Old deals that are still active, but are not visible. What to do?
Example: @thebopster's deal. I posted a "Reminder" on 1/14 that the deal was in effect for the MLK, Jr. weekend. The deal was deleted. Am assuming it was deleted because the original was still active. My post was to get that particular holiday in the "fresh" category, so people could see it...those who did not see the original & those who may have forgotten. Example only; not a complaint.
Am only trying to say that deals that are old, yet still active, are not SEEN. If you comment on the old deal, the only people that see that comment are those who subscribed.
My suggestions:
1) Implement a time frame to automatically expire/close a deal.
2) When someone posts on an older deal, move that deal up to the fresh tab so everyone can view it.
3) If a deal is an update/reminder & links back to the original, let it remain instead of deleting/tattling.
Thoughts?
by
gmwhit
asked 4 months ago
How about just posting a reminder in Ask the Community?
@colonelpuffpuff: Might work, but if you're looking through 'deals' you wouldn't see it. I think it's something that needs to be fixed in deals.woot. BTW: Same problem exists in the Ask the Community side, too. But that's another issue. ;-)
I like #2, perhaps in some sort of alternate tab like "recently commented on".
1) Love it.
2) Perhaps a Recent Comments button next to Most Answers in the Fresh tab. (what tsfisch said)
3) Can't argue with that.
@tsfisch: & @rprebel: Thanks so much for your input. Appreciated! Am NOT one to add "and yet another tab" to deals; I think there are too many already that aren't useful to users. That too, is another story.
BUT, if a tab is added to bring up to view (refresh so to speak) old deals that have new comments... I think the tab should be titled Refreshed. Makes sense, yes?
i suggest to put the old deals that are still active but are not visiable in a special part,people who love to save money can know where to find them!
@colonelpuffpuff: I tend to think that would be against the purpose of the questions section. Do we really want to read a list of "hey do you remember __ is still on sale!?" questions?.
I think woot's idea is that people use the search feature to find deals. But they make the popular and fresh tabs so prevalent, I don't think anyone thinks to use it. And since the site is so much more oriented to voting and browsing rather than searching for specifics, it doesn't quite work. I see and treat deals.woot much more as a "window shopping" site rather than a retailer, like I do Amazon, etc.
I personally like the idea of automatically expiring deals after some amount of time. Maybe as short as 3 days or maybe up to a week. That way they can be reposted.
Neither the community nor woot staff has visibility enough to clear out expired deals, which make the search feature, when used, frustrating at best and useless at worst.
...to continue
I also find woot's deletion of duplicate deals severely inconsistent (I still find it a relatively minor concern, though). I thought they were laying off on duplicates after I tattled on a couple that were never removed, but the OP's example shows that dupes are, in fact, still being removed. (also the Band of Brothers deal from yesterday had 2 duplicates removed.) I'd like some clear guidelines on how and when duplicates should be reported and removed.
But honestly, I think I'm going to stop bothering with tattling on dupes, since a lot of times its true that the old one is buried and the new one gives more visibility to a good deal.
@meh3884: Well said and thought out! Thank you. Especially enjoyed & totally agree with "...which make the search feature, when used, frustrating at best and useless at worst."
@gmwhit: I think it's silly that they deleted your deal as a duplicate. Especially when you think about group deals like best buy had over the holidays. Some people post links to individual deals in the group and other people post a link to the whole group. Those deals did not get removed and in essence that's what you did.
I also am not a fan of the tattling process. Your choices are tattling with no comment and a moderator removes the deal. Leaving the poster confused as to why it was removed, since there's no notification process (an automatically generated email would be great here woot coders) Or you can tattle and make a comment and watch people downvote you for being "petty" and downovte you in to oblivion if the deal goes popular.
This last scenario happens to me quite a bit because I post many deals from a single site and they get buried under the most recent deal.
Sorry I sort of went off on a tangent there.
@meh3884: "I see and treat deals.woot much more as a "window shopping" site rather than a retailer, like I do Amazon, etc."
Thank you! That's the best summary I've seen as to why old deals should have an automatic expiration date.
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- Asked
- 4 months ago
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- gmwhit
- Answered
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