OzBargainers are a tough bunch!

• 

  aldog on 20/02/2011 - 09:19

  +10

  Hi saxlady,

  Yes, over the years things have changed somewhat. People used to be appreciative of any bargain that they were informed about on this site - from things such as a few dollars off something, to cheap or free outings (such as your post above). These days too many people tend to be skeptical of anything because its cheap (i.e. Is it fake, what's wrong with it, etc). But a lot of people tend to get ripped off more and are forever wary of trusting what someone has posted up here.

  In my case, I used to contribute bargains by doing things such as scanning circulars, taking photos etc, but I tend not to worry about doing it anymore. Why bother if you're just going to be cut-down by people forever saying that they can get it cheaper elsewhere, or they make assumptions that the goods/services are dodgy or the likes. As selfish as it can sound, why bother wasting your time posting on the internet to receive negative comments? Sometimes it just pays to keep things to yourself - and yes, you can see why people are scared to post!

  Also, another idea that could work is that you post up a bargain, then people can vote positively accordingly (i.e. so there is no negative voting) - however if people have any questions about it, there is a topic automatically generated in the forums and people can raise their issues there. This will then utilize the forums more and if they want to do it this way, they could then make forums only viewable by members, therefore encouraging users to actually sign-up to OzBargain.

• 

  issh on 20/02/2011 - 10:30

  i wouldn't say the comments are harsh, we are just trying to find any 'proof', i told my relatives and they are planning to go there today

  this

  I would be pretty annoyed if I went along to something that someone had mentioned was free or discounted to find it wasn’t

  well for us, we find solid evidence that it's true, the comments in your post wasn't really 'harsh' though

  but some comments can get pretty cutting, and while they may be valid it would be nice if people overall could just be a bit less harsh, because we could all end up missing out on great deals because people are too scared to post.

  +1

  • 

    saxlady on 20/02/2011 - 10:42

    +4

    You're absolutely right - I didn't think the comments relating to my post were harsh - questioning for sure - and fair enough too.

    My comment about people being harsh was more generally related - and you must admit people can be rough on the OP at times, which can be off putting to others. But I wasn't saying they were in this case.

    Hope your rellies enjoy themselves

    • 

      issh on 20/02/2011 - 12:43

      +1

      you must admit people can be rough on the OP at times

      +1
      It's just about research
      If the OP doesn't research about the price, it's OP's fault
      BUT
      If the people(OzB) do not research, it's the people's fault

• 

  jaxon on 20/02/2011 - 11:00

  +1

  saxlady i agree with your point, i do find ozbargainers second questioning and negging a lot of offers.

  i do think that on the whole ozbargain people are supportive of the deals and its just the one or two out of the bunch that tend to be annoying. in any case there will be people around to deal with any annoying questions, and any information is good info and contributes so i dont think you should be too worried

  also i think ozbargain is actually gaining a lot in terms of popularity and with the general population, which might explain why there seems like a lot more dickheads around on the bargains

• 

  bendertiger on 20/02/2011 - 11:01

  +3

  Reminds me of how harsh people are on my KFC posts, screaming at me that it's a saving of 'only' 50c…or 'But we got a voucher cheaper last week'…even though in Australia I believe two totally seperate companies run KFC! There are alot of morons on OzBargain unfortunately, I believe if anyone is so concerned about it 'not' being free. Instead of abusing the person posting it in good faith, an idea might be to ring the science centre and ask!

• 

  maryrose on 20/02/2011 - 11:16

  Saxlady - It's ok, reading your post and the comments people were just being cautious. Its like prety upsetting if someone took the whole family theer and found it wasn't available. Maybe you should have said the staff member told you it was being extended in the original post. (actually how dumb was it to end ona saturday)

  Overall though there is a culture amongst many here to out beat others with their ability to discern a deal. It pisses me off from posting when I see people negging a deal jsut because someone else has. Do we really need to have 10 people tell us its no deal.

  Then again there are some like forma and abbesini who just vote up every deal even spam deals because they dont discern whats going on.

  • 

    issh on 20/02/2011 - 12:47

    +4

    Overall though there is a culture amongst many here to out beat others with their ability to discern a deal. It pisses me off from posting when I see people negging a deal jsut because someone else has. Do we really need to have 10 people tell us its no deal.

    +1

    here are some other topics on the negative mob
    http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/34471
    http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/37925

• 

  andy19363 on 20/02/2011 - 12:46

  +9

  Why bother if you’re just going to be cut-down by people forever saying that they can get it cheaper elsewhere, or they make assumptions that the goods/services are dodgy or the likes. As selfish as it can sound, why bother wasting your time posting on the internet to receive negative comments? Sometimes it just pays to keep things to yourself - and yes, you can see why people are scared to post!

  I agree….. I don't post bargains anymore, as it's just not worth the effort.
  The negging system was useful at one stage, but now it has lost all meaning, as people are free to neg for whatever reason they like.
  Mob rules…

  It's a shame…

• 

  samfisher5986 on 20/02/2011 - 12:59

  +3

  I don't see a huge issue

  We've been tricked before by deals that are not really deals.

  It can be pretty embarrassing, especially to your date/family/friends if you try and go somewhere and find its not really a deal, all because the original poster didn't post something from a credible source.

  Assuming you've found something, posting bargains is quite easy, all it takes is 2 minutes of research before posting, the problem comes from people blindly posting things without thinking about it.

