Changes coming soon to rewards program

[siliconjon]

I'm all for a greater product yields a greater reward in the way of revamping the system. The thing I like great about other site systems is the community reward. I look for great deals and share them in exchange for others to do the same for me. As a consumer this can easily pay more than $1 per deal. A great Deal site also requires more than just thank-you replies to register the users' thanks for such contributions, which we do have here, but there's a more complex issue with it.

A more complex rating system would be great. First, I think the ability to rank a post negative is nice, even if a bit hard to take for the thin skinned. I also like the ability to have a categorical "why" value for the ranking provided by the user. One thing I haven't seen at the few sites I frequent is a more powerful voting value. FW & SD allow only a single up or down vote, or abstain from voting. This works well enough since they have a very large voting audience, but for a site with a smaller base of readers/participants something a bit more powerful may help. Perhaps something like a -3 to +3 (Horrible, Bad, I've seen Better, [Average] , Better than average, great deal, Unreal Deal). Then the question would be how to display this graph - would it be a three-dimensional representation of the number of participants giving each rank, emphasizing the median or mean value (I like fancy), or display only the aggregate total. Once the site grows in participation this system will still work very well for deal rating.

It really isn't all the different from what's already implemented here, except we've moved the 3-star value to Zero, and added one more rating on each end. This accomplishes a greater feeling of control for the voter, and slightly more detailed feedback result for the shopper, but in an easier to guage format than the star rating.

Also important is the ability for the community to flag a deal as dead, even though oversights can cause good deals to be flagged as dead by not reading the instructions on obtaining some unusual deals. Such deals can be taken out of the "live deals" area for improved search results.

The more information the better ability to provide the quality information that allows a deal site to provide immense value to its members. Give the members of the community the ability to best provide each other the profit of savings, and the system will pay for itself and thrive.

[arizona7]

I Love Bargains And Try To Search For The Best ones. But What I love About This site ,Is That You Also are Compensated. I'm A Substitute Teacher And Subbing This Year Has Been Horrible. I Don't Work During The Summer So This Site Has Been Wonderful . I Can Pay Some Of My bills. I Don't know Of Any Other Site That Does This. I'm Not a Spammer ,Just An Average Person Who Loves Deals .I Think You Are Being A Little Harsh.

[siliconjon]

I know how awesome it is to make extra money, but I think something needs to be implemented to better reward better deals because it's great deals that make a deal site survive and thrive, and if it dies you loose your income from such a site anyway, in addition to the loss of the potential for a great deal site to save you money when you need or want to spend.

If keeping the reward value were essential then perhaps a higher reward value for fewer posted deals, only awarded to deals making a certain threshold of quality. I'm not sure how to do that with a low participant crowd, though, as that will make it too easy for some to have assistance in getting their posted deals ranked high, making it harder (and less enjoyable) for you honest hard workers when these crooks start pouring in, until caught anyway.

One of the problems I see as of now is the forums feel too farmed and unorganized. Too many deals without any feedback makes for a less than optimal experience. With so many deals we need a lot of feedback to rank and sort them.

So how do we pull in more participation? As much as Scott's already spending to promote the site, increased compensation sounds economically unsound, and as displayed by other sites: compensation for such participation needs to be (or at least feel) high when quality is parallel, but compensation can come in the form of the posting of great deals submitted by others that save you hundreds, or at least make you feel like you saved hundreds even if all you really did was spend more but get a lot more for your spending. The other earners of these sites appear to be the partners involved in the profitability of the site. These employees or partners spend a great deal of time and effort scouring for great deals to post on their site in an effort for compensation based upon the very success and profitability of the site which should amount to a far greater payback that $1/deal.

[RicheemXX]

I think SJ and I are on the same level of thinking here. Don't get me wrong I think its great that we "reward" users for their participation but in my personal opinion you should be reward for the level of participating.

The thing with user generated content is this - its really open to each users interpretation and perspective. What one user might think of as a great post another may not and that's fine. However, and this might come across wrong, but not everyone contributes evenly and to me users that are consistently contributing more should be recognized for that.

Anyone can post a deal but it takes a lot of work to go hunt that one extremely hot deal that might be overlooked. Sadly the trend I've seen since we changed to the new program is such that we have far fewer deals that I'd consider as being high quality. The thing that draws users and draws user participation is the quality of your content. I go to SD and FW when looking for bargains because I know when I see a deal that has been voted up its going to be a great deal. Its not going to be something that is just a dollar or two bellow everyday price or its going to be something that was on-sale last week for a much better price.

This is really the second issue I see

One of the problems I see as of now is the forums feel too farmed and unorganized. Too many deals without any feedback makes for a less than optimal experience. With so many deals we need a lot of feedback to rank and sort them.

As the program is now I see almost zero user participation outside of posting their deals. From a moderation stand point we have almost no users reporting spam, bad links, bad deals ect. As the site grows and we have more and more users posting deals it would be awesome if we could somehow work in a reward for users that are helping spot spam or pointing out filler posts or even in some cases people that are calling out a bad deal and posting something that is better. I mean IMO why should user a get paid for making the post if user b spots a better deal??

Of course its just me personal perspective, but to me it would make for a much better user experience.

[ccengineer]

The current model is not sustainable. As Scott mentioned before I don't think that the site is making much money if not losing some. I understand that posters appreciate the extra money, especially in this economy. But if we want to get more exposure something needs to be done. I actually stopped posting deals because I'm not after the money and it is kinda frustrating to look and find a good deal to post and then it goes no where. No discussion that makes the thread more exciting. While I understand that it's great to be compensated for posting deals. I think that the current system rewards quantity not quality.

And the site is losing not only money, but also posters like me. I sent Scott some suggestions few months back that will help in still rewarding posters, maybe even with money, but at the same time make it more beneficial for the site too. I would hate to see a good site not get the attention it deserves. Let's think out of the box, not be greedy and come up with suggestions that will make this site, our site, the best deals site on the net.

[arizona7]

when I Post On Dealighted, I Try To Find A Great Deal. Not Just One That Is Only A Dollar Difference. I Alaways Look For The Best Deal Possible Whenever I Need To Buy Something For Myself. So When I Post to Dealighted I Try To Do The Same Thing.

[siliconjon]

How about something like $10 for each of the ten best deals of the day? Though an aggregate voting system may be more effective than an average ranking system for determining such winners.

[siliconjon]

Might I also suggest or request two post rating categories - one for price, and one for personal appeal of the product(s)?