Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Swedish auction (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. I applaud the thorough discussion made by those arguing to keep the material but in the end consensus is pretty clear to delete. Shereth 22:22, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Swedish auction
AfDs for this article: 
 * ( [ delete] ) – (View AfD) (View log)

This page was tagged for speedy deletion under CSD:G4 by User:Ulner. I am taking the discussion here, because with respect to the previous AFD, there was very low participation there and the content of this page is somewhat different to that of the deleted page. I recommend delete as notability is not established and referencing is poor. Stifle (talk) 08:51, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Keep. The topic generates multiple hits in Google Scholar. That, and the references in the article suggest to me that this is a valid and notable topic in auction theory. The article needs improvement, but that's no reason for deletion. Bondegezou (talk) 09:51, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Weak delete. I am swayed by 木's and Moonriddengirl's arguments that this article is not appropriate, although there may be something salvageable in it. Bondegezou (talk) 15:27, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep. A legitimate form of auction that is eminently notable. The article, however, could do with a massive rewrite, even if only to fix the spelling mistakes. Ugh. Still, it's only a couple of weeks old so give it time, per WP:DEMOLISH. Debate   木  10:15, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I think the auction method does exist and is notable, but "Swedish auction" isn't the commonly used terminology. I've been doing some further digging, but until I get a chance to go through the sources in more detail than I have the time for right now I'm withdrawing my original comment. Debate   木  00:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete Following a good deal of research that could have been far more constructively spent elsewhere I've come to the conclusion that this article is not salvageable in its current form. The article appears to conflate a series of tangentially related concepts into what is, in my view, ultimately a synthesis at best. While certain concepts referred to in the article are absolutely notable, such as Simultaneous Multiple Round Auctions, the synthesis presented here is too tightly woven to easily untangle in any practical way that would allow splitting or merger. Note that Paul Milgrom, the only source mentioned in the article, has very helpfully provided a huge amount of material on his website, including 437 pages of Powerpoint slides, not one of which includes either of the phrases 'Swedish Auction' or 'Multiple-round auction'. I note that in the process of researching this topic I've also come across a series of related, unreferenced edits that are going to cause more than a few headaches for anyone who wants to have a go at untangling them. Debate   木  12:30, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

