Do YOU suffer from serial PLUS? (importance of positive voting discussion)

johnn on 05/05/2011 - 18:13
Last edited 05/05/2011 - 19:54

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Haha yes, pretty bad attempt at punny humour from me..

Anywhoo, was just browsing my user account-voted deals history and I noticed that in the roughly 46 weeks that I've been here I have positive voted around 35 deals all up. This makes an average of around 0.73+/week. Yes I'm stingy, even with handing out positive votes haha. I am however ALWAYS on OzBargain (I'm sure the mods/Scotty can check my history and confirm this) so this probably puts me in the semi-lurker status. Meanwhile, I know plenty (well most) other Ozbargainers positive vote a great deal more than I.

I guess what my point comes to is the importance we place on positive voting and the number of positive votes. (A quick search showed that this topic in particular hasn't been discussed before?) Whilst I really do have nothing against people who do like to up-vote a lot, I personally vote for deals which either I purchased myself or I feel are legitimately better than others. Sure, others will have different interpretations of such and that's great, but perhaps a system should be put in place to somewhat balance the impact of positive votes.

My proposal would be limits to the number of positive votes per user (not sure about how many- perhaps that could be an issue to debate here). I believe this would help on a few fronts, making people think about their positive voting more carefully and therefore reserve voting on deals they believe are comparatively very good, as well as somewhat decreasing the gap between deals with many votes and deals with few. This is based on the idea that there have been plenty of lower-voted deals which are very good, however aren't as appealing to a mass market. I guess if anything this could be seen as akin to a scaling system- placing greater importance on deals with a small number of votes. This is relevant because deals with many votes (60+) don't really need more emphasis. Also, currently average deals with few votes will probably be down-shifted to having zero positive votes.

(On a sidenote, this'll probably mean the current top-voted deals of all time will never be topped haha)

You could also do the same with negative voting (or is that already in place?) and with both positive and negative voting having some sort of level of importance applied, you could also implement the positive-negative ratio system which some have discussed in the past. (Another issue to discuss here would be the ratio of positive-negative votes per user allowed)

Anyway just an issue I thought could be interesting to discuss. Whilst I don't think this is the most pressing issue right now, it could potentially lead to a big change to the way OzBargain works.

CLIFFS:

  • importance of positive voting varies between users- some people vote alot, others don't
  • proposal: limit number of positive votes
  • possible benefits
    • may impose greater filtering of positive votes by users
    • may reduce gap between highly voted deals and lesser voted (yet good) deals
    • may reduce gap between lesser voted (yet good) deals and lesser voted (and not good) deals
    • somewhat scales votes
  • limited positive & negative voting means possibility for positive-negative ratio for ranking of good deals

in b4 tl;dr
…in b4 everyone checks my voted deals history and notices some bad deals

Site Discussion

Comments

  • johnn on 05/05/2011 - 18:16
    +1

    will post some cliffs when I have time

  • [Deactivated] on 05/05/2011 - 18:23

    If only I could plus your post OP…

  • issh on 05/05/2011 - 18:28
    +1

    Anywhoo, was just browsing my user account-voted deals history and I noticed that in the roughly 46 weeks that I've been here I have positive voted around 35 deals all up. This makes an average of around 0.73+/week.

    I have voted Post >110+ and 1-(foolish act ;) )
    Scotty has >4000+

    Whilst I really do have nothing against people who do like to up-vote a lot

    lol sometimes in Live action you will see some users have a multiple + in a row

    My proposal would be limits to the number of positive votes per user

    I personally wouldn't, due to the fact that it's not necessary
    however if this were to be implemented i vote for 10votes per minute ;)

    This is based on the idea that there have been plenty of lower-voted deals which are very good, however aren't as appealing to a mass market.

    I doubt it would make a positive difference to lower-voted deals(i.e. Non-popular deals) as if your scheme were to be implimented, why would they vote for that particular bargain especially to it not being a mass market product(also in reference to limiting votes)

    You could also do the same with negative voting (or is that already in place?)

    i believe it is already in place, i THINK with negative comment voting( also MAYBE deal voting as well), i believe it is ?5?

