Did Anyone Else Realized That Post Upvotes Doesn't Reflect The How Good of The Posted Deal Is?

Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 18:08
Last edited 07/02/2023 - 19:19

I have posted quite few good bargains, and realized that the number of upvotes don't reflect the how good of the deal it is. People don't upvote, they just use/ buy the bargain and move on.
Have you noticed the same?
How do you think these can be fixed?
Do you think the fact that there is no rewards system on Ozbargain, that discourage people from posting deals?

Comments that I had on these topic discussions.
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/13184594/redir
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/13254056/redir

Please keep the conversation respectful. I would like to know other people's opinion.

Site Discussion

Comments

  • capslock on 07/02/2023 - 18:12
    +7

    How "good" a deal is is subjective.

    • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 18:13

      Ofcourse. 100% agree. Do you think the number of views reflect of how good of a bargain it is?

    • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 18:23

      The fact that people with no ozbargain account can still look the deals but can not upvote the deal might have to do with the number of upvotes?

        • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 18:25

          Maybe someone that knows can enlight us .

  • Bid Sniper on 07/02/2023 - 18:16

    Mandatory for high yield investment cars

  • Quantumcat on 07/02/2023 - 18:18
    +3

    I never care about the absolute number of upvotes, but I deal with 50+ I am more likely to look at (if interested by the title) than one with 2.

  • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 18:19

    These realization it's not just about my posts, but also for lots of other good bargains. People say thank you, or I bought one, but no upvote.

  • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 18:27
    +1

    How about these question. Does anyone have an opinion on this?

    Do you think the fact that there is no rewards system on Ozbargain, that discourage people from posting deals?

    • Moderatorneil on 07/02/2023 - 19:03

      Do you think the fact that there is no rewards system on Ozbargain

      OzBargain 2022 Monthly Members' Awards

      Every month I will be picking some contributors from the community (usually after looking at the stats), and each would be awarded with $100 prize in either PayPal fund or gift cards (via GiftPay or Prezzee).

      And our sister site Cheapies:

      ChoiceCheapies Monthly Deal Posting Rewards

      There will be 5 prizes — 1x NZ$100, 2x NZ$75 and 2x NZ$50, for the top 5 deal posters that month (total prize = NZ$350/month). Prizes will be given out in electronic gift cards from GiftPay(giftpay.co.nz), which you can then use to redeem gift cards of various merchants.

      which is a more simpler system due to a smaller community.

      • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 19:10
        +1

        I had no idea of this incentive.

        • Moderatorneil on 13/02/2023 - 11:49

          I've now added members of the month to a once a month announcement in the newsletter. (See tomorrow's newsletter)

          Congrats to our members of the month: kriddy, Clear, MiCCAS and Phalaxis. See our members of the month. Each month we reward 3 or 4 members with $150 each for their contributions.

          Hopefully this will assist yourself and others who aren't aware of this.

  • solidussnake on 07/02/2023 - 18:28
    +2

    I remember a "deal" for a refund for a previous dental company got something like 2-300 upvotes doesn't make sense

  • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 18:34

    One example of a deal that didn't get enough votes in my opinion it's the deal with the Karcher sweeper. Lots of people benefited from that post but not enough upvotes.

    • Quantumcat on 08/02/2023 - 12:06
      +2

      The proportion of upvotes between a popular deal and a non popular deal will still be the same regardless of what percentage of people upvote when buying. It is the same population of people, each person has the same percentage chance of upvoting, whichever deal it is.

  • Drakesy on 07/02/2023 - 18:37

    DEMOCRACY

    • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 18:38

      Is it a democracy though to use a deal and don't up vote or selfishness? How we will encourage people of posting deals otherwise, since there is no rewards system in place?

      • Drakesy on 07/02/2023 - 18:42

        Well, the negative voting system i still feel needs some work as it doesn't carry the same weight of required input as say a positive vote would.

  • SF3 on 07/02/2023 - 18:38
    +3

    I have posted quite few good bargains, and realized that the number of upvotes don't reflect the how good of the deal it is.

    Maybe they aren't actually that "good"?

    • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 18:40
      +1

      Maybe you are right. These realization, it's not just about my posts but also about lots and lots of other deal posts.

      • SF3 on 07/02/2023 - 18:44

        My observation has been the deal would also have to trigger people's emotion to get those extra upvotes or some fire sale deal or some freebie. Can be a tough crowd us bunch.

