Comments / Feedback / Suggestions Thread 2017

scotty on 02/02/2017 - 11:09
Last edited 08/06/2017 - 14:15 by 1 other user

Continued from Comments / Feedback / Suggestions Thread 2016. This post will be used for general feedback in 2017.

Please make any suggestions for new features, bugs, things you'd like to see changed or anything else. Also feel free to start a new thread in Site Discussion. If it's a little issue perhaps use this thread, if it's a big issue then perhaps start a new thread. Please see the wiki below as your suggestion may already have been mentioned.

The majority of things you see, as well as policies on OzBargain were implemented based on user feedback. Please see the Site & Guideline Updates Announcement Thread to keep up to date with the changes/features that we implement as they are added.

Site Discussion

closed Comments

  • Sunny84 on 02/02/2017 - 11:25

    I always find the search very difficult when I'm looking for something specific

    Believe the reason is as the search query also searches the body of every post, any change we could select to search Title, Body or Title & Body?

    • scotty on 02/02/2017 - 11:33

      You can search just the title. For more information about searching syntax please see this wiki page.

    • ribenaboy on 22/11/2017 - 15:36

      how about an option to hide expired deals after a search?

      • Moderatorneil on 22/11/2017 - 16:00

        Select Type: Deals (No Expired).

        If you click save, it will be the default every time you search.

  • Heracles26 on 02/02/2017 - 11:26

    When you search for a product and are taken to the product page, if you click "want" in the status section, does this create an email alert for that partcular product?

    If not I think this would be a good feature to implement! :)

    • scotty on 02/02/2017 - 11:34
      +1

      No it doesn't, as often the product tags are only added after the deal have been posted. Yes it has been requested before, and we are still working on an implementation.

  • Nugs on 02/02/2017 - 11:26
    +1

    I preferred the actual time of postings on live page instead of the "2 hours 19 mins ago" etc. that it changed to.

    would also be handy to specify how many lines are visible on live page.

    nonetheless, it is my favourite web page.

    • Moderatorhamza23 on 08/02/2017 - 18:37

      We'll discuss the time thing thanks.

      In regards to 'how many lines are visible on the live page'. Were you wanting to increase it or decrease the number of lines? Do you want more/less results on the live page or did you want to change the spacing? Just to help understand your request. If you want to decrease the amount of results on the live page (I think it's currently 75) we might not be able to do anything with that as it's restricted to ease server load but I'll discuss it further in any case.

      • Nugs on 08/02/2017 - 18:42

        increase; reason being that if haven't been on for 24hrs, might miss a bargain I want….

        would be good if user adjustable (per webmail, drop down with 25/50/100 or so options)

        • scotty on 08/02/2017 - 20:57

          You should be using new deals page or front page to track older bargains. Live page, as the name suggested, is about what is happening on ozbargain right now.

        • Nugs on 09/02/2017 - 06:31

          @scotty:

          yep, I do when I know I've been away too long.

          thanks

  • Unbranded on 02/02/2017 - 12:54

    To be able filter competitions marked as "Seen" to create a list a competitions not entered that I have flagged as "Seen" and wish to review.

    • Moderatorhamza23 on 08/02/2017 - 00:04

      Just to help understand the request, are you wanting to do that so you can view competitions you've marked as 'seen' to reconsider entering them or was it something else?

      Thanks

      • Unbranded on 08/02/2017 - 06:44

        Yes, to be able to easilly come back to those competitions later to enter them without having to scroll through 25+ pages of competitions to find those flagged as Seen.

        • Moderatormoocher on 14/03/2017 - 07:10

          That should just be the Hidden list?

  • dasher86 on 02/02/2017 - 13:08
    +1

    I have always wanted to be able to search by a price filter.
    It will let you view at item at it's lowest historical cost really quick.

    • try2bhelpful on 02/02/2017 - 13:53

      sounds good to me. However, it will probably just lead to bargain envy and dissatisfaction; unless we can also invent the time machine as well. :)

    • Moderatorhamza23 on 08/02/2017 - 18:38

      Unfortunately not possible as things stand, we would need a dedicated price field or similar, something we'll look at down the track if/when a newer deal submission form is made it might become possible the. We'll keep this in mind at that time.

