Please use the following as guidelines to voting using EBAY's feedback system as an example.

If the deal doesn't apply to you, you don't like the company, you want to leave a warning for people about the business or deal, you might want to leave a comment and then not vote.

If you have any association or relationship with the business or the dealings related to the offer, do not vote. (eg employee, owner, built the website for them, supplier, in a relationship with someone in the business)

If you have any association or relationship with a competitor's business or organisation, do not vote.

If your reason is purely that you've been asked to vote by someone, do not vote.

Please vote positive if you feel the deal is good. This encourages the poster to share more deals as they know its appreciated

If you are associated with the Deal or company DONT VOTE. Friend, Family, employees, shareholders, media relations, developers, contractor, affiliate etc In other words you are independent from the company or deal. All infractions may lead to a ban and post being revoked.

There has been an additional tool provided to all members to assist in quickly identifying inappropriate posts and comments.

USING the NEGATIVE vote instead of the report function has one side effect that you should be aware of. IF a poster gets more than two negative votes the system, locks them out of posting again for 5 days. Is this what you want to happen to the poster, when it may just be a simple mistake.

This is the REPORT button that can be found just under the NUMBER OF CLICKS that a post has. You will find a number of reasons that you can choose from like Duplicate, Sold Out, Expired, Spam, Sockpuppeting, Illegal/Inappropriate. or you can write your own. As well there is the “talk to the moderator forum”, where you can discuss an issue in greater depth, and give your reasons for concern

For a comment, the REPORT function is found at the bottom of each comment close to the REPLY button

Many people dont like a deal, and want others to know about some issues they have with the deal, as evidenced by the comments made about a deal when they negatively vote. The IRONY for you to consider is that if a deal gets a number of negative votes, it is removed from most visitors screens. So your considered comments go as well.

Negative Votes are reserved for listing violations such as duplicate, SPAM, and sockpuppeting.

Negative votes are also appropriate when there maybe something wrong with the product. Eg an automobile accessory that may be cute, but might be against ADR's (Australian Design Rules). Or an telephone product that hasn't passed local approvals. Safety issues

Reliability issues are also important to know about. However this comes into a gray area. If it didn't work for you, maybe a post with no vote attached, if you know others have had issues and have seen bad reports elsewhere a post with link if possible and a negative vote is appropriate

Negative votes are also limited per day per user.

Please do not vote negative just because a deal is sold out. If the title of a deal needs to be updated to reflect the deal no longer available, please use the REPORT link instead for mods to update the deal. Negative votes made for this reason will be revoked by mods.

Negative votes do have an impact - new members tend to shy away fearing that their deals may not be good enough. Let the lack of positive votes tell them what appeals without, jumping on them. Also your opinion on what makes a good deal may not fit with the others here, a little encouragement goes a long way to building the information network this site is all about.

IF a poster gets more than two negative votes the system, locks them out of posting again for 5 days. Is your negative a repeat of someone else's negative and would a REPORT be more appropriate - that is it gets the mods to remove the post.

A negative vote would also be appropriate for cheaper prices elsewhere. In this case, please include a link or description of where it is cheaper

Note:

• auctions, private sales and expired offers are not the same thing as current offers by physical and online stores; don't use these to compare prices
• if it's cheaper elsewhere but won't reach everyone the original deal covered, please mention this but do not vote negative for this reason

If you want to leave a negative for more than one reason (eg needing a correction + cheaper prices elsewhere), please feel free to list all reasons in your comment.

Please use negative votes sparingly and always REPORT listing violations to moderators by using the REPORT function, this alerts mods to inappropriate behaviour much faster than your negative vote. And if you feel so inclined still vote negative AND use the REPORT function if its appropriate

Please include a proper description of why you are voting negative. Votes accompanied by unclear reasons or inaccurate reasons may be revoked. eg +1, yea, as above, agreed, ditto …. ?? etc. If you simply agree with someone else's justification on their negative vote and have no further comments, you can simply not vote and report the deal.

