please see the bottom of this message for the latest information
Yikes!
I want to make something perfectly clear - at least as clear as I possibly can.
We are doing everything we can to create the best environment for our users. Our mission is "To Serve consumers with knowledge value and guidance".
We would not be making changes if we didn't think it was the best thing for all involved.
Obviously, there are some differences of opinion as to what "better" is.
We have temporarily shut down the rating system as we analyze our options going forward.
Please use this topic if you would like to have a constructive conversation on how we can best identify the topics for both quality and popularity.
Thanks for being passionate about FatWallet - we won't let you down.
Your humble Mucky Muck -
Tim
update 9/13 @ 7:30CST I was able to get together a group of folks here at the office late this afternoon - we had the opportunity to discuss in detail the issues involved at length.
We've looked at the option of rolling back to the prior system and technical gymnastics involved in doing so, and have decided to leave the rating system off for tonight.
The reason we are not taking the time to roll back the system is that we believe we have come up with a system that answers the concerns voiced today, and actually improves the functionality of the rating system beyond what we have had previously. (As I write this, we've got a development team working on putting it together)
In retrospect, we likely should have rolled the boost functionality through a beta test as is our typical procedure. In this case we bypassed that step because it was easier to roll it live than to do they technical gymnastics involved in changing data structures and the information being displayed.
The upside here is that we now have a better understanding of the rating system and how it was being used. The reality is that the rating system was being used in different methods by different users... some users wanted it to be their own personal filter... some folks wanted to use the thresholds to hide good deals... So the answer is to fix what is broken, and not break what is not.
I am sorry for any inconvenience caused through these changes, we appreciate your passion, and look forward to providing an improved solution very, very soon.
Tim
mini update at 9:30PM CST for the record... there are a number of accusations in this topic (and others) that are completely untrue. I hope that people realize that internet anonymity is not a license to make false statements... I also hope that people realize that there are a number of folks that believe in black helicopters and that JFK shot elvis.
In the almost 7 years that FatWallet has been operating there have been a number of times when we have "done the dumbest thing ever and everyone is leaving".
I am not saying that we don't make mistakes (we do... some people just don't admit it).
What I am saying is that when we make a mistake, we fix it, and we try to not make the same mistake again.
I've been told that the development is going smoothly - I can share a few tidbits that are planned:
The mechanism will allow both good and bad ratings - more specifically, the user will be able to rate a topic from 1 to 5 stars (or not at all)
The user will be able to select "not interested" and have that topic removed from their topic list view (this can be done from either the topic view or topic list view)
The default view will be "all messages except ones that i've marked as 'not interested'" (insincere apologies to eBay deal hoarding types) (other options will be: all messages, 1 star and above, 2 stars and above... etc...)
We realize that the quality of a deal is not necessarily directly connected to popularity - this part needs a bit of work, but I'm pretty sure we can get that worked out too.
Thank you in advance for giving this new mechanism a chance when it goes live! change is hard, but isn't always bad!
update 9/14 @ 12:30AM CST
The star rating core functionality is currently on our development servers.
We need to fix a javascript issue and do a bit of testing.
If the testing goes well, we will roll the changes live yet tonight (or is it morning?).
From the time changes would go live, we would watch the site for reliability issues under load - if there are no issues, we will leave up the ratings overnight.
As I said, this is core functionality, but not the final word in what it will be... I look forward to suggestions for further improvement. (although I would not expect to see suggestions realized in code overnight!)
stay tuned!
9/14 1:45AM CST update The core functionality is now live on the main site for testing... if we don't find any reliability issues, we'll keep it up the rest of the night and then continue on during "normal" hours.
People are being retarded boosting stupid topics.. it's really ruining the site. I think the red is OK - I havn't really seen much abuse of it.
clubxny
Shopaholic Member
posted: Sep. 13, 2006 @ 3:42p
wow.. our voice has been heard by the mods.!!! Thank you. please bring back the old system, which will loved and adored. I promise to stay here and not goto SD.
I visit FW every day because the RED/GREEN lets me quickly filter out the crap. Now this stupid BOOST system makes FW just like every other deals site out there. What were you guys thinking?
cheapbrass
Senior Member - 1K
posted: Sep. 13, 2006 @ 3:44p
awww. but random BOOSTING was soooo fun. it was like a FW green-light special.
I used to filter the posts (in the red -green days) which meant I did not have to wade through posts that the community "voted out" of my rating level. The boost feature gave every single post a baseline of "good" and wasn't worth it IMHO.
Now I know this is wild thinking, but please hear me out.