      Thanks

  • John Kimble on 02/02/2017 - 17:26

    Vote up and down the initial forum topic post like you can with deals/the replies in the topic?

    Sorry if this has already been suggested and/or rejected.

    • Moderatorhamza23 on 08/02/2017 - 18:41

      This has come up a few times, it's an interesting suggestion but needs some further discussion and there are a number of issues for us to consider with adding + and - votes to forum posts. After discussions amongst mods/admins, we are specifically concerned about negative voting on forum posts as they can be taken personally and there would be no restriction there.

      Would users be interested in + voting (only) forum topics to promote forum posts with good content? Maybe even have a section for popular forum topics based on + votes (rather than discussion alone as it's done now), or is the wish to mainly negative vote forum topics with poor content? We might not want to go down that path for now anyway.

      Would be interested to hear from all regarding this.

      • John Kimble on 09/02/2017 - 13:52

        There is already the ability for negative/downvoting on the replies/comments to the post, I find it odd that only the topic is immune…should be all nothing, right?

  • spackbace on 02/02/2017 - 18:55

    An optional expiry date on Classified posts… probably only useful on 5% of posts, but still useful. Think of tickets to events etc so it can be marked as expired and not sold as such.

    • Moderatorhamza23 on 08/02/2017 - 18:46

      Thanks for the suggestion, admins now have this on the development list and should be implemented in the near future.

    • Moderatormoocher on 14/03/2017 - 07:06

      This has been rolled out this morning.

      • spackbace on 14/03/2017 - 09:48

        Cool thanks :)

  • John Kimble on 05/02/2017 - 07:26

    Up and down arrow (or something similar) so you can browse through forum posts when you are in one? Like what gmail has in it's inbox?

  • Ryanek on 06/02/2017 - 14:04
    +1

    Hi Scotty! I would like the ability to subscribe to a User. For example I appreciate Watchnerd's watch deals so it would be nice to get notified every time he/she posts a deal.

    • Moderatorhamza23 on 08/02/2017 - 18:53

      Thanks for the suggestion, this has been requested previously and should be do-able. Admins have it on the development list and should be implemented in the future. We are looking at something like a 'subscribe' button on a users profile page.

      I also learnt that there is a manual way to do this now via search alert, if anyone wanted to get notified whenever a certain user posts.

      In the searchbox, enter user:57529 type:ozbdeal
      User 57529 being the user number on any users profile https://www.ozbargain.com.au/user/57529
      That will bring you to this page: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/search/node/user:57529+type:ozb…
      Click 'create alert' and you've now made a search alert to be notified every time that user posts a deal (you'll see a popup with 'search alert created').

      Thanks

      • Ryanek on 08/02/2017 - 21:00

        Ah cool work around. Thanks.

      • [Deactivated] on 09/02/2017 - 19:45

        Is it also possible to be notified if a user posts a forum thread?

        Or is this too much like stalking?

        • Moderatorhamza23 on 09/02/2017 - 19:49

          Should work with type:ozbforum instead of type:ozbdeal.

          I haven't tested these commands though, just found out they existed as a work around until we do a proper 'subscribe' button/function for users.

        • [Deactivated] on 09/02/2017 - 19:51

          @hamza23:

          Thanks for your help.

          I'll give it a go and see what happens.

    • Moderatormoocher on 14/03/2017 - 07:08

      You can now subscribe to a user on the user's profile page. Subscribing will send emails for all the user's public posts. Let us know if there are any issues.

      Edit by Hamza23: More details here

  • fossilfuel on 06/02/2017 - 21:32

    Can the random discussions link be moved towards the top of the front page? Right now it's in the middle and the thread's not getting as much love as it should. i.e maybe under the box labeled "Ozbargain Tips"?

    • scotty on 06/02/2017 - 21:40

      It's also available on the Forums menu.

  • spackbace on 07/02/2017 - 13:30

    In Mobile View, it's still possible to see the option to neg vote comments on a store rep/associated post, unlike the desktop site which only shows the positive button. Any way of changing that?
    Same with deal vote icons on both desktop and mobile, can you set it up that it just doesn't show the neg vote option for store reps/associated?

