Talk:EBay

international affiliates list - totally wrong

There are too many sites listed here that are unrelated-to-ebay redirects or just unreachable... I don't know how they got here in the first place, but this list needs a big clean-up. Alinor (talk) 15:28, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

So fix it. Esrever ^(klaT) 16:06, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm inclined to remove the entire list; it's more suited for eBay's corporate website than an encyclopedia page. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:59, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I removed it. It just seems pointless. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 21:14, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Is the list removal discussed here what has caused the "localized websites" link to stop working? The phrase appears as an html hyperlink but doesn't go anywhere.--SpacemanSpiff27 (talk) 19:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Might; where exactly is the phrase? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 21:02, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Oh I see. Fixed. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 21:27, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Automate archiving?

Does anyone object to me setting up automatic archiving for this page using MiszaBot? Unless otherwise agreed, I would set it to archive threads that have been inactive for 30 days and keep at least ten threads.--Oneiros (talk) 02:19, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

 Done--Oneiros (talk) 13:21, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Ambiguous Wording

There's a problem with the ambiguous wording of these two sentences:

The frequently repeated story that eBay was founded to help Omidyar's fiancée trade Pez candy dispensers was fabricated by a public relations manager in 1997 to interest the media. This was revealed in Adam Cohen's 2002 book, The Perfect Store,[5] and confirmed by eBay.

Does this mean the often-repeated story was "confirmed," or confirmed to have been fabricated? rowley (talk) 19:47, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Confirmed to have been fabricated. Maybe rephrase it? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 05:17, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

yes, go ahead Whocanyoutrust (talk) 20:42, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Unusual Sale Item section

IP editor recently added a paragraph to the Unusual Sale Item section, which I removed. The IP editor disputes my actions and says that as a cited addition it should remain. I would be grateful for other's input. I removed it for the following reasons;

• The item was not sold on eBay, merely listed for a short while before being delisted by eBay for violating its terms of use policies. This sort of thing happens all the time, making it scarcely unusual or notable.
• The item was therefore not actually sold on eBay.
• The cite provided is a local newspaper, which does not verify half of what was added. This, in my opinion, makes it non-notable trivia that is largely unverifiable.

Aside from this one addition, there are a number of related problems with section. The entire section suffers from a fundamental POV weakness in that there is no clear, objective and neutral definition of what counts as 'Unusual'. More than a few of the articles mentioned are also short lived publicity stunts or jokes. There should be a clearer division between eBay as a place selling items with a very unusual or limited market, and eBay as a place to stage a publicity stunt and/or joke. So if these are truly notable, would they not be better in a different section? --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 12:38, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree, the addition is not notable and is only supported by 2 sources (according to google), both of which are local news websites. I don't think that is enough to warrant coverage by a number of individual sources. You're spot on in the point that the whole section is in need of a rewrite and there needs to be a clear definition of what is unusual. There are a number of items that are being sold on eBay that are unusual, but do not warrant coverage. L Kensington (talk • contribs) 21:42, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

The whole section should be deleted as listcruft which has nothing to do with the essence of eBay. Any truly notable and defining sales can be included in the prose. Sandman888 (talk) 17:09, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll leave it a while and if no-one comes along with a good reason why it should be kept, I'll move any of the most notable (as determined by the quality of their cites) into the rest of the article someplace. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 06:33, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

vandalism

the last section under unusual items is an obvious act of vandalism; would someone please fix this?Shaminabuddy (talk) 09:06, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Done. Seaphoto^Talk 17:49, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Profit / Loss

This may be related to what someone was talking about vandalism, but it appears as if someone swapped the profit/loss widget in the reporting column. I am pretty sure that I am reading the source correctly, in that they gained $1.8B in 2010, not lost it.

http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ebay/1136100493x0x435896/9bd99676-b782-4784-87de-2899abe14a6d/eBay_Q42010EarningsRelease_Draft011911_FINAL.pdf

I am going to go ahead and change it, but please let me know if I am reading this wrong. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Electrostatic1 (talk • contribs) 00:46, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Further reading section

I'm a bit concerned by the apparent random selection in the section. There are now on the order of 2000 books with "eBay" in the title; what's so special and important about these? In what way is, say, eBay for Dummies more worthy of inclusion than any of the other "how to" books? Is this list really necessary at all? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 19:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Good question. It looks like the only reason this section is here is simply because it's always been here. The roots of it lie in the third edit on the article in 2002, at a point where the article wasn't very good at all. But there is no obvious reason why any of these books merit a mention over any others, particularly the "how to" ones. If any of them contain anything really uniquely notable they can be used as cites. --Escape Orbit ^(Talk) 22:18, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Michael Dean Johnson

I have removed Michael Dean Johnson as a founder of eBay. I am not able to find any information on who this person is other than random websites claiming that he is an eBay founder. There is no information on how he was involved, just that he was. Also, none of the websites were any that I would call credible if writing a research paper. Finally, every credible source I can find only mentions Pierre Omidyar. Kaid (talk) 08:39, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

any mention of bidding strategies?

I was surprised to see no mention in this article of the practice of bid sniping. Should there be? —Steve Summit (talk) 02:12, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

Request Semi-Protection

This page is about a website and also a great company.So, I request a semi-protection for this article. Rsamahamed 15:09, 28 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Rsamahamed (talk • contribs)

WP:RFPP is where you request page protection. But there are a lot of eyeballs on this article; has there been specific vandalism that's prompted this request? --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:49, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

No mention of MercadoLibre.com

It seems like MercadoLibre.com should be mentioned here. eBay is already mentioned in the ML.com article. http://investor.ebay.com/ReleaseDetail.cfm?releaseid=60309 brianfreud 23:30, 19 April 2012 (UTC)