Before you release such a disaster like the boost ratings, might you want to get user feedback BEFORE putting it live? It seems like every single user has voiced a resounding "NO" to this new feature. Just because one of the higher-ups thinks this is a good idea does not mean it's beneficial to the FW community.
Can you believe there was a time this forum got by without any ratings system at all? I am surprised members get so worked up over this issue. IMO the reaction shows how much negativity rules this board now.
While I don't agree with some of the "tactics" used by others, I too think the Red should come back. Or, what about some kind of scoring system (1 to 100). Though if you brought the red back, I'd request some kind of notification that you should rate the deal based on the deal and not other factors like it's a repost. Nothing drives me crazier than missing the original deal and it's so good that it gets reposted but the repost gets red simply because it's a repost. If it's a repost, say repost and move along.
Using all green is bad because deals like the Friday Amazon deals will always be as green as they can get even if they're bad deals because some people just want to thank Toglota for his hard work.
ultimate0 said: People are being retarded boosting stupid topics
I agree - there is/was a thread to talk about how much everyone (it seems) hates the new system. I see no sense in all the other foolishness. They were reading and replying to the thread. If I had a nickel for every bogus topic alert I got today, the family and I would be living large tonight - something from the $0.99 menu for EVERYONE !
Dennis
3toedsloth
New Member
posted: Sep. 13, 2006 @ 3:46p
Thank you for listening.
Do you have an advisory panel of users you run suggestions past, orw as this change based on feedback from users, or just a decision from on high.
The more information the better the understanding.
No matter what, there has to be a way to "red" a post/comment. Otherwise, it would simply take too much time to wade through all the posts. Perhaps you could make everyone who "reds" a post/comment choose from several options as to why it is a bad deal (i.e. too ymmv, same as retail price, abusive - applies to comments). That way the reds would be a little more informative. Anyway, I'm glad you guys are reconsidering this change.
daregan
Ancient Member
posted: Sep. 13, 2006 @ 3:47p
Thanks at least for stopping the green!
Fuzb0
Happy Member
posted: Sep. 13, 2006 @ 3:48p
Why not just limit peoples use of red if you feel its abused?
Give people a 70/30 green to red ratio... limit negs to 10-20 a day whatever... but please, Dont get rid of red.
BTW thanks for getting rid of boost. (at least for the time being.)
tazzy531
Senior Member - 4K
posted: Sep. 13, 2006 @ 3:48p
Tim, Can you tell us what the original issue was with the old system? What kind of abuse?
It would be helpful if we knew what you were trying to solve when you made this change.
Update: I think the old system worked out well in that even if there are a number of fools that would screw around and neg everything, there are always more than enough people on the other side to correct it. This is very similar to the success of Wikipedia. Even if the wiki entries were vandalized, the public concensus would come out in the end.
Why not either limit reds (ie: a member gets 1 red a week or accumulates based upon positive ratings received from posts) or do something else that can lower topic ratings?
For example, take the number of positive votes and divide by the number of views of the thread to come up with an average rating. That way, if 10 out of 10 viewers really like a thread, it gets more green than another with 10 positives out of 100 views?
az1324
Member
posted: Sep. 13, 2006 @ 3:48p
I love all these site user empowerment movements.... facebook... now this. Give us Red!!! If only the government were a website.
P.S. some better flag graphics would be nice ... oooh what about a fatwallet spiral that fills in green or red around from the center depending on hotness. genius!
cyrax78
Happy Member
posted: Sep. 13, 2006 @ 3:49p
I wouldn't mind seeing the old system back either, with perhaps the boost feature for messages only and not deals that was suggested by some people.
racket24
Senior Member - 1K
posted: Sep. 13, 2006 @ 3:49p
From what I read in FW forum, it appears that several valuable members were banned for their dissaproval (though innappropriate, i admit) of the boosting. I think an "amnesty" of sorts is in order, and the old system should be put back in place.
if you lose the teachers, the students will be lost...
Look--- I'm not into blackmail and I'm not into whining.... I think most forms of social protest are stupid, misguided or both....
But having said that.....
If this rating system -which BTW was thrust upon your user base in a stupid manner- is not changed I will lead a charge that all long time users "boost" every thread no matter how stupid; rendering the feature useless.
We can probably not effectivly boycott the system as newbies will still be "boosting" away. But we can however render it worthless.
Are you going to ban us all?
Skipping 567 Messages...
asdf916
Senior Member
posted: Sep. 14, 2006 @ 2:03a
Well if we're gonna stick with the star ratings, can we at least rate individual posts? I found it VERY useful to look for the postitively-rated(?) posts in threads especially when a thread is 10+ pages long.
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