I've created this thread for general day-to-day comments/feedback/suggestions, because I think it's better then having to make a new thread every time you have got something little to ask/say.
Comments / Feedback / Suggestions Thread
JeffreyM on 18/03/2008 - 16:30
closed Comments
That would be a really bad strategy. Ppl hate that I wouldn't visit the site in future.
Please don't give such kind of suggestion. It's Oz Bargain and it is meant for everyone not just a member. I used to just visit the website and after continous visit I finally liked the OzBargain and created an account.
Small suggestion:
Would it be possible to have an auto-generated message for PC Game Downloads from Amazon concerning the mandatory US address? It's brought up in the comments just about every single time.
I can put it in the posting rules for Amazon.com suggesting that posters add that to the deal. Whether they do is up is up to them.
Not sure if this has been raised before - would it be possible to include a box on the homepage with shortcut links to favourite stores. At present if I want to see all deals for a specific store, I need to search for the store and then click on the related store from the search results.
Looking through the wiki, I found the deals by domain: http://www.ozbargain.com.au/wiki/help:deals_by_domain. However, http://www.ozbargain.com.au/deals/domain is dead?
You need to substitute the store URL with "domain".
well that makes sense, probably need to explain that on the wiki page
Yeah. It looks like I made that wiki page. Probably can get rid of it as it's only one sentence and add it to the deal posting guidelines.
Maybe we should have a separate section in the Forums for a 'Joke Post' section, cluttering up General a tad bit.
A dedicated section in the forums probably would encourage this kind of posting, which is not something we want to do.
But wouldn't it be better this way if it's out of sight and out of mind (on deal pages). Cause people will still post them regardless.
Here's an idea that's bound to get you rich.
Let people buy extra neg votes.
My reasoning:
- there are people negging everything no matter what it is
- there are plenty of trolls to bait the negsEven if you charged $1.00 for 100 negs, I'm sure Ozbargain will profit easily.
It's a win win situation. :)
I've got a better idea, let users use more than one neg per post because I'd sure like to use all five of mine right now.
I think OzBargain needs a bit more of a positive outlook… people already place far too much importance in negs. Something like Reddit Gold (though there aren't many applications for OzBargain, really) would be better, if scotty did want to monetise OzBargain more (though, IIRC, he doesn't).
i'll use my extra negs on you :)
+1 for the Formatting Help addition when replying, dunno how long its been there but its win thx.
It was put in within the last couple of weeks. Hat tip to Reddit.
This handwriting font is impossible to read. Making me nauseous.
It's much softer on the eyes. What a fantastic change. Right on time too.
Given the prolonged lack of response from the site managers, I have instructed my solicitor to bring proceedings against the owners for pain and suffering caused by prolonged nausea attacks and vomiting bouts. You will be receiving a summons letter shortly.
No idea if this has been suggested before, but when a deal has been unpublished because it's a dupe, maybe have a button/link to the original post?
If you go to a page that has been unpublished due to duplicate, you will get a 403 Unauthorised page, and then a few seconds later redirect you to the actual deal. Can't remember from top of my head how many seconds later (or whether it's still working).
Oops, was looking through the thread and found that I'm an idiot. (See freakyterrorist's post.)
Usually, the word 'duplicate' is a link off to the original deal. It doesn't stand out until you mouse over it, your pointer changes and it underlines.
Would be great if you could see the "New Forum Topics" when you are looking at new deals. I always find myself clicking the Ozbargain icon in the top left then scrolling down to see the forum topics. It could also cause more people to read the forums.
What have you done to your site layout it may be good for a pc but on a phone or a tablet its now a nightmare everthing is so small as you have added all the side banners
Please dont wreck a good thing.On mobile it should show a mobile version of the site, i.e. without the sidebar. Maybe you have activate the desktop site? Here is a link to go back to mobile site.
Thanks much better
Scotty,
One small request. In the comments page for individuals, can you make replies to comments visible as a separate column so we don;t have to click on the number to see the replies / votes.I often find myself going back over my comments and clicking on the number to see the replies and continue the conversation, this is a bit of a pain if I have to click 10 or 15 discussion thread heading numbers to see the replies in them.
Let me know if it's not clear and I'll try to post a screen shot.
Hey Scotty,
Did you understand what I meant here?
Another request tot the Mods / Scotty,
Can you please allow Upvoting on comments by Mods, so many times I feel the need to upvote your comments but alas it is not allowed.
