Unannounced auction thread closure after a bid

Discussion in 'Empire Help & Support' started by JesusPower2, Mar 11, 2015.

  1. The auction host did not state a time when the auction would end without a bid.
    Seeing his thread open I bid on his auction.
    He replied he had meant to close this...but had meant to do it 3 hours before I bid.

    He did not close the thread before I bid. The thread is now locked and I'm not sure how.

    Was this legal or illegal? Isn't it illegal to close an auction following a bid?

    This is important to clarify.

    <edited for clarity>
  2. He/She could of contacted a staff member in private requesting a thread close or the auction could have been invalid and closed by staff since it didn't have an ending time.
  3. Well, it had the usual ending time after a bid. It did not specify an ending time after NO bids, and the thread was still open when I bid.

    So if there is an unspoken rule that auctions can be declared closed after some time with no bids, I would like that time defined and stated in the auction rules. Otherwise I have wasted my time looking at open auction threads that are actually considered invalid.
  4. Given he had it open for a week, chances are it expired for him and he had used/sold the DC (or some of it) because the auction hadn't received any bids in that time. Thus he would have forgot about the auction, and was reminded he even had it open when the bid was placed, but knew he was unable to fulfill it as the auction host. The host reported the auction to have it closed due to it now being invalid.
    With the full week that had passed there was nothing wrong with him wanting it to be closed at the sight of a bid placed because the auction was left to just "expire" without a formal closing. I, of course, would not have fulfilled the request to it being closed if it was anything less than a week, such as just a few days between the OP and bid.
  5. I think we need to establish a legitimate rule that states if an auction hasn't had a bid for an X amount of days, the auction automatically closes.

    All this seems too complicated, why not make a rule about it?
    PenguinDJ likes this.
  6. Considering the system of closing threads was and still is manual and up to mod discretion, this could be something useful with the new archives system in place. This way, an "expired" thread is closed and moved, even when it is forgotten or does not have a specified ending time.
    I don't see a problem with an auto-close system, since there are virtually no auctions that say, "ends (time greater than a week) after this post".
    deathconn likes this.
  7. Closing an auction after one week of no bids seems reasonable. Can you make it official though? Otherwise it's really hard to troll old auctions. :)
  8. I thought the same thing. We are discussing it.