How To: Personalise your OzBargain front page/new deals page to see more relevant deals (and less irrelevant ones)

scrimshaw on 17/01/2020 - 18:10
Last edited 11/03/2024 - 10:33 by 3 other users

This short explainer is intended for users who are new to Ozbargain (or just anyone in general) who needs a quick reminder on how to use Ozbargain's new front page algorithms and the new user preferences that can be used to refine what deals are shown on your front page/new deals page, plus a few extra tips on how to use it to filter out deals you don't want to see.

Many of the settings we'll explore requires you to be using the new front page algorithm. Navigate to Ozbargain.com.au, click the three-dot icon (…) near the top right, then make sure the "List" option is ticked. By default though, all users and guests will already be using the "new" front page algorithm — selecting List (old) will revert to the classic view.

new

Part 1: Customising your front page

Right next to the new button is the "⚙️ Personalise" button, which will bring you to the settings menu.

Or, you can click here to start customizing right away!

Store Domains

Store sliders

Store: You can also promote or demote deals by store domains. To enter a store domain, you'll first need to first type in the domain name of the store (omitting https:// or www) and wait a second — the system will display the matching store(s) in a drop down menu.

Take note that some marketplaces, such as amazon and eBay have different domains (e.g Amazon.de , Amazon.com.au are considered two different stores)

Example: you have an iPhone but you don't use Android devices, and want to see less deals for the Google Play Store. Simply type play.google.com, wait a second then click the 'Google Play store' entry and add it as a customisation slider that you can demote.

Title Tags

Title tags

You might already have noticed certain deal titles have certain keywords wrapped inside [square brackets]. Title Tags convey important meta-data / information about the deal and it provides a way for users to filter deals based on what's in these tags.

Type in the tag (without the square brackets) then click Add to modify their priority.

Common tags include:

Value Added memberships: Afterpay, Prime (for Amazon), eBay Plus, PS Plus, OnePass (formerly Club Catch), First (For Kogan First)
States of Australia, such as NSW, VIC, QLD, TAS, NT, WA, SA
Computer operating systems such as IOS, Android, Linux, MAC, PC
Video game systems such as PS4, PS5, XB1, XSX, Switch, PC or MAC
and other special tags that we may occasionally bring out for special circumstances, e.g 'BF' for anything related to bushfires.
SUBS - for deals that involve new additions or features to a subscription service, such as Video Streaming (Netflix, Prime Video) or video game service subscriptions (such as Xbox Game Pass, EA Play)

Common use case: You live in NSW and don't want to see VIC related deals — simply add VIC as a tag and it'll appear as a custom slider that you can demote.

Part 2 Filter out unwanted deals

No associated deals, please!

No Associated deals please

The Ozbargain New deals page, as it's name suggests simply shows you a list of deals that have been newly submitted, in chronological order and with none of the algorithms / custom filters applied. The highlighted setting here can be enabled to show / hide deals posted by Associated persons. You may want to enable this if you only wish to see deals 'discovered' by non-associated persons but you could also miss out on potentially good deals posted by merchants themselves.

The minimum vote slider is set to "Disabled" by default, meaning you'll see every deal posted regardless of it's vote count, including deals that are voted negatively. Override its setting to hide deals that don't meet a specified vote threshold.

Hide deals posted by a specific store, person or targeted deals

Hide deals

Under every deal is a hide button. Click it to expand this menu.

If you wish to filter out deals posted by a specific user or a store domain, clicking the options can hide them completely from your front page (but not New or Live feeds)

To filter out deals that show an excessive amount of skin and so you don't get strange looks while browsing Ozbargain at work, you can also opt into hiding NSFW deals.

To manage your list of blocked users, stores (comps, deals, forums) and commenters, visit your Account settings by tapping my account, then "Edit" and "Blocked"

Hiding deals that have expired or are out of stock

FP Options

Feeling overwhelmed with the large volume of deals on big shopping days like Black Friday or Cyber Monday? Use the highlighted setting to hide expired deals from your front page so that you'll have a easier time browsing through the active deals.

Note: These settings work on both the "old" and "new" front page algorithms. ~~They do not affect the "New Deals" page.~~ Update (14/2/20): Now applies to new deals page.