    • scotty on 07/02/2017 - 13:47

      That's the issue of our mobile template. I'll have it fixed.

  • tightarse on 08/02/2017 - 18:48
    +1

    Would be awesome to be able to tag users in any comment so they're notified of that comment (ie @scotty @neil).

    • scotty on 08/02/2017 - 20:54
      +1

      Yeah that has been requested many times. I have some ideas implementing it just that right now it's not in the priority.

  • robjow on 09/02/2017 - 00:22

    Could Ozbargain add a price filter? I'm not interested in 2cent off $2 icecreams but I am interested in $500 off a TV

    • scotty on 09/02/2017 - 08:57

      That's technically difficult to implement, as

      • a lot of deals here are not single item where price has been tracked
      • original price might be inflated making some highly discounted items not really a deal

      You might want to use price trackers like PriceHipster if you are interested in specific products.

  • Wolfy on 12/02/2017 - 03:33
    +1

    When displaying search results, can we have the ability to sort by "Most Votes"?

    This would be especially useful for Ebay voucher codes and the like.
    There are at least 3 pages of "CATCH20" results and it would be useful to see which of the deals are the most popular.

  • [Deactivated] on 15/02/2017 - 15:05

    Hey guys, just wondering what is your opinion on what should be done on old links on the website that are redirecting to sexually explicit ads?

    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/279044

    http://yesxtra.com.au seems to be routing to something weird.

    Ironically it is still owned by OPTUS ADMINISTRATION PTY LTD.

    Glen Vaughan

    https://www.whois.com/whois/yesxtra.com.au

    I was very curious as to why an Optus link which was only a few months old has now been sold off to generate porn revenue.

    • nocure on 15/02/2017 - 15:08

      I clicked…

      • [Deactivated] on 15/02/2017 - 15:09

        Same… Metadata retention too….

        ;-(

    • Moderatorhamza23 on 15/02/2017 - 15:11

      yesxtra.com.au is redirecting to optus.com.au for us.

      Is it possible your browser is infected with something? Might be a good idea to do a malware/adware scan.

      • [Deactivated] on 15/02/2017 - 15:12

        Maybe, I'm using Google DNS at the moment. I'll try change it back to my ISP settings.

      • nocure on 15/02/2017 - 15:13

        Might be a good idea to do a malware/adware scan.

        Maybe later…😜

        • [Deactivated] on 15/02/2017 - 15:16

          I think it has something to do with overseas users/ foreign dns server…

          I just used kproxy and it also loads to the porn site…

          shrug

        • Moderatorhamza23 on 15/02/2017 - 15:23

          @GreenDeerling:

          Another moderator got the same as you on mobile (redirects to spammy ads/popups), but desktop site seems fine, very strange. Sounds like the site may be compromised, rather than Optus doing this on purpose, good idea to report it to Optus. I'll send them a Facebook message now also.

          Edit: 19/3. Optus never got back to us so we've removed the deal after another member mentioned it.

  • sss333 on 17/02/2017 - 16:49

    Make the blog main page (https://blog.ozbargain.com.au/) like the monthly pages (https://blog.ozbargain.com.au/2017/01/) where the full article isn't posted but just a preview so it's easier to scroll down the page and you can open the ones you want isn't one really long page like it is now.

  • altomic on 17/02/2017 - 23:50
    +2

    unlimited number of neg votes for "established users" e.g. more than 1300 posts or over 10,000 comments or a member for over 5 years..or a combination of those

    • payton on 05/03/2017 - 14:15

      that probably would encourage people to leave useless comments to boost their stats.
      What I value about ozb is that in general there's much less clutter in here, posts generally are useful. Hope we can keep it that way.

  • the frost on 25/02/2017 - 15:14
    +1

    This is a "nice to have" feature, nothing major:

    On the page for Entered Competitions, it would be nice to see when they all close. Then I could see when I can expect to be hearing the good news (or unsubscribe from the YouTube channels when I didn't win).

    But gotta say: Absolutely great site. Has saved me many dollars and wasted many hours. Keep it up.

  • payton on 05/03/2017 - 14:12

    Lately I've been seeing a few OP in a 'hot' forum topic disabling their account for example the Greenpeace charity mugger thread
    Did OP get bullied thru private messages?

