I've created this thread for general day-to-day comments/feedback/suggestions, because I think it's better then having to make a new thread every time you have got something little to ask/say.
Comments / Feedback / Suggestions Thread
JeffreyM on 18/03/2008 - 16:30
closed Comments
I like the new design, especially preferences.
Any chance of adding preference options to:
1. Not show expired deals in new deals
2. Not show removed deals
3. Show searches in date order. It makes it easier to find a dupe before posting. I don't post enough to remember the convention, so I always have to search help first to find what term to use so it shows search results by date.Thanks,
Pete
How do you define "unpopular"? Most negative votes over the last x number of days? Least number of clicks?
a list of unpopular deals
Why?
To what end?
The list of popular deals serves a purpose; the logic being that if a deal is voted up, it is likely to be offering value to a reletively high proportion of OzBargainers.
Wouldn't a list of unpopular deals just be like gawking at a train-wreck?
That's my two-bobs-worth anyway…
TEGH
~~
\_/7
To what end?
you don't normally get to see them after 6 -ve votes… just because it's not a bargain for 6 others does not mean it's not a bargain for you…
Would it be difficult to implement notification system for replies like on youtube? So if someone replies to a comment I make, I get notified? Sometimes, it's difficult to keep track of where I've posted or asked a question.
just click 'subscribe'?
I'll give that a go, but does subscribe notify me every time a comment is posted to the thread?
yep…. I think so…
It indeed does exactly that :)
TEGH
~~
\_/7hmm, I subscribed to this thread, but where can I see the notifications?
should come via e-mail….
?check your spam box?
you don't get notifications for your own emails
oh email! I guess my suggestion is different then, because I'd rather not receive emails for replies to threads.
If anyone is familiar with youtube, you receive notifications on the youtube website itself. It's not a feature that's absolutely necessary, but just a suggestion that might make the user experience smoother.
Another suggestion that ties in with the above is allowing users to "reply" to comments even when the nesting threshold has been reached (nesting as in the displaying of comments). Maybe it could insert an "@username" at the beginning of the comment so it's obvious who people are replying to.
Could the Live page be modified to truncate very long user names that push the subject column towards the right? Overwide user column makes it harder to view on a small screen.
Even nicer would be options to hide the time and user columns for when you just want to click on the comments and you know the page is recent enough not to care about the exact age of the rows.
It should now be fixed.
Could you please add a feature that shows who negged your comment. i.e. you can see the people who have given you + votes but not -.
For what purpose?
Could the + and - buttons be separated more? I'm sure a small number of the comment votes are mistakes. I have negged or possed comments by mistake myself a few times. And it's even worse on a mobile screen. It's not as if there isn't enough space to the left of the buttons.
Aim properly! :-)
It is already taking up quite a bit of space on the mobile device so I don't want to make them more spaced out. Maybe allowing people to quickly revoke their mistake?
Sounds like a good alternative, as I know even on a non-mobile device I sometimes misclick (:S) just a few seconds of a "remove vote" next to the buttons or something would be helpful :)
If you arrange it this way, there won't be any additional space needed:
[+] X [-]
where X is the number of votes, which would start at 0 and could become positive or negative. You could even save space by not displaying the word "votes". People would figure out what it meant quickly.
Comment vote revocation has been added. Click on "votes" link and you'll be able to revoke your own vote there.
hmmmmm….. will you get the vote 'back', to be able to use again?
No. Like deal votes, you can't vote again on that comment.
Can the thread update emails contain more text, rather than just the first few words? The whole comment would be great - that would make it much easier to browse through new comments and only click on the ones that are interesting, rather than having to click on each and every comment and be redirected to the website to read it.
Sometimes the redirection doesn't work for me too, I just get sent to the top of the deal page. Not sure what's causing that. It happens on the two computers that I use.
I coulda sworn that was working for a while… then it suddenly stopped working.
lol the email I got from your reply was "Can the thread update emails "…
Maybe you missed 80% of the discussion for that period of time. ;)
It's been tweaked! It's a much longer string of text now, along with the comment it is in response to. Awesome! It would be great if the whole comment could be included though.
Big thanks to moocher for putting in this change :)
To get the full comment,
- Hover over "My Account"
- Click on "Settings"
- Under "Subscription Settings", click on "Include full comment"
- SAVE!
We are not enabling the full comment by default as some comments can be quite long.
Awesome.. thanks moocher! And scotty too. :)
Thanks moocher & scotty, much appreciated!
Ah so this is where the request originated from :P
Let me know if there are issues with the new email.
For forum topics (and possibly other parts of OzB) I think the feature of "number of times topic read and/or subscribed" stat would be of interest.
Several times I have posted topics which appear to generate little or no interest and then later I find out that the post has caused a much larger degree of interest which resulted in people using the information provided to get a better deal. For many of the times I thought I was doing something wrong given the lack of interest/response.
Just a thought anyway.
We certainly can show the subscribers — although I doubt it would help to resolve your problem, i.e. not getting response.
As of showing the number of times a post got read — well it's a different technical challenge due to the way OzBargain is implemented. Also the count would start from 0 across all previous topics as well, which would seem a bit weird.
Here's a suggestion…
In order to prevent the "damn I missed that great deal" from happening..
can I have an automatic notice sent to me if a deal gets more than a certain number of votes.
perhaps it can be set by the user, perhaps it could be set by ozbargain… just to give someone who is not logged on an email to let them know something big is happening.just a thought
I know this sounds a tad mean, but can I put up for discussion a temporary suspension on rep "event"/"sale" posts.
To help cut down on the clutter and assist reps to make the deals more relevant to the ozbargain community (if they want to post here I mean).
I am talking about the generic ones where
- the title relates to a % off
- possibly includes a reference to an event (say Australia day)
- does not include any examples but gives a generic blurb about the businessIt happens regularly with every holiday event, and with Easter coming up imho it might be timely.
I think deals where the rep has been specific should stay. Even if they are not good ones ;P
Also user posts - even if they are generic. Often if those make their way onto ozbargain its because its a vendor that normally does not discount or something similar.
Ie its a bargain!
Anyway just putting it out there - hope that makes sense
Thanks for the suggestion. However in the retail world, sales do tend to be seasonal. Retailers have been using public holidays as excuses to push their sales, and we do expect a jump on submissions during those events. In some sense it has also trained the consumers that they should expecting sales during those periods. There might be OzBargainers specially looking for Easter related sales — and having deals tagged to Easter might help them.
Anyway. I think voting should hopefully sort those out. Mods don't usually remove deals that are "not good enough" — we remove deals that are duplicates or violating the rules. To avoid clutter, you might wish to set your deal listing threshold a bit higher :)
no worries
I guess I was just trying to express that asking a rep to include a couple of specific items in their post might make content a tad more relevant.
Good point - I'll go fiddle with my settings :P
Is it just me or has the actual time of the last post in the forums been removed? There is still a date, just no time.
Yes if you are talking about the listing view.
However for the threads that were updated over the last 24 hours, it should say "x hours y minutes ago". Otherwise you need to go into the post to see the exact time when the last comment was made.
Sometimes when typing in the forums, the site refreshes without warning and what you've typed disappears. (Very annoying.)
I've never struck that myself.
Could it be your browser/settings? :\
Cheers,
Jean-Luc.~~
\_/7
Thanks. I don't know what it is. It's happened about three times in the last two days - but only when I'm on ozbargain. (I also use whirlpool, post comments on media sites, etc. that use similar forums. So figured it should happen there too if it's the browser - but who knows!?) Have to just remember to copy & paste I guess. :-|
Firefox v10.0.2
A deal from a property developer for new units was just removed by a mod.
Here's a suggestion. (please ignore if it is already covered in the wiki somewhere)
Under "Deal posting guidelines" / section "what should not be posted"…. perhaps a new subsection should be added. e.g:
Real Property
Deals pertaining to the purchase of any stampable property transaction.
Can you please make links open in a new browser tab instead of opening over ozbargains. Thanks
- Mouse hover over "My Account"
- Click on "Settings"
- Tick the checkbox "Deals Open in New Window"
Now when you click on the deal image it should open on a new window/tab.
Alternatively, use middle button to open links on new window/tab :)
On the new deals page (http://www.ozbargain.com.au/deals) there is the 'Top Deals' and 'New Deals' box on the right column.
Would it be possible to remove the 'New Deals' box and make the 'Top Deals' box longer to be consistent with the OzB front page? Kind of redundant having 'New Deals' since we're already on the page.
Yeah good idea. Having New Deals on the sidebar would seem a bit redundant.
We have just updated the code to show the Front Page Deals on the sidebar of New Deals page.
Hi, can we have the red highlighting of the price on the live page too?
