# A reverse auction **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 8, 2021, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585 "2021-04-08T02:13:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/21 "2021-04-08T12:01:14Z")
I have no clue what this is about. I bid 37. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/22 "2021-04-08T12:06:02Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > The bids so far: Revealing the bids so far pretty much ruins this little experiment. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/23 "2021-04-08T12:15:22Z")
What do you mean? They are already visible in the thread for anyone who clicks the spoilers. As per the OP, participants in the auction are supposed to bid before reading any of the spoilers. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/24 "2021-04-08T12:17:49Z")
They don’t have to read the spoilers if _you_ unspoil all the answers, do they? ---
**Author:** ![Ace309](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ace309/32/1050_2.png) [@Ace309](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ace309)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/25 "2021-04-08T12:31:01Z")
My bid is 3 ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/26 "2021-04-08T13:38:08Z")
But… my post was also spoilered. I’m still not seeing the problem. OK, my post makes it slightly easier for those who want to cheat, but it was pretty easy anyway. Also, it doesn’t really matter if one or two people cheat - as long as most don’t, we’ll still have something interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/27 "2021-04-08T13:40:36Z")
Six. I look forward to not getting my Bahamian island. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/28 "2021-04-08T13:43:55Z")
$1,000,000 ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/29 "2021-04-08T14:47:00Z")
This is a good, interesting idea but I think to really give it a try we’d need to have an independent disinterested party hold on to the bids. The honor system will only take you so far in a contest like this. I think also it would be a good idea to try to nail down a set number of participants and ask them to commit to it before we start. Hopefully it’s be a whole lot of people. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/30 "2021-04-08T15:02:23Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > But… my post was also spoilered. When I first saw it, your post was _not_ spoilered. If that was a glitch on my end, I apologize. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/31 "2021-04-08T15:03:34Z")
Ah, I see - I guess it was a glitch. I checked (both before and after posting) and it was spoilered for me! No worries, thanks for clearing that up. ---
**Author:** ![Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tired_and_Cranky)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/32 "2021-04-08T15:08:20Z")
The disinterested party would be nice but it ain’t happening here. The stakes are so low that it minimizes the risk of cheating but someone at some point will inadvertently read most of the thread before answering, which does ruin it a bit. I don’t think setting the number of participants makes any sense. That puts an upper limit on the number anyone should guess, since the winning will have to be less than the number of participants. I like that part of the game is guessing how many people will participate as well as how they will distribute their guesses. I’m guessing if you ran enough of these contests, the answers would likely be somewhat predictable based solely on the number of people who participate. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/33 "2021-04-08T16:29:35Z")
00043 No particular reason. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/34 "2021-04-08T16:41:53Z")
> [@Tired\_and\_Cranky](#): > > . I like that part of the game is guessing how many people will participate as well as how they will distribute their guesses. But with everyone posting their bids in this thread there is no mystery about exactly how many people are participating. And people cheat in games with nothing on the line all the time. It wouldn’t be the worst sin in the world if someone read the spoilered bids before they posted their own bid. No biggie in the greater scheme of things. But due to the dynamics of this “experiment” it’s pretty much ruined if people peek ahead of time. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/35 "2021-04-08T16:48:25Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > But with everyone posting their bids (spoilered) in this thread there is no mystery about the exact number of people who participate. You don’t know how many people will post after you, so the later you bid the more information you have. If we were doing this as a party game, everyone would write their bids down on a slip of paper and turn them in simultaneously. Everyone would have the same amount of information going in. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/36 "2021-04-08T16:49:46Z")
> [@Johnny\_Bravo](#): > > You don’t know how many people will post after you, so the later you bid the more information you have. If we were doing this as a party game, everyone would write their bids down on a slip of paper and turn them in simultaneously. Everyone would have the same amount of information going in Oh shit. I think I just spaced that completely. Thanks. I still think everyone should privately submit their bid to a disinterested party. That way nothing is known about the number of participants and who bid what and when the bid it. Which I think would effectively work the same as simultaneous submissions– ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/37 "2021-04-08T18:28:15Z")
> **Summary** > > Twenty-seven cents. > **Summary** > > I don’t think that’s a fraction. It’s twenty-seven whole cents. – I see that I used a different spoiler technique than everybody else. Hope it’s working. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/38 "2021-04-08T21:36:21Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > … and my hope is based on the number of answers so far, multiplied by an arbitrary factor, divided by a hunch, rounded down to the nearest integer, then changed to something completely different on a whim. That’s a fine algorithm you’ve got there. It’s probably close to optimal. As to number of bidders it’s going to be close to but less than the number of posts. I’ll be post #38 unless somebody sneaks in while I’m ruminating. I bid disguise 17 more disguise. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/39 "2021-04-08T21:39:01Z")
Funny you should have applied my algorithm, the result does not surprise me. A bit disappointed I am, though, I’m out. So are you 😁 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2021, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585/40 "2021-04-08T21:41:51Z")
Now that _is_ funny. No cheating on my part either. Though when I bid I did recognize that that was an “attractive” number to certain kinds of discerning minds. And as such poor tactics. Akin to picking 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in a lottery. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-reverse-auction/939585.md?page=3)