    For someone who has posted something utterly greedy/stupid e.g. the dud getting banned from Woolies, disabling their account is understandable.
    But for a relatively harmless topic like above its kinda of sad if OP did get lynched because of it.

    Same goes with the Men's Right documentary screening which unfortunately got cancelled because of threats from the far left nutters. Also concerning is how a militant made a 66-comments worth of rants in there.

    • scotty on 05/03/2017 - 21:28
      +1

      We sometimes get PM or TWAM from users who suspect that they have been bullied, and the moderators are happy to work with them to get down to the problem (in some cases, banning the bully's account).

      However no idea about the OP of Greenpeace Charity Mugger thread. No reason has been disclosed to the moderators either why the account is disabled.

    • scotty on 11/03/2017 - 18:42

      Coupon code gets pushed out to our other sites before deals can be marked Targeted. In this case it's editorial decision that the code was kept.

    • Moderatorhamza23 on 11/03/2017 - 19:00

      I'll manually edit them now with 'Targeted' also on the text, as a workaround for those glancing at the coupons (and not clicking through via Couponese to the deal to see the full details).

      Give it up to an hour to update.

  • dealhunt on 11/03/2017 - 18:47
    -3

    Looking for an option to prevent specific users to comment in others' own forum threads.

    • Moderatorneil on 12/03/2017 - 02:49

      Clicking the hide link below a comment will give you an option to hide a particular user's comments from all posts you see.

      • dealhunt on 12/03/2017 - 08:59
        -2

        What I mean is preventing users in the hide list from posting in my forum threads and voting.

        • Moderatorneil on 12/03/2017 - 12:34

          That's not an option and would be highly problematic if users had intermittent access to commenting on posts.

        • dealhunt on 12/03/2017 - 12:36
          -5

          @neil: I understand but Ozbargain has became like Reddit where trolls have free ride.

        • Moderatorneil on 12/03/2017 - 12:42

          @dealhunt:

          If you believe there are comments that are an issue, then use the report link.

        • spackbace on 13/03/2017 - 14:25
          +4

          @dealhunt:

          Probably best to ignore them rather than insisting on replying to them. Though your Penalty Box status tells me you struggle to avoid confrontation.

        • lyl on 13/03/2017 - 14:26
          +4

          @Spackbace:

          looks like there are ways to prevent specific users commenting on others threads after all :)

        • payton on 15/03/2017 - 14:10
          +1

          lol is this related to your Heisenberg thread here
          You could just pretend to eyeball them real close and write "stay out my THREAD"

        • Scrooge McDuck on 21/03/2017 - 13:38
          +1

          @Spackbace:

          Though your Penalty Box status tells me you struggle to avoid confrontation.

          Seems I wasn't the only one harassed by this user via private message. :/

        • spackbace on 21/03/2017 - 13:51

          @Scrooge McDuck:

          Wow been a while since I had a PM argument haha

  • Magic Mirror on 13/03/2017 - 14:10

    Hi, there seems to be a bug with unsubscribe from stores.

    I had 3 stores subscribed. I unticked one of them and clicked Save Preferences. Then when I clicked on 'stores' under 'subscription' again, all 3 had been unsubscribed.

    • scotty on 13/03/2017 - 14:39
      +1

      It has already been reported and the fix will be pushed to the site tomorrow morning.

  • retiredfeline on 14/03/2017 - 13:52

    Hi, when an edit is attempted on a comment and someone has already replied to it just before you clicked, the result is a 403 not allowed page.

    That's fine, however this can be improved. Instead of returning 403 and then you have to go back and decide whether or not to post a new comment, do a 302 redirect to the original comment but now with the edit option unavailable of course. If desired a transient popup can explain why.

    • scotty on 14/03/2017 - 14:17

      Thanks. We'll have a look at that bug.

  • spackbace on 15/03/2017 - 13:34
    +1

    Just wondered, and I haven't heard from a report I made so I guess it's being debated, but should store reps be allowed to vote on comments in competitors posts…?

    Not sure how hard it is to weed out, but it seems it's a definite conflict of interest issue.

    • scotty on 15/03/2017 - 15:31

      There are some moderation issues that we choose not to discuss with the community. Store reps should refrain from voting, however from your report it's hardly a "competitor" when the said business does not appear to be operational at all. It is also difficult for mods to weed out all kinds of conflict of interests.

      For now, please just vote and move on.

  • CVonC on 16/03/2017 - 14:42

    Would it be possible to add a search option (unless it already exists of course) to search by coupon code only (much like how option:titleonly works)? Would be useful for ebay sales.

    for example:

    option:codeonly

    • scotty on 16/03/2017 - 14:48

      Implementation wise it would be a bit different to titleonly, as coupon code is not currently an indexed field. I guess you would want to use it to search all deals linked to a certain coupon code? There might be a better way to implement it — we will have a look.

      • CVonC on 16/03/2017 - 14:51

        I guess you would want to use it to search all deals linked to a certain coupon code?

        Yeah cos right now the CARS ebay code brings up every node that has "cars" as a keyword.

        There might be a better way to implement it — we will have a look.

        Thanks!

  • Scrooge McDuck on 21/03/2017 - 14:00

    Suggestion: Category Specific Configuration of Minimum Votes Setting

    At the present, there are only Minimum Votes settings for the Front Page and New Deals Page. What if there was a setting for each deal category?

    This could apply to the deal page for each category and optionally, via a checkbox, to the Front Page as well. At the present, there are only all-or-nothing checkboxes for each category via the Deals For Selected Categories radiobutton.

    Pros:
    Gives users more control over the Front Page and New Deals Page to populate it with their specific interests, while still seeing outstanding deals from other categories.
    Users are able to set thresholds for each deal category page independently.
    ???

    Cons:
    Minor balkanisation/stratification of the community by interest. May be a natural, necessary and/or beneficial consequence of a growing userbase. This will arguably be reduced if a significant number of users move from the all-or-nothing checkboxes to the Minimum Votes settings (in this case, include the effect as a Pro).
    ???

    • payton on 21/03/2017 - 21:44

      Perhaps we could consolidate some of the niche products into Forum Posts, and remove low quality posts from store reps? Example of the latter , more below.
      People can subscribe to the specific forum posts if they're after it.

      As I mentioned here the type of deals below can get really repetitive and fill up the Deal Feed:

      • free Google icon packs
      • "free" low rated steam games off IndieGala posted just for the trading cards
      • stingy retailer trying to clear old old stock, offering free shipping! then marking the product a few cents below the threshold
      • unknown store reps offering 10-30% off, but no actual bargain listed - just an attempt to direct traffic to their site
      • Clear on 21/03/2017 - 22:46

        free Google icon packs

        I actually considered posting a heap tonight, but thought of your post. They're a bit mediocre tbh.

        • payton on 22/03/2017 - 00:25

          that was just my view, if you reckon they're well designed and deal worthy, don't hesitate.
          What I should've done was click Install on playstore using my phone, then cancel the iconpack downloads rightaway (so they're still Purchased but not installed).
          I've got like 15 icon pack "apps" on my phone tabs now.

      • spackbace on 22/03/2017 - 00:16

        Eh it all gets filtered out eventually with the posting limits put in place if the deals don't get enough votes :)

        • payton on 22/03/2017 - 00:24

          bad store reps should be instakill Mortein-ed now, not done away with this slow-slow-release-humane-death formula xD

        • spackbace on 22/03/2017 - 00:27

          @payton:

          Lol I know it seems like they should, and the more you refresh the new deals page the more you see it, but you've just gotta let it slide. The bans for lack of performance work well enough to do the trick eventually :)

  • [Deactivated] on 21/03/2017 - 22:09

    Suggestion: have a URL validation where you can blacklist certain sites (eg adults only sites, gambling sites etc)

    This prevents deals from being logged in the first place and mods having to take them down.

    • Moderatorneil on 22/03/2017 - 00:18

      This is already in place. We currently have over 2500+ domains permanently blocked and several on temporary blocks (2,575 total).

  • pfaftle on 24/03/2017 - 20:41

    Suggestion: Could we please get a "Post Comment" tag for competition requirements?

