Discuss WHC's Backordering Platform (2.Viewing)

Let us all take a moment to be thankful we have someone like Frank at this registrar who is actively engaging with the domain community. I've been in his shoes, and it is not easy. Thank you Frank!

Agree wholeheartedly Bill… *THUMBSUP* [notify]FM[/notify]

100% agree! Frank is doing a great job there and taking feedback very well. I am quite impressed with their current WHC backorder system. I truly believe it’s a game changer. It’s a step in the right direction to what I think gives them a competitive edge long term.

MaiTaiMan said:

Let us all take a moment to be thankful we have someone like Frank at this registrar who is actively engaging with the domain community. I've been in his shoes, and it is not easy. Thank you Frank!

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Exactly!!. Kudos to Franck for all the support and prompt attention to details.

DomainRecap said:

Of course the lazy ones who stumble out of bed at 1:30PM every Wednesday would love it, but I doubt the deep-divers who provide this important data are all that appreciative.

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FM said:

Noted. Would you believe some domain investors actually liked this? ;-) They shall remain unnamed.

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Lol, of course most would, because only small portion of us do the slow and tedious research and valuations of domains in the massive TBR list. Even WHC won't put the kind of effort into it that we do. So if you were publishing your _own_ research, I have no problem with that. It is publishing OUR research (i.e. bids) that some of us have issue with.

So you can be sure that the few of us who do that deep research will begin to develop a habit of waiting until the last minute to place orders. Unfortunately sometimes that means we may get distracted and miss the auctions completely. But that's the only way we have to combat the situation.

Regarding the public starting bid list, I wanted to make clear that I understand and appreciate the feedback and will take a closer look at it again in a month's time or so. I can't make any promises at this point that things will change, but of course I understand your side as you understand ours.

Oh and thanks for all the compliments, you made me blush. The compliments really go to the entire team that worked on this and will work on making WHC the Canadian Registrar.

I have moved this to TBR to keep it off the main board

Instead of discussing this in the weekly TBR, lets keep it in topic

Let me start it....

When can we get better filters so I can filter out numbers and dashes?

At this point the filters are a bit too basic.

MapleDots said:

Let me start it....

When can we get better filters so I can filter out numbers and dashes?

At this point the filters are a bit too basic.

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I don't have an ETA yet at this point, but I have written the specs for this. It should be added before the end of February.

Answering this from over here:
https://dn.ca/post/13045/#p13045

FM said:

At the moment, I'd lean towards bidder IDs that are unique per auction.

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theinvestor said:

Agree. New bidder ID means nothing. Might as well do nothing. We don’t need to know how many people are part of an auction.

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rlm said:

What bit of transparency would a new bidder ID for every auction achieve? At best that would be a very transparent attempt to simply pretend to be transparent.

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For me, it would at least show the bids and proxy bids more clearly. I know it would help little to identify the bidders, but that is somewhat intentional. Some transparency while maintaining some privacy - a compromise of sorts.

Develop said:

What if the bidders list was exposed to bidders on a name after the auction concluded?

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So you would be unable to identify bidders after the fact, but not during the auction and thus not be able to use it to strategize. That's an interesting approach, what do others think about this? I need to digest this a little.

[notify]DomainRecap[/notify], [notify]rlm[/notify], [notify]theinvestor[/notify], would like to hear your opinion here.

FM said:

So you would be unable to identify bidders after the fact, but not during the auction and thus not be able to use it to strategize. That's an interesting approach, what do others think about this? I need to digest this a little.

[notify]DomainRecap[/notify], [notify]rlm[/notify], [notify]theinvestor[/notify], would like to hear your opinion here.

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I have no idea what this means, but if it translates as "everyone involved knows who bid and how much after each auction is over" I totally disagree with this, as that type of data it's a stalker's wet dream.

You say "not being able to strategize"... but what if you had months and even year's worth of bidding data, prices, ceilings, floors, domain types, etc. - you don't think a smart person could "strategize" with that and determine patterns and identities during an auction? This is what stalkers do, they keep reams of old data to gain a competitive advantage on others. It's what they do, it's all they do.

I would highly recommend not getting too involved in a vocal minority calling for "auction transparency" if it in any way hampers user identity, bid or auction privacy. I don't want my bids, wines, losses and other transaction data being displayed before, during or after, just as I wouldn't want GoDaddy to publish the domains I just hand-registered, along with my User ID.