*Keep Agree with above keeps. Indeed the subject is obscure and the article needs better organization, but it is clearly sourceable and thus notable.--Mike Cline (talk) 18:31, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, unless further references are added sufficient to demonstrate that this is not a neologism. This isn't a time issue, in my opinion. This is the fourth incarnation of this article by the same user since last November, and no additional sourcing seems to have been added since the first. It was previously deleted under this title and twice deleted under Swedeauction following this AfD. My research at the time of that AfD (which I'm incorporating here by reference and link :)) suggested to me this was not a widely used term, and it still does not seem to be. Almost every hit I came up with on google news for "Swedish Auction" was adjacent, independent usage of the words (cf this, referencing an auction that happens to be in Sweden) (I say almost every, because some of those hits are pay per view, and I can't verify that those do not use the term in this specialist sense.) This is also the case with a general google search. I get 36 hits on the term in Google scholar. Many of these are duplicates, and some of those seem utterly unrelated to this usage. Take the duplicated reference here, for example (it accounts for 2 of the 36). It asks "What would a carefully designed Swedish auction have looked like?" and is discussing a theoretical concept, not an existing one. Many of the other hits seem to be referring to something specifically called "the Swedish auction bankruptcy system"--we already have an article for that. The creator of this article wrote it. I got 13 hits in google book (hoping to find the article's reference, but failing). None of them seem to correspond to this usage. (I thought I might have found something on the reference in a google search of Milgrom + "Swedish Auction" (13 distinct hits), but though it looked like a reliable source, it turned out to be a Wikipedia mirror.) Also, though I mentioned this in the first AfD, I would like to repeat it here: "I also found a .pdf from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm (HTML version here) that lists the four types of real estate auctions: "English, Dutch, first and second-price sealed bid auctions". They don't mention Swedeauction or Swedish Auction or anything like, even though its a 2006 report from Sweden discussing auctions in Swedish real estate. That report states that with regards to housing auctions in Sweden, "The auctions are either conventional English ascending-bid auctions or executive auction"." The report does use the terms adjacently, but not with any indication that it is an official name for anything, as it appears once on page 13. (This particular document accounts for another of the hits on google scholar.) As a final point, according to this article's creator, "Swedish Auction" is also known as "Multiple-round auction". Combining the terms "Swedish Auction" and "Multiple-round auction", I get 4 hits--two of which are Wikipedia. Of the other 2, one mentions the term once, on page four, but doesn't specify that it is a title: "Swedish auction report: For the PTS, advice on the introduction of auctions for spectrum assignment...." The other is a Wikipedia mirror reflecting content added by this contributor to Spectrum auction. I strongly feel we need more evidence that the term is in widespread use as a title for this specific kind of auction to justify having an article describing it by that name. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 17:52, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete, unless better referenced. um, what she said. Moonriddengirl seems to have done our legwork. Need evidence that "Swedish auction" is a term used for some particular kind of auction. Is that in the Milgrom book? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cretog8 (talk • contribs) 18:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Delete I'm convinced--Mike Cline (talk) 21:55, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete unless someone can actually produce a reliable source. My own investigation turned up even less than Moodriddengirl's did.  The references I found were all either coincidental use of auctions occurring in Sweden or casual descriptions of the real estate auction market as practiced in Sweden, not crystalized into a discrete academic concept.  Rossami (talk) 23:22, 11 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Keep Dear fellow Wikipedia users: I want to thank you all for giving so much of your time and effort in reviewing “Swedish auction”.  I am a comparative newcomer to Wikipedia and your comments have greatly helped me and guided me in my work to find Reliable sources. Please note the 608 page book by Claude Zacharias and the editorial articles by Bim Enström, Lottie Molund and Yvonne Edenholm quoted here. I am quite a bit late and my only fear is that your minds are made up already and that you do not take kindly to these facts being presented at such a late stage. But please read on.

Swedish-type auctions have many different names: Auction (Google: 361,000,000 hits). Spectrum auction (Google: 469,000 hits). Typical: $200,000,000. Forest auction (Google: 3590 hits): Typical sale: $50,000,000. Airport landing slot auction (Google: 604 hits): Typical sale: ? Simultaneous ascending auction (Google: 3530): $10,000,000. Multiple-round auction (Google: 3180):Typical sale: $200,000,000. Swedish auction (Google: 3100): Typical sale: $1,000,000. Swedeauction (Google: 2470 hits): Typical sale: $1,000,000. Swedish-type auction (Google: 309 hits): Typical sale: $1,000,000. Bidding (Google: 79,500,000 hits): Typical sale $500,000. Number of Swedish-type auctions per year in Metropolitan Stockholm area: 20,000 @ $500,000 per sale. $10,000,000,000

Estimated total sales through Swedish-type auctions World-wide per year: $100,000,000,000.

Swedish-type auctions are used for several types of products: Wireless spectra World-wide, Airport landing slots World-wide, US forests, Homes (only in Sweden’s metropolitan areas up to now,  expected World-wide in the not too distant future).

History of Swedish auction

Swedish auction was first used in 1982 for the sale of a house in the Metropolitan Stockholm  area. Over the next 26 years of home sales the auction rules have been changed more than fifty times to improve the practical performance of the auction. Bidders are constantly trying to outsmart the auction system but with less and less success.

On 1987-10-14 the large Swedish nationwide daily newspaper Expressen devoted two pages (28 and 29) to a large editorial article written by their real estate expert Bim Enström. The headline was: “1000 persons at the Open House…and the price doubled.” (The Final price quotient FPQ was 1.93 times the SOB, Suggested opening bid. The multiple rounds required 10 days starting with 148 bidders). This article was the first comprehensive independent media account of a Swedish auction, a completely different way of pricing real estate compared to the standard Asking price method. That method involves starting with an Asking price, typically 10 to 20 percent above the Estimate and the buyer’s haggling until the Final price is reached. Even in 2008 the Asking price method dominates the real estate market in most countries except Sweden and Australia.