What's up with you guys don't you like some recognition ?
Well the moderation comments should be marked to highlight some notices rather than contribute to the thread so there should not be a need to up/down vote it.
Just that sometimes we forget and marked all the comments as mod comments.
On the live page can the checkboxes for the 4 categories of events to show be persisted on a per account basis? I'm usually not interested in knowing about votes so I uncheck that category everytime I enter the live page to see more of the events relevant to me.
Just to note that settings for Live page is now persistent. We've also optimised the live pages with better implemented caching, and now it polls every 15 seconds so you get to see quicker updates.
Thanks Scotty, I noticed that this was implemented but not announced. I came here very belatedly to thank the devs but you beat me to it.
How do you return to the mobile website after you have selected to show full version of the website. ?
can we have an email sharing button?
Share with?
On deals pages there are Facebook Like and Google +1 buttons.
I think he was saying share with email. As in click it, and you can email it to a friend, instead of using Facebook and G+ ;)
In that case you have to past the URL into your email client. We won't send emails on behalf of 3rd parties.
You could have a mailto link with subject and body comment. The visitor's email client (whether that be a web based client like gmail or client side like outlook) would still do the sending. See Can I set subject/content of email with using mailto:? It'd be one click whilst avoiding spam problems.
There needs to be a better way to track replies to your comments on deals and in the forums. Like notifications, similar to what you'd see on Facebook. I hate having to manually check for a reply!
Go to your comment page,
http://www.ozbargain.com.au/user/96865/comments
You should be able too see which node you have commented in, which ones have new comments, and how many replies you are getting. Far better than Facebook's I reckon :)
wow, I never knew that was there. Awesome!
Yeah that's what I'm using now, but it's annoying and there is no way to see replies to my comments unless I check each thread with a new comment icon. Can't we have notifications? :)
I suggest making (external) links open in a new window, so there's no need to click back to return to the OzB site. I mean, the user can do it by clicking control at the same time, but…
Then I googled this topic and found this:
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usa…
Now I'm not sure what to think!
Yeah. The problem of forcing opening in a new window is — people don't have a choice. If the default is opening in the current window, at least people can choose to open in a new window by holding Ctrl or middle-button click.
For deal links we actually allow users to change the default setting. Go to your settings page and look for "Deals open in new window". That's only for the deal link, not the links within the text content.
Fire dragon that's a very well written article.
Best part of it for me was:
But won't using new windows keep people on my website?
Not on its own it won't. Web users will stay on a website because it has the information they're looking for, or because it helps them achieve their goals, not because the browser window is still open.Good stuff, thanks.
I assume it's a feature? I can't upvote/downvote mods comments on forums.
Should make down voting on comments not anonymous.
People down voting perfectly legitimate comments because they know people don't know who they are.
At least require a comment to be left when someone down votes a comment, otherwise it's just pointless.
Why force commenting on a deal if you neg it but not neg voting comments?
i think it was like that previously, but just resulted in downvote battles.
This is a very minor point, but the loading animation on the menus rotates off center, which breaks the illusion of spinning dots and looks amateur. Reproducible on Firefox 20.
Interesting… The loading animation is done purely in web font + CSS3, i.e. no Javascript. I just had a look at Firefox and it does indeed feel like bouncing up and down (assume you have a slow network so "Loading…" take more than 5 seconds).
More like 1 second, but that is enough to see the problem and it always bugs me. I am not loosing sleep over it though, so it probably isn't priority 1 (maybe 2).
Could the category classification implemented for the newsletter be extended to the deals page and the new deals sidebar so that people see only deals they are interested in? I wasn't thinking of customising DB queries per account which would be expensive but some CSS magic which would hide categories based on the user's preferences.
could we get a "location" sorting thing.
e.g. someone posts a deal specific for Moe in Vic (e.g. 50% off moccasins).
people can specify in their profile the geographic regions for deals they are interested in east vic, north, west, central, melb, etc.
the poster ticks the obvious region/s applicable for the deal.
or nation wide if there is postage.
or if it could be a nationwide deal e.g. clearance items at OWSo something that blocks deals irrelevant to members due to location.
though, you could , if searching for a deal/item, search any location.
that way I don't have to be upset everytime I see a deal for cheap imported beer from that booze place in richmond.
It's in the pipeline.
Two issues imo
No Joke deals - an example is this which has now been linked back to this. I seriously doubt people went out and bought 4th place ribbons for their underachieving child, and upvoted because it was amusing.
