Deals.Woot

@shrdlu: Its been a problem for a while. It moves across pages, sometimes the first, sometimes the second, but generally the first fresh page is a problem, but it is nothing new. It never bothered me so I never said anything.

Thanks for noticing this... seems to be an issue related to deals getting removed by moderators/staff. No worries, you're not missing any deals.

@shrdlu: +1 for Jabberwocky

Currently I'm seeing fewer deals on fresh. The moderators must have been busy recently.

@shrdlu: I think that you are right about popular being assigned manually. The camera deal had 9 votes after about 12 hours. It ended with 11 votes. It never became popular. As for the hourly rate of vote accumulation, more time should be allowed for items posted late at night, because of inactivity. By the way I was the second poster by 2 minutes of that item. My post was much more detailed. I took the time to include useful information. I tattled on my post. I guess the staff made a marketing decision.

If there is competition to post some items, sometimes I compete. I may be monitoring these at the right time. I have not normally tried to post the Gold Box. In fact, sometimes I do not care the least about the item. Having watched woot for years, we have learned that some items appeal to wooters. In the long run this site has the potential to be a superior deal site for almost anything.

@shrdlu: The question side may be easier. There seem to be fewer questions than deals by great significance. I still feel that the site fails because they display too few deals on each page. I'm not sure how deep most users will delve into the site. It only helps slightly to have beginning and end buttons. There can be a lot in the middle that will usually be missed especially by casual users. I suspect that few users realize the depth that is presented here. Also, because fresh deals are no longer displayed after a little more than one day, those deals of some significance get dropped at the same time that inconsequential deals should be dropped. Maybe they should have a category of almost popular for those items and display them for a couple of extra days.

@shrdlu: I would use a reference time of 11PM pacific time, instead of "x" hours. I doubt that any deal except for maybe 1 ounce of gold for $300 would get 4 votes in 20 minutes at 2 or 3 AM. I would allow an exception during a wootoff.

@bsalusa: I have seen many things get 5 or 6 votes in less than 20 minutes. Some things just have universal appeal (such as screaming monkeys). In addition, I am pointing out something which is a fact, and is just meant to show the weighting, rather than to be some hard and fast rule.

It also makes no sense to go on any clock other than Central, since that's what Woot runs on. Deals is still managed by the same clock, and still has that same internal rhythm.