Comments / Feedback / Suggestions Thread 2024

New year — new feedback post. Please use this post to submit feedbacks and request features. Again, no guarantee that requests will be responded or implemented, and often feature requests can take months to be pushed out, when there are other issues blocking them.

Similar posts in the past: 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, and 2018.

The majority of things you see, as well as policies on OzBargain, were implemented based on user feedback. Please see the Site & Guideline Updates Announcement Thread to keep up to date with the changes/features that we implement as they are added.

Comments

    • You can see all QLD related deals via a search alert

      [QLD]

      Search shows deals with [QLD] in title only.

      QLD Dining

      Search shows deals with [QLD] in title only and in Dining & Takeaway category.

      • Could we go one step more granular? Deals in the Gold Coast don't typically interest people in the Sunshine Coast (and vice-versa), or the same between NSW Central Coast and Wollongong, for instances.

        • Geotagging has been on the to-do list for about 12 or so years. We have geotags/location tags which we pretty much only use for travel, specifically airfare deals. You can see an example that is currently on the front page.

          China Southern: Tokyo return from Melbourne $562, Sydney $584 via Guangzhou (2x 23kg Bags) @ IWantThatFlight

          You'll see Tokyo is tagged and has it's lat/long set in our system (35.6806213, 139.7562315). It has a related tag of Japan. Japan has a related tag of Asia. So when someone tags Tokyo in a deal, then it will show Tokyo, Japan, and Asia in the tags.

          Best practice would be to have every deal posted geotagged (e.g. exact lat/long of place, e.g. JB, Queen St, Brisbane) but how? Users struggle to get even the very basics of deals written, so I don't think we can rely on users to geographically tag their deals. Then it would fall to staff which would be more manual work. Also we'd need to think about how we can tag multiple places.

          Perhaps we can tag deals with the suburb (e.g. Brisbane) the deal is in to create some kind of hyperlocalization deals? So then the Queensland tag would be more accurate.

          • @neil: That'd be ideal, and I did suggest something like that last year, but at this point, I think all that's being suggested here is to move only one step further in the localisation from states to metro areas. By your description of the flight deal, it sounds like you've already got a solution for that; perhaps now it's just a matter of populating the tag table with Australia's metro areas, linking them to their states of course, just as Tokyo is linked to Japan, and Japan to Asia.

        • +1

          If we're going to be that pedantic how about we start tagging the states properly first? Why are there no state tags on Aldi, Costco or 7/11? All 3 aren't nationwide yet.

      • Thanks @neil whilst I love ozb and this is great it doesn’t quite meet what I’d like, albeit I can get this from other sources combined. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about https://www.theurbanlist.com/goldcoast/a-list/best-cheap-foo…

        If each one of these was listed as a long running deal and users could click on Gold Coast that would be great. Also remembering that this list is not exhaustive and there’s a lot more that doesn’t get posted on OzB for GC and a lot of other locations.

        I have a range of websites and businesses I check regularly but don’t post here because most of the time it’s too niche. Having said that there are endless posts about people wanting to find out about what to do on the Gold Coast and what the good deals are. I imagine that the same for many locations.

        • Off the top of my head, possibly a Wiki page (like Birthday Freebies) or a forum post like [QLD] Tightarse Dining Options in Gold Coast?

          • @neil: Yes, something like that but not necessarily just QLD/Gold Coast, other cities and and towns too. And maybe ‘dining/entertainment’. If started I promise to put in a bunch of GC stuff. I think it would be well received. Thanks for considering.

  • +2

    Can you make dark mode part of the user preferences so it persists between browsers, sessions etc?

  • +1
    1. Built-in MS Paint app
      When creating a post, a built-in MS Paint (or general paint) app that allows for drawing of situational circumstances which explains it clearly to the masses.

    2. If bargains are purchased to show how many have purchased it (eg. verified by uploaded receipt not visible to us).
      a. Gives everyone a clear idea on actual purchases rather than only vote stats.
      b. Also gives OzB the ability to show to seller/company that OzB is a great collective to offer discounts & other incentives.

    3. Review of the product (carrying on from point 3) from actual buyers

    4. Photos/vids grouped together in one section so we can see them all rather than going to each post. Also ability to upload (I know this will chew up more unnecessary storage space though)
      This will allow all media for a post to be together (still showing at each comment location but nice to see it all together too)

    Understand that some of these would be very hard to implement but just my feedback.
    Appreciate all your efforts over the years Scotty!

    • If bargains are purchased to show how many have purchased it

      That's too much asking OzB to keep an inventory of how many people are buying things across thousands of different retailers ?