On 1991-06-14 the leading daily financial newspaper Dagens Industri (on page 5) had an article describing Swedish auction.

In 1994 the United States Federal Government started to use so called “Multiple-round auctions” designed by Paul Milgrom (Stanford professor, born 1948) and associates. The auction rules are almost the same as for Swedish auction. Paul Milgrom is married to a Swedish economist and they own a vacation home in the Stockholm Archipelago. It could be that Milgrom came in contact with Swedish auction on his many visits to Sweden. But probably he designed his “Multiple-round auctions” without being aware of the previous existence of Swedish auction. I met Milgrom briefly in 1996 as he accepted the Nobel prize on behalf of the widow of William Vickrey and delivered Vickrey’s Nobel lecture.

Multiple-round auctions are logical extensions of singel-round English-type auctions. On first hearing about Swedish auction many economists will exclaim: “This surely must be the right way of pricing and selling real estate. Why does not every real estate agent in the World use Swedish auction?” The answer to this is of course that estate agents World-wide are more interested in reducing their work-hour input to the barest minimum, rather than obtaining the best possible price for their clients. In Sweden since 2003 clients insist on Swedish auctions, since they will result in about 20 percent higher final prices compared to any other pricing methods. It is thus inevitable that the rest of the World will follow.

In 2001 the Swedish lawyer, member of the Swedish Bar Association and real estate expert Claude Zacharias (born 1961) published a book called “Fastighetsmäklarlagen i praktisk tillämpning”. (The Estate Agents Act in Actual Practice). 608 pp. Norstedts Juridik. ISBN 91-39-10503-2. Pages 228-234 are devoted to bidding, especially through Swedish auctions. There is a comprehensive description here of the actual Swedish auction procedure and rules. (Unintentionally the auction here is called “Swedish Auktion”, not Auction. This lawyer has English as a second language). Norstedt’s publishing company was founded in 1823 and publishes and prints most of the legal literature in Sweden, including the huge official “Lawbook of Sweden” itself every February.

On 2001-11-24 Expressen again (on page 23) had an article written by their real estate reporter Lottie Molund about a Swedish auction involving 900 persons at an Open House. (The Final price quotient was 1.92, the multiple rounds required 35 days with 85 families bidding). This article alerted Swedish consumers, to the fact that for the sale of homes, Swedish auction is superior to everything else, and more and more vendors demanded that their agents use Swedish auction.

On 2008-05-09 the large daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter had a quarter-page editorial article written by their business reporter Yvonne Edenholm about the Swedish government's simultaneous Swedish auctions (or Multiple-round auctions) for nine 15-year licenses for wireless Spectra. The total Final price amounted to SEK 2,099,450,000 with a Final price quotient, FPQ of 41.99. The multiple rounds required 16 days. Reports about this particular Swedish auction appeared in business newspapers all over the World, see Spectrum auction and thousands of Google hits for Spectrum auction and Swedish auction.

The US Federal Communications Commission, FCC uses Swedish auctions since 1994. General Services Administration GSA (a US Government agency) since 1994 uses Swedish auctions (Multiple-round online auctions) for the sale of real estate. However US real estate agents still mostly stick to the obsolete Asking price method. This explains, why in 2008 there are so many unsold houses in the USA (but so few in Sweden).

For the sale of private homes in Sweden’s Metropolitan areas the Swedish auction pricing method accounted for 0 percent before 1982, less than 1 percent in 1987, about 5 percent in 2001 but more than 70 percent in 2008.

An English auction consists of one round only and requires a total of 20 seconds to 10 minutes from the moment that the first opening bid is announced until the final (winning) bid becomes a binding agreement between buyer and vendor. Normally the Suggested opening bid, SOB is equal to the Estimate. English auctions are widely used for real estate in Australia.

