Transparency

[neddy]

I hope the powers that be at Netfleet consider this to be a constructive post. It is written in that spirit.

Without rehashing recent events, I think it is apparent that there are some trust and confidence issues with your auction platform. (I am not stating or implying that anyone at NF is dishonest - just voicing general concerns).

I understand that it is your business and that you can operate it however you want to. But sometimes your harshest critics can be a catalyst for sensible change.

We (your customers / bidders) simply want transparency - and a level playing field for all. We also don't want "the house" competing against us.

Nearly 2 months ago, I suggested privately that you look at how expireddomains.co.nz operate their auctions. I believe if you implemented something similar, it would tick all the boxes (including for NF).

• It has the ability to place fixed and proxy bids.
  
  
• It has live bidding history with aliases / bidder names. (Your bidding history is only available some time after the auction has finished - which really isn't good enough imho).
  
  
• If more than one bidder is bidding in the last 5 minutes, it extends the auction for a few minutes (and by a decent minimum amount i.e. not by $1 at a time)
  
  
• They don't run an account system. If a bidder's credit card doesn't have sufficient funds at the close of auction (they attempt a pre-auth), then the domain gets awarded to the first financial underbidder at whatever price they bid.

To show you what I mean, have a look at the listing for dealer.co.nz. This finishes tomorrow night.

I have also done a screenshot to show you how good it looks.

What do you think?

 

[FleurF]

• It has the ability to place fixed and proxy bids.
  
  
• It has live bidding history with aliases / bidder names. (Your bidding history is only available some time after the auction has finished - which really isn't good enough imho).
  
  
• If more than one bidder is bidding in the last 5 minutes, it extends the auction for a few minutes (and by a decent minimum amount i.e. not by $1 at a time)
  
  
• They don't run an account system. If a bidder's credit card doesn't have sufficient funds at the close of auction (they attempt a pre-auth), then the domain gets awarded to the first financial underbidder at whatever price they bid.

Hi Ned,

Thanks for your private and your public suggestion.

To individually address the items you listed above,

1. Netfleet already have the ability to place fixed and proxy bids so this has already been implemented.

2. Live bidding history is something we could consider however it is not a priority and we would need wholesale agreement as such - I will earmark for later consideration.

3. Ant and I have already mentioned that extended bidding will be piloted in October and we will be communicating more about this during September.

4. All buyers on the Netfleet system have to have a valid credit card in the system before submitting a bid.

 

[neddy]

2. Live bidding history is something we could consider however it is not a priority and we would need wholesale agreement as such - I will earmark for later consideration.

You used to have live bidding history (as Anthony will tell you). I believe Ant actually designed it for the Domain8 (now Drop) platform as well when he worked there.

During a redesign of your current platform, it disappeared. I banged on about it on DNT, and Ant finally re-introduced it - albeit it isn't live (you can only see it after the auction has closed).

Here are the relevant posts:

https://www.dntrade.com.au/netfleet-com-au/7259-ama-seller-feedback.html (Even DavidL agreed!).

https://www.dntrade.com.au/netfleet-com-au/7259-ama-seller-feedback-2.html#post54256

To me live bidding history is fundamental transparency. All major domain auction platforms have it.

Why can't it be returned? Surely it's not a big deal to you?

 

[findtim]

They don't run an account system. If a bidder's credit card doesn't have sufficient funds at the close of auction (they attempt a pre-auth), then the domain gets awarded to the first financial underbidder at whatever price they bid.

i'm not a fan of this, as NF know i often bid and win domains but need an invoice rather then a credit card THAT MOMENT, to then lose the domain is not a good system for me and anyone here is your chance for feedback " likes"

NF know i will pay the bill and very promptly as i never have not so pre-auth and lose domain sucks for me.

tim

 

[neddy]

i'm not a fan of this, as NF know i often bid and win domains but need an invoice rather then a credit card THAT MOMENT, to then lose the domain is not a good system for me

I agree with you on the last bullet point. I have been a victim and a beneficiary on expireddomains.co.nz.

But the purpose of my post was to show the level of transparency they employ.

And I do like the extended auction system they use (given Netfleet is probably going to introduce this in the future).

