Deals.Woot

@tygerdave: good catch on the other guy. BTW hizzo87 is a girl.

Hello to both of you. I am sure you will find us to be a fun group to work with/for. Looking forward to many more good deals.

@hizzo87 & @wootmango22: A joyous greeting to the both of you! Like many others, and particularly those who have posted here in response to your advent, I'm always glad celebrate the addition of cool people to the community. Granted, your coolness is really yet to be determined by us, by your position as staff warrants some automatic coolness by default. If, by chance you fail to live up to that... Well, then... We shall have to set the trolls on you. Or just @jumbowoot and the staff, because what would they do to misbehaving staff members? All scold! Ha! :D (Sorry, @jumbowoot - I could not resist)

Anyhow, a big welcome, and I look forward to enjoying the fruits of your deal-finding prowess.

A warm Woot welcome to Hizzo!

Kinda weird that stuff would have what would appear at first glance to be "earned" reputations. Whazzup? Or do I misunderstand?

@f00l: You do not misunderstand. We expect that people gain reputation because they've made comments that were useful, or amusing, perhaps both. They have, in the past, gained points (although not as quickly) when questions or deals got votes. Recently I verified that votes on a question only no longer added to reputation. I had expected that this was also true, now, of deals. I suspect that it is. The amount of votes received for the deals that have been posted are not equivalent to the amount that even comments would provide to push a reputation to that value.

There is a specific value (but under 70/100, and I will not be more specific than that) that can be given by votes on comments. I've never seen anyone gain that much reputation that fast by votes on deals only, hence my interest. Anomalies will ALWAYS catch my attention. I live on a six sigma edge, where the word outlier has significance. Those reputations are not a natural occurrence. QED

@chris12345: Fascinating datapoints. Thank you for making the tests, and for the observations. I'm interested to see that they are treating votes on deals as different than votes on questions, and certainly points out the advent of a certain unnamed vendor's sudden appearance and startling rise on the leaderboard.

Thanks again.

[Edit] Let me also add my vociferous agreement to the request that new staff folks have at least some introduction, and that they make an attempt to respond when named and invoked in the way that they have been here. @jumbowoot, could you provide some commentary, even out of band, if you prefer, to the points raised here? Please (she said, in as polite a tone as she can muster)?

It seems it is easier to earn reputation than it is to learn it.

I believe reputation is still a straight arithmetic algorithm - until it gets logarithmic, we'll have the relatively useless 0 to 90 climb. This is factual data of course, but it devalues the human utility of the system. Adjustments are planned, but I'm not sure where they are in the pipeline.

I read the current comments on reputation as support for it's improvement. I bet the expected disruption of it is a downer for our developers to face and may have dropped it's priority in the queue.

@wootmango loves star trek, and posted several deals in a row, which I thought was cute. Small interaction, but good way to jump in the pool. It would be helpful to see some interaction here too, but give them time. I had no idea this questions seciton even existed at one point, just like i had no idea there was a 'Fresh' section of the deals page (woops!).

Anyway, welcome both of you!

@311feen: Staff should be shown how to use the site they work on. Also I am sure that they received an email that they were mentioned.

hello this woot mango22,

so you guys want to know more about me well I currently go to unt for grad school, and working full time at woot. Also you are correct I like Star Trek!!

@snapster is correct that expected disruption of reputation changes dropped it's priority in the queue, but we are moving ahead.

I've written a specification for proposed changes after gathering feedback from the community and the dev/design team. We have some development challenges to tackle as we figure out how to efficiently process all the data involved, but we will see a revised reputation algorithm at some point.

@shawnmiller: I would tend to agree with you on votes for deals being a component, but think that it should be partnered with comments. I note how very long it took (in internet time) for the two new staffers to make a comment, anywhere, as a case in point. I have often seen requests for further information on a deal posted go unanswered by the original poster, which is bad form. Posting good deals is worthy; so is responding to comments. Perhaps there could be a trigger that prevents reputation unless there have been comments that have received votes?

While I understand that you want reputation to encourage deals, I advocate for the AtC/AtW side as being of equal importance. Certainly there are many frivolous questions, but the utility of having help provided by the community must be encouraged, and I believe that it is most encouraged when you count the two sides as equals.

I could probably go on for multiple comments' worth on this topic, but the day calls...

@shawnmiller: re: reputation etc:

just ask the leaderboard how to do it. :> they might have an opinion or so.... :>

@lavikinga: aw shucks. (blush)

@f00l: Math and algorithms be damned. That leaderboard is pure Vodun magic. Spooky, I tell you.

@f00l: I laughed and took it as a jest. And I stand by my opinionated opinion that the leaderboard is not of this world. Ok, so much for the opining of my opinions. That reminds me, I need onions for dinner tonight.

@shrdlufu: Ah, yes, I see you've found a more appropriate homage to me. Thank you ever so.

Working for free? No, not so much. There are a couple of fallacies here, and I'm happy to point them out. This isn't actually work; it's entertainment. You are certainly helping to contribute to that, and thanks ever so.

I care about the math (which is very well known), and am otherwise amused to the reputation system, yes. Do I actually believe it shows reputation, or simply longevity and popularity? I think we both know which the answer is. For a bit I wondered about who you might be (the list of possibilities is actually quite short), but then decided that it was too funny, and that I didn't want to know.

This is a good game, and it's headed into Autumn, so I tend to look more to entertainment at this time of year. Hopefully you won't wear out too soon.

@lavikinga: awesome quote. I did not know of Puisieux. Thanks.

@wootfast: Spambot.

I have tattled on this user.