A Swedish auction consists of multiple rounds during several days or even weeks. Normally the Suggested opening bid, SOB is deliberately set far below the Estimate. This is particularly true, when governments are the vendors.

A typical 1982 ad for a house in a Swedish newspaper would contain a short description and “495,000”, meaning that the Asking price was SEK 495,000 and that anybody saying “I will buy the house if you give me a 10 percent discount” would be the buyer right away, without the agent waiting for a better offer from someone else.

A typical 2008 ad for a house in a Swedish newspaper will contain a photo, a short description and “Budstart 1,500,000”, meaning that the SOB, Suggested Opening Bid or starting bid is SEK 1,500,000. The Final price is not mentioned and is almost certainly at least 20 percent higher, depending on the competition. (In 1996 a charming, but run down, house built in 1918 sold for 2.86 times the SOB, when 67 families joined the bidding during 17 days. The final price was 78 percent higher than would have been the case with the traditional Asking price method).

On a typical 2008 weekend there will be about 500 Swedish auction ads and about 200 Asking price ads in the Metropolitan Stockholm area. But the term “Swedish auction” is not mentioned in the ad. By now the buyers know the “Swedish auction” rules and that the bidding will be a multiple-round auction lasting anywere from 3 days to several weeks. (Not a single round English auction and not an Asking price).

Chinese auctions, Dutch auctions,  English auctions,  French auctions,  Iraqi auctions and Swiss auctions are all named after the country of origin and so is Swedish auction, see Auction.

The auction rules for “Swedish auction” are almost identical to the auction rules for “Multiple-round auction”. The differences that do exist are related to differences in the product being sold rather than to differences in the actual auction principle which is “multiple-round”.

Arguments for the Wikipedia main page being “Swedish auction”: The auction type was used in Sweden for twelve years before it was used anywere else. Plus: Far more objects are sold in Sweden through “Swedish auctions” each year than the total number of objects through “Multiple-round auctions” in the rest of the World.

Arguments for the main page being “Multiple-round auction”: This term occurs more often in Google (and then mostly in connection with Spectrum auctions) than does the term “Swedish auction”.

Dear Moonriddengirl, I appreciate that you have spent many hours researching “Swedish auction”. But it seems that you have only had access to your computer, including access to Google and Wikipedia. You will however surely agree that not all human knowledge is in Google. And you can not be an expert on everything. Auction design is growing at a fast pace right now. Even for experts it is not easy to keep track of everything that happens. All users have been invited to share their information about Game Theory including Auctions and this has been classified as being of considerable importance. Those of us who are very excited about auctions read every scrap of paper that we can find on the subject. But there are still only a few thick comprehensive books on the subject. There are a lot of ads for houses for sale in Stockholm, but those ads can not be reached through Google alone. But one can contact two of the largest estate agencies in Stockholm: http://www.notar.se  or http://www.erikolsson.se

Swedish bankruptcy auction is a legal term used in the USA only (as opposed to a firm being reorganized under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code). The auction is normally a First price auction and has nothing to do with a Swedish-type auction.

Regarding the brief working paper written by Samuel Azasu of Ghana, (an international postgraduate student at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm): Azasu has only been in Sweden a few years. He is by no means an expert on the Swedish housing market. An English auction is a single-round auction lasting from 20 seconds to a maximum of 10 minutes from start to finish. A Swedish auction is a multiple-round auction lasting a minimum of 3 days and a maximum of several weeks. Azasu includes all types of ascending bid auctions in his term English auction. That is not the terminology used by the experts. It is most unfortunate that Azasu's paper has entered the talk page for Swedish auction. It just does not belong there. The correct wording would be. “Conventional English ascending-bid auctions (like in Australia) are rarely used in Sweden, except for forced sales by court order, etc. Either an Asking Price (outside the metropolitan areas) or a Swedish auction (multiple-round auction) is normally used.” Note that Azasu seems to be ignorant of Milgroms important 2004 book, still the most comprehensive and important book on auctions anywere. This ignorance is very significant here. When looking for Google hits, it is a mistake to combine the term “Swedish auction” with the term “Multiple-round auction”. Both terms mean the same thing and each article normally uses only one of the terms and not the other depending on the preferences of the author. Each term has to be checked separately, not combined with anything. The resulting hit count will be dramatically larger. Sincerely, Max7437. Max7437 (talk) 15:26, 14 June 2008 (UTC)