 

[findtim]

And I do like the extended auction system they use (given Netfleet is probably going to introduce this in the future).

how can that work? are you suggesting that a domain "fight" could go till 4pm ?

i haven't had much experience in the nz space but i did once and it just kept going till 2am so i was wondering why it could happen?

i lost, LOL
and then HE ( as i now knew his handle ) beat me the next night as well, LOL
i will say however i did bid up to the price i was willing to pay, its just they started very low at near close.

tim

 

[neddy]

how can that work? are you suggesting that a domain "fight" could go till 4pm ?

No - put your thinking cap on before you post Tim.

Dropping domains currently purge shortly after 1pm AEST. That is non negotiable.

Netfleet have already intimated they could start extended bidding an hour earlier than purge time. This would give a maximum time of one hour to get increased bids.

However, I like the status quo of sudden death at 1pm. All I want is total transparency with live bidding history (like we used to have).

 

[findtim]

No - put your thinking cap on before you post Tim.

Dropping domains currently purge shortly after 1pm AEST. That is non negotiable.

Netfleet have already intimated they could start extended bidding an hour earlier than purge time. This would give a maximum time of one hour to get increased bids.

However, I like the status quo of sudden death at 1pm. All I want is total transparency with live bidding history (like we used to have).

i di put my thinking cap on, and i stated in another thread that would be no different to a " drop 5 minutes to go" senario......... a waste of time.

they start this i end up bidding $11 with an hour to go and it gets extended and come back for sudden death, as you mentioned the NZ system what i have seen ( given my very little experience) it does go on and on and on and on, which was the basis for my comment.

tim

 

[AnthonyP]

You used to have live bidding history (as Anthony will tell you). I believe Ant actually designed it for the Domain8 (now Drop) platform as well when he worked there.

During a redesign of your current platform, it disappeared. I banged on about it on DNT, and Ant finally re-introduced it - albeit it isn't live (you can only see it after the auction has closed).

Here are the relevant posts:

https://www.dntrade.com.au/netfleet-com-au/7259-ama-seller-feedback.html (Even DavidL agreed!).

https://www.dntrade.com.au/netfleet-com-au/7259-ama-seller-feedback-2.html#post54256

To me live bidding history is fundamental transparency. All major domain auction platforms have it.

Why can't it be returned? Surely it's not a big deal to you?

It is not a big deal except it causes extra load on the server at a time when we all want it to be responsive (the end of the auction).

When we move to the extended auction system next month there should be significantly less pressure on the server in the final moments so I can certainly turn it back on.

We certainly have nothing to hide with regards to who is bidding on what, I always obfuscated the bidders details since I assumed bidders would not like to have their bidding tactics made public. I'd like to see the outcome of a poll of who would opt to have their ABN published next to their failed bids in an effort to improve transparency. As an auction house we certainly have nothing to gain by hiding them.

We don't manipulate anything in the current auction history format, so if we did get everyone to agree to have their ABNs published I'd even agree to make it retrospective.

 

[bunstar]

why would you want to know who else is bidding?

 

[neddy]

We certainly have nothing to hide with regards to who is bidding on what, I always obfuscated the bidders details since I assumed bidders would not like to have their bidding tactics made public. I'd like to see the outcome of a poll of who would opt to have their ABN published next to their failed bids in an effort to improve transparency. As an auction house we certainly have nothing to gain by hiding them.

We don't manipulate anything in the current auction history format, so if we did get everyone to agree to have their ABNs published I'd even agree to make it retrospective.

Let us not be blinded by spin and distractions. Let us remember how and why this whole subject came about in the first place.

Netfleet bid against its own core customer base - one prime example was bang.com.au. When that was discovered, and you were called on it, you initially ignored requests for clarification; then ever so slowly (and disappointingly) you finally revealed yet another on the quiet "marketing initiative".

A few of your customers expressed their distaste for what happened on here. Many did so privately.

So the call has gone out for transparency by Netfleet. One way you can do this is by adopting best practice procedures of displaying live bidding history on your auction platform. Like you used to have.

• Forgetting about NZ for the moment, bidding history is live at GoDaddy, SnapNames, and NameJet (to name a few).
  
  
• Godaddy uses Bidder 1/2/3 etc, while SnapNames and NameJet show bidder aliases.
  
  
• Your talk about possibly showing ABN's etc is nonsense - and simply thrown in there imo to try and scare people off.

So please, just go back to what you had - live bidding history with User / Bidder 1, 2, 3 etc. Once again, that is simply best practice - and by your own words, easy to implement.

Imho.