  • Lord Fart Bucket on 07/02/2023 - 18:45
    -2

    Did anyone else realized this is not english?

    • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 18:46
      +2

      Talking about my post? English it's my second language. So excuse me if it's not up to your standard.

      • Lord Fart Bucket on 07/02/2023 - 18:50
        -3

        Talking about the topic specifically. English is my second language too. Grammarly does wonders.

      • gesco on 08/02/2023 - 18:46

        In an attempt to be helpful: Has Anyone Else Realized That Post Upvotes Don't Reflect How Good The Posted Deal Is?

        Another option is: Why do upvotes not reflect how good a deal is?

        IMHO…

  • Jimothy Wongingtons on 07/02/2023 - 18:51
    +9

    The reward is sense of satisfaction of contributing to helping a community of fellow bargain hunters? At least that’s why I do it. That and the sweet, sweet upvotes that I plan to cash out in a lump sum by age 69 to retire on a private island in the Caribbean.

    • Lord Fart Bucket on 07/02/2023 - 18:52
      +1

      Any deals on private islands?

    • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 18:53
      -1

      I totally agree with you on the

      sense of satisfaction of contributing to helping a community of fellow bargain hunters.

      But I think most probably you have also noticed a large portion of the community that are selfish.

      • Lord Fart Bucket on 07/02/2023 - 18:56
        +4

        I don't see any need for remuneration, as hotdeals. I much prefer the giveaways to charity that this site does. This is a deal community, I will sometimes buy something, but not give it an upvote. If that makes me selfish in your eyes, meh.

        • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 18:59
          +2

          And I appreciate your opinion. There is not right or wrong on these one. Just different views. I just would like to know other people's perspective.

          • Lord Fart Bucket on 07/02/2023 - 19:02
            +1

            @Scrooge McDeal:

            There is not right or wrong on these one.

            Sorry, but that doesn't gel with your earlier statement:

            though to use a deal and don't up vote or selfishness? How we will encourage people of posting deals

            I would leave this site if it ended up being a pay per bargain system. It would generate all sort of rubbish.

            • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 19:04

              @Lord Fart Bucket: Type error. I wanted to write there is no right or wrong on these one. I type on my phone. Big fingers, small screen. 😄

              • Ghost47 on 07/02/2023 - 19:05
                +1

                @Scrooge McDeal:

                Big fingers

                Even if your posts don't get all the votes you want, be happy you have big fingers. Some people would kill for big fingers.

            • terrys on 08/02/2023 - 09:31

              @Lord Fart Bucket:

              up being a pay per bargain system.

              I'd leave it if started arming venusians to counteract the lizard people invasion.

              Shall we get back the the discussion or are there any other hypothetical proposals you'd like to condemn before they are made?

  • Ghost47 on 07/02/2023 - 19:04
    +1

    I have posted quite few good bargains, and realized that the number of upvotes don't reflect the how good of the deal it is.

    Lol life ain't fair I guess.

    People don't upvote, they just use/ buy the bargain and move on.

    I make sure to upvote if I've taken advantage of a bargain, I'm not surprised if everyone doesn't behave this way.

    Have you noticed the same?

    I post deals every now and then when I come across them and yeah, it kind of sucks when you post a deal you think is good/decent but no one upvotes it or it has lots of clicks and low votes (but that's a bit more because lurkers just scab everything and leave nothing). What's worse is when people start bashing you in the comments lol, like I was just trying to help everyone! I didn't know this deal was bad, I thought it was good! Jeez.

    How do you think these can be fixed?

    If everyone suddenly becomes more conscientious and grateful, so therefore it's likely it won't be fixed.

    Do you think the fact that there is no rewards system on Ozbargain, that discourage people from posting deals?

    Posting a deal is its own reward.

    • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 19:07

      Thanks for answering all of the questions. The majority of which I share similar views/ opinion.

  • randomusername2017 on 07/02/2023 - 19:05
    +2

    Tesla….

    • PVA on 08/02/2023 - 00:03

      Exactly, mention Tesla or Apple and you’ll get upvotes even if it’s just an announcement or $1 saving..

  • scotty on 07/02/2023 - 19:41
    +12

    As of reward, it's something that we found difficult to find a good balance. I'm happy to take suggestion on how to make it work.