Negatives left to ask for corrections to a post are also helpful (eg a condition left out of the title) but may be removed after the corrections have been made, either by the original poster or a Mod

In essence the negative vote is a warning. A warning about being a scam, spam, defective product or a better deal exists already. It is not for saying that the price doesn't match some preconceived idea of what a bargain is in terms of percentage off. Postage costs can be negatively voted against, if it takes the total deal over the price of a product that can be obtained from another supplier. But please use common sense, if this other supplier is not national, then while it might be more expensive for some, it may not be for others.

Evidence should be provided with the negative post so that members can check this for themselves. If you suspect something but don't have evidence don't negative vote the deal. Use the Report button so the mods can investigate.

Votes that do not do pass this warning intent with evidence, can be removed.

All the above does NOT stop you from making comments without a negative vote, that other members might find useful.

Members who abuse negative voting by breaching the guidelines a number of times may also find they will earn a ban for a period of time.

Now we come to the gray areas on Negative voting. To which a MOD may or may not remove a vote. Note please, these guidelines are here for both regulars and moderators, and moderators are free to revoke reported votes, or are free to ignore them.

If a vote doesn’t meet these we can revoke the vote.

We appeal to all members to think about a negative vote and apply these fundamental tests to them first. While you’re more than welcome to express your personal opinion against a deal, this alone should not be used as a reason to vote negative.

1. Is your negative vote really indicating that something is wrong with the deal or the seller. For example these products are prone to failure based on your information- if so then also put your source and where others can verify this. If you cant verify your source, then make the comment but skip the negative vote.

2. Pricing is always subjective. A $1 off a $500 item isn’t much of a bargain, but on a $3 item it is. But then again to some a $3 item is junk so anything off isn’t a bargain. So really negative votes purely based on pricing requires caution. Are you imposing your set of values on another in the community?

3. Comparing a deal that is now, to a deal that is no longer available. This is not a valid reason. Don't vote at all if you don't like the deal compared to one that was offered last month etc. Yes sometimes the 50c off a pizza, isn’t a “good” deal compared to the regular offerings of $1 off that many Pizza stores may make. In this case leave the deal alone, don't vote, make a comment, but it’s not a valid reason to negatively vote a deal. It's the one that is currently on offer, and 50 cents off or nothing off is a deal that some might want to take.

4. If the voter has got the “facts” wrong. Eg XYZ's deal cheaper than this deal, when its not. Saying that at ABC three 300ml Cans for $1.20, is no deal compared to than XYZ's 2 300ml cans for $1.00.

Under these fundamentally wrong tests Mods may, but with an explanation when doing so.

1. Remove your vote

2. Refer your vote to another mod for a second opinion and remove if there is consensus.

3. In reference to 2 a mod might make a comment about your vote for another mod to see and make their call.

4. Ask you to consider either removing your vote, or give another reason and give you a time frame of at least 3 hours to do this.

5. If a report has been made about your vote, and the mods have let it stand a small comment about your vote being valid, may be made after your first comment. For less obvious cases, this is so the reporter can know the reason why we consider your vote is valid.

NOTE the mods look at your first comment about why you voted negative, they don't go through all the comments you make, so if you are adding to the reason you voted you must add these to your first comment.

Any vote that is revoked cannot be restored - that is a limitation of the system.

MODS don't like having to remove votes, we like the system to be self regulating where possible, so mods will tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, but understand that there is plenty of grey area here, we may get it wrong, either way.

Mods want people to share deals, that gives more opportunity to others here and they can make their own assessments if a deal is good for them

To assist in understanding, examples will be added here, over time.

Examples follow…..

Not a bargain.

Agree

I dont like the deal

Its not available to everyone (ie only some)

I dont think its a good deal (Doh thats what the negative vote says - the comment is meant for an explanation of why it is a bad deal)

“Ditto” “see above” etc. - Well its already got a negative vote, for that reason, its not a popularity test so no need to vote again. And if you feel that strongly that you need to, then it shouldn't be hard to explain why. Again understand what negative votes are used for