 

[AnthonyP]

It is simple but it does also put load on the server so I will add it back to the interface when I introduce extended bidding in October.

Since you are going to try to spin this into me being untrustworthy when the truth is that I expecting a baby in 4 days time I have a temporary work around for you. You will however need to do a bit of work but I am hoping you know this exists will make you feel more relaxed.

1) You need to login to the auction, then right click and view source.
2) Search for var clientId=, grab the string after this it will look like this
fbaab06fbae1ae4cd156f68759873f40:qM78L
3) Search for the auction id, it will look something like this dsp_snapper_auction1064982
4) Put the clientId and the auctionId into the following url

https://www.netfleet.com.au/gethistory.php?client=%clientId%&obj=%auctionid%

Then refresh away and you have live bidding history just like the one we used to have (since it is the one we used to have).

I did not try to hide the fact that we acted as an agent to place the bid on bang or any of the others, I am well aware that the whois details are checked by everyone and I am well aware that they are also recorded at the registry. If you look at the bidding history you will also note that no attempt is made to manipulate anything.

I am only "slow" to respond to dntrade as I am focused on keeping support tickets answered and our systems running.

If you need this integrated back into the interface I will need to ask you please to be patient.

 

[domainlover]

Live history bidding and a Simple Bidder 1, 2, 3 scenario like Drop will suffice.

 

[neddy]

Since you are going to try to spin this into me being untrustworthy when the truth is that I expecting a baby in 4 days time

Anthony, for goodness sake, please stop trying to play the victim in this. I play the ball; not the man.

Given I am arguably one of the top two biggest users of your drop platform, you should embrace constructive comments from me. As you should from others. Not have a smack at us.

Instead you have called me a troll in the past for raising issues (for which you later apologised), and now you get all sensitive and try and suggest that I'm saying you're untrustworthy.

That is simply not true. I have great admiration for your technical skills, and I like you as a person. But imho your (and Netfleet's) PR skills need work. Take your customers with you if you can - especially when we are genuinely trying to make constructive comments. If you don't, then all that happens is that threads like these occur.

Like you, I don't want to spend hours posting. I just want respect as a customer - and an auction platform that offers a level playing field with transparency.

I have a temporary work around for you. You will however need to do a bit of work but I am hoping you know this exists will make you feel more relaxed.

Thank you - that's good to know that's available.

If you need this integrated back into the interface I will need to ask you please to be patient.

As I said, it is best practice. And given you had it before, I look forward to you turning it back on. As someone pointed out to me this morning, eBay has bidding history. This is to promote confidence in the platform.

----------------------

Finally, as I said a while back, best wishes to you and your wife on the upcoming birth. Wonderful and exciting times.
.

 

[AnthonyP]

Like you, I don't want to spend hours posting. I just want respect as a customer - and an auction platform that offers a level playing field with transparency.

We have transparency, it just takes time to be fetched from the server and then presented to you in a way which does not put load on our systems at a crucial time.

I feel like this call for transparency is rather focused on Netfleet, do you get this information from any other Australian platforms?

 

[neddy]

I feel like this call for transparency is rather focused on Netfleet, do you get this information from any other Australian platforms?

You're sounding like a victim again Anthony. (Please note the wink).

As you would be aware from your past employment, Domain8 and then Drop have live bidding history. I've mentioned that before on here.

See screenshot below of bidding history on one of today's drops.

The only thing Drop don't currently have is your success rate.

 

[AnthonyP]

I am a bit slow even looking at the screenshot it took me a long time to figure it out. I definitely don't get to spend as much time using the interfaces as you guys do.

As per earlier, it will be done in conjunction with changes for extended bidding in October.

 

[zhenjie]

I'm surprised the server handles both the front end and domain registrations?

 

[neddy]

I am a bit slow even looking at the screenshot it took me a long time to figure it out.

It's pretty easy - just click on the "hammer" and read from bottom to top.

I'll tell you what isn't easy, and that's trying to get "bidding history" with those instructions you posted. I tried it a few different ways, and then gave up. But I am technically challenged.

If and when you have time Anthony, could you please email me the url string I should have ended up with if I was looking at "pawnbrokers"? That way I can see what I did wrong. Much appreciated.

 

[AnthonyP]

I'm surprised the server handles both the front end and domain registrations?

The bottleneck is providing the auction history in real time as the auctions are finishing.