5 ms·

It's a shame because the solution is very simple. You have a period of time where people can register interest which is long enough that everyone can do it at t

It's a shame because the solution is very simple. You have a period of time where people can register interest which is long enough that everyone can do it at their leisure. After this window closes you draw lots. Whoever wins the lottery gets the opportunity to buy (eg by receiving an email with a magic link). If they don't, you draw another person and offer it to them. Otherwise you have an "auction" where instead of giving the resource to the people willing to pay the most, you give it to the people with the best programming skills (who then turn around and flip it to the people willing to pay the most). Which is pretty unfair, since programming is a specialty, and since presumably we're in a context where giving it to the people who pay the most isn't considered acceptable (or we would just hold an auction). I believe this is used in parts of the sneaker/fashion industry.

hunter2_ 2y ago
That's good if there's something to buy, but in my scenario it's free. The resort's goal isn't to charge for this parking, it's to ensure that the number of vehicles on the roads leading to their parking lot doesn't exceed the number of parking spaces. So if they have N parking spaces, they allow N reservations to be made, but people are cautiously greedy and make a reservation (when the opportunity begins on the prior Tuesday) before they even know that they're planning to ski that weekend, leading to near-immediate depletion. If the weather isn't looking great, they'll eventually cancel their reservation (lest they get on the resort's no-show shit-list, which ultimately leads to the resort refusing your business -- you must cancel or be found to have parked) and those cancellations are what the bot alerts on. How would a lottery work for this situation? Everyone thinking of maybe skiing signs up on Monday, then on Tuesday an email is sent to N people saying "you won the parking lottery," then someone canceling last-minute (to avoid the no-show penalty) causes another "you won" email to go out randomly to the wait list? What if the person on the wait list doesn't see that they've won at the last minute, do they get a penalty for not having proactively removed themselves from the wait list upon deciding to ignore email the rest of the week? I guess this could work, but it's pretty dicey...
- maxbond 2y ago
  It works the same, the price is just $0. I'm sure I'm missing nuances since I don't know this resort's business, but here's what I'd propose. You let people register interest by Monday (potentially weeks in advance). You draw N lots on Tuesday. People get an email, they have the option to reserve a space and 24 hours to exercise it. M people do so. On Wednesday you draw N - M lots. You keep going until either you've assigned all the spaces or you've run out of time. People will still exercise a greedy strategy, and they might cancel their interest ahead of time, but if the lottery hasn't started that's a free operation. If they click the link and indicate they aren't interested any longer, we can offer the spot to someone else immediately. If they never click the link, then it gets bumped to Wednesday. Hopefully that's tolerable. How far you may register in advance and how long you have to exercise your option are variables that you can tune. If you're getting overwhelmed and failing to assign spaces, you reduce one or the other. Last minute cancellations or spots that people repeatedly failed to click the link for, need to be assigned ASAP to avoid a dead weight loss; for these, you can fail back to the old system. Maybe you email everyone who hadn't gotten a space, and the first to click the link wins. If that were the edge case instead of the norm, it probably wouldn't be a big deal to give it to the bot folk. At that point, they're playing an important role in making this market efficient, the sort of HFTs of the ski resort. Alternatively, you can do just one round and then go to first-to-click. That gives the people who aren't botting room to breathe, at least. (After typing this all out though, I do see that this is conceptually simple but complex to implement.)
- kelnos 2y ago
  > What if the person on the wait list doesn't see that they've won at the last minute, do they get a penalty for not having proactively removed themselves from the wait list upon deciding to ignore email the rest of the week? No, when you get the "you won a spot" email, you have to click to confirm. Probably it should be set up to give you 12-24 hours to do so, and if you don't, it draws a new person and sends them an email. I was surprised to read your initial post about it being hard to get spots. I went four times this past season... though I think maybe only once on a weekend (in January), and it was easy to get a parking reservation. Maybe that was early enough in the season that people hadn't written many bots yet. Bummed that it's going to be a pain next season.
concordDance 2y ago
> After this window closes you draw lots. Couldn't someone use a bot to register interest a million times so they have a much higher chance of winning the lot drawing?
- kelnos 2y ago
  IIRC they require that you submit your license plate number when you register for parking, so no, you could only register once per vehicle.
  - maxbond 2y ago
    And you'll need to address this whichever approach you take. If you can't pin them down to an identity, you'll probably need to take a deposit.
  - RomanHauksson 2y ago
    I wonder if you could register using all the plate numbers from a nearby car rental place, then try to rent the corresponding car if it gets chosen.
    - hunter2_ 2y ago
      Rental cars actually add an interesting aspect to all of this: if you use a disposable (not also used to buy your ski pass) email address and the license plate of your rental car for a reservation, the resort will have no way to penalize you for being a no-show! Any attempt at collecting a fine, prohibiting future business, etc. would be against a useless email address and plate number that you don't reuse the next time you visit. Also, once you've managed to get a reservation, the system allows you to modify the plate number on your reservation, presumably to allow for renting after reserving.
  - deepsun 2y ago
    Type many fake invalid license plates, and cancel them, freeing a spot at a time of your choice.
4hg4ufxhy 2y ago
What stops you from sybil attacking the lottery and selling to highest bidder?
- ipsento606 2y ago
  yeah it only works if you have some kind of ungameable unique id for each participant if it's parking, you could conceivably make people enter their license plate number when they enter, which would allow you to detect duplicate entries, and is reasonably hard to game if you have some enforcement mechanism on the actual parking side of things