    • tomsco on 16/05/2011 - 15:58

      lol sometimes in Live action you will see some users have a multiple + in a row

      Hehe, just tested that out.

  • johnn on 05/05/2011 - 19:53
    +1

    This is based on the idea that there have been plenty of lower-voted deals which are very good, however aren't as appealing to a mass market.

    I doubt it would make a positive difference to lower-voted deals(i.e. Non-popular deals) as if your scheme were to be implimented, why would they vote for that particular bargain especially to it not being a mass market product(also in reference to limiting votes)

    I was more refering to deals which would not appeal to as many people (niche products), but are good deals for those that are interested. E.g. a really good solar panel deal. A 70% off solar panels deal would probably garner less votes than a 10% off book depository deal.

    Under limited positive voting, yes book depository would still get a swarm of votes but those interested would also up-vote the solar panel deals. I guess I was probably mixed up, in that it probably differentiates substandard and therefore less popular deals, and good but less popular deals.

    Ideally, good but less popular deals would get a few votes whilst substandard deals get zero. It's a more neutral way around negative voting- don't think a deal is very good then simply don't vote for it. But I guess overall my idea is to reduce voting on deals which are just 'okay' and placing more emphasis on voting on those which are good, even if they may not appeal to many

    • andy19363 on 05/05/2011 - 20:56
      +1

      Ideally, good but less popular deals would get a few votes whilst substandard deals get zero. It's a more neutral way around negative voting- don't think a deal is very good then simply don't vote for it.

      negs were removed altogether for a brief while, but there was howls of dismay… and they were reinstated…. to great detriment IMHO

      I don't post deals any more due to the current negging system…..

      • johnn on 05/05/2011 - 21:34
        +1

        I wouldn't necessarily remove negs either. I guess the proposed system would be:

        -good deal: positive
        -average (meh) deal/deal doesn't apply to me: do nothing
        -bad deal: negative

        Would mostly be targetting the 'meh' deals. The border between good and average is arbitrary, but it'd be nice just to have clearer distinction between the two. Right now scrolling through OzBargain I see a couple of pretty good low vote (5-10) deals which may only apply to a few people, whilst there's similarly quite a few pretty average 5-10 deals also.

        • scotty on 05/05/2011 - 23:39
          +1

          That's exactly in the voting guidelines… Whether people follow them is another matter.

          Higher voted deals are just appealing to more people, however there isn't so much focus on individual preferences. The next step might be highlighting the deals that might appeal to you, even if they don't have high enough votes to surface the front page. That (data mining, machine learning, and queries tailored to individual user) would be something interesting to do, although might be in a distant future with my current capacity :P

  • pauly on 05/05/2011 - 21:41
    +1

    Some good points johnn. Agreed that some deals which are good don't get enough attention, quite often they are deals which are either on the higher end of the price scale or appeal to a niche market.

    Under limited positive voting, yes book depository would still get a swarm of votes but those interested would also up-vote the solar panel deals. I guess I was probably mixed up, in that it probably differentiates substandard and therefore less popular deals, and good but less popular deals.

    Under your proposed voting system, I think this would make the less popular deals you mentioned even less popular. As it is, such deals would normally have few votes by people who are generous with their positive votes but if we put a limit on the number of votes a person can make, then people would tend to reserve their votes for better and more mainstream deals.

    In my opinion, the cause of this is not the voting system, but the demographics of members. Members here generally tend to like good deals which are electronics/computer, food, or anything freebies related. I don't think many would follow OzBargain daily just to lookout for deals which only appeal to very specific market.

  • leonheart1 on 05/05/2011 - 21:46
    +1

    Same here, I only vote on deals which I (or know someone in real life) has taken up on.
    I've been this 'stingy' ever since having read past deals where people said things like "oh no! they scammed me! I wish I could take my positive and change it to a negative!".

  • No on 06/05/2011 - 16:41
    +2

    I think people need to be encouraged to vote positive more not less. If someone takes the time to post up a bargain people should "reward" the poster with a positive to encourage them to post more. Nothing frustrates me more seeing people take the time to comment that they have used the deal but they haven't even given the deal a vote.

    People should be forced to vote when they comment; Whether that be neutral, negative or positive not just defaulted to neutral.

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