So at first I was going to make a raffle poking fun at Auction adverts, but as I kept writing out my points, I realized that Auctions, as a whole, are very, very flawed. Here's why I feel this way, and I hope we can have a serious discussion about this.
((EDIT 03/07/17: The way I phrased some of this made it imply that all auctions are like this, when they really aren't. A good number of people are behaving adequately when it comes to auctions, but there is still the problematic sector. This is talking about the latter of these people.
Also, apologies if some phrasing is otherwise confusing, it was written at the end of the day, possibly only an hour before I fell asleep. Just poke me with whatever's confusing and I'll try to edit it.))
We have a rampant advertising problem, in which people are getting cheap, practically free advertising by annoying other users.
This is the original point of the raffle that never got made, and I feel it should be my first point. People are abusing raffles for the sake of advertising. What do they give in return? Cheapskate raffles. I've seen, on more than one occasion, someone raffle something like a Winter Noisemaker while in the same breath advertising an Unusual most users can't even afford. This might be a personal problem, because I try to make raffles that are fun, or at the very least make a point. To see my raffles lumped up with what can be chalked up to penny advertisements is very discouraging.
Then again, it might not be a personal problem. Jesse already made a poll about this, and while the majority thought it wasn't a problem, quite a few people disagreed. A sizable portion of the user base does not like auction adverts. And it's easy to see why, because it's a huge loophole.
Auction adverts are rules lawyer-ing the site rules.
Remember: it's against the rules to advertise a trade outside of the site. That means sites like TF2Outpost, Backpack.tf, bazaar.tf, can't be linked to for the purpose of selling your items. If you put your items into an auction; set it at, oh, 95% of its value; and let it run for a week though? That's fine. What happens here is that someone can advertise an "auction", when its not really an auction at all!
Auctions are being used as a "standard" trading platform instead of an auction.
There is no rule that says that auctions have to have a minimum or maximum value, so as I said before; put items into an auction, set the minimum bid at 95% of its bp.tf value, let it run until someone places a bid. This is admittedly my biggest problem with Auctions right now; I see way too many people using it to "sell" stuff instead of "auction" stuff. Of course, if people want to pay that much for an item, that's one thing, but I see too much of this as opposed to this.
Of course, why would you even want to use Auctions, when...
Auctions are essentially a worse version of standard trading.
There is one benefit to automated auctions, and that is automation. Everything's done for you, to an extent. That's nice, right? Well, the problem is, there's not a real incentive to use them outside of that. You have a time limit; if you forget to pay, you get banned; you have to do a confusing site inventory setup; all sorts of minor problems that makes the whole thing seem like it's not worth it. To be frank, unless I wanted to get rid of an item quickly, I would just, y'know... put up a couple of listings on TF2Outpost and Backpack.tf. I wouldn't face an auction ban, and I also get to pick and choose offers based on my preferences.
There's a lot of other, smaller problems facing Auctions, but these are pretty much my main gripes.
I want to know your thoughts on the matter, whether its your own problems with auctions, your proposed solutions (remember, this is not the suggestion forum), whatever.