Votes should be capped at the quantity, or at the very least, pushed down the front page once they reach quantity or expire. An example of the issue here where an item with qty of 20 got 69 positive votes.
Joke deals are generally moved to the forum, however technically speaking the product was a reduction in price (further reduction tonight) and was in stock. Joke post? Maybe. Joke product that someone would actually buy? Certainly. I'm considering buying some for the next meetup. ;)
Capped votes. Interesting idea. Not sure how you'd implement that or what number you would cap at. One idea was to have a checkbox for limited quantity (a mod/power user would toggle). In your settings, you would not show deals with limited quantity (like not showing NSFW or blocking stores). That particular deal was posted and made the frontpage on the 17th whereas the actual deal started on the 19th. So it would have been at the bottom of the frontpage if not the 2nd page when the deal expired.
Well, at the very least, once a product is marked as sold out, the capacity the positive vote could be revoked. Somewhat easy to program in my eyes.
Another option "mark as likely sold out" could also put a pause on positive votes.
That particular deal was posted and made the frontpage on the 17th whereas the actual deal started on the 19th. So it would have been at the bottom of the frontpage if not the 2nd page when the deal expired.
But still, the day the deal was posted it received over 60 upvotes. So best case scenario, 33% of ozbargainers were going to get the deal. imo it should be pushed down the queue, much like the reddit voting system rather than just sequential. Or marked as likely expired
Also vote +1 = like the deal but people might not necessarily want to make a purchase. Deals with 69 votes don't really mean that there are 69 people who intend to buy the product. Many might already have it and reckon it's a good price. Some just want to vote up deals to support merchants who cut the deal.
Advanced search - Ozbargain options.
Can we have another option : Sort by Popularity (+ votes)
SUGGESTION:
Could it be possible to make it an personal preference in your settings as to how a post's time is displayed?
I.e. it now says (note the bold):
"DEAL THE SOMEONE HAS POSTED $.
Username 17 min ago website"It used to say:
"DEAL THE SOMEONE HAS POSTED $.
Username 08:45 30/5/13 website"
(or something along those lines)I MUCH prefer the second option; the way it was…
I'd like it if I could change it back… though it doesn't really look like I have an option right now.Basically I only really look at this website when I'm work. After 5pm I don't look at it. That being said, the next day when I get to work I'd like to be able to just look at all the deals that people have posted since I last looked (i.e. 5pm the previous day). I realise I could just use maths, but hey, it was better the way it was IMO.
People may disagree, but if we have an option to do either or, both sides can be happy.
EDIT:
I just looked, and it seems the threshold for the "ago" method changing to the "date & time" method is 24hours. Still, since I'm kinda of the opinion of "I don't care how long it was posted, I can work that out easy", the above still applies. ALTERNATIVELY, perhaps we could choose our own threshold (currently at 24 hours, I'd choose maybe 1 hour.. or 0…)?
Cheers.This hasn't changed.
I believe it goes user has posted deal up to 24 hours, then it shows date/time. Not sure what the better method is or if a mix is better. I guess the latter is uniform. Then again people often quote, "this was posted 27 minutes ago and it's sold out" or similar.
Strange, because I guarantee I never experienced my issue until maybe a week ago. I.e. when I look at the most recent post BEFORE I pressed refresh it would tell me what the time was when it was posted, and not how many minutes ago it was posted. Then when I hit refresh, I could just look for that time stamp.
E.g. if the last post was posted at say, 8.51am and I don't look at the website for 1 hour and 32mins (10.23am), I could just look for the post that was posted at 8.51am. Instead now, I have to look for the exact post that was posted, making it sometimes difficult if it was deleted or something like that.
Idk, I guess I'll have to adapt, but I'm just of the opinion that it was better before, and that there WAS some sort of change that has happened.
Well, one scenario.
Take this deal as of 1045AM EST says posted 3 hours 52 minutes.
Look at the same deal on a browser that isn't logged in. It says 03/06/2013 - 06:54 as the page is cached.
Perhaps what happened?
Boom. Solved.
So if I want to optimise my viewing experience, I need to view the website logged out.It's a good work around, not ideal, but it works.
(I thought I was always logged in (i.e. prior to me having the issue), I must have been wrong)Cheers.
Just pondering this:
Why is there a difference if you're logged in or out…We don't show the relative time for logged out users because the pages are cached (so "30 minutes ago" might actually be 60 minutes ago).
