Changes to UK deals - introducing the "Deal Stream"

John

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[preview]Posting deals has always been a bit clunky around here. Doing things via the old deal system took forever - you had to fill in a form that took 5 minutes, only to have it turn into a boring link with a rating system no-one ever used. Posting in the forums wasn't much better - with entire threads devoted to a single game, most of the time it wouldn't be worth commenting on. So, we've made some changes to the deal system. It's early days and more changes are coming, but what we have to start off with should make using the deal system a lot more enjoyable for everyone.[/preview]

The first big change is to the way you can submit a deal into the system. Instead of filling out a massive form, everything has been replaced with a single text field.

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Just type your deal in the field and submit!​

The new submission system is pretty smart, it doesn't matter how you input your deal - it'll figure out how to format it and recognize all the key information. Just make sure you include the name of the game, the platform, the price, and the link - along with any info other CAGs will need to get the price. (e.g. coupon codes, specific instructions, etc.) Because deals are now a lot easier to submit, we're moderating all the submissions to cut down on duplicates. As soon as your deal is approved, it'll appear in the deal stream.

The second big change is how the deals are viewed. In the old system, each deal was a bloated table that took up a quarter of the page - it made browsing deals slow, since so much of the page was wasted on blank space and over-sized box art. The new layout has been on a diet, box art will zoom on-click, and unnecessary page elements only appear when you're likely to need them. Click the info button next to a deal's price to launch a price checking window, where you can see all the latest new and used prices for that game - all without leaving the page.

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Extra links only appear when hovering over a deal, and box art can be enlarged with a single click.​

Besides helping out your fellow CAGs, there's a new reason to post deals - a weekly raffle to win the game of your choice up to the value of £50 (subject to availability - we have to be able to buy/pre-order it!). Every time you submit a deal that gets approved and added to the deal stream, you'll earn a raffle ticket. Every Sunday we'll randomly draw a ticket out of all the entries to pick our winner. (Registered users only.)

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There are no limits to the number of tickets you can earn for deal posting.​

So, that's a brief look at the new deal stream system. Stay tuned for more features soon, including a revamp of our front page integration. :)
 
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Ah, it was probably my mistake then. After I remove a deal I have to switch it back to "accept" mode manually, and occasionally I miss that and accidentally end up deleting the wrong deal.
 
A quick question. Last week's winner, Bobfoc, seems to be posting pretty much everything. Nothing against the guy, I mean, it's great that the deals are there, but can he win the raffle again?

It just seems to me that the "raffle" system is an advantage to people that have scripts to notify them of price drops on retail websites, so they can get 50% or more of the tickets in a week, whereas normal folk have very little chance at all in comparison because one person is "stealing" all the deals before people even see them in normal use.

Some incentive for posting deals is a great idea, but I think it might need a bit more balance for regular users.
 
Yep, it's possible to win the raffle more than once.

There are a few things I've thought about doing to make it possible for more casual users to stand a chance:
- awarding additional tickets based on deal popularity
- giving users the ability to win an extra few tickets if they better an existing deal
- weighting the first few ticket submissions so you earn extra tickets for the first few submissions

It's tricky because we don't want to put off the people who post a lot of deals, but it's a shame that a person who submits one excellent deal per week gets little recognition for it. Any thoughts?

Also, I was thinking about maybe running a second weekly raffle where you can earn a ticket every 12 hours just for visiting the deal stream - that way if you're more of a browser than a poster you're in with a chance.
 
[quote name='John']

It's tricky because we don't want to put off the people who post a lot of deals, but it's a shame that a person who submits one excellent deal per week gets little recognition for it. Any thoughts?[/QUOTE]

Maybe as you said yourself, somehow connected to how popular the deals are?

And maybe an extra ticket for first-time posters on the stream? So they get two tickets instead of one the first time they post a deal?


Reason for me hunting offers and posting them here is that I've done that a lot on other game-sites, NeoGAF and Swedish sites.
But since discovering CAG, I have abandoned them more and more and concentrating on posting my finds here.
Buying games, movies and such from the UK to Sweden is way cheaper than buying them in Sweden, thanks to the value of the £ compared to the Swedish currency Krona (SEK).
A game in Sweden cost about twice or three times more than ordering from the UK.

I'm unemployed at the moment as well, so I have time to "hunt", but will start a new job hopefully next week.
My presence and activity here will probably drop quite a bit then.
 
I have 10 deals pending moderation since yestarday and seen other deals coming up on the stream since then. What happened to my deals?
 
[quote name='Benedict']I have 10 deals pending moderation since yestarday and seen other deals coming up on the stream since then. What happened to my deals?[/QUOTE]

It's a known issue, working on it. New deals submitted won't be affected, still trying to clear the backlog though.
 
What about deals that you had pending which are no longer pending? The ones I submitted in particular SSF4 Fightsticks are as cheap as you can find at the moment but I don't see them on the stream.
 
[quote name='toythatkills']A quick question. Last week's winner, Bobfoc, seems to be posting pretty much everything. Nothing against the guy, I mean, it's great that the deals are there, but can he win the raffle again?

It just seems to me that the "raffle" system is an advantage to people that have scripts to notify them of price drops on retail websites, so they can get 50% or more of the tickets in a week, whereas normal folk have very little chance at all in comparison because one person is "stealing" all the deals before people even see them in normal use.

Some incentive for posting deals is a great idea, but I think it might need a bit more balance for regular users.[/QUOTE]

Personally I'm sick of that guy posting crap deals. Especially when I have submitted a better deal and mine get's rejected!!

He has done nothing but submit crap deals for weeks now, I can't believe that guy even won the damn raffle when the vast majority of his deals are just complete crap. Take a look at the Super Street Fighter IV deal he posted. I got the game for less than that on PRE ORDER from Tesco Entertainment weeks ago. Just utter crap deals, please please please at least moderate what he posts as being an actual deal instead of just posting anything. He's seriously just clogging up the stream and stopping other possible deals from getting through.

I posted the TE sticks on the Dealstream at £70 when Shopto.net notified me they had came back in stock, it got ignored. A lot of people would have missed out on that. Instead they got Red Dead Redemption posted for the super low price of RRP... Give me a break.
 
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[quote name='Niode']
I posted the TE sticks on the Dealstream at £70 when Shopto.net notified me they had came back in stock, it got ignored. A lot of people would have missed out on that. Instead they got Red Dead Redemption posted for the super low price of RRP... Give me a break.[/QUOTE]

I just posted the black and white Super edition sticks for both xbox360 and PS3 and all 4 of them got ignored. There isn't even another deal up for these sticks and if £99.85 isn't a 'deal' when they are £129.99 retail then I don't know what a deal is apparently.
 
[quote name='Niode']Personally I'm sick of that guy posting crap deals. Especially when I have submitted a better deal and mine get's rejected!!

He has done nothing but submit crap deals for weeks now, I can't believe that guy even won the damn raffle when the vast majority of his deals are just complete crap. Take a look at the Super Street Fighter IV deal he posted. I got the game for less than that on PