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.

Looking forward to seeing your suggestions.