questions → why won't woot let me vote honestly?

vote-for5vote-against

Why won't Woot let me vote honestly?

Jul 29, 2011 9:47 AM

So, this morning I pop on deals.woot so I can browse some MP3 players for my kids, and in that search I find a post from an advertiser which isn't a deal at all, but a spammy link. So I go to down vote it, and I get this pop-up:

"Geez, why so negative? You have to vote up more before you can vote down."

Don't get me wrong, I like the philosophy of doing good, but I shouldn't be forced to up vote for things in order to down vote. The reason that I up vote deals is because I see the and value them as a good deal. And the reason I down vote things is because I genuinely see them as being bad deals. If I've been on a streak of down votes, it's because there are legitimately things that I don't think deserve an up vote.

It's great that Woot has given me this fantastic tool, but if you're going to give it to me, then let me use it responsibly. Don't monitor my usage of it, don't treat me like a child incapable of using good judgement, and don't badger me into up voting for karma's sake.

kamnet kamnet

12 Answers answer

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vote-for10vote-against

You gotta balance the see-saw. Throw some upvotes on good deals to reload your downvotes. I too downvote all the spam that I see, so I often have to take a break to upvote some good deals before I go back to fight the good fight.

90mcg112 90mcg112
vote-for14vote-against

If @90mcg112 is correct, and you are downvoting spammers, you are probably wasting your available pool of downvotes. SPAM should be tattled upon so that staff know to remove it. My understanding is that the downvote credits are not restored when a deal or comment is removed.

heymo heymo
vote-for3vote-against

Again, why should I be forced to vote up deals when I don't feel that they're worthy of being voted up? To me, the purpose of the voting up or down should be to make visitors aware of truly good deals, as well as truly bad deals. Mediocre deals deserve neither additional up or down votes to make them look better or worse, nor should I have to make deals look better than they are just so I can have a say in a deal that is bad.

The power of the vote is the most visible way that I can express my appreciation for the many deals that are here. Limiting my power to use that simply reeks of authoritarianism.

kamnet kamnet
vote-for-1vote-against

because you touch yourself

wickedd365 wickedd365
vote-for13vote-against

@kamnet: It's a safety feature to prevent abuse. This would be abused otherwise. You don't have to upvote deals, you can upvote or post a deal, upvote or post a question, or you can upvote or post a comment. All generate +1 votes for you. If you want to track you count then you can install the greasemonkey script I threw together: http://deals.woot.com/questions/details/6384e861-29a5-4c32-89e3-d58a4b8d8293/would-you-like-to-see-how-many-up-down-votes-you-have-cast-recently#9

tygerdave tygerdave
vote-for3vote-against

@kamnet: do you see the glass as half full or half empty?

gretchena gretchena
vote-for9vote-against

@gretchena: some people see the glass as more than half empty AND that somebody took a dump in it as well!

lavikinga lavikinga
vote-for6vote-against

Can't we all just get along?

inkycatz inkycatz
vote-for8vote-against

@inkycatz: The down voting is turning everyone evil and petty.

eviloverlord333 eviloverlord333
vote-for2vote-against

@gretchena: I'm more the "life's like a box of chockolate" kinda guy...

kamnet kamnet
vote-for3vote-against

@eviloverlord333: Your optimism delights me.

inkycatz inkycatz
vote-for2vote-against

@kamnet: oh I see....

gretchena gretchena

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Asked
Jul 29, 2011 9:47 AM
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kamnet
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Not a farewell, just a forced redirect.

It's true, Local.Woot is no longer, but please don't despair.

Never-ending savings are still to be found on Deals.Woot each and every day, so come on in. Don't think of it as a time for tears. Think of it as a way to bring us all closer together under one roof.

Sorry

This is only for people who have bought woots

We restrict voting to users who have purchased something from one of the other Woot stores. It's not just because we want your money (which we do) - it's the best way to be sure all the votes are coming from real people and not spam-bots or phony accounts. The best way we can think of, anyway. For now.

You can always get voting rights by buying something from one of Woot's other sites:

Purchases through Deals.Woot don't count, because in that case you're not buying anything from us. And we don't have your account information for those purchases.

If you think you've bought something from Woot before and still can't vote, make sure you're logged in with the same account you used to buy from us.

Geez, why so negative?

You have to vote up more before you can vote down.

Don't get us wrong. Negativity has its place. And downvotes are just as essential as upvotes when it comes to making Deals.Woot a useful place to find deals.

But when your votes lean so heavily toward the dark side, we have to wonder. Go vote up a few things. Accentuate the positive for a little while. It'll do you some good, and it'll do the site some good, too. Then you can get back to dealing out the smackdowns, OK?

Too late, we all heard you!

Hmm... you're wanting to take your vote back?

Well, that's a bit tricky. See, we do a lot of stuff with your vote, using it to work out the popularity of what you voted for, compare that to all the other things voted on, tally up our leaderboard, work out your reputation. Someday we'll do a little cartoon showing just how hard your vote is working.

Anyway, taking votes back messes all that up, so we give you five minutes, in case you just mis-clicked. After that we've got to say no take-backs. Luckily, votes are free, so feel free to throw them around left and right wherever you see fit.