Hiding a Specific Product, Brand or Product category

As of September 2020, Users now have the ability to hide deals with particular tags from showing on the new deals page. and also on the front page (As of 25 March 2022)

Click on any tag below a deal post, click on the Tag Menu Icon (Ellipsis/ 3 Dots) to show this option.

Example: If you want to hide deals tagged as 'Video card', first click on the tag displayed on the bottom of the deal post, then click the 3-Dot menu button. You'll be given two checkboxes that allow you to hide the deal from appearing on Front pages or on New Deals pages.

Video Card

Only see deals from specific categories

Do you plan on going cold turkey and do not want to see any alcohol deals? Under the "General" section", clicking the option for "Deals For Selected Categories" will allow you to choose from a list of categories. To hide all alcohol deals for example, you'll need to check every box except for "Alcohol". Hit Save Preference when you're done customising.

Site Discussion OzBargain How-to

Comments

profar on 17/01/2020 - 18:15

Has it got an option to simply click a post on the live page any thread you wish not to see ?
[Deactivated] on 17/01/2020 - 18:22

+4

This short explainer is intended for users who are new to Ozbargain (or just anyone in general) who needs a quick reminder on how to use Ozbargain

Check the new deals page every 16 seconds or it is Out of Stock/Expired.
WoodYouLikeSomeCash on 17/01/2020 - 21:05

It got this bad we need a new forum topic?
Zazer on 17/01/2020 - 22:58

Fascinating, I had no idea! Thanks for posting this :)
Mechz on 17/01/2020 - 23:17

Always bypass the front page and go to New Deals
- soan papdi on 21/01/2020 - 07:42
  
  IIUC, you can set your vote threshold to zero and your homepage becomes the same as new deals.
Sage on 18/01/2020 - 01:56

That is awesome.
bazza1980 on 18/01/2020 - 10:39

Since when are any deals on Ozbargain irrelevant?

Whether it be 100 toilets rolls for $20, laptops for $500 or high yield cars for $80,000, I want em all !
AbsX on 19/01/2020 - 23:17

Thanks for posting this
Moderatorneil on 14/02/2020 - 14:42

This now applies to the new deals page.
Moderatorneil on 15/03/2021 - 12:54

Please note that the new frontpage algorithm is now default for all users but can be changed per the instructions at the top.
lonewolf on 16/03/2021 - 12:13

Merged from Showing Day between Each Date

Hi Guys,

In the past when i am scrolling through the ozbargain page, Between one day to the next, it will specifically state the Day (Thursday , Friday etc). I noticed it doesnt do that anymore, I presume due to some site update. Is there a way i can enable it for my profile or is it permanently gone?
- Moderatorneil on 16/03/2021 - 12:33
  
  As above the "new" frontpage is now default. If you wish to change back, you can via the instructions above which will show the date.
1bug on 16/03/2021 - 14:20

… then tap the 📝 New button shown in the list. Front page filtering will ONLY work if you set this to new.

What "New" button?
Current options are List, List Old, Grid Old, Personalise as per image.

Instructions are out-of-date. Instructions refer to the old menu view: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/513367/revisions/1287304/v…
- Moderatorscrimshaw on 16/03/2021 - 14:31
  
  Thanks, I've updated the instruction text. The image was updated but the wording was not.
soan papdi on 17/03/2021 - 10:21

I was on the "new" home page for a few months before it was made default. The vote threshold is (and was) set to -1. The front page used to show me all new deals.

With this recent change to make "new" the default, I only get deals which have 20-30 votes or higher. Switching to "List (old)" restores the behaviour I want (all new deals on my home page). Is this intentional?
- Moderatorscotty on 17/03/2021 - 12:59
  
  There's no vote threshold for the new front page. You were talking about the old one.
  
  Yes, setting it to List (old) will revert back to the old behaviour, which basically lists all the deals that meet the minimum threshold.
slyin on 22/03/2021 - 00:57

How do I remove the ozbargain tips and notice sections from the top right?
- Moderatorneil on 22/03/2021 - 19:47
  
  There is currently no functionality to remove the front page tips or notice.
sicarz on 26/03/2021 - 17:27

Hi, I have noticed that there has been a change in the default for new page deals, that they need to meet a minimum of minus -1 (different from the screenshot in the help guidance above for new page deals).

Full disclosure, one of my posts were affected by this. But here is my thoughts below.