  However I do agree that we have a lot of "me too" negative posts, and a lot of "If you jump in my DeLorean you can find a cheaper price" negative votes, as well as a lot of negs based on lack of research cough jv cough :-)

• 

  daydream on 20/02/2011 - 13:42

  Online communities represent a cross section of the community and their opinions/experiences (just like talkback radio, letters to newspapers, etc). As can be expected though some people are more vocal than others and people tend to make the effort to report back on negative experiences or post only when there is a problem. Some are quicker to be negative due to anonymity when in real life they would hold back (or do it with less ferocity).

  I'd personally take away the neg votes on comments as people can take that personally and it doesn't really explain why someone thought a particular comment was negative. Much better for some to voice their views (for for against, as in real life) rather than just giving an anon neg without comment. Feelings would be less likely to be hurt and it would be less likely that a mob mentality would form too.

  A lot of it comes down to "how" people make their views known rather than their actual opinions themselves (where diversity can be enlightening even if people don't necessarily hold the same views).

  A sense of humour is also welcome as most of things we talk about on OzBargain are not that major in the scheme of things and it helps to build the community.

  • 

    andy19363 on 20/02/2011 - 16:01

    A lot of it comes down to “how” people make their views known rather than their actual opinions themselves

    I agree…. I'm all for opinions and information, I have no problems with people being negative…. I do have problems with people voting negative without thought, as that impacts on what I and all other users get to see on the site. An example being this one (yes, another cotd) http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/39726 gone from the front page, before hardly anyone has a chance to view it. Many of the neg comments are likely to have some validity, (with the exception of "COTD - nuff said!" - which tells me nothing), but now are irrelevant as the post is gone.

    The voting on comments, to me, is a worthless exercise…. it means nothing. I used to try and vote negative on inappropriate neg comments, to try and reverse the negative, but that is a futile exercise…… (I noted that the publishing of the 'most negged comment' did seem to invoke a bit of a competition amongst the knuckle-draggers for a while….. so perhaps it's more meaningful to some people)

    • 

      issh on 20/02/2011 - 16:23

      Many of the neg comments are likely to have some validity, (with the exception of “COTD - nuff said!” - which tells me nothing), but now are irrelevant as the post is gone.

      +1
      i remember when MLN had their End of Year sale, MLN crashed AND also Ozbargain crashed as well

      Lol, did the ozbargain site just go down because there are more than 20,000 ppl all trying to find out whether anyone’s having any success?

      .

      I doubt any of us could do any better, at one stage even Ozbargain was slowing down due to high traffic.

    • 

      overlook on 20/02/2011 - 19:31

      +1

      i was reading your comments on the cotd deal that been voted away. seriously, for cotd, NO ONE ACTUALLY see/get the numbers of deal that they claimed to have. dell swarm actually shows you, how many bought how many left.

      and afaik i could get any dell swarm deal without any difficulty since normally i have one in the cart and then i think abit before i checkout, whereas cotd, no one can even load, or if they have one in the cart,they cant even check out and then item is lost to someone else. THATS huge difference. COTD always claim its too famous, but how come other websites can do this (something in cart,and give enough time for the person to checkout) while COTD cant?

      i think i read somewhere there was an ex employee wrote some truths that when they said 100 ps3 deal really it was only like 5 units sold. so I kinda believe that the post is legit, since I didnt just experience once but a few times, that i got the item on my cart but i just cant check out at all.

      • 

        infernal_max on 20/02/2011 - 19:53

        careful, the last thing we need is another cotd bashfest/rumour mill

      • 

        issh on 20/02/2011 - 20:00

        i could get any dell swarm deal without any difficulty since normally i have one in the cart and then i think abit before i checkout, whereas cotd, no one can even load, or if they have one in the cart,they cant even check out and then item is lost to someone else.

        Dell Swarm is around midnight
        http://www.ozbargain.com.au/search/node/dell+swarm
        (when most people are sleeping)
        and COTD>Dell Swarm, as in more people know about COTD more than Dell Swarm

        i think i read somewhere there was an ex employee wrote some truths that when they said 100 ps3 deal really it was only like 5 units sold…

        http://ayvah.livejournal.com/226435.html

      • 

        overlook on 20/02/2011 - 22:14

        wont say i am bashing cotd…but its ridiculous how their server works…

• 

  infernal_max on 20/02/2011 - 17:30

  lol reading these two threads, god forbid op got really "attacked", all I see is one user being a bit too over cautious, nothing else, just shows though how the layout of the deal matters, a few choice words words well phrased would of negated that reply about the optional donation

  • 

    saxlady on 20/02/2011 - 18:19

    Hi Max - did I say at any point that I was being attacked, or badly dealt with in any way? Pretty sure I even agreed it was warranted to double check things.

    You're right about a couple of things though - I should have worded the post about the deal better in the first place, and I should have worded the intro to this discussion better too - not mentioned my post in this discussion, just kept it to general observations.

    And now I'd better stop before this is regarded as a rebuff, instead of a reply.

    • 

      infernal_max on 20/02/2011 - 19:51

      im not trying to argue with you, or suggest anyone is at fault, you posted a bargain/deal and thats good, but you are clearly venting your opinion be it the reply in your thread, or other deals you read/voted on previously.

      have a read of this thread
      http://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/36267 and maybe you will see ozbargain from another perspective

      • 

        saxlady on 20/02/2011 - 20:13

        yeah you're right - I stand by what I wrote, but….if I'd had more than 3 hours sleep I probably wouldn't have started this thread.