Highlighting is now on Live!!! :)
Is it possible to have another checkbox on the Live page to also exclude forum posts? And also have the Live page remember what options are checked? I only want posts, not votes, comments etc
Hi I access OZB from my iPhone. I just clicked on view full site at the bottom of the mobile site. I cannot seem to find a way to go back and access the mobile site. Can anyone help?
Yeah currently there is no visible link to get you back. What you can do is to click on this link to reset back to mobile site:
Thanks Scotty. It worked like a charm.
Fixed.
Is there any merit to having a members only forum and that when posting only members get the option to post to that forum?
You pretty much need to be a member to post anything on OzBargain. You can't post anything without signing up an account here :)
Or do you mean a forum that only members to see? Off-Topic is one such forum.
I meant a forum that only members can access/see, thanks Scotty for that info on the Off-Topic forum
though i think that maybe most members wouldnt know about this because of the name of the forum
Ozbargain site functionality feedback after the DSE debacle
I've been using OzBargain for many years, and I think it's a truly fantastic site, and it allows great sharing of information about deals. But there are 3 specific bit of functionality where I feel the site actively prevents good information sharing, and that the site would be improved if these obstacles were removed. Those 3 specific situations are:
1) Popular deals should be ranked by +ve minus -ve votes. Right now it shows the DSE sale as the 2nd most popular deal, when it has more negative votes than positive, which makes no sense. It should have dropped off the list, it's clearly not a good deal, as the votes clearly show.
2) It should be easy to change a positive vote into a negative vote, and a negative vote into a positive vote. Deals get better or (more often) worse as new information becomes available, but OzBargain does not make it easy to reflect reality. Many people would have voted +ve to the DSE sale, but could not change to a negative, even when it was clearly a debacle. "Easy" changing of votes means voting by simply clicking on the +ve or a -ve symbol on the deal page, just the same way you vote in the first place, not going to some other obscure page. That would revoke your previous vote, and submit the new vote instead, so you still get 1 person 1 vote. Please make changing your vote as easy as voting in the first place.
3) Commenting and voting on a thread should stay open for a bit longer. I'm explicitly excluding the DSE "sale" from this category (have no problem with manually closing that one, because it really was over), but a better example is the Allphones $200 off dud. The comments closed automatically one day before the voucher validity ended, whereas it's only once the deal is over that you really know it was any good. I hold back my votes sometimes until after I know firsthand if a deal is good or not, based on whether I got it or not. That seems the best voting of all, more valuable perhaps than a vote of someone who looked at it for a few seconds, but didn't try to take up the deal. Delayed voting and commenting (in general, not in the DSE case) is useful, and should not be prevented. So, can the default commenting period please be increased from ~60 days (seems to be the current value), up to say 90 days?
In all other regards the site is superb, it's just these 3 functions where I feel the site is not totally aligned with good sharing of information among informed consumers. Thank you for your consideration.
That would be an error on our end. I've fixed that.
Having people changing votes at will also have its problem to our backend, if the number of votes fluctuates too much. "Making it easier to revoke" — yes. However making it is easier for people to change from +1 to -1 (and back to +1 and back to…) would not be desirable.
Commenting of the deal thread only closes if (1) it's more than 45 days old, and (2) it has not been commented on for 14 days. It is possible to extend the closure of commenting if the discussion is on-going.
Thanks for your feedbacks. We pretty much live on people's feedback to make this site better :)
- That would be an error on our end. I've fixed that.
Thank you, Scotty!
- However making it is easier for people to change from +1 to -1
(and back to +1 and back to…) would not be desirable.
Would you be willing to consider a try-to-meet-somewhere-in-the-middle counterproposal? How about: You get one vote (+ve or -ve), which you can optionally change once (to a -ve or +ve), if more than 1 hour has passed since the original vote. That way you get no endless flip-flopping, less fluctuation, and there's a delay in changes, but it's still means people can revise their views once, if there is new information.
- Commenting of the deal thread only closes if (1) it's more than 45 days old,
and (2) it has not been commented on for 14 days
My bad: I was wrong, you were right. I got my months mixed up (thought the allphones voucher ended in Jan and I could not comment, but the voucher was valid until the end of Feb, which must have been when I was trying to comment). I'd maybe like a little longer (30 days since last comment instead of 14), but I don't have to deal with comment spam or moderate comments, so I can understand there are reasons for keeping it bounded. Okay, please consider this one my mistake :-)
Thank you very much for your help and explanations.
Suggestion for the Advanced Search function
Would it be possible when conducting a search for a word to make a checkbox to search just the titles only and a seperate checkbox to search title and postings for that word per thread?