However it seems to be the case here that you prefer an absolute rather than relative display of time. Sorry we don't really have an option for that at the moment.
Correct, I do like the absolute time stamp more than a relative time stamp.
But, as you said, there's no option for this as this time.However, I'm still reasonably happy, as with Neil's help I've at least been able to work out a work around (view the pages logged out).
Cheers.
I don't know if this has been brought up cause there is too many comments here already to search.
But a Reddit style option to sort comments? either by popularity, recent, most discussed/replied etc.
I do like the reddit style, the problem is it does invoke circle-jerk style responses. (i.e. the "funniest" ones will make it to the top, even if they're not at all relevant)
Also, deals update over time, out of time order makes it difficult to follow discussion of changes..
Yeah I was gonna point that out as well.
But they did implement a new system where you can hide your karma, but I don't think a similar system would work on OZB.
[Likely SOLD OUT] and/or [limited stock] tags (similar to the red "SOLD OUT" tag.
Domino's, as we all know, has released a pizza called "Chef's Best". When I tried to tag a bargain with "Chef's Best", I was told by ozbargain that the word 'best' can't be in a tag. How sad :-( - could you allow a phrase (ie chef's best) even if keeping the word best out by itself?
I just tried adding it to my existing post's tags and still got the same message:
The word 'best' cannot be used in a tag. Please read the Tagging Guidelines.
It's an issue with black listed tags, which currently checks for certain keywords. I don't think that system works well so will revise it. For now I've removed "best" from the keywords.
Nvm
Submit deal page to include the 5 images here: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/wiki/help:deal_posting_guidelin…
Suggestion -
Hi there, would it be feasible to add the option to Subscribe to a particular Product? Eg.
Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 Tablet Deals & ReviewsSimilar to how we can currently Subscribe to a Store;
JB Hi-Fi, Deals, Coupons and VouchersIt could work for a product family, but perhaps not a specific device model, as these change too often.
Or does the RSS Feed already provide this kind of thing?I'd love to be able to get notified when a new deal is posted for a product that I am in the market for =)
Thanks
At the moment please just use the product's RSS feed. Emails are sent out when the deals are posted, however they don't usually tag / link to products correctly when posted so email notification based on products won't work well.
When i neg a comment, I don't want to be anonymous. Can we opt in to having ourselves known?
No. The negative votes were visible in the past and this caused a lot of fights.
If you don't want to be anonymous, just make a comment disagreeing with the comment in question.
Fair enough - didn't think of that. The other problem with it being hidden is when someone disagrees with my comment and their comment is negged, that person might assume I negged them. But I can live with that .
it used to just result in downvote battles. i.e. you downvote me, and i'll downvote all your comments. etc
Hi; I haven't done a great deal of research into whether this has already been asked. Flame away if it has :)
It seems to me that comments are up votes for various reasons. Be it informative, humorous (or other?)
I’d suggest that when people up vote a comment, they select the reason for their up vote (could literally be different buttons in place of the current up/down votes)
It might allow some fun metrics to be collected and try and build a bit of “gamification” into ozbargain – such as funniest comment/commenter; most useful comment.
I have seen this sort of "voting reason" sort-of-thing well executed in the slashdot.org comments.
For example … http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/06/30/1618252/wa-post-publi…
Note the comments filter at the top where users can select to filter based on votes received…
I'd like to use an advanced search option that restricts the deal results to those that I've commented on before.
e.g. searching for Finish Quantum dishwashing sort:created turns up a lot of the weekly coles/woolies posts that are not really competitive.
I know I've commented on really good prices before and want to see what the good prices were in the past without having to scroll through pages of results that aren't what I need.Just an FYI. We've tried to note down all the requests from here, other threads, the mod forums, and our internal tracker and created a wiki page so everyone is on the same page.
People are often requesting the same thing or not sure what's next in the pipeline so hopefully this will help.
On the Live Action page, I don't see any comments. I only see votes and when people create posts. Anyone know how I can fix this?
Do you have "comment" unchecked on the Live page?
Ha. Yes it was unchecked. Thanks.
Didn't even know that feature was added.
Sure, I'll delete it as it's way out of date.
If a deal is taken down after your browser has the page following the goto link gives you an unexplained 403 error. It would be better to redirect to the 'this deal has been taken down because X' page.
I'm not sure how that would be helpful.
Many sites have tried a login/pw to access articles or deals to no avail. It just annoys users and has contributed to Bugmenot becoming one of the most popular sites from the past decade.