I had a post where there was 2 neg votes within 15 minutes from the post time (5 minutes between each other), which is no issue from me. But what this meant was that by default the post no longer showed up for any user that looked at the new deals page because their default account setting was to show new deals with a "Minimum votes -1". Of course users that had this set beyond this default (-1) level would still be able to see it, but I suspect many users won't be changing this default system setting, unless they are aware of it and then change it themselves.

The implications of this default functionality mean that the post no longer was viewable or accessible via the new deal page, and you only knew about it, if you typed in the store name to look for a deal specifically or had the direct link to the deal post (from a email notification to those that subscribe to the particular deal categories).

My question is, with the large community we have in place at Ozbargain, how can the voice of two people, effectively cancel out the ability for the rest of the ozbargain community to give their opinion on the deal, to view it and to make up their own mind? And even then within less than the first hour of a deal being posted? How do we know that a deal that is not preferred by 2 users, might not be a great offer for another group of people (that may have a differing sense of value) that may not have been online on ozbargain at that that time of posting?

I understand the need to have a voting mechanism to moderate posts, which is all fair, but that should be a task of the moderation system for store / rep posters which is evaluated over a period of time in line with the deal posting / store posting rules. I.e. this meaasures actual performance over a period of 24 hours, a week, a fortnight and then 30/60/90 days. I am fully supportive of this.

However, doesn't the new default setting now add an extra layer of moderation (to only show posts with a minimum vote of -1) which can effectively moderate a poster within the first few minutes? As once your deal is hidden from a population of users by default, the post no longer has the ability to attract any kind of attention from those users, that may actually find it a deal for themselves, and then subsequently vote on it positively. There are ready examples of deals in the past where initial downvotes were placed, but then subsequent other users may have upvoted the deal because they liked the deal themselves. In the new default settings these deals would be hidden away and not be given a valid opportunity in the ozbargain community to be evaluated.

I am not only posting this valid concern because I am a store poster, but also from the concerns of a regular user being able to see all deals in equal light and making our individual decisions as to what is a good deal or not (and not driven by down votes of the first people that see the deal). By Ozbargain setting a default (-1), which appears to be a new setting? - it effectively is cutting off this choice?
- Moderatorscotty on 26/03/2021 - 18:02
  
  Please note that OzBargain moderators do not remove bad deals, as whether a deal is good or bad can be subjective, which is why we let users vote & perform this type of collective moderation. Deals with high number of votes get onto front page, and deals get too many negative votes will disappear from views.
  
  As of your deal, 2x negative votes were casted 24 minutes after the deal was posted, and it has already received many views and 50 click-throughs. The fact that no one bothered to vote +1 on your deal means that OzBargain users basically aren't interested enough in that product at that price. Those deals disappear from New Deals page (with the default threshold) lest more neggers coming complaining about how bad the deal was.
  - sicarz on 26/03/2021 - 18:28
    
    So my concern isn't about removal of deals (which I know mods don't unless it violates policy), but rather a system driven moderation related to visibility of deals.
    
    In 24 minutes, how can a reasonable size of the ozbargain users that has a differing sense of value be able to make their own judgement if they are unable to see a deal, let alone be logged in at the same time? About 48 or so click-throughs were actually during the time the post was visible and above the minimum deal visibility threshold. The remaining couple registered after.
    
    If I were to flip the scenario, and say the first 2 votes were positive (first hour), and then the next two votes were negative (second hour) and the votes stayed there, the deal would still be visible. In the current case the first two votes were negative, but those next two potentially positive notes never have a chance to come through because realistically users never see the deal. As far as I can read there is no policy that governs what posts should be visible at any point in time, but rather how many posts someone can make (based on the structured representative and store posting policy).
    
    No one can predict the the course of voting, but the order of voting surely can't determine if a post should be visible or not? Once again, I have no issue with neg votes, but why is there a threshold? It doesn't serve the objective that users have a differing sense of value and reality that not types all of users are online at the same time.
    
    From a personal user perspective, I am not on ozbargain every minute. But I would generally go through new deals at a couple time during the day, which may be hours later. If I didn't know there was a deal threshold and hadn't changed it (I note prior to the recent change there wasn't a threshold), then I could be missing out on a deal that I might value greatly, just because it had 2 or 3 negative notes and the ozbargain's default settings dictate I don't need to see it.
    