As alot of the time when i want to do a search for a word i am only interested in the word coming up in titles only
Also am in agreement with an earlier poster in this thread to suggest a section for non-published deals
with so few negative votes a deal becomes unpublished and simply because its not a deal to a small minority does not mean it might not be a deal to the rest of us, im now starting to wonder how many deals i have missed because of this
example http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/67210
the norton might be cheaper somewhere else but all the negs seemed to focus on the norton aspect only
none took into account that you are getting 24/7 i.t phone suppot, 4x computer maintenance sessions, a 1hr onsite setup for a (assuming) new computer purchase, plus a 12 month norton 360
i personally can see $299 worth of value in this deal and think alot of people missed out on having the chance to see or even review and make thier own mind up because of a small group whos judgement on this deal seems quite bias toward DSE and very misguided in thier evaluation of the deal
The deal isn't unpublished.
You can adjust the minimum vote threshold to see all deals in the preferences section on the new deals page.
thankyou for the info
would be good to know unread posts so i do not have to scroll down previously viewed posts and try to remember if I have read them or not.
at 62 a real bugbear.they normally have the word 'new' in a little box next to them….
I mean the ones I have not read.
How long has that 'Top Comment' feature existed?
Looks like it shows up if there are 2 or more pages in a thread.
Pretty sweet, keep up the good work! :^)That was pushed to the server earlier this morning :) Currently the "Top Comments" block would only be shown for deals or forum topics with more than one page of comments.
Some feedback from a long time Ozbargainer (and software engineer). I love the site and format but feel it still lacks a tighter community spirit/feel for the regular contributors and users.
I think there should be some sort of reward/reputation system that rewards people with points for contributing great posts or comments. Eg. All the user's positive (and possibly negative votes) earned on deals they post and on comments they make are tallied up and shown next to their name in the form eg. Username +123/-34.
Advantages:
- Rewards the users that make good contributions with at least some sort of persistent credit. This is sort of implemented already in a non-persistent way with +/- votes, but with the current system, once a post is pushed off the front page or a comment thread becomes old, no one really cares/notices what a user may have written before. (I think this is kinda unfair especially for the people who put in a lot of time/effort into making really well researched/formatted comments/deals)
- Easily identify people with a track record of making useful (or hillarious pun) comments in posts with long pages of comments.
- Easily identify people that just troll, spam or post pointless stuff.
- Ability to quickly identify the quality/reliability of a REP/Store without having to sift through their past posts, wait for someone who has dealt with them before to chime in, or fire off a Google search.
- Is an incentive for the e-peen concerned users :P
IMO, having some sort of reputation system would encourage people to post more bargains (and of possibly higher quality) as well as more helpful comments.
Another option is having something like an "Ozbargainer power level" ranking system next to their name with a funny Ozbargain-ism to go with it, eg - NewUser - What's an OW? or some sort of icon to show their Ozbargainer experience.
The icon could just be a few stars or something more creative, be the size of the P and MOD icons, and go after the username. You could have some sort of point system that determines when users "level up" - eg. +1 point for each positive vote on a comment, +2 points for each positive vote on a deal they post, +50 points for a post that makes it to the front page, 200 points total to get to the next "level" etc. Again, this helps encourage post quality and fosters the community spirit.
I guess what I'm getting at is having certain user related aspects of your usual PHPBB/IPB/etc. forum boards being integrated into the Ozbargain user experience to foster a tighter community of regulars and provide some sort of incentive for people to keep coming back and contributing quality stuff. Also, it'd be a bit of fun and less "cold" like how everyone is just another username right now.
Anyway, sorry for the long post, I like to type haha. Big thanks for all the work with the site Scotty and the various mods, it's been great watching the site evolve from the early days :) (Although my wallet somewhat disagrees with all the unnecessary items I've bought over the years :P)
Thank you for very informative feedback and suggestions. The truth is, having a mean to rate/value a member has always been in my mind and I've gone through quite a few possible implementations. For those who have been on OzBargain for a while would remember "User Points" and the top-user listing on the front page a while ago.
I definitely want to come up with something solid to help fellow members to work out the "trustworthy-ness" of other members they have interactions with. That can also be associated with extra semi-mods privileges. Anyway. They'll come eventually.
/me getting back to do more coding.
