questions → are there periods of the day where nothing is…

vote-for11vote-against +11 -0

Are there periods of the day where nothing is made popular?

I ask this because I posted a deal 6 hours ago that already has 12 votes and hasn't been pushed to popular.

http://deals.woot.com/deals/details/9d8ccc1f-e10e-4ef4-ba50-ac12500cf194/free-nin-album-the-slip-download#4

And, when checking the most votes in the fresh tab, one deal has more votes than mine in 4 hours!
http://deals.woot.com/deals/details/a4ce8d39-25d2-4c52-b4c7-562bf78bf031/free-emergen-c-packets#2

I noticed there haven't been any deals made popular in the last 4 hours, even though there are plenty of newish deals with 6-13 votes. Is this a daily thing (i.e. don't expect posts to go popular between 6pm-12am EST) or just an irregularity? I might post deals at a different time of day if the former is true.

by geode
asked 2 years ago

24 Answers answer

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vote-for8vote-against

Okay it is more than just votes, here is a simplified version:

To make popular, a deal must have more votes than the surrounding deals before you added and after the deal is added, it is not just 5. It only looks at a few before and after, but that range expands the longer the deal is on the site. The number of comments are also factored in as well click thru's to the deal itself, not just the page on here.

It is a lot more complicated than this though, I think reputation might be simpler.

catbertthegreat
2 years ago

vote-for2vote-against

There seems to be something wrong with the vote counting - lots of zero's showing up against regular names. Might have something to do with votes accumulating and pushing something to popular. On the other hand, the questions seem to be moving appropriately.

sand4me
2 years ago

vote-for3vote-against

@catbertthegreat: I'm still a little confused by this phenomenon. There's no way for me to count clickthru's, of course, but when a deal has more votes than any other on the page around it, and more comments than any other, wouldn't this then push it to popular? If it is a manual curation process, this makes sense, as wootstaff will come by when they're online to do this themselves. But if its an automatic process, I don't see why a few of these deals haven't made the big time yet.

geode
2 years ago

vote-for5vote-against

@catbertthegreat: Reputation is not simpler than how things get to Popular, but the short answer to the question is that YES, according to various little tests I've done, there are certain moments at which, if a Deal reaches the magic threshold that would normally send it to the Popular page, it will instead languish on Fresh, to die 24 hours after its birth.

This time seems to be 6PM Central, and there are others as well, but this one's a real spike (or dip, as it were) in the phase. I surmise that there are scripts that run through the database at this time (I've mentioned this before, of course), and that if something gets tripped during that few minutes, it somehow doesn't make it over the hump. I'm not sure why, and I'm caring less and less there days, but there it is.

shrdlu
2 years ago

vote-for3vote-against

@geode: It isn't manual, no. Even @thefenst has little pustules of festering deals that SHOULD have made it to Popular, and yet lie weeping and anguished, knowing that their time is near, and that they must vanish from our ken.

shrdlu
2 years ago

vote-for6vote-against

@shrdlu: Thanks! This makes more sense, and I sort of remember reading this post from you in some other posting, but I couldn't remember which thread. That jives with what I've been seeing too, and will avoid posting deals I really want to share around then so they can be seen by a greater community on the popular tab.

geode
2 years ago

vote-for3vote-against

@geode: FYI if you really want to learn about deals.woot read questions from the following wooters: @shrdlu, @catbertthegreat, @hobbit, @sgoman5674, @pommy. There are probably more, but I can't think of any and I apologize to those of you who I missed.

sgoman5674
2 years ago

vote-for3vote-against

@sgoman5674: @lavikinga, @glindagw, @anotherhiggins, @wootvan

There's more. I have it written down somewhere.

Jeeze, and @sgoman5674 of course.

shrdlu
2 years ago

vote-for3vote-against

I have been reading through those pages, and there are some really great posts by all of you! (I'm actually not very new to this dotwoot site, I was just lurking and reading for a couple months.)

I'm not sure today's problem is tackled. I think there might be a bug is popularity right now, as in the last 15 hours, only one thing has been pushed to the pop tab. There are a number of items with 6-17!? votes with comments posted at various times in the last half day that have not be shuttled over. Maybe this is related to the 1 --> 0 vote bug? Deals.woot seems to be struggling the last couple days.

geode
2 years ago

vote-for2vote-against

@geode: We have been keeping an eye on things. All in all, the popularity algorithm is working as expected... (a couple deals just made popular, just took a while).

On the 1 --> 0 vote bug, there is an ongoing issue with the initial vote of 1 on an item not being shown a few minutes after the item was added. When this happens, the next vote will correctly increment the count to 2. However this is not related to popularity at all, and it should not affect reputation... just the display of the initial vote on a new deal/question/comment.

josefresno
2 years ago

vote-for2vote-against

@josefresno: That vote thing is pretty unnerving. Do you have an estimate of when it will be resolved?

sgoman5674
2 years ago

vote-for3vote-against

@shrdlu: We forgot someone.....@fgarriel!

sgoman5674
2 years ago

vote-for2vote-against

@josefresno: Hmmm, possible correlation. Do we need a picture to get popular? I notice the three most-voted fresh posts have no image. http://deals.woot.com/deals/fresh/mostvotes

I checked the first 12 pages of popular and every item had an image. By no means an exhaustive search, but it might be an interesting pattern.

geode
2 years ago

vote-for3vote-against

@geode: Its like judging a book by it's cover. More people will pick up a book with an interesting cover. So too with a deal.

I find myself that I won't even look at the deal if it doesn't have a picture that matches the name of the deal.

sgoman5674
2 years ago

vote-for3vote-against

@sgoman5674: I actually meant maybe the algorithm wouldn't pick it up without a picture, not fellow wooters. The three deals at the top all have 13+ votes, so people have looked at them and voted them up. As for posting a new deal, sometimes, there is no picture that woot can find, so no picture can be added to the post.

geode
2 years ago

vote-for2vote-against

@sgoman5674: The 0 vote bug is intermittent, so we have not been able to reliably reproduce the scenario... so we have been making small changes to try and track it down.

josefresno
2 years ago

vote-for3vote-against

@josefresno: I noticed that it was intermittent. Good luck trying to track it down.

sgoman5674
2 years ago

vote-for2vote-against

@geode: Oh ok. Interesting connection.

sgoman5674
2 years ago

vote-for3vote-against

@geode: let me say that a thumbnail isn't required for a deal to become popular but it won't hurt your chances :)

shawnmiller
2 years ago

vote-for4vote-against

@geode: Tattle if you don't get a picture when you are loading up a new deal. We'll help out when we can.

jumbowoot
2 years ago

vote-for3vote-against

@josefresno, @jumbowoot, @shawnmiller: Thanks! I'll keep that in mind and tattle in the future if i can't get a picture to upload.

geode
2 years ago

vote-for1vote-against

yeah i was wondering how are point actually calculated????

I dont get it!

crowsnest
2 years ago

vote-for1vote-against

yeah and I still dont understand??????

crowsnest
2 years ago

vote-for1vote-against

Simple, don't try to understand the wootgorithm of popularity which is a combination of the most randomized formulas, mud, desires, and god's wills, just accept it, take it, or keep trying til you get it, whatever is best for you.

axltrozz
2 years ago

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