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TAGnotes Sun 15 Oct 2000 Vol 2 Number 148 Issue 230

The Auction Guild Notes for Sunday 15 Oct 2000
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ebaY continues to have nightly peak time problems. On 13 Oct at
05:19:51 PT there were problems with keyword search not working
intermittently. The log in cookie stopped holding at 10:13:23 PT.
ebaY posted at 08:46:25 PT on 13 Oct that broken Sell Your Item
page was fixed at approximately 20:20 PT on 12 Oct. At 09:17:48 PT
users were still reporting problems with search. ebaY worked well
for the rest of the day and through the 14th, but at 21:48:21 PT on 14
Oct users again reported problems with relisting. On 15 Oct at 13:23:20
PT users stated to get cgi 3 errors. ebaY crashed at 17:13:07 PT in an
outage that lasted until approx 21:05:20. When
the ebaY Announcement Board came back up there was a post that was
date/time stamped 17:00:49 PT saying that they would be unavailable from
17:10 PT to 17:20 PT while they perform preventative maintenance.
Unfortunately for ebaY, TAGs editor was reading/refreshing the AB when
it went down, and no such post was posted at the time it went down. So
ebaY posted the 17:10 PT
post AFTER THE FACT . Several other posters on two of the OAI/OTI
boards verified this obfuscation on ebaYs part. At 17:22:17 PT ebaY
posted that the site was undergoing preventative maintenance until
17:30 PT. At 17:37:37 PT they posted the site was still down. ebaY
posted at 18:06:17 PT that ebaY engineers took the site down at 17:10
PT to perform some system tuning on one of ebaY's database servers. The
downtime was expected to last 10 minutes but problems led to them
deciding to fail over to their so called hot backup system. ebaY claims
the site was up at 17:50 PT, but users continued to post problems. At
18:18:11 PT search was not working and users got Network error Unable to
request URL from host cgi3.ebay.netscape.com:80: Operation timed out,
posts. At 18:33 my ebaY went down. At 18:34 Network error Unable to
read URL from host cgi6.ebay.com: Connection reset by peer, messages
showed up. At 20:37:07 PT users could not bid, or open item pages. At
21:05:29PT they got Archived Items Host is Currently unavailable,
messages. The site appeared to stabilize at that point. TAG's take on
this is that if ebaY really has a back up system, and they had to take
the site down on short notice, why not default to the back up site first
rather than letting hundreds of users lose large amounts
of money while they mucked up the site during the highest use prime
time part of the week. To then get caught in a blatant lie, adds
nothing to their credibility. To add insult to injury, there were also
no offers of refunds or auction extensions. TAG strongly recommends
that anyone who feels their auctions were negatively impacted by these
outages apply for credit.   Request listing, special feature and Final
Value Fees. Go to the form at
http://cgi3.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?
SendSupportEmailShow&subject=Credit%20--%20How%20can
%20I%20receive%20credit%20for%20insertion%20fees%3F%20
Send -
* The item number(s) of the ended auction(s)
* The specific fee(s) charged for them
* Your seller's email address or User ID
* The phrase, GIVE CREDIT in the Subject line
This can also be accessed from
http://pages.ebay.com/help/basics/select-support.html
PLEASE - IF YOU ARE DENIED REFUNDS LET US KNOW
TAG has had reports from members that repeated requests in the face
of denials has WORKED, so keep requesting refunds until you
receive them!!!

ebaY telephone numbers are posted on the TAG site at
http://www.auctionguild.com/generic.html;$sessionid$
RDYY0JYAAAV0JWGIHUWHBMWYZA4S1PX0?pid=17

Approx 5.4 million current listing
MedVed shows 5.17 million
http://www.quotetracker.com/cgi-bin/cal.cgi?EIND
http://www2.ebay.com/aw/announce.shtml
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Yahoo Auctions is once again offering sellers the ability to get paid
in credits for their feedback ratings on other sites. This allows
sellers to pay for special features. You get one dollar for every
positive feedback you have. To get the details and your credits go to
http://auctions.yahoo.com/phtml/auc/us/promo/ratings_featured.html

Yahoo has published their second newsletter. This one is focused
on Sports related collectibles. To receive the newsletter go to
http://edit.yahoo.com/config/subscribe?.optin=acn&.src=auc&.
done=http://auctions.yahoo.com
Basic site information http://www.auctionguild.com
Go to OAI Site Basic Details from left side toolbar.
Yahoo site map
http://auctions.yahoo.com/phtml/auc/us/promo/sitemap.html
http://auctions.yahoo.com/
* * * * *
Amazon Basic site information http://www.auctionguild.com
Go to OAI Site Basic Details from left side toolbar.
Amazon listing numbers for 26 Sep, 12 of 19 categories actual
counts, 7 of 19 extrapolated counts. Total listings 1,094,439
http://www.amazon.com
* * * * *
iWonuWon a brand new online auction site is free for new
members to join and to list their items for sale. There are no
special feature, listing or final value fees until at least $5 Million
dollars worth of listings are posted. When the 5 million
mark is broken, they will then charge fees, but promise that prices will
be based on cost of operations. These former ebaY sellers say
their goal is to create a community where both buyers and sellers
can feel safe in their listings and purchases. Where all members
will be treated fairly and as humans, not like mere accounts.
http:// www.iwonuwon.com
* * * * *
GoToAuctions has a post on their boards that they are doing an
ebaY refund day on 2 November. For details go to
http://auctions.goto.com/post-o-rama/#guidelines
http://auctions.goto.com/
* * * * *
State Farm Insurance has been reported by some users as canceling
homeowners policies for customers selling from home. It has been
stated that all State Farm would need is your last tax statement showing
your business sales from home, to deny any claim. TAG feels it would be
advisable for all sellers to check with their insurance companies as to
the possible ramifications of more than casual selling in the OAI/OTI.
* * * * *
OAUA This months newsletter is out. OAUA currently has
2000 members, and the transcript from the first annual members
meeting is posted on the site. This issue has an article on toy trains
and the OAUA Policy Changes. Add your voice to this growing
professional organization of online auction and trading users.
http://www.auctionusers.org/newsletter/
http://www.oaua.com
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*******VOTE******* VOTE******* VOTE********
The Million Auction March wants to move you to VOTE.
List your items on V enues O ther T han E bay
For more information go to http://www.millionauctionmarch.com
New Auction Houses, Sales Venues and Service Providers are
joining daily. All are offering incentives and specials to the OAI.
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If you would like an Auction House or Service Provider added to
this list, please email us at tag@theauctionguild.com
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THE AUCTION GUILD
and eTRADERS GUILD
www.auctionguild.com
Not just a venue
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