irrelevant. If you think it is reliable then go ahead and use it. I'm sure you understand my concerns with it though. - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:37, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I see that they will use the term blog as a pejorative. Can you look at the last version I created and tell me the specific problems with it so I don't revert to something absolutely untenable? NJGW (talk) 16:41, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Bidding fee scheme

I have undid the edit changing the description of the site from "Online Auction Site" to "Bidding fee scheme." While I personally believe this site has a lot of gray legality to in many countries that it operates in, this does seem like a clear case of NPOV not being respected. Anyone have any opinions on this edit, I'm not 100% sold (ha) on what we should actually call Swoopo. BaShildy (talk) 22:49, 27 March 2009 (UTC)