      If a retailer wanted, they could ask for the URL referrer to see how much traffic originated from OzB.

      Then, each retailer can run their own metrics to gauge user engagement and sales.

      • Not to mention the "Built-in MS Paint app" 😄

  • Have another option in Classifieds besides “Found” when item needs to be delisted. For example “Withdrawn”. Or “Cancelled”.

    • To users looking at wanted or those posting wanted classifieds, what's the point of listing 3 different reasons for a classified being no longer available? If anything a word that covers all 3 situations may be better? Maybe just expired?

      • no longer available

        a word that covers all 3 situations

        NLA

        • My main concern was more of a transparency one. I was not happy to mark the item as being “Found” when it was not.

          • @Bargain2020: If you backdate the expiry field in the listing, it will show as 'expired' instead of 'found'. That is how mods do it. You will need to write the previous date in the expiry date field manually, eg '2024-01-05'.

            I think we could make that an alternate option to select by clicking the red tag which says 'found' or 'sold' and giving the option to changing it to 'expired'. Similar to how we have expired and out of stock for deal posts. We'll look into it.

  • An option for removing or collapsing one or more front page forum topics from the front page so that the next most popular ones pop up?

    I like reading the front page forums but would prefer a higher frequency of rotation.

  • +1

    I usually read the daily newsletter on an 8-inch tablet. In portrait mode, deals and comments have a narrow column of text and the Top Deals/New Forum Topics panel on the right and a large right hand margin. Mobile mode removes the right-hand panel and takes up the whole screen width, making it much more readable.
    Is there a way to force the email to display in mobile mode? Ideally, permanently on that device.

    • +1

      On ozb page footer there is a mobile site option. Not sure if it persists for the device since I've never used it before

      Mobile SIte

      • +1

        I never saw that "Mobile Site" option before.

        Then, with excitement, I clicked on it (on a desktop PC),
        and it messed up the layout …

        … until I saw the bottom, it said "Full Site",
        and I had the desktop glory all over again :-D

      • Thanks, but this just takes you to the OzBargain front page. It doesn't help with the formatting of the current entry.

        • Ah I see, I just re-read your comment and you're asking about forcing your email application to mobile mode rather than ozbargain.

        • What app are you opening your email with?

          • @neil: Android GMail. But its an HTML email, and works fine on a real mobile, so the adaptive formatting needs to be set to mobile for the tablet.

  • +1

    allow voting on deals that have been reposted to front page (even if older than 30 days)

  • Anyone else having clouflare secure connection prompts they cant clear.

    Did some testing and it appears to be mobile browsers in desktop mode. Fix is to use site in mobile mode but eh i have 20/20 vision and a s24 screen haha.

    Samsung s24ultra
    Chrome
    Samsung browser
    VPN also tried with no luck.

    • +2

      Probably because you're using a phone that hasn't officially been released yet.

      • Hahaha I'd been checking out s24 vids at the time. Meant to say s23u

        • +1

          You had already conditioned your mind, that the S24 was yours already.

          Manifest, and ye shall receive !

    • +1

      I’ve had a lot of Cloudflare checks loading OzBargain recently (last week or two) but that’s been on a desktop using a desktop browser.

      Win 10 PC
      Edge
      Superloop

  • +2

    Can something be done about multiple occurrences of sockpuppet repeatedly offending?

    I don’t think delisting a post, and giving a week or two penalty box is really enough for repeat offenders.

    • You might want to do a poll with Bikies as one of the choices.

      • Informal poll topic:

        What should be done with repeat sockpuppet offenders for the same merchant, especially for those posts that are just advertising spam:

        *Bikies
        *Perma Ban on posting further deals for merchant/shop for those clearly gaming the system, or at the very least, long term bans
        *Nothing more - the current system of short term bans is sufficient

    • multiple occurrences of sockpuppet

      Third offence is already a permanent ban.

      • Thanks, is that a ban for the main rep account, the sockpuppet account, or the store itself?

        Eg, main rep account has multi performance based bans, but then makes a new fresh account (or even gets an old aged account with basically no activity) - then sockpuppets.
        Is 3 strikes calculated on the store?

        • Both the sockpuppet account and the store.

          If 3 different users sockpuppeted for the same store once each, their accounts would each only get temporary bans, but the store ban would be permanent.

          So you can't get around the store ban, by getting different people to post or similar.

  • FWIW I'm seeing issues with some "new comments" links.