 * comment You indicate that Swedish-type auctions may have many names, but we really need some kind of references to indicate that the term "Swedish action" is prevalently used. You note that "Swedish auction" has approximately 3,100 google hits. I get 3,070. However, this doesn't verify that there is a term. Looking at the first two pages of google hits, we have 8 about auction sites or auction houses in Sweden and multiple articles about a specific auction where "Swedish auction" is used to distinguish from upcoming auctions in other countries . The only hit that matches this specific usage is the wikipedia article currently under dispute. That makes the number of hits for "Swedish auction" irrelevant in determining if this is a neologism or a widely used term. We need substantial evidence that there is something called a "Swedish auction"--not simply that a style of auction that was popularized in Sweden exists. From the guideline on neologisms, we see that "articles on neologisms frequently attempt to track the emergence and use of the term as observed in communities of interest or on the internet&mdash;without attributing these claims to reliable secondary sources. If the article is not verifiable (see Reliable sources for neologisms, below) then it constitutes analysis, synthesis and original research and consequently cannot be accepted by Wikipedia. This is true even though there may be many examples of the term in use." The topic may be notable, but the title may be inappropriate. Again, drawing from neologism, "In a few cases, there will be notable topics which are well-documented in reliable sources, but for which no accepted short-hand term exists.  It can be tempting to employ a made-up or non-notable neologism in such a case.  Instead, use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title." If the article were generally about auctions in Sweden, that would be one thing. As it is, the article is defining a type of auction for which multiple editors have failed to independently verify existence. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 16:02, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Further to Moonriddengirl, ghits are only an estimate, and usually a massive overestimate in my experience. Set the Number of Results to display under Google preferences to something large, like 50 or 100 per page, then try to jump to page 10. In fact, if one does this one discovers only 276 ghits, total, for the term "Swedish auction", further exclusions being entirely unnecessary. A similar search for "Multiple-round auction" in fact returns only 266 hits, most of which refer to "Simultaneous Multiple-Round Auction" which probably should have its own article, but which is only indirectly discussed in the article under consideration here. Several others are fairly comprehensive reviews of auctions which do not mention the type of auction you describe, the hits instead being the result of incidental references to other things that just happen to use that particular phrase in another context. eg.
 * I also note the references to Milgrom, however I find it telling that he doesn't appear to mention either term once in his entire first year undergraduate class dedicated to auctions. Debate   木  01:09, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Further to the above, I just did another academic search of EBSCOhost (subscription only, unfortunately). It is the premier source of academic journal articles in economics available and it returns a grand total of one hit for "Swedish auction" (the Thorburn article). A similar search for "Multiple-round auction" returns 9 hits, 8 about spectrum auctions and one about Dutch auctions. Debate   木  01:09, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I must say that I'm finding this far more fascinating than I probably should. Perhaps because I'd still like to justify my initial opinion of keep. The evidence against, however, just keeps stacking up. I just had a look at the last deletion debate and note User:Hersfold's excellent investigative effort establishing that the Swedish Wikipedia article of the same name was also recently deleted by AFD. Debate   木  09:02, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Further to which, the Zacharias reference just added was also used in this article's last deletion debate, and apparently the mention is simply as an "experimental method worth trying", per User:Ulner. Debate   木  09:18, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Please read the “Talk: Auction” page: “This artcle is part of WikiProject Game theory, an attempt to improve, grow and standardize Wikipedia’s articles related to Game theory. We need your help! – This article is on a subject of high-importance within game theory.”

As you can see on “Revision history of Auction” much of that article has been written by me, with few complaints.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet.” — William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet; II, ii, 1-2; circa 1595.