    This really a holistic question of the philosophy on how we are allowed / driven to view deals.
    - Moderatorscotty on 26/03/2021 - 22:10
      
      Your deal has been viewed by 147 unique sessions yesterday, potentially more by those who block Analytics scripts. It might not be reasonable for you as your deal was hidden from default settings, but good enough for us. Your deal continue to get viewed today by those who disabled minimum vote threshold (there are many of those), and yet no one has voted on your deal to bring it back to the New Deals feed. In your flipped scenario at least some people voted +1 on the deal, but just not in your case despite still getting views.
      
      Let's put it this way. Often it's the threshold that saves bad deals getting completely hammered by regular OzBargainers. Also from the perspective of a store rep, you probably cares about the viewability and click-throughs of your own deals. Whereas from the perspective of someone managing the platform, it's our best interest to quickly remove/demote deals that our community members have problem with.
      - sicarz on 27/03/2021 - 00:13
        
        @scotty: So I'm actually not fussed by my post to be honest. Yes I am using it as an example, as I actually wasn't aware of this default rule that was implemented recently (because realistically, a user wont know unless they are actually made aware of it through cases like these). Prior to that I clearly remembered posts with more than 2 negative votes still appearing on the feed, even as recently as a few weeks ago. Some of these were able to swing back into positive votes when those more responsive to the value presented to them in the deal got the opportunity to evaluate it.
        
        What I am really getting at is that it is easy to write-off and say that no one has upvoted your deal (from the smaller sample size of those people that can view deal), and then extrapolate that it is therefore a bad deal that "our community members have problem with". You actually are only letting a select proportion of your community members to make that decision (i.e. the 2 first neg posters - who only need to take one action to put forward their opinion of value - out of the tens of thousands users that exist but may not be active that point in time. When the post is hidden from "New Deals", you have an even smaller subset that will only view a -2 or more deal, and change the course of the post, only if:
        
        (a) the user has changed their default settings
        
        (b) then click on / see the post
        
        (c) it is aligned to their interest categories
        
        (d) something they need
        
        (e) it is aligned their concept of value, and then
        
        (f) make the effort to upvote a deal to counter that.
        
        Without step (a) being met, (b) to (f) are irrelevant. Ultimately, less eligible viewers, less likelihood to progress down the steps, and less chance as you have said have users vote "on your deal to bring it back to the New Deals feed".
        
        Now I was going to post some examples of a few deals over the last 24-48 hours to really prove my point. But of course out of respect for the posters, I won't post here, happy to PM that to you if you are interested.
        
        Fundamentally, on this site there are plenty of people that will view a deal, not see the value of it from their perspective and walk away. A faction of these users may just feel strongly at that point of time to cast a negative vote. You also have plenty of people that click on a deal, find it valuable, make their purchase and walk away. A faction of these users also then may just feel strongly at that point of time to cast a positive vote. Everyone has a different threshold of value and then the associated action they take. That really is ozbargain for the 5 years I have been on it.
        
        My point of raising this post is really to question the rigor of the following principles:
        
        Why let two votes hold such a high proportion of decision making value for the nearly-entire ozbargain community?
        
        What if those 2 negative votes were placed in the first 2 minutes of a deal - has the "community" really spoken? Why can only those that have changed their default new post settings now change the "community" view, do the views of the rest of the users who have a defaulted view not matter?
        
        Why have an algorithm that will censor and shape what may have perceived value to others?
        
        What makes -2 the number for a "bad deal" and therefore something that "community members have problem with"?
        
        This is not just about my post, but the way we all use ozbargain to identify and get awareness of deals we may like, want and need.
        
        Moderatorscotty on 27/03/2021 - 08:18
        
        @sicarz: The New Deals page minimum threshold has been there for 10+ years — certainly not something that's "recent". It's not the 2 people that make decisions on whether your deal is visible or not, but many others who had opportunity but decided not to upvote your deal. There are many deals that get neg-voted, but as long as there are people who considered a deal that's worthy to be upvoted, they get chance to stay in the feed longer.
        