    E.g. on my profile "Comments" page, I'll have a "New" lozenge next to a thread, which hover says links to:
    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/139622/new

    But when I click it, it redirects to:
    https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/139622?page=51#comment-148…

    EDIT: on further investigation, there seems to be some kind of counting error, because the last page of the thread is marked as "51" in the on-screen pagination, but the link in URL is https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/139622?page=50

    And this is a 404. It seems not to like the query string param "page" specifically.

    This is only happening sporadically though. Could it be related to the DDoS somehow?

    • +1

      It's something to do with the page number calculation — known issue but I'm yet to get around it.

      • Yeah it's an off-by-1 error somewhere. I just noticed that page 1 is <no query string>, page 2 is page=1, etc.

  • +2

    I think it's time to reassess the voting limits for performance-based store bans, given the ever-growing popularity of this site and the votes that deals now get, I'm sure most would agree that a +1 vote average can be pretty easy to obtain for the most mediocre stores

    2018 request
    2019 request
    2020 request
    2023 request

    What would be the % of membership increase since 2018? I'm guessing pretty substantial, which should warrant this being changed

    • +1

      We actually have less new users every year since 2020. Substantially less new deals since 2021 as well due to Amazon AU posting rule changes.

      • Is it that big a deal to raise it though? It's been +1 for a long time & given the overall increase in membership it seems like a good idea.

    • +2

      This is a good point and I reckon at least make it +3, considering you could literally post the worst deal in the history of deals and still get AT LEAST one automatic upvote from one of the usual suspects. In most cases many non-deals and oz-advertising posts somehow still get 2-3 auto upvotes anyway, even if the deal has neg votes with members with bad experience with the stores/reps….

      • If you read the guidelines, you will see that is already covered:

        Sep 2020: The algorithm may now exclude excessive voters from the performance ban calculation.

        In 2019 we also changed the time between posts from 30 days to 60 days, to capture more stores for performance bans:

        The 2 latest rep posts (excluding those posted before the last performance ban) are 60 days or less apart

        Both these changes lead to a fair increase in performance based bans given out.

  • It's annoying that you can't cancel upvote/downvotes.

    • +2

      You can. Click on the votes tab under the comment, it will show your vote and there will be a red circle with a neg in it, click that and the vote will be revoked.

      • +1

        Oh OK. Yeah weird UX but good to know, thanks

    • +1

      You can revoke your upvote/downvote

      for example https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/823163/votes

      • +1

        But you can’t change your vote…

        • Yeah, that's annoying. And unnecessarily complicated.

  • I've just come from this deal: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/826037

    And I wanted to subscribe so I could be notified when the OP posts a new top level comment saying they are back in stock. Could this be an option in the Subscribe area, to be alerted when the creator of the deal posts a new top level comment?

  • Is there a way in Markdown to create 'underline' text ?

    Basically, my request is to have more text formatting options
    than just italic, bold, strikethrough

    • You missed…

      Headline

      But yeah, there's no underline in the character set.

    • Is there a way in Markdown to create 'underline' text ?

      No.

      See Commenting and Deal Formatting which is part of the Help located at the footer of OzBargain

  • Hi Team

    Not sure if its been asked before but is there an ability to have the OP highlighted if they reply in the comments section of a deal that they post?
    Sometimes going through the discussion, it seems like theres someone talking to the OP or someone else replying on behalf of the OP, but it would be good if they can be shown in the thread?

    thank you

    • +1

      They're highlighted by a grey border, kinda obvious :)

      • Welp. Didn't notice the subtle difference. Must be my astigmatism.

        Thanks

  • -1

    I'd like to see a ban on second hand furniture (usually ex-office stock) being posted under the guise of it being a "bargain", an entirely subjective claim given there's no way to assess the quality or compare to other items, it's essentially a niche offering. There's plenty of other avenues ie Gumtree, Facebook MP, eBay etc to dispose of these items, and as they are almost always rep/associated posts, it strongly suggests the site is being leveraged for advertising purposes and not to post a proper bargain.

    • I would disagree that secondhand furniture is a niche offering. Companies are allowing wfh and people without the necessary equipment will need supplies. Where better than to get cheap ex-office stock that are upwards of $1.5k brand new at a fraction of the price.

      I also disagree with the other avenues especially gumtree and Facebook marketplace. I'm sick of scrolling through businesses who try to capitalise on those platforms when I am looking for consumer-to-consumer items.

      • +2

        I'm sick of scrolling through businesses who try to capitalise on those platforms when I am looking for consumer-to-consumer items.

        You do realise OzB is a community website for sharing bargains?

        • That sentence was purely about gumtree and facebook marketplace. I go to gumtree and facebook marketplace to buy/sell to/from consumers not from businesses.

          I have no issues with businesses/reps on ozbargain and have scored great deals from them.

