Hi all,
A site update has been posted! This update focuses completely on item valuations on the Indexes. The Valuation Board, under the guidance of dbartman, has been diligently tracking eBay sales in the two years (!) since the last update, so you will necessarily see some large swings on some items. As before, the items currently being tracked are the class 4 & 5 Rares, with a smattering of 3's thrown in.
More importantly, I'm unveiling a new software engine for processing sales and calculating values. Previously, Board members recorded sales into Excel spreadsheets, which were periodically uploaded to me for combining and exporting to the Indexes. While the VB Assistant bot (a bot similar to Auction Hunter, but for completed auctions) was assisting in finding items, there was still an amount of effort required of Board members to evaluate an item's condition and record the necessary auction information into the spreadsheet.
The new engine takes most of the drudgery out of this process. The bot finds auctions as before, but now all that's required of members is to evaluate the item's condition and record it directly into a post on the forum. The software then automatically compiles the item data every evening and adjusts the item value. These new values are then exported to the Indexes once a month, again automatically. An example view of what a Board Member sees:
Attachment:
Image1.jpg
And that's not all. Phase 2 of this rollout will incorporate the remainder of the items on the site into the system, though for these class 1 and 2's, we're going to ignore condition, and just assume everything is average (between
VG and Fine). Especially once we have lots of data points -- which shouldn't take long -- the ratty Poor condition copies and the minty shrinks will balance each other out. Therefore, the only human input needed will be to confirm that the auction is valid, i.e. not the wrong item and not a group of items.
Along with this, we have some vacancies on the Valuation Board. If you're interested in being a part -- and former Board members are welcome to reapply! -- please send me a
PM or an email.
We're excited to introduce this system, which as envisioned will make item values on the site up-to-date and increasingly accurate. As always, if you spot something broken (like Keep on the Borderlands valuing at $2000) that we missed, please let me know. Enjoy!
Foul