Stalkers love data and don't give a crap about "transparency" as it's a just a catch-phrase to achieve the tracking data they desire. Seen this happen over and over and over at various auction houses and as there is no possible way to be totally "transparent" unless you toss bidder privacy out the window, it always comes back to end user data tracking and stalking.

I for one do not stalk people online and I also don't want all my bidding or domain loss / win data be made available to the stalkers. If they want it, they need to work for it. I trust companies who take my money for products and services to protect my privacy to the utmost, and not give out, freely display or sell my transaction data to end users or companies.

FM said:

So you would be unable to identify bidders after the fact, but not during the auction and thus not be able to use it to strategize. That's an interesting approach, what do others think about this? I need to digest this a little.

[notify]DomainRecap[/notify], [notify]rlm[/notify], [notify]theinvestor[/notify], would like to hear your opinion here.

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[notify]FM[/notify] as you may already know I am all for it. If it is something you think would benefit WHC then I would not hesitate to implement.

In regards to all this stalking nonsense. I don’t know how many times I pick up domains in TBR and get inquiries shortly after followed by them ghosting my emails. If someone wants to know what you own they can find out. It has happened to me in the past and CIRA is more than willing to comply no matter what. There is no privacy online.

theinvestor said:

In regards to all this stalking nonsense.

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Hey, weren't you the guy who back in the day kept a list of all TBR Bidder IDs, domains, prices, etc,. and had them all matched up to a real person's identity? Or am I mixing you up with your buddy Dan - it was one of you for sure.

"Stalking nonsense" indeed. In a past life I was heavily involved in auctions houses (like Heritage) and if you think stalking and buyer tracking doesn't take place, then I recommend you ride a unicorn to work tomorrow in that crazy world you live in.

Yep, I just found the thread, and this comment certainly hasn't aged well. LOL

theinvestor said:

Pool.com really was the TBR leader back in the day. It was good because most used either their alias or a random bidding ID. I remember having a list of who was who. It was always easy to find out after the TBR and eventually I compiled a list. It’s always good to know who you’re bidding against.

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https://dn.ca/topic/992/tbr-musings-july-28-2021/page/2/

Bids on domains shouldn’t be made public unless they have 2 or more bidders on it.

rlm said:

I had orders I didn’t want to make public, as I hoped they’d fly under the radar. But I also couldn't wait to place my orders due to other obligations. So I thought I’ll place them at Sibername rather than WHC so that WHC wouldn’t publish them publicly.

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DomainRecap said:

Yep, I just found the thread, and this comment certainly hasn't aged well. LOL



https://dn.ca/topic/992/tbr-musings-july-28-2021/page/2/

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Not sure what your point is. Call it stalking. Call it whatever you like. I call it business.

theinvestor said:

Not sure what your point is. Call it stalking. Call it whatever you like. I call it business.

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Keep digging that hole deeper there Stalky.

And my point is that you have been the main proponent of "online stalking and tracking is pure fantasy" and of WHC instituting "full transparency" through displayed Bidder IDs, while admittedly being a full-blown Online Stalker who has actively tracked TBR bidders.

theinvestor said:

Pool.com really was the TBR leader back in the day. It was good because most used either their alias or a random bidding ID. I remember having a list of who was who. It was always easy to find out after the TBR and eventually I compiled a list. It’s always good to know who you’re bidding against.

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theinvestor said:

FM as you may already know I am all for it. If it is something you think would benefit WHC then I would not hesitate to implement. In regards to all this stalking nonsense...

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Develop said:

Bids on domains shouldn’t be made public unless they have 2 or more bidders on it.

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Now there's an idea.

Yikes, this is a legit discussion, no need for the attacks. It has been pretty civil around here lately, lets keep it that way.

I guess I'll give up my idea that I've been sitting on in case I ever wanted to use it myself. I've already given WHC many of my ideas for free anyways.

Personally I think I have the perfect balance between privacy and transparency, which I would call "earned transparency".

I would only reveal the bidder ID to the person that just got outbid. By having placed the previous high bid, you and you alone have earned the right to see who outbids you. So bystanders do not get to see the action. The only transparency that is deserved is the transparency that is earned by real bidders in the auction. That keeps it private for the most part, but transparent enough for the people who are actually spending money, allowing them to be satisfied it was a fair auction.

I wouldn't make the results public after the auction either.

I'm not sure how anyone could argue against this system.