RTY Lessons Learned

[cwolfus]

All,

The RTY swap was a huge success. A relatively small, and now closer-knit group met for a great time of swapping, trading, eating, talking, and fun.

However, this swap was far from perfect and I would like to ask everyone for their help - whether you were there or not.

Please post here any thoughts, ideas, suggestions, gripes you may have about anything regarding this swap. There are no sacred cows. To the best of my knowledge this was the first time something like this has been done, and with your help, I think it could be even better.

Thanks in advance,

Charles

 

[seminolecpa]

Charles,

Get job with the organization of the swap had a great time and it mas nice to meet people in a more intimate setting. My only suggestion would be to make the picking more random. Though I truly benefited this time who is to say the second coral is any better the the tenth. I agree that the first person should pick last and the last person should pick first but think it might be better for everyone else to draw at random. Could spice it up a bit more.

Thanks again for organizing couldn't be happier with the corals I got.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

Sure, I could go for Bryan's modified random order. But there really was no such thing as a bad pick there today

Well maybe except for Mike, who was forced to choose from all those "named" frags

Just call that Oregon tort "a blue acro", Mike

Would be nice for this to be a regular event so that people can frag really early and have more stuff encrusted. Some of my stuff was encrusted, some not.

 

[cwolfus]

Seminolecpa, it might make it more interesting to do something like that. But Mr. Ugly has a good point. I had last pick in the first round and walked away with an Oregon Tort!

Mr. Ugly, clearly the actual swap should have been planned for a later date. This would have allowed more time to work out trades and more time to let frags get healthy. It turned out that the trading was much more active than even I expected.

Next time I think there should be 2-3 weeks to set up the swap, 1-2 weeks to set up trades, and then a delay of 1-2 weeks until the actual event. So, start 5-7 weeks before the event.

In the other thread QWIV brought up that it is problematic to match up the first and last person. Suggestions have included having the first person post their available list. Unfortunately, I am concerned that this would cause a flood of PMs asking for trades which could undermine the swap. Anyone have any other thoughts on this?

C

 

[seminolecpa]

Like I said by no means complaining since I got pick #3. I concur you really couldn't get a bad pick. Think the snake picking order is a good idea but adding in the element of randomness could make it even more interesting.

I agree it may be problamatic to match up the first and last person but if the last person gets the first pick I think they can pretty much get some GSP and still be happy since (using this as an example) they basically get their pick of everything entered (and there were some nice corals entered).


Just my 2 cents to mix it up a bit though I would be just as happy if it happened the exact same way next time whether I was first or last.

 

[Sparkss]

I agree about the first/last topic, posting a list will only lead to a flood of unwanted PMs. I also agree with seminolecpa about the pick order... we got first pick out of all of the corals in the swap. I spent some time before the swap looking over each entry (first and second corals) and already knew ahead of time which one we wanted. That made our position pretty enviable, regardless of what we got from the first person (which we actually got a great piece there also).

Being the first to pick we also ended up being the last, which meant we only got 1 true pick (Our second "pick" was the only coral left) .. albeit our 1 pick was the first one for the whole swap. Again, we were quite fine with being the last to pick because of the other "perks" of the position. As it turns out with our last "pick" we picked up a frag of a coral that we had been looking for for some time, so it turned out doubly great for us, but that was just our personal experience being in that position.

 

[cwolfus]

Point taken. Next time I'll work in some more randomness to the picking order. I think it will also help to increase the excitement during the swap,

What else?

C

 

[brianbigoats]

maybe make the second round Random

 

[Sparkss]

That would work better.. only make the second round more random, that way the last person still has the benefit of the first pick to offset having to select from a pool of coral options from the first person. Making the second round random would then help to minimize the down side of the last person having hte last pick, making the position even out more. But that is just a suggestion, based on our experiences in that position

 

[neyugn0w01]

This was my first time going to anything like this after 5 years or so of reefing. It was great matching faces with screen names. In my opinion, the selection process was perfect. I picked 7 and 21. I got two piece that could have gone in the top 10. I guess it all depends on what people have and don't have. Thanks again Charles.

 

[cwolfus]

How about the number of frags?

Did you like the fact that the swap itself went pretty quick or would you have prefered more rounds? Of course, more rounds makes it harder for people to participate because they need to have more collectable frags.

C

 

[Sparkss]

I think the # of rounds was fine, especially since the side trades pretty much eclipsed the swap itself