Deals.Woot

Well first I love those socks. Given that I pay upwards of 10.00 a pair for running socks - clearly you don't run or you would know that this is the going rate this is an amazing deal for running socks. Who cares if they are factor seconds. They are socks, they still fit. Besides they are for women. Unless you are a woman it shouldn't bother you all that much.

Not all of us like tech deals, which you seem to like if you think that the sellout deal is the best deal. And I think you know they fixed the wine deal. Plus who cares if they have had the sponsored chair deal before? All those vendors PAY for to be in the top five, there is no algorithim for being up there, so maybe you need to rethink your fancy thinking there.

@hobbit: Last week there was also a repeat: the bike light from mpgear.com.

Fantastic effort avoiding my entire point. The deals aren't great. That's obvious. The deal on the monitor is the best up there, whether you want to belittle technology or not. The effort to even CHECK the link on the wine wasn't put forward.

But the Deals listed as popular by the members, and put on the front page, are also not good deals.

If you want people to come to your web page it's got to be competitive against the sites that are doing the same thing, and right now deals.woot is the loser.

@hobbit: "If I don't like woot don't come here" is exactly what's happening. Do you have anything constructive to add to my question here? Look at the top deals for the week, hobbit, and tell me those are a reason to visit this site. The SYSTEM isn't working.

@catbertthegreat: Well, I agree to a point. But perhaps there should be tighter moderation on those deals that are making the front page? Hobbit wants me to search out and vote, which I don't mind doing for things I know i'm looking for. But lots of deals come our way that we didn't expect. Indeed, it's how I ended up finding woot years ago.

Basing a ranking solely on it's popularity is going to result in what you have: people voting up jokes that are in only a very small way part of your goal.

While I disagree with many of the points that were made in the original question, there IS one significant thing that is a game changer, and not for the better.

Whereas, Sellout victims are now redirected to Deals, and whereas many of those folks are seasoned veterans of Woot, and also able to vote, and whereas they are only interested, by and large, in the item they came to purchase, the Sellout item will ALWAYS receive the most votes.

It makes the Leaderboard section on "Yesterday's Sponsored Pick" a slam dunk. Consistently. I'm not sure, but I suspect, if I were someone who'd paid for space as a Sponsored Deal, and figured that top billing as yesterday's best was an extra day of money, that I'd be happy to know that it would be nearly impossible for me to achieve that second day's worth of sales. I suppose it isn't any more valid than other items on the Leaderboard, but it certainly gives one pause.

@jumbowoot: Ohhhhh. Hi! (shrdlu waves) Please buy something. Anything. I usually ignore comments when the vote is zero, unless I'm not busy (which is going to be less and less likely as other things engage my attention).

Still, I would think it would be better to remove the Sellout item from making the top voted item list. Those other folks have given money to be there, and that second day of sales, while much smaller, is rather like a reward (so to speak) for being more appreciated than the other items.

Also, did you see my responses here?

http://deals.woot.com/questions/details/71ac48f6-11f3-433e-b872-cbf8bffd714e/i-ordered-an-item-last-week-how-do-i-check-the-status?sort=newest

@jumbowoot: Thanks for pitching in! Nice to know staff is watching out for us!

@maskedmarvel: It's fine that you think Deals is not wonderful. It's more helpful if you try to solve things, instead of complaining. You know what they say:

Grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
The courage to change the things that I can;
And the wisdom to know the difference

Not a fan, necessarily, of some groups that claim to espouse that, but very much a fan of understanding where you might have an effect, and where you are just spinning your wheels. In other words, sometimes you're the windshield, sometimes you're the bug.

@lavikinga: Fair statements, questions, and no apologies necessary.

There needs to be tighter moderation of the front page. I'm a fan of the way SlickDeals does it - there's a FRONTPAGE section, moderated and approved by dedicated volunteers, that I know I can look at and rely upon as good offers to consider.

There are also a few deals listed as "hot Topics" and "Up and Coming." These newer deals are worth looking at, and some of them ARE jokes. The criteria for getting listed there? I assume it's page views, ratings, and replies.

I'm not saying this is slickdeals. The model is similar, though.

One thing they do that I think is worthy of consideration is that ratings cannot be offered by members without viewing the actual thread. No just rambling through a list and checking things you think are worth a thumb up. Also - deal ratings go both ways, not just up. Helps a thread be moderated by the members with more ease, and more easily weed out the immediately unworthy.

@maskedmarvel: I used to think the option of voting deals down would be a good thing, until I ran across a few wanker individuals. I realized then some one with an ax to grind against me could really skew things in a bad way. So what doesn't interest me, I don't vote for (although doing that means I'm denying possible good deals a vote). For truly tasteless deals, there's the Tattle tab.

Yes, Deals.Woot has a more casual attitude & criteria for deals. It's kind of a free-for-all and it's less structured. Maybe it was planned that way on purpose? Let the vox populi rule. Of course, some days bedlam rules instead. But I like it. It's like relatives. You don't have to like them, but they ARE family. And that means, you don't have to visit every day or even every week if deals.woot gets on your nerves, but do breeze in now and again.

Nothing's set in stone and this place will evolve (or devolve) over time. Give it time and keep up with constructive ideas for improvement.