Junk Mail Catalogues/Free X a day/Coupon sites/aka Spam

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  lovedeals on 15/09/2010 - 19:14

  -3

  Ok let's discourage people from posting just because its convenient for you!

  • 

    stumo on 17/09/2010 - 09:17

    A full 4 out of the 12 bargains shown on the homepage right now are free iphone games.

    People are going to start mistaking this site for some sort of apple fanboi blog.

    Edit: now make that 5/12

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  Davo1111 on 15/09/2010 - 19:28

  Then there are all the scoupon type posts, with the obligatory referral links.

  in less than a day, we will be releasing new rules to reduce this spam. The mods have been discussing for a week or so.

  • 

    stumo on 15/09/2010 - 19:35

    Sweet, the scoupon spam was getting way outta hand. I guess that's the easy one to fix though…

    Hmmm, is it possible to run a google search on a deal post when it is submitted, as a kind of sanity check?

    So if there is a web page somewhere already that contains mostly the same words or from certain sites, that could be brought up automatically with the poster, with a list of specific regurgitation rules they need to acknowledge, before re-submitting (or discarding) the post. That should catch the free app/shareware style posts, no?

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  mstaveley on 15/09/2010 - 20:53

  I have to admit I look forward to the weekly Coles and Woolies posts. It definitely influences where I will do my grocery shopping for the week. We do get the catalogues at home from time to time but the layout on here is a lot easier to scan and in the last few weeks I have saved quite a bit (stocked up on the half price Pampers a few weeks back).

  • 

    stumo on 15/09/2010 - 21:03

    +1

    yeah they certainly have their place, but is that place on the homepage?

    Maybe we need a "catalogue deals" category - that is hidden from the homepage?

    That way people could post up individual true bargains from said catalogues without getting grief about combining etc. I know I'd rather have the extreme bargains from the catalogues separated out.

    • 

      polkadots610 on 15/09/2010 - 21:33

      I find the Coles and Woolies posts useful. It summaries everything onto 1 page for easy reference!

      However, I find that the group buy deals have been getting overboard recently! Those deals take up almost 1 whole page on ozbargain in total! If the referral links are not permitted, I'm guessing those "helpful" ozbargainers posting those deals would not post them so diligently and quickly anymore.

      • 

        [Deactivated] on 15/09/2010 - 22:15

        +1

        Keep the discussion going. The mods do take notice. We do try to look at all the implications and we do try for a consenus. Opinions expressed here and other forums assist the thought process.

        Our first steps while we are discussing and considering deals can be found in the new guidelines. Some future actions will need recoding of the site, so that will take longer

        This will be posted soon in a specific topic that one of the mods will make soon, in essence, it is hoped this will start limiting the coupon deals.

        As for the Grocery deals, this can be helpful as not everyone gets the catalogs, the online versions aren't available until the day of the start of the catalog, so getting some advanced warning helps, and it does cut down on the multiple posts for each weekly deal, but we as mods havent seen any real groundswell indicating this as a concern.

        Guess we will watch for opinions….

    • 

      pianissimo on 15/09/2010 - 22:20

      +1

      I'm with you, stumo.

      The catalogue lists are really useful, and I am grateful for the ppl who take the time to post them, but not everything there is a bargain, and this is ozbargain, not ozusefulinfo (I think I stole that wording from someone on a another thread, hope he/she doesn't mind :-))

      • 

        em on 19/09/2010 - 21:24

        ok well.. first off MOST of the items mentioned are bargains (e.g. half price) and if you can post about bargains, I think they have a place. If a couple of the items are only 20% off or something and you don't think that's a bargain, it doesn't really matter because it's in the same post and therefore not cluttering up the page. I know it soon seems repetitive, but you get at most ONE catalogue post a week, rather than people posting individual "bargains" from the same catalogue.

        So I think a catalogue bargain post is fine; they are bargains, it is only a single deal rather than many, and it only happens once a week.

    • 

      scotty on 15/09/2010 - 22:27

      The reason why these are on the home page is because people voted them to it. Well I don't like Labor nor Coalitions but I still have to live with it :P

      Also OzBargain home page is not that customisable at the moment so everyone is basically showing the same home page. What will come in the future would be more customisable home page so you can opt out everything from Coles or Woolies, for example.

      • 

        SupeNintendoChalmers on 17/09/2010 - 10:07

        that would be awesome. Any idea on when this will happen?

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  Stan1912 on 18/09/2010 - 10:05

  You def shouldn't remove the Coles and Woolworths deals from the homepage. The proof is in the votes. Every week both of those postings rate very highly, so clearly they have earnt their current location… I always check them before I go to the supermarket as I don't get junkmail. People don't want to trawl through numerous categories for some of the most highly viewed and voted postings. I don't care about the other catalogues so much, but people do grocery shopping very regularly and the savings in these posts are usually great bargains, and that's why they deserve to remain on the homepage.

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  johnn on 19/09/2010 - 21:06

  With regards to free apps, theres a website I have previously linked which lists pretty much all the available (iphone/ipod) apps that are NOW free (i.e. went from paid to free- normally only for a limited time), and also includes apps listed on freeappaday and other similar websites.

  http://appshopper.com/prices/free

  Only thing is that it lists a lot of different types of apps, many of which I find not particularly useful. But yes, I'd go to this site for my free-app fix

  And I agree wholeheartedly about the quality of deals being posted on OzBargain nowadays. A customisable homepage would definitely solve many problems but I'm guessing it would take a while to implement, particularly since this site is free to view, join and use (of which I am VERY thankful!)

  • 

    scotty on 19/09/2010 - 21:17

    +1

    but I’m guessing it would take a while to implement

    Also replying rodripa above — yes currently the time for me to work on the code has been scarce. From the discussions here it should definitely be on my top priority. Let's say by year end…