In 1948, MacCallum and colleagues published an article reporting a new mycobacterial infection in man, and later named the causative organism Mycobacterium ulcerans. In their article, they described six patients, five of whom came from the Bairnsdale district in Gippsland, Victoria. Three Bairnsdale general practitioners, Drs Alsop, Clay and Searls, had initially recognised a novel disease in their region and submitted pathological specimens to Melbourne University for diagnosis. Subsequently, the same disease was described in many different areas, mostly in Africa (“Buruli ulcer”). Each new outbreak tended to give rise to a new name; of all these, perhaps the most colourful is “Sik belong Sepik”, describing the infection as it occurs along the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea. In Victoria, where most Australian cases of M. ulcerans infection occur, we have continued to use the term “Bairnsdale ulcer” even though the main endemic areas are now the Bellarine and Mornington Peninsulas near Melbourne.

As you can see Google mentions a mysterious infection (in Australia, Papua New Guinea and Africa) that had a different local name in each community affected. Laboratory tests finally revealed that it was the same infection and this discovery eventually facilitated the treatment and cure.

It is much the same with “Swedish auction” (Multiple-round action). The government agencies and estate agents that use this type of auction only refer to it as “Bidding” or “Auction”. But “Auction” is the term used in Australia for an “English auction”. It is an unsatisfactory situation, to have the same everyday word for vastly different types of auctions. It is like only using the term “eating tools”, and never using the words knife, fork and spoon.

We do not normally call an auction an “Open outcry ascending single-round auction”, we call it an “English auction” or even simply an “Auction”. But in the age of the Internet auction, with very many actions having their own specific auction rules, the general public needs what might be called the “Wikipedia Guide to Auctions”. I read the appeal from the WikiProject Game theory (including Auction theory). It is a bit frustrating to say the least, to have my articles on Swedish auction, deleted again and again, although these articles seem to be in considerable demand among many ordinary Wikipedia users.

“If you cannot find it in Google it does not exist.” Well it may indeed exist. Google itself has only existed a few years. The fact that Wikipedia administrators rely so heavily on Google, accounts for many excellent articles being deleted, only because they cannot be verified through Google.

When an independent agent or auctioneer sells by action he is mainly interested in completing the auction inside 10 minutes or even inside 20 seconds. But when the vendor and the auctioneer are the same, maximizing the final price becomes much more important. The U.S. government does not care much if it’s own auction lasts 10 minutes or several weeks. If the final price can be doubled or trippled, so much the better. That is why a Swedish auction (or Multiple-round auction) is used by several governments.

Before 2001 only about 200 homes had been sold through a Swedish auction. In 2001 it could perhaps be said, that Swedish auction was still an “experimental method worth trying”. But the Zacharias book in August and the Molund article in November totally changed that. The Molund article had a very great impact. It alerted consumers all over Sweden, that they should no longer be content with estate agents’ using the Asking Price method and instead demand that a Swedish auction be used. By 2003 thousands of sales through Swedish auction had taken place and on the weekend of 2008-03-07 as many as 504 out of 710 homes for sale through Dagens Nyheter in Metropolitan Stockholm were offered through a Swedish auction, each auction lasting days, rather than minutes. This amounts to about 20,000 homes per year in Stockholm and additional homes in the other metropolitan areas.

There are 361,000,000 g-hits on “Auction”. Some of these obviously refer to Swedish auction.

To those of you who complain about my spelling: I studied English and Spanish in Havanna (before Castro), then Swedish, German and French in Stockholm. Then using English again as an engineer working in New York and building the World Trade Center. (A sad story in 2001!) I try to do my best, but sometimes I may not be quite aware of which language I am actually using. Please forgive me!