    • I am fine with providing rewards to good contributors, and we've been running monthly awards for many years. Although many first time winners have no idea that such thing exists.
    • I am also fine with increasing the reward & number of winners, although I am not keen with increasing administration overhead to come up with winners.
    • However, OzBargain was started as a platform for bargain hunters to share good deals they found. The keyword here is sharing, and I think having monetary reward as an incentive would have twisted what OzBargain is about.
    • From our past experience, having a fixed reward system also encourages unhealthy competition, which subsequently increases the workload of the moderators. There were people complaining about each other's post (why isn't that a duplicate? why isn't mine allowed?), forming groups voting up each other's deals (or voting down other people's deals), etc.

    Thus I do not think having a more lucrative reward system is going to get more OzBargain members posting deals. Some people just aren't that good at finding deals, myself included. What we might end up with

    • More OzRRP "deals" or low-value deals that no one interested in. There will be people posting for the sake of posting.
    • More unhealthy competitions from the regular posters.

    And there are other implications. If we are paying rewards to some posters regularly, do they become our employees/contractors?

    HotUKDeals used to have Pepper Expert Program where they pay to a selected number of posters, however they have also terminated that in Aug 2021. Reason being "unscalable" but reading through the comments you can see some tension there. I would love HUKD to make that into a case study on how a community website can compensate contributing members.

    • Scrooge McDeal on 07/02/2023 - 20:23

      Thanks for creating ozbargain, and thank you for your detailed answer. I just found out about ozbargain not that long ago ( around a year and a half) but definitely helped me save money or spend more money by buying bargain deals. As a result of that, I wanted to give back by posting deals my self. I totally understand the concept of community with incentives ( I just found out about them today). It's very tricky to find the right balance on everything. Their always going to be challenges. That's why I wanted peoples opinion about this topic. I couldn't find any similar topic forum questions. Thanks again.

    • Quantumcat on 08/02/2023 - 12:13
      +1

      I think no monetary reward is better than any monetary reward.

      When you don't pay someone for something, they feel like they are doing something really good that is worth a lot.

      As soon as you pay someone for something, you are telling them that your work is worth $X. People will think, well if that's all my effort is worth to you, I'm not going to do it.

      Have experienced this second hand from a friend who is a magazine editor/publisher. When people are writing because they feel like they are doing the community a service, they write. As soon as you start paying them for articles, they stop writing.

  • brendanm on 07/02/2023 - 19:46
    +4

    Who cares, it's a website for posting bargains and getting information about being uninsured, not a popularity contest.

  • Some Human on 07/02/2023 - 20:11
    +1

    Does it matter?

  • Morien on 07/02/2023 - 21:16

    This past week I saw a deal on speakers negged because of their price. Not because of their price relative to rrp. Not because it was a good deal on that model or not, but just because the person didn't know enough about speakers to know that speakers can cost more than a few hundred dollars.
    It was comparable to negging a Breville Dual because you can get a Nespresso machine for a hundred bucks.

    I have seen this on many deals: negs out of ignorance. Something costs more than $500? Better believe there will be a comment saying "thanks op! bought 6!" May the ROFLs be with you.

    Going by upvotes has never been a good idea. Do your own research, or read comments, you should get an idea.

  • skid on 07/02/2023 - 21:16
    -3

    Could go old school and not reveal the link unless the deal has been upvoted ;)

    • leiiv on 07/02/2023 - 23:12
      -3

      Sounds good, make it as an option when posting a deal: only show link to those who up vote, or something like that

    • pegaxs on 07/02/2023 - 23:17
      +4

      Shit idea… there are lots of reasons I want to look at an item page before I consider it a deal.

      One example would be shit terms and conditions of sale… you have to upvote the deal to get the link to find out it’s shit.

      Making people upvote a deal just to get the link to the item would severely over inflate the positive votes.

      • Morien on 07/02/2023 - 23:50
        +1

        Exactly this.
        Besides, we have this. Each deal shows the number of clicks.

        Let's take a closer look.

        https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/755651

        This is a deal posted on a Samsung hdd. First deal on the main page at the time of writing.

        It has 185 clicks at the time of writing. If clicks were upvotes, that would put it as an all-time high.

        It only has 12 upvotes though. Why? Because it's fine. Not amazing. Just fine.

        This kind of inflation hasn't been seen since Zimbabwe's billion dollar bill.

  • SF3 on 08/02/2023 - 00:02

    OP, your new deal https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/755647 seems to be going well!

