Talk:starting price

Deletion discussion

The following information passed a request for deletion.

This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.

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starting price

"The opening price for an item at an auction", redundant to "Used other than as an idiom." Mglovesfun (talk) 18:37, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

• I think it's different from the reserve price. An item can be withdrawn from an auction if it doesn't reach the reserve price set by the seller. I guess an auction has to start somewhere pricewise. Donnanz (talk) 18:54, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

  I don't see what point you're trying to make. An auction needs to start at some price, and that price is referred to, unidiomatically, as the "starting price". --WikiTiki89 19:10, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Donnanz, what relevance are you proposing, if any? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:15, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

An auction has to start at a certain price, whether it's a penny, pound, £100 or whatever. I guess it depends on the perceived value of the item. The reserve price could be set above the starting price - "bidding did not reach the reserve price". Donnanz (talk) 19:29, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Ok perhaps I was unclear, what relevance to the discussion of the deletion of this sense of 'starting price'? Mglovesfun (talk) 19:31, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

• If you think it's redundant to "Used other than as an idiom", then why did you add that sense? Anyway, it's a set term in bidding/auctions, otherwise I don't see how it's obvious what exactly is being "started". It's no more literal than the horse racing sense, even though the meanings are diametrically opposed: in bidding, it's the first price (i.e. when the bidding starts), in racing it's the last price (i.e. when the race starts). Ƿidsiþ 19:52, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
• See also the OED: "starting-price n. (a) the price at which the bidding at an auction is started; (b) Horse Racing the final odds on a horse at the time of starting". Ƿidsiþ 19:54, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

  In the horse-racing sense, the meaning is the opposite of what you'd expect. In the auction sense, it is exactly what you would expect. --WikiTiki89 20:00, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

  I feel that we just have different ideas about what a dictionary is, because to me the fact that you find the meaning obvious is completely beside the point. There are lots of things in a dictionary with transparent meanings. But it is by no means obvious that English would express the idea in this way. In French, it's called the "initial price", which would be equally obvious in English, but we don't generally say that. We say "starting price". It's a set term, and the only one that you would use in this situation. If you don't know about bidding at an auction, you would have no idea what to call it (even though you would obviously understand what someone meant if they said it). That is what good dictionaries record: what terms are actually used for such things, how long have they been in use, how would you translate them, where does the stress fall in pronunciation of such two-word terms, etc. etc. Ƿidsiþ 20:10, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

It's not a set term in bidding, bidding uses the unidiomatic sense. Saying it's a bidding terms isn't untrue it's just misleading. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:00, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Basically your definition is unacceptably inaccurate, mine isn't. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:04, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

• You could say "initial price". It may be less common, but it's the exact same thing. --WikiTiki89 20:19, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

  To me there s a clear difference between what people could say and what they do, in fact, choose to say 90 percent of the time, and that is perhaps partly what I mean by ‘set term’. Ƿidsiþ 20:25, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

  So what's the threshold percentage? --WikiTiki89 20:30, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

• I didn't realise that this is a brand new entry. I suggest it is restored to the original as entered by Widsith. Donnanz (talk) 20:03, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

  A lot more than just auctions have starting prices. That is what {{&lit}} is for. --WikiTiki89 20:06, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

  You might be right, but like what exactly? If the vast majority of citations are about bidding, then to me it makes sense to have a definition line which explains it properly, rather than just saying "look up (deprecated template usage) starting and (deprecated template usage) price" (by the way, what sense of (deprecated template usage) starting do you think is being used here?). I don't think it's helpful to users, I think it's a way for editors to score points. (I see that there may be a specific sense in stocks and shares as well.) Ƿidsiþ 07:53, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

OK, fine. I have added the abbreviation SP to the horse racing sense. Donnanz (talk) 20:30, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

• I have created an entry for reserve price, and linked it to this one. Donnanz (talk) 21:30, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

That one's totally not obvious from the sum of its parts. Mglovesfun (talk) 22:28, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I think it's kind of stupid to have a reserve price higher than the starting price. Why is that done? --WikiTiki89 22:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I have no idea. Maybe the reserve price is not disclosed before the auction. Donnanz (talk) 23:46, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

It is done to encourage bidding to begin and to get bidders fighting each other for an item. The reserve price is not known to the bidders. The auctioneer may start by asking for bids much lower than the reserve price. If he gets no bids, he asks for a lower bid until someone is willing to start. SpinningSpark 15:24, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation, SpinningSpark. Donnanz (talk) 22:04, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes thanks! I did not realize the bidders don't know the reserve price. --WikiTiki89 23:16, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

• If this were actually a true set phrase then we wouldn't find modifiers of price inserted after starting. But one can find, for example, asking, ask, and bid. And coordinate expressions can be inserted as well, eg, or reserve.