          I see businesses posting in gumtree/fb marketplace like if they posted in ozbargain classified section, it is not meant for businesses to post things in.

      • It's a very narrow market, but I take your point about WFH & access to cheap furniture, but that doesn't negate the fact that these posts don't appear as bargains or deals, merely as advertising (hence they are 99.9% rep/employee posts). That's regrettable your UE on other platforms hasn't been ideal but I don't see how that justifies businesses trying to capitalise on this platform, which is for bargains, not as a clearing house for their products.

  • Hi, the cashback button in deals, is only showing cashback from cash rewards. It no longer shows the cashback rates for other sites like shopback, top cashback, etc. something broken?

    • +2

      Yes, ShopBack feed is broken which we are working with ShopBack to bring it back. TopCashback changed their page format so without logging in we are not able to scrape the cashback rates, and the API they provided are useless.

  • I don't know if it's a bug or a permanent change, but can I ask if we can get Shopback and TopCashback added back into the store pages? It was so helpful to be able to see the cashback amounts for a store across all the three sites in one handy spot. It was also my main reason for using the OzBargain browser extension.

    • Please see above.

      • Whoops. I thought I was at the end of the thread before commenting. Sucks about TopCashback - maybe their rep should be more active and share their rates.
        Hope ShopBack fixed their thing.

  • +1

    Regarding the Christmas donations, I've just checked the charities that have received donations the past few years and some of them have received donations every year the past few years. E.g. Cancer Council, Lifeline, BeyondBlue and RSPCA have received donations every year the past four years.

    I have nothing against these charities but would it be worthwhile vetoing charities that have received a donation from receiving a donation the next one or even two years? It seems a bit unfair to me that some charities can keep getting voted for over and over whilst other charities that are also valuable to the community get no donation.

    It also makes me wonder how many people just vote for a charity that they're familiar with or have heard of, whereas other lesser-known charities (e.g. Save the Bees) gets missed or ignored completely that also do valuable work for the community. It could also be argued that donations to smaller charities could go much further than the larger charities which funnel a lot of donations to admin costs and salaries.

    • Maybe a poll before Xmas & EoFY on which charities should be excluded? Then those will be taken down from the list during the actual charity poll?

      • Hmm possibly. I was thinking it would be easier to simply exclude the ones that had received donations already (e.g. list them in the OP and say they're ineligible), but if you poll people that would give people more of a say, although you'd double up on polling.

  • +1

    The polls should at the very least have a total at the bottom and a percentage next to each response. it's too hard to get a read of the results currently.
    Maybe there could even be a pie chart to click to open. But at least the total and percentage figures.

  • I'm getting fed up with having the site block me when using on mobile. Can't you add a 2fa extra click or something to filter out the bots?

    • That's exactly what we have been doing.

      Now, why are you blocked on mobile? What OS or browser are you using? Are you trying to request desktop site from your mobile browser (which is known to produce loop in CloudFlare's managed challenge page). What's your Ray ID when you get blocked so we can investigate?

      • Hey thanks for the reply. Details as follows:
        OS: iOS 17.3
        Browser: Chrome 121.0.6167.138
        Ray ID: 84fea4dd7c893e6a

        Not trying to request desktop site as far as I know .. at least I haven't gone out of my way to do anything out of the ordinary.

        • We have been blocking POST to OzBargain home page. So here's my guess on what happened

          • You hit OzBargain's home page and got presented with CloudFlare's challenge page
          • CloudFlare does a POST to your browser passed the managed challenge and you can proceed.
          • Later on when you try to reload OzBargain and press Ctrl-R or [F5], it repeats the previous request, i.e. a POST rather than GET, which result in your request getting blocked.

          I have turned off the WAF rule that prevents POST request on OzBargain home page so there shouldn't be any problem anymore (until we get attacked again).

          • @scotty: Thanks for that. I don't recall seeing a challenge page on mobile, but being iOS it's pretty quick to unload webpages, so I guessed me opening the tab again, and iOS reloading the page - then as force of habit to make sure I havent just got a cached version I manually refresh the page - I figured that caused it to think I was a bot or something.

  • There is currently no option for Limited entry competitions in the menu. Can it be added? Otherwise how does one find the limited entry competitions so that you can enter say weekly before the competition appears in the Closing Soon menu option? TIA

  • +4

    Is there any way you can block someone from seeing your comments? I seem to have a stalker who is always upvoting my comments for quite a long time now, regardless of what I’ve written

    • -1

      I'd be flattered!

      • +2

        As someone who’s had quite a few stalkers here, it’s far from flattering. There is no need to upvote every single comment I make on here.

