GREAT IDEA: Dead Deals Forum!

[foodfightr]

Lets clean up the hot deals forum! Everyday, I check for new deals in the Hot Deals forum and I see tons of deals with 5 "Thumbs Up" but they are dead more often than not.

The solution? Lets add a button accessible only by the OP and ADMINS to move a post to a forum called "Dead Deals." That way the deals can be discussed, but they won't clutter up the deals that are still available.

[wikel]

Instead of putting this on the mods (I know how much work it would be)... instead code in an option like the Thumbs Up, Down, Neutral that after X votes it would be moved automatically to a specific forum.

Currently the mods would have to get involved in EVERY post that would expire. This option it would only be a subset of posts that may require being moved back to the "hot deals" forum if moved incorrectly.

Example:

The current hot deal for 30% off radio shack online was HOT HOT for a couple of hours, until some moron called the company. Once they changed the system it was no longer usefull on the "hot deals" thread. If a voting option existed and could only be voted on by members with X or higher rep points. It then would be likely that the users would have voted it "DEAD" and it could have been moved out by the system.

I'm very new here but here are a couple of examples of topic status flags that after X votes would cause the system to move it out of the "hot deals" forum.
DEAD
EXPIRED
INVALID

So if something is moved out by accident then it could be reported to a mod which could then move it back if needed. This would be a hell of alot better than them having to intervene on every post to move it here or there.

What ya think?

[r1yan]

I don't like the voting aspect according to wikel, because it will get abused like the thumbs up and down. I don't think this should happen, because many deals go dead quickly, so there wouldn't be a point to having another forum. Just go through the deals that have been talked about recently, because most likely, the older the deal and the older the last post, the more likely it is to be dead.

[wikel]

Another problem that this would resolve is the expired or dead hotdeal that people won't stop commenting on. So I've seen quite a large number of topics that many of these deals don't go dead quickly... they are still active on the topic list.

I think if implemented correctly where it would require a high rep number to vote on an deal status, it would be very small effort on for the mods to move things back if done incorrectly.

Also I'm of the opinion that the thumbs up / down should be implemented this way as well.


To minimize abuse you could restrict the giving of rep points to more restricted access. Options could be members registered 1yr or more, X post count or a combination of the two. Being a newbie myself here, why should I be able to thumbs up / down or give rep points? If the requirement was 6 months on the site, I can live with that...

The constant churn of junk topics (expired, dead, old, etc...) in the hotdeals forum is a considerable pain to pile through multiple times a day. It really needs structured better and allow the long term / contributing members to screen the posts to help keep the forum clean.

[XXnarg]

aaaaahhhh!!!! This idea has been kicked around a lot.

Often a deal is NOT dead even though some people may think it is:
The vendor releases more stock for sale;
Someone can't click on the deal due to a firewall or other system restriction and thinks it's dead, or;
The website is down temporarilyThere are other valid reasons to keep "dead deals" where they are:
Rebate discussion;
Alternative deal discussion ("You can get the same thing at ...");
Product quality discussion;
People look in have to look in one forum instead of two, for info about the deal of interest, or;
Shipping discussion ("Did yours arrive yet, mine did and it's not what we thought...")This would take a huge amount of effort on the part of someone (contrary to suggestions above). How are mods (or anyone else) supposed to determine if a deal is really dead? Are they charged with watching the deal at all hours of the day and night to verify it works? Too, the only way you know a deal is still alive is to order something, so how do you get around that?

I really don't see that it is so awful to have hot deals in one forum, even if they MAY be dead, on life support, or immortal. Just scan the deals to see if they interest you, and then skip over the ones that don't.

We have a hard enough time getting people to put the key info in the titles (product name, price, rebate info, etc.). Making threads more difficult to manage would be counterproductive.

A complex system of weighted voting on deals is impractical and unwieldy. Remember the KISS system!

[wikel]

What about subforums?

Electronics
Games
Movies
General
Clothes
Misc

Again I'm new here, just offerring up suggestions that of course may have been discussed before :)

[XXnarg]

What about subforums?

Electronics
Games
Movies
General
Clothes
Misc

Again I'm new here, just offerring up suggestions that of course may have been discussed before :)IMHO:

It's hard enough to get people to adequately describe products, much less assign the correct category for them.

There is more room for error when you require classification of deals.

Many deals cross product boundaries, such as "30% off at Target.com on selected LCD TVs, shoes, perfumes, audio CDs, and stereos."

People would get into arguments over whether something was electronics, computers, general, games, etc..

The more complex a deal system is, the harder it is to create posts correctly and the harder it is to find what you want.

If 150 new Hot Deals come in one day and get spread around to 10 different forums, it would be more awkward to scan through those 10 forums to find deals.

Realistically, 10 forums would not be enough, it would take many dozens.

You may not know you are looking for a deal on something until you see it. Maybe you didn't realize you needed a rebate on your brand of shampoo, but when you see it, you realize, hey, that's for me!

If someone gets confused by having older deals on his screen, he can sort the deals by when the thread was started, that way he doesn't have to pick through the older deals.

[LandofOz]

I agree with Xnarg. There are a lot of deal threads, especially for deals with rebates or ones where it took the company weeks or (or months) to ship, that may still provide valuable information for people who got in on it, long after the actual deal is expired.

If you start moving deals around, all you will get is people starting new threads asking about old deals because they can't find the original post anymore.

[wikel]

Sounds like this has been hashed over a number of times in the past. Though as a new user to this site the constant churn of topics in one general location can be quite difficult to keep up with them. I can't imagine how the moderators do it...

An active site brings benefits, but also additional new challenges like infomation structure to make the site an easier place to use.

[XXnarg]

Sounds like this has been hashed over a number of times in the past. Though as a new user to this site the constant churn of topics in one general location can be quite difficult to keep up with them. I can't imagine how the moderators do it...

An active site brings benefits, but also additional new challenges like infomation structure to make the site an easier place to use.The Mods rely heavily on members to alert them to situations that need attention.

The advanced search function may provide much of the control you seek.