Opening price, starting price, and initial price all seem seem to refer to the same thing, all occurring in significant numbers in Books, none having even the majority of the total of usage in proximity to auction. I can't tell if there is some difference in the context in which they are used. This looks like our standard enthronement of a single SoP term when multiple SoP terms exist. DCDuring TALK 00:24, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Well in regard to your first point, (deprecated template usage) fried egg is enshrined as a set term in WT policy and it is very easy to find evidence for "fried hen's egg", "fried chicken's egg" etc. Ƿidsiþ 08:14, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

It's a pleasure, it's a great pleasure, it's been a pleasure, etc. Doesn't seem like a very strong argument. DAVilla 11:38, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Terms used in discourse are included not because they are set, but because they are commonly used in discourse. I think that set phrase is includable here principally because it is a misonomer. If we would care to define set phrase to include many kinds of insertions and not just inflectional variation, we may as well use the term snowclone instead. DCDuring TALK 17:33, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Does it make sense to say that the starting price of the iPhone was $599 if that was the price that it sold for upon initial release? At the very least, that's not a very clear way to express that little factoid in words. The phrase starting price implies an auction or at least some kind of negotiation, which is an understanding that can't be derived from the parts. Keep. DAVilla 11:45, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

It speaks for itself. DCDuring TALK 14:53, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, I stand by what I said, that it wouldn't be a very clear way to express that if, in this case, the author's argument wasn't explained in so many other words. Thinking of the auction definition, I can still read the latter part of that quote in a way that doesn't make sense. Especially with the horseracing definition in the OED, it's worth isolating this sense. DAVilla 04:47, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

"Technical term" is thrown about to often here when it's just the general term used in a specific field. We don't have special baseball and cricket senses for 'throw' and 'catch' because there aren't any; just the general use term used in those specific fields. Mglovesfun (talk) 14:37, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

This is perhaps going off on a tangent, but actually ‘throw’ does have a specific meaning in cricket inasmuch as it is distinguished from ‘bowling’ by being performed with the arm bent. On your general point though, you may be right, I think most of these discussions come from a basic disagreement between editors who either ‘feel’ something to be a set term or who don't, and a lot of the terminology like ‘technical term’ and ‘set phrase’ are ways for people to try to express that feeling which ultimately cannot be pinned down by legislation (no matter how much we try!). Ƿidsiþ 14:46, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether I'm stating the obvious here, but starting price for an iPhone is a completely different sense for starting price in an auction. The auction sense is the initial price offered, but not necessarily the price actually paid; the iphone sense is the the price of the lowest priced item (and the price actually paid) of a range of similar items of increasing value/quality. SpinningSpark 15:37, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that is the sense intended in most of the hits at my Iphone/starting price search. The one I picked is unfortunately ambiguous.

The mechanics are certainly different among, say, an auction, retail selling, and supply-contract negotiation. But even in a retail setting, the price the customer pays need not be the quoted price. For example, there are coupons and loyalty-program discounts. Retail pricing for tech goods is something like a long-term Dutch auction, with the retailer offering goods with lower and lower prices over time.

I just don't see that a dictionary is the place to document the vast range of institutional possibilities, when the terms used are not unique, even in one usage context. I also don't see that we should enthrone any one particular usage context's usage just because a contributor has a familiarity or a lack of familiarity with that context. DCDuring TALK 17:33, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

You are missing the point. It is beside the point that a customeer can negotiate a price with the retailer. The iPod meaning of "starting price" is still not the price at which a negotiation started. It is the price of the basic model, as opposed to the model with all the extras, or the model with the faster processor, bigger engine etc. The auction meaning is not simply a different usex, it is an entirely different sense. The fact that you have just managed to conflate those two meanings convinces me that I ought to be saying keep to this. SpinningSpark 18:47, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

It might be that for this single instance, which is ambiguous, the term might be synonymous with "base price". There are many usage contexts in which the phrase "starting price" can be used, with various possible meanings, none of which have any special status, given the evidence presented so far. The existence of multiple meanings is highly likely when polysemous terms are involved. DCDuring TALK 18:55, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

A starting price is the price at the start of something, whether it's the start of bidding in an auction or the start of selling a new product. When you say "starting price", you don't imply either one of these. You just have to know from context. --WikiTiki89 20:24, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I think any sort of issues about how these particular words have certain 'connotations' or particular 'contexts' are better explained in detail in an encyclopedia for the term. Certainly the specific meaning of a word varies from context to context, from culture to culture (even in the same language like between en-US and en-GB) but this is reason to include all variations of such a word into an encyclopedia. TeleComNasSprVen (talk) 17:30, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

That's just what an encyclopaedia doesn't do. An encyclopaedia article is about a single subject, so the article is only going to discuss a single meaning of the title term. On Wikipedia, if two articles with the same title term are desired they are not mixed on the same page. Instead, the title carries a disambiguator in brackets after the title term. The kind of reference that lists all meanings of a title term on the same page is a dictionary. SpinningSpark 23:51, 5 January 2014 (UTC)

Kept. bd2412 T 18:42, 16 April 2014 (UTC)