        • At least all you get is upvotes. No one makes claims about you constantly. No one goes around attacking, trolling and bullying you for years on end trying to get under your skin for their own entertainment. And I'm sure if someone did, the mods would actually PB them, as evident from this thread in fact (good one mods 👍).

          I can certainly emphathise with wanting your comments hidden from others to prevent them from profiling you.

          You have it pretty easy from my perspective.

          • @Ghost47: No, I also get negs too from certain people/stalkers just because I had the audacity to report their comments, which landed them in the Penalty Box, which they're still bitter about. You can tell which ones they are because they're factual comments but are negged. Mods don't always Penalty Box though; they just mark the comment as Inflammatory.

            I did have someone go around trolling me for months because I disagreed with their views on women's clothing (they didn't think women should wear hoodies). Their stalking was so obvious that other members noticed and called them out on it. Needless to say, they're now in the Penalty Box, permanently.

            • @kerfuffle: Negs can be frustrating, I get them too, even on the comment I made below where I outlined how someone kept harassing me yet a mod didn’t help.

              But a downvote or upvote is still leagues better than someone following you around for years replying to your comments making up claims about you because they think you’re communist or socialist because of where you live and because they twisted your words from comments you made in the past (e.g. you complain about how high house prices are then they make comments saying you expect a free house or something idiotic like that).

              It’s good your stalker was penalty boxed permanently. Even when I presented years of evidence about my stalker the mods did nothing at all except punish me. I would say the mods favour you, maybe one of them likes you.

              • @Ghost47: Well it's because they were stupid enough to keep trolling even after they got called out for their stalking activities by another member.

                • @kerfuffle: That’s honestly the way I feel how it works. If others start calling out the harasser, then the mods will do something about it.

                  You can save up all the comments the harasser makes about you that breaks the site guidelines and have a whole bank of them over the course of more than two years, you can present it all in a TWAM thread after you get PB’d for standing up for yourself (to your harasser), you can give advice 90% of the time on the forums and in general just try to be a good person in everything you do — but it won’t be enough for the mods to listen to you because you’re the only person calling out the harasser.

                  I called out my harasser who had been harassing me for multiple years, no one else did. The mods did nothing. So I can partly conclude they did nothing because no one else said anything.

                  • @Ghost47:

                    That’s honestly the way I feel how it works. If others start calling out the harasser, then the mods will do something about it.

                    No, just no. OK, let's just quickly address all of these thing in simple terms.

                    Zoom out a bit and realize that all moderators on this site are paid staff. We're not some kids living in mum's basement. We just want to get through the ~6000 reports, TWAMs etc a month while battling constant DDOS to the site. There is zero interest or benefit to us to treat any user any different. Also I'm not reading a 4 page 1900 word essay in TWAM. This isn't a TED talk. If you have a question, then ask it and we can converse but I've read enough essays in Uni for a lifetime.

                    • Standing up for oneself = personally attacking some either name calling or similar. Not permitted and you will be warned (or banned) irregardless of the circumstances. There is no self-defence argument.
                    • @neil:

                      We're not some kids living in mum's basement.

                      I've never said, implied or even thought this. I honestly couldn't care. And even if someone was living with their parents, I wouldn't judge them for it especially considering current housing costs and vacancy rates. I'm just not that person.

                      Standing up for oneself = personally attacking some either name calling or similar.

                      I wore the penalty. I had evidence; many comments over a long time that were Trolling (i.e. "intended to offend and annoy") and Hate Speech (i.e. "intend to misinform"). I honestly wouldn't care if it took the mods two weeks or a year to read it, all I wanted was to be heard, not ignored.

                      I've read enough essays in Uni for a lifetime.

                      Two year's worth of harassment is hard to distil into a paragraph, if I could've I would've. Sometimes people write long things because they want to get their message across, I understand I was verbose. I just don't understand why the other person wasn't punished when they constantly trolled and made hate speech comments against me for years.

                      Note I haven't named the mod in the TWAM thread either; it's not my intention to name and shame anyone, I don't care for that. If I was a mod, and someone was that concerned, I would've listened to them even if it meant I fell back on other work.

    • @tharlow

      stalker reported to crimestoppers

    • +1

      I wouldn't mind this either. That's how it works on Reddit (and I think on Reddit people you block also can't see your posts), but on OzBargain when you block someone you block what they say lol. They're still free to gather whatever information they want from you, and it makes people (myself included) uncomfortable saying things due to fear of being profiled and stalked.

      Some people on OzBargain are quite zealous with how obsessed they can be with others here for some strange reason.

Login or Join to leave a comment