        Yup, it's not just about your post, but all other neg voted deals in general.
        
        sicarz on 27/03/2021 - 10:15
        
        -1
        
        @scotty: It's okay. I give up trying to get you to see the actual point of my concerns. I think I've written my posts pretty constructively, but you've responded in a pretty generic setting each time. You'll say many. I'll say not many. Only you have the stats really. But the point is there shouldn't be a "many others". It really isn't the case of "as long as there are people", because those "people" by default settings is a subset of people, when it really should be every user. Personally I would love to know what percentage of users have their page in the new defaulted view but I know that wont happen.
        
        Anyway, what I'll take away from this is that as a group of moderators your happy for an arbitrary threshold (of 2 negative votes) to decide for a selection of the community what a good deal is and censor / funnel deals in that manner way. You'll then rely on a non-community wide selection of users to correct this arbitrary deal hiding, in line with the events (a) to (f) in my previous post. Six set of mental actions to rectify vs one to censor.
        
        I didn't know it was meant to be a competition on ozbargain to stay in a "new deals feed" that should really be showcasing a timeline of all deals posted where I can have the power to evaluate if its good or not, at a time of my choosing, whenever that may be. I thought that competitive purpose was fulfilled by "front page" or "top deal" deals. But I guess I was wrong on the purpose of ozbargain.
charzy on 27/03/2021 - 00:33

I wanted to confirm something I noticed with the newer home page . For some reason the nasi lemak doordash deal didn't appear but when I switch to old list it does. Despite meeting the threshold of ~30 up votes, the only difference I can tell is it also has negative votes as well.
Will the new list for homepage not display deals that have negative votes whilst the old list does?
- Moderatorscotty on 27/03/2021 - 08:22
  
  The new front page is a lot more fluid and depend on a lot more variables, than just a plain voting threshold. The deals are filtered from an internal score, that's calculated from votes, the recency of the post, and customisation etc. First of all as the Nasi Lemak deal has already expired so that gets a deduction in the internal score, so it becomes less competitive to appear on the front page.
  - charzy on 27/03/2021 - 08:28
    
    Ahhh my mistake. I saw in the personalization options that the hide unexpired deals was unticked and was expecting it to show but this is only for the old view.
    Are there plans to deprecate the old view completely?
eug on 16/04/2021 - 23:52

+1

I got automatically switched to the new layout today. Strangely no deals at all appeared, only competitions. The url was https://ozbargain.com.au. Opening ozbargain.com.au again, refreshing, or clicking on the OzB home button at the top left just reloaded the list of competitions. Switching to List (old) displays all the deals again like normal.

What seemed to fix it was clicking on the Deals link at the top (https://www.ozbargain.com.au/deals) then clicking back to the main home page.

Just thought I'd mention it here.
- 1bug on 17/04/2021 - 01:29
  
  Same here. I also got switched back to List (new view) today.
  Had to revert back to List OLD again.
  - eug on 17/04/2021 - 09:16
    
    Strangely, comments with a comment score of 3 (and 0) are now hidden from my view. Not sure if it's related.
deme on 18/04/2021 - 21:37

Merged from Filtering by Tags

If I want to filter out XBX and XB1 tags i know how to do this in settings. What I don't get is if [XBX, PS5] will be filtered out or not?
- deme on 18/04/2021 - 21:38
  
  -1
  
  inb4 someone merges this with random discussion
MiscOzB on 11/07/2021 - 09:45

Could a new option be made to hide deals with particular tags from showing on the front page? My front page continues to be spammed with LEGO deals.
- MiscOzB on 07/08/2021 - 14:17
  
  @scotty
  I'd like to hide deals such as graphics cards on the front page. There's no option to do this currently.
- Moderatorscotty on 25/03/2022 - 07:53
  
  Filter front page deals by tags has finally been implemented. Please see this comment.
isdi on 04/08/2021 - 15:04

Hello, I remembered that there's an option to tick "When a deal reaches front page" I will get an email straight away. Now I can't find it anywhere. Has it been removed?
- Moderatorscrimshaw on 04/08/2021 - 15:06
  
  Are you referring to this option? https://i.imgur.com/zaxjhWc.png
  - isdi on 04/08/2021 - 18:14
    
    Yes I have seen this option but basically a deal can still reach the front page even without having at least 30 votes. Correct me if I'm wrong..
    - isdi on 04/08/2021 - 18:21
      
      I gave it a try and it seems to be okay now. I just received an email. Thanks.
    - Moderatorscotty on 05/08/2021 - 16:30
      
