Taking a clue from several "wholesale" vendors at my flea market I have been selling what I will call dollar items.

I got a huge load of scarves, bracelets, etc at a piece by piece auction (dirt cheap) and the winter wear items of course went well over the last couple of months; scraves, hats, gloves.

BUT, I hate that crap from the Dollar Stores when it takes the form of figurines of every imaginable nature.  I have gotten "collections" of those things and for the most part they just go to Goodwill for someone else to handle. If they are "nicer" I sell them....religious items seem to go OK, but dogs, cats, cows....recycled to someone else.

Haven't had much in the last year or so, but when I do hit a lkr with HD stuff it usually pays off.

I haven't gotten parts so much as I have lamps, bags, knives, books, pictures; I even sold two photo albums of a guys trips he had taken!

Perhaps you misunderstood me.

That's certainly possible, and there are usually MULTIPLE theories for things that happen. Determining the cause of some of them is not always possible without the resources or time to do so.

Not sure if SWNY is the problem as much as some getting their tax returns already.

Yep, it's a double whammy all right. After seeing this trend for the last two years one wonders if it will ever really go away or just go up and down with the influx of new tv shows and repeating tax returns. Too bad the newbies can't just read about how much work it is and the true possibilities on ROI for most people. But then, they would have to know what ROI meant !

Went to two of four possible auctions today bypassing two that were out of town far enough I didn't want to go.

Unfortunately, the crowd was 50 or so with only 6 to 10 being regulars; the majority of the rest were newbies and some from a metro area about 70 miles away !

First place had some OK lockers but once again I wasn't willing to pay the prices they were going for. I think the NY Storage Wars brought out some new idiots. Not a one of the 6 lkrs went to a regular.

Second place I went to...same story. One 8 wide by 12 deep went for $1,625 !  The front edge showed the back of a couch sitting on end, ends of mattress/box springs, a few boxes (nothing special in appearance and marked "Xmas" and "pots and pans").  Regulars were getting ill seeing this go above the $600 or so any of us would have bid.

So, not a good report, but more auctions tomorrow and Friday....there's always hope.

I was just being facetious but thanks for the tutorial. 

Actually, my little tale above did inspire me to create a hidden area on the forum reserved for it's elite. Although, I'm sure you've figured that out by now.

Yep, already posted there, but am on my way to some auctions so will have to check "The Upper Room" later.

Well, if you must know the truth...it's not really a phenomenon, it happens all the time. I didn't want to be the one to break the news to you but I knew it was just a matter of time before we all got caught.

You see, after you leave, everyone meets in the "secret area" of the forum to conduct our "secret meetings."  The "secret area" can be accessed by everyone except users with "mogul" status.

The other day when there were 583 people on the site, you surprised us and since there is no way for me to manipulate the user counter, we all got caught red handed. 

Well, there certainly an easier way to go about it than that. Software add-ons are available to allow extensive manipulation of user count.

Also, one could take the route (if one knew how) as expressed in the two forum posts below which came from a forum specifically aimed at forum adminstrators who want to tweak their site.

1.The users online is counted by the number of users accessing the site in a specified period of time, correct?. To specify the pd. of time, go to AdminCP>Options>Who's Online Options. I believe the stock refresh is one hour (3600 seconds). I would think if you increased this setting to say, 10,000 seconds the number would appear higher.

2. The refresh time controls how often the page is refreshed. You'd want to increase the cookie timeout, if you _really_ wanted to fake your users online

 

A forum adminstrator has many "priveleges" that members do not. Admins can 1) edit member's posts 2) delete member's posts (or threads) etc, etc. It's a digital world after all and manipulating 1's and 0's doesn't have to be done at that level anymore.