    • Scrooge McDeal on 08/02/2023 - 00:07

      I wasn't expecting much. I just posted for people that might help them. But deals are definitely subjective. Some deals I see and say what a bargain and they have just 50 votes, which shows that votes are not always the best indicator of a deal.

  • Clear on 08/02/2023 - 00:23
    +3

    When I was doing a lot more rep posts it was always interesting to see how many sales there were compared to the clicks and votes. You could have "interesting" products get front page, 50+ votes, a few thousand clicks and <5 sales. Then you'd have products more likely to be "impulse buys" barely make front page and still sell 500.

    • Scrooge McDeal on 08/02/2023 - 00:27

      To be honest , I also many times upvote deals that I like, even though I didn't buy. However I always upvote if I buy as an appreciation to the person that has spent time to find the deal and post it, for the community to enjoy.

      • Clear on 08/02/2023 - 00:29
        +1

        Occasionally there's people who have the idea that making a purchase is a prerequisite of upvoting the deal. 99% of stuff I post and upvote I never purchase myself. I even upvote deals not available to me like 7/11 and Aldi.

        Certainly always a good idea to upvote if you do purchase it. It's always frustrating to see people saying thank you or saying how good something is and then not upvoting the deal.

        • Scrooge McDeal on 08/02/2023 - 00:32
          +1

          Exactly what I have picked up and wanted other people's opinion. It's either I am too considerate or too sensitive, or those people are not considerate or selfish. Makes sense?

  • Sinnerator on 08/02/2023 - 08:50
    +1

    The upvote button is there simply to push if you feel like pushing it.
    You are correct, they are meaningless.

    I scan for downvotes to find juicy information :-)

    • Quantumcat on 08/02/2023 - 12:16
      +1

      I find downvotes entertaining to read also

  • Drj55 on 08/02/2023 - 08:58

    What about those hundreds of up votes on those ultra crap ebay 10% of "selected" items posts? They never made sense to me.

  • Iluvfreebies on 08/02/2023 - 13:02

    Reminds of this deal from nightowl
    I got freebie every other day and also commented that this deal is underrated.
    Where as similar deal from 7eleven would have got hundreds of votes.

  • bamzero on 08/02/2023 - 13:56
    +2

    How about when they clearly like the deal, commenting how great it is, thanks just bought one… but you don't see that green box next to their name and you're just thinking gimme that sweet sweet upvote :D

  • [Deactivated] on 09/02/2023 - 14:04

    I go by votes. Any deal at <10 votes I will mostly pass by. Any deal with 10-30 votes means the deal is reasonable. When you start getting to 50-100+ then that is when the deal tends to be a very good one.

  • Scrooge McDeal on 09/02/2023 - 15:07
    +1

    Yesterday I posted a deal and I wrote on the bottom of the description. As always enjoy. If you like my deal please upvote. The mods removed the "If you like my deal please upvote" and wrote that it was because [Vote solicitation removed — Mod] .How is that vote solicitation, when I just stated the obvious ?

  • 1Kenobi on 12/02/2023 - 21:09
    -3

    Seeking validation from an online group is a slippery slope.

    Post good deals but don’t expect anything in return.

    Everyone’s personal cognitive bias, including your own, will leave you disappointed.

    Winston Churchill once said that: “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried.”

    • bozzonac on 12/02/2023 - 22:58
      +2

      Does this include you negging deals because Bunnings didn't have stock at your local store, even though it was a good deal, and then continuously posting about your unhappiness to seek validation from the online community, sian72 / Ghost Stock?

      • 1Kenobi on 13/02/2023 - 10:31
        -1

        No…time to move on.

        • bozzonac on 13/02/2023 - 11:14
          +2

          As you so kindly put it:

          Ghost Stock on 10/02/2023 - 19:36
          Nothing personal just the facts

    • 1Kenobi on 13/02/2023 - 07:52
      -1

      Then there is also the trolls and stalkers that descend into mob mentality

  • Motek Benzona on 13/02/2023 - 08:14

    Wow, people actually waste their time and life trying to feel good about some random they will never know clicking a plus or minus symbol on the internet? Thats so sad. I never even look at votes.. really.. who the f cares!

    Please upvote this comment if you like it, i need validation ;-)

    • Clear on 13/02/2023 - 22:05

      That would be the ones who care about vote averages and won't share anything <150 votes as that'll hurt it negatively.

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