hunter2_ 2y ago

That's good if there's something to buy, but in my scenario it's free. The resort's goal isn't to charge for this parking, it's to ensure that the number of vehicles on the roads leading to their parking lot doesn't exceed the number of parking spaces. So if they have N parking spaces, they allow N reservations to be made, but people are cautiously greedy and make a reservation (when the opportunity begins on the prior Tuesday) before they even know that they're planning to ski that weekend, leading to near-immediate depletion. If the weather isn't looking great, they'll eventually cancel their reservation (lest they get on the resort's no-show shit-list, which ultimately leads to the resort refusing your business -- you must cancel or be found to have parked) and those cancellations are what the bot alerts on. How would a lottery work for this situation? Everyone thinking of maybe skiing signs up on Monday, then on Tuesday an email is sent to N people saying "you won the parking lottery," then someone canceling last-minute (to avoid the no-show penalty) causes another "you won" email to go out randomly to the wait list? What if the person on the wait list doesn't see that they've won at the last minute, do they get a penalty for not having proactively removed themselves from the wait list upon deciding to ignore email the rest of the week? I guess this could work, but it's pretty dicey...

maxbond 2y ago
It works the same, the price is just $0. I'm sure I'm missing nuances since I don't know this resort's business, but here's what I'd propose. You let people register interest by Monday (potentially weeks in advance). You draw N lots on Tuesday. People get an email, they have the option to reserve a space and 24 hours to exercise it. M people do so. On Wednesday you draw N - M lots. You keep going until either you've assigned all the spaces or you've run out of time. People will still exercise a greedy strategy, and they might cancel their interest ahead of time, but if the lottery hasn't started that's a free operation. If they click the link and indicate they aren't interested any longer, we can offer the spot to someone else immediately. If they never click the link, then it gets bumped to Wednesday. Hopefully that's tolerable. How far you may register in advance and how long you have to exercise your option are variables that you can tune. If you're getting overwhelmed and failing to assign spaces, you reduce one or the other. Last minute cancellations or spots that people repeatedly failed to click the link for, need to be assigned ASAP to avoid a dead weight loss; for these, you can fail back to the old system. Maybe you email everyone who hadn't gotten a space, and the first to click the link wins. If that were the edge case instead of the norm, it probably wouldn't be a big deal to give it to the bot folk. At that point, they're playing an important role in making this market efficient, the sort of HFTs of the ski resort. Alternatively, you can do just one round and then go to first-to-click. That gives the people who aren't botting room to breathe, at least. (After typing this all out though, I do see that this is conceptually simple but complex to implement.)
kelnos 2y ago
> What if the person on the wait list doesn't see that they've won at the last minute, do they get a penalty for not having proactively removed themselves from the wait list upon deciding to ignore email the rest of the week? No, when you get the "you won a spot" email, you have to click to confirm. Probably it should be set up to give you 12-24 hours to do so, and if you don't, it draws a new person and sends them an email. I was surprised to read your initial post about it being hard to get spots. I went four times this past season... though I think maybe only once on a weekend (in January), and it was easy to get a parking reservation. Maybe that was early enough in the season that people hadn't written many bots yet. Bummed that it's going to be a pain next season.

concordDance 2y ago

> After this window closes you draw lots. Couldn't someone use a bot to register interest a million times so they have a much higher chance of winning the lot drawing?

kelnos 2y ago
IIRC they require that you submit your license plate number when you register for parking, so no, you could only register once per vehicle.
- maxbond 2y ago
  And you'll need to address this whichever approach you take. If you can't pin them down to an identity, you'll probably need to take a deposit.
- RomanHauksson 2y ago
  I wonder if you could register using all the plate numbers from a nearby car rental place, then try to rent the corresponding car if it gets chosen.
  - hunter2_ 2y ago
    Rental cars actually add an interesting aspect to all of this: if you use a disposable (not also used to buy your ski pass) email address and the license plate of your rental car for a reservation, the resort will have no way to penalize you for being a no-show! Any attempt at collecting a fine, prohibiting future business, etc. would be against a useless email address and plate number that you don't reuse the next time you visit. Also, once you've managed to get a reservation, the system allows you to modify the plate number on your reservation, presumably to allow for renting after reserving.
- deepsun 2y ago
  Type many fake invalid license plates, and cancel them, freeing a spot at a time of your choice.

4hg4ufxhy 2y ago

What stops you from sybil attacking the lottery and selling to highest bidder?

ipsento606 2y ago
yeah it only works if you have some kind of ungameable unique id for each participant if it's parking, you could conceivably make people enter their license plate number when they enter, which would allow you to detect duplicate entries, and is reasonably hard to game if you have some enforcement mechanism on the actual parking side of things