When posting a new deal and adding tags, the "tagging guidelines" help page doesn't say HOW to add multiple tags. I tried whitespace to separate them first time, that didn't work. Then I tried using the vertical bar character, because that's how the appear in the posted bargains. That doesn't work either. On the third try, I used commas to separate the tags - and that DOES work.
Can the "tagging guidelines" help page be updated to say that "multiple tags can be entered, if they are separated by commas"? Even better, put that on the page where the new deal is entered and/or edited? And maybe when the tags are displayed, show them separated by commas, instead of the vertical bar character?
In case this is browser-dependent, I'm using Mozilla Firefox 3.6.6.
Yes the instructions used to be there right on the deal posting page. We'll get that fixed. The tagging guideline is still "work in progress".
Thanks for the feedbacks.
When people make posts, many times they leave off details such as the expiry date. That means there are a bunch of outdated deals so search is less helpful. Is there any way to influence posters to do a little more research for their bargains? Or alternately for old deals to get checked and chucked regularly?
Or alternately for old deals to get checked and chucked regularly?
It is a possibility. Ever store has their own unique way to declare expired deals or out of stock so there will be implementation difficulties.
At the same time, please use "Report" link if a deal is found to be expired. Mods will come and take care of those.
Searching should sort by date automatically.
Most of the time I can't find what I'm looking for because of the weird results it displays when searching, as soon as I order by date I find it very quickly.
I know its quick and easy to hit advanced search and sort by date, but its not so easy when on your phone.
Yep especially when you saw a deal a few days ago and then have to go through pages of deals just to find it. Double the problem if it didn't become popular.
I have a pretty basic problem, there doesn't seem to be a help forum so I'm posting here, How do you strike-through text in posts/comments. I've read up on the markdown syntax but I believe strike-through isn't a part of it and it must be done using custom code. I found the first comment on this page most helpful but it doesn't seem to have a method that works on ozbargain.
I've seen it done before so if someone who knows the syntax could share it it would be great. ThanksSee here
Standard Markdown does not have a strikeout syntax. We also don't allow regular HTML here on OzBargain so currently there is no way to do strikeouts.
Why the hell did the clicks tab move?
Can i suggest that we can subscribe to CATEGORIES in the forums? I know we can subscribe to whatever topics we like but id like to be able to know when new topics come up in the categories without having to go through EVERY category to find out.
Good idea sk1ppy. Do you mean email subscription or RSS?
Cheers mate. Email for me personally but could be for both.
Nothing major but I think that REP button is too close to the submit comment button - quite a number of people have been clicking it by accident.
The offtopic thing seems to be working great though. :)
I'd prefer it if non-members couldn't view them but that's just my opinion.Good point. The moderators have the opposite issue as our checkbox is on the other side and we keep forgetting to check it.
I see what you mean. It's due to the recent change of the placement of the popup tooltip. The close button for the popup is just right next to the comment submission button. I'll take a look at this.
Edit: This is what I mean — https://www.box.com/s/37dc425085c98e9f12a1
This should be fixed now - thanks to Scotty.
I can't find the 'mark all as read' or similar button for the forum (as a whole).
If there isn't one I would greatly appreciate one.
Great work BTWWhen you hover over "My Account", Mark all read should be an option just above Logout.
Thanks Scotty,
I guess I'm usually too impatient for hovering and missed it.
Would it be possible to split up the "Apparel" under Categories on the Submit Deal page into "Apparel-General" "Apparel-Men's", "Apparel-Women's" or something along the lines of that? It would make it easier to identify what kind of clothing is on offer without having to click on the deal, and sometimes even on the link to the shop itself.
Noone? Must be quite simple to do
Is is possible to differentiate between a store rep (ie someone who is representing the store and trying to promote a particular deal) and someone who works at a store and just wants to share a good deal with the community…
I am referred to the little flags by the names btwI think that would help the community
- when they say something we have a better idea whether it is hot air or will it be stood by
- which reps we can negotiate with
- whether or not a particular rep's behaviour/interaction/attitude is a reflection of the store they represent - or are they just doing their own thing.
What Scotty says is correct and if we find a company stacking the votes, they get kicked off. And please if you even think that happens report it, we have our ways - not 100% but we can also detect trends.
I totally agree about the fanbois, and we are trying to crack down on that, this mob gang attack on someone who has a different opinion. But also we will be doing that on all fanboi attacks. Android, Apple, Religion, Telco etc.
Again the report button is your friend, help us keep the site on track. As we get more popular we need the help. You might also look at the new system for rep posts that we are working on.
And thank you for bringing all this up.