Ulner is a Swedish Wikipedia administrator. He and I had a big argument a few months ago. Since then he deletes almost everything I write on Swedish Wikipedia and as you can now see he is trying to delete everything I write on English Wikipedia too. I insisted that the international (that is English) names for various types of auctions be used, while he attempted to wash all English words right out of “his” Swedish Wikipedia. He wanted “engelsk auktion” in stead of “English auction” and “holländsk auktion” in stead of “Dutch auction”. Since Swedish experts always use the English terms even in otherwise Swedish articles it is kind of silly for Swedish Wikipedia to introduce Swedish terms that no one else uses or even heard about. Ulner and I violently disagreed. But I hope that my articles will be treated fairly on English Wikipedia and it is up to my fellow English Wikipedia users to make that happen. I have more or less given up hope that Swedish Wikipedia will ever recover from it’s sickness. At least not as long as Ulner is one of the 78 administrators. Lesson: You cannot successfully argue with a policeman or an administrator. I should have kept my big mouth shut. Sorry about that!

Is the above Evidence sufficient to prove beyond a reasoable doubt that Swedish-type auctions do exist for homes in Stockholm and for Spectrum sales World-wide? (Australia, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, USA and several other governments). Probably less than half of the more than 2,400,000 articles in English Wikipedia have as much evidence to support them as Swedish auction has, with estimated World-wide sales of $100,000,000,000 per year. Deleting “Swedish auction” would be an unacceptable type of discrimination. You might as well delete 1,200,000 other articles as well then.

“English auction” is a much shorter term than “Open outcry ascending continuous single-round auction”.

“Swedish auction” is a much shorter term than “On-line or fax silent mostly ascending discrete multiple-round auction” evidently preferred by some eager deletionists. And remember, that it is a long standing tradition among auctions to name them after the country of origin. At least until someone comes up with a better name, which has not yet happened with “Swedish auction”.

Please read “Wikipedia:Reliable sources”. “It is a generally accepted standard that editors should follow, though it should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception.” - Please use common sense regarding “Swedish auction”. Thank you! Max7437 (talk) 12:33, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Comment "What’s in a name?" Encyclopedic accuracy: which is what we strive for here. We are not here to define a new type of auction, but merely to describe--with accurate nomenclature--what exists. Creating titles, and then defining them, is original research, which is not allowed on the English language Wikipedia. If the term is not already in widespread use, we don't use it. As I said above, an article on "Auctions in Sweden" that describes the various auctions conducted there, with verifiable sourcing, would be fine. An article on "Swedish auction" (that indicates it "is a type of auction lasting days or weeks from the moment that the first bid is revealed until the final (winning) bid becomes a binding agreement between buyer and seller. It is often used in spectrum auctions and sometimes when selling real estate and vintage cars, etc.") is inaccurate if there is no such specific auction type. Verifiability is the policy of point here. While it may be unsatisfying to have to use the same word for vastly different types of auctions, it is not Wikipedia's place to create new terminology to distinguish among them. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 13:49, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

A wife gives birth to a son. The parents decide to call him “Robert” and report this name to the authorities and also put in an ad in the local newspaper stating the name, “Robert”.

A man invents a new type of auction. A newspaper editor invites him to write an article describing the invention. The article is published and it states that the name of the auction type is “Swedish auction”. (Dagens Industri 1991-06-14, page 5.

”Robert” and ”Swedish auction” are the official names, especially since many, many years have passed and nobody has challeged the use of these two names. But now there is this talk about “Encyclopedic accuracy”. But every possible proof has been presented that this is a specific existing auction type. Nobody is asking Wikipedia to create new terminology, only to accept the terminology that has already been decided. My fellow Wikipedia users, please do just that! Keep Max7437 (talk) 17:00, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Delete. As I have written in the 1st nomination for deletion, there is a credible reference to a Swedish handbook, where this method is described as a experimental method worth trying; Zacharias, Claude (2001). This suggests strongly that this auction method is of low encyclopedic value. In this new version of the article references to several English books have been added. I have looked in the book by Paul Milgrom - and Milgrom does not refer to the concept "Swedish auction" anywhere. I urge the author Max7437 to reply if the concept appears in the other books added as references to the article. Ulner (talk) 19:49, 16 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.