      With the new front page algorithm, a deal come appear on the front page a lot earlier but might be in/out of front page depending on many factors, including how other deals were doing on that day. Turn that flag on now basically just mean "send me an email when a deal gets around 30 votes".
      - isdi on 05/08/2021 - 17:17
        
        @scotty: Got it, thank you.
Daniel Harris on 13/08/2021 - 09:27

Thanks for the information. I clicked on the option to have "pagination" and I hate it. Is there a way to go back to the old scrolling version?
- Moderatorhamza23 on 13/08/2021 - 09:33
  
  My account menu > settings > untick 'Infinite scrolling' > click 'Submit'
  
  Direct Link for your account
  - Daniel Harris on 13/08/2021 - 09:42
    
    cheers!
Borg on 09/09/2021 - 00:18

Has the colour of Ozbargain suddenly changed from Orange to a more yellow look?
- Moderatorneil on 09/09/2021 - 00:49
  
  Yes
  - Borg on 09/09/2021 - 09:11
    
    Ah ha….thanks.
  - tarkine on 09/09/2021 - 09:45
    
    Why and is it permanent?
    
    Edit Nevermind
JoeyJoeJoe on 01/01/2022 - 14:55

-1

In the last few days I’ve noticed that the new deals section that sits in a box on the right of the front page now has the date preceding the ‘hours/minutes ago’ values. Any away to remove the date and just have ‘minutes ago’? I realise I can get this view if I click on deals and then new deals, but that’s two clicks away and not the front/homepage.
- Moderatorscotty on 02/01/2022 - 06:51
  
  The sidebar content is now generated in the front end. That (relative time rather than absolute time) will be fixed in the coming days.
[Deactivated] on 26/01/2022 - 21:00

What's the deal with not being able to outright remove categories? I don't want to see alcohol deals, and yet it's not possible to block that tag because it's apparently not a tag it's a category, and you cannot block categories. I don't want to "greatly reduce" them, I want to eliminate them.
- Moderatorneil on 26/01/2022 - 22:13
  
  You asked this question in 2020 and an answer was given:
  
  My Account > Settings > Edit > Deals > General > I want to include Deals For Selected Categories > Tick every category apart from alcohol.
  - [Deactivated] on 26/01/2022 - 22:23
    
    If a new category is created, is it included or excluded by default?
    
    And how come categories appear the same as tags in the homepage listing? It's a little unintuitive that it lets you block "Alcohol" but then proceeds to continue to display posts that appear to be tagged "Alcohol".
    
    I guess what I'm saying is that Categories shouldn't appear as Tags on the front page.
    - Moderatorscotty on 01/02/2022 - 17:16
      
      Alcohol used to be a tag, but as blocking by tag was not well developed, we created a separate category called "Alcohol" and forced all the alcohol deals there. However as tags are free-form entered by other users, it is still possible to tag something as "alcohol" but in other categories. The mods do try to move deals that are mainly about alcoholic products to the Alcohol category.
      
      If a new category is created, is it included or excluded by default?
      
      Excluded by default if you do not want to see all categories. However these filters might go away in favour of new front page slider settings. When you set the option to the left-most position, deals generally won't show up.
      - [Deactivated] on 01/02/2022 - 18:11
        
        @scotty: Gotcha. Thanks for the clarification!
Iluvfreebies-freeDel on 26/02/2023 - 15:46

How to hide state specific deals from new deals page?
- Moderatorneil on 27/02/2023 - 15:03
  
  Instructions are in the OP, in section Title Tags
  - Iluvfreebies-freeDel on 27/02/2023 - 15:07
    
    Thanks, I have set them up yesterday. I thought it only applies to front page deals.
rumblytangara on 19/04/2023 - 18:28

Tweaked settings today, and it looks like it's gotten rid of all those dumbass "free ebook" 'bargains' which are just repackaged public domain books freely available on Gutenburg for decades.

Very satisfying.

How To: Personalise your OzBargain front page/new deals page to see more relevant deals (and less irrelevant ones)

Part 1: Customising your front page

Category

Store Domains

Title Tags

Part 2

Filter out unwanted deals

Comments

Merged from Showing Day between Each Date

Merged from Filtering by Tags

New Forum Topics