    • Moderatorneil on 25/03/2017 - 13:23

      Good suggestion. The other thing we've noted is Instagram or Twitter follow required. We'll just have to work out the best way to display these (group them together or separate checkbox, etc.).

      • coxymla on 28/03/2017 - 13:49
        +2

        Thanks for being proactive with adding features!

        My thoughts are that is currently hard/impossible to distinguish between a competition with a lot of optional actions (e.g. one of those massive Gleams) versus a competition that has a mandatory action.

        e.g. Many facebook competitions that are real competitions (not just comment on a post) have a Like as an entry method but not mandatory.

        Not sure this is easy to solve UI-wise.

    • Moderatorneil on 28/03/2017 - 13:59

      We just added Comment/Follow to comps and have bundled it in as Like/Follow/Comment/Share. It gets complicated for example if you need a Twitter Retweet (publicly viewable) vs. Facebook Share (can be private) vs. Repost on Instagram (post). Not sure how to deal with all of these without having hundreds of checkboxes. Let's see how we go.

  • 17833 on 25/03/2017 - 13:04

    Is there possibly some inconsistency with regards to some some deals being removed: "no bargains listed" while others are allowed to remain posted? This seems to occur when someone posts a global % off sale. When someone does this, obviously not specific bargain is listed. Following this, technically these posts https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/298824 and this more popular post https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/298969 should be removed. Conversely a recent 50% off sale with free delivery at Ben Sherman was removed. Some clarification please?

    • Moderatorneil on 25/03/2017 - 13:21

      From our deal posting guidelines: sales & catalogue and stores:

      Deal posts that reference a sale, catalogue or store but don't provide enough information to find at least one bargain, may be unpublished. Deal posts that contains ambiguous or non descriptive titles such as 'up to 50% off sale', 'big clearance' or 'sale' may be unpublished unless specific items are mentioned within the deal description OR a dedicated offer/discount such as '50% off sale' is present (preferably in the title).

      Keyword is up to. Up to 50% off storewide vs 50% off storewide has totally different meanings. With the latter it includes everything or almost everything whereas in the first example 1 thing can be 50% off and 99 things can have no discount which is why we encourage people to find bargains.

      • 17833 on 25/03/2017 - 13:23

        Thanks for clarifying :)

      • onetwothreefour on 25/03/2017 - 16:39

        This is an "up to" deal that was allowed, there are many others too.

        https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/294322

        • Moderatorneil on 25/03/2017 - 17:40

          The big picture is, let's make these deals as clear as possible so people can vote whether the deal is good or not. It's not about pinging deals (or users) because they don't meet guidelines. Much of the time we fix up deals including "up to" deals instead of removing.

          There are 2 components to that deal.

          • Nike - up to 45% off in The Nike Clearance
          • Plus 15% Cashback Sitewide via Cashrewards

          The fixed Cashrewards part of 15% sitewide (up from 6.4%) on it's own is a deal. e.g. this older deal.

          Unfortunately, I can't see the page however we can take a look at the screenshot which shows the following items:

          • Nike Dry Squad $80, Was $47.99, 40% off
          • Nike Power Tech (Rostarr) $69.99, Was $100, 30% off
          • Nike Sportswear Tech Fleece, $90.99, Was $130, 30% off
          • Nike Speed, $31.99, $45, 29% off
          • Nike Rosche LD-1000 $104.99, Was $150, 30%
          • Nike Brushed Fleece Cut $45 (?)

          Looking at the comments and popularity of the deal as well as the screenshot, it seems that people could easily find deals with the average of a 31% discount. I wouldn't have removed the deal however I would have listed examples in the description like this Up to 45% off at Nike Sale. There were 0 reports against the deal and a mod only edited the deal after it has been on the site for 36 hours.

        • payton on 26/03/2017 - 15:17

          Agreed with neil. Its a trade off/balance between letting users communicate good deals while preventing bad store reps (and drop shippers) from spamming adverts that aren't a bargain at all.

        • spackbace on 26/03/2017 - 17:03

          I doubt mods really 'like' to remove deals posted by members, and as Neil pointed out, they'd prefer to fix it up so it sticks to the rules.

          I wouldn't worry so much about non-rep posted deals :)

Login or Join to leave a comment
Login Join