Call for a Strike

R2 - are you having a hissy fit?? Becareful, you will get called a hormonal pregnant woman if you keep this up

I do understand where you are coming from though, maybe you should just do what a couple of the other regs do and just have some copy and paste answers.

Then its just 2 clicks and you are done.

I seriously doubt AS is going to change anything after all this time.

I dont think we have gotten anything changed that we wanted.....have we?

I agree with R2...I agree with Lexie...I think they will never add anything as long as we answer the questions, however, I think they probably won't anyway and I wouldn't want to be rude to a newcomer while waiting for the change to take place. I sure wouldn't want to be answered that way!

There's always "Welcomes" and pictures.

I'm not saying be rude - I'm saying be polite and point them efficiently towards the links. No-one can take umbrage at that and it's only for the repeated Qs that AS should be preventing by good FAQs etc. I'm going to do it - if others feel each Q is a good excuse to break out the AGs (animated Gifs) then that's their choice. However, if AS gets lots of same-old same-old support calls then maybe they may change things.

R2

Don't know what you mean about getting out animated gifs, R2. And, I'm sure you would not be rude, but, well, it seems like a two sided sword to me. I'll have to think about it. What about directing them to the help url and simply saying ask here..been lot of problems with this or something like that? I guess that takes more time than answering the question!

Isn't that what I suggested?

R2

There will always be people that don’t read the FAQs (as there are those that don’t read forums or posts), so regardless of how current, or accurate the FAQs are, those people will not benefit from them. But, for those that do read the FAQs, any discrepancies in them has a greater potential of ticking them off. The user has taken the time to learn how AS works, and if that effort is rewarded with misleading, or not detailed, information they might be even more prone to getting upset with the service.

One area that seems worth more focus is that dealing with lead-times. R2 has one suggestion that is more pro-active than FAQs, and that is the use of a pop-up (or a message) regarding lead-times during peak ebay periods. A thing usually looks easier the further one is removed from the implementation of the thing. With that in mind, to me this change looks fairly easy. It might cause some information-overload for new users, and it might worry some that have been using minimal lead times that haven’t had the misfortune to have been stung by a not-in-time.

The user doesn’t have many decisions to make. If the bid isn’t high enough, the bidder understands (typically) and accepts responsibility. If lead-time isn’t long enough, the user is more tempted to blame AS.

If you reduce AS’ service down to the most essential elements, lead-time would be one of those elements, if not the element. That’s what sniping is all about. Grant it, all that other stuff is important, but anyone can accomplish all that other stuff by placing a manual snipe. I’m not discounting the importance of reliability (insuring the snipe is placed, such as using multiple servers) and convenience, but neither of them is important if lead-time isn’t sufficient. And, unlike lead-time, reliability isn’t something the user can control, other than in their choice of sniping services.

Allowing 1 to 3 second lead times seems more like a marketing idea than a practical sniping technique. After all, it establishes, and condones, this precise and last second mentality. It also reinforces the belief that another sniper can make a retaliatory snipe within a couple of seconds. Even a default of 5 seconds is somewhat questionable.

Since lead-time is probably the most vital determination of a successful sniping service of those things the user has control over, I don’t think this can be something where an information-overload should be a concern. The lead-time information in the FAQs should be more reflective of real-world experiences (assuming the forum experience is any indication of “any” real-world). And, to insure that those that don’t read FAQs are informed, some kind of warning for peak periods would appear to be a nifty improvement.

On the plus side (I hope): I think AS’ home page use to talk about placing snipes in the “last second” and that has been amended to “last seconds”. That doesn’t sound like a big change, but it seems less of an area of complaint when 1 second snipes aren’t placed, or when they are “erroneously” placed “a whole” 3 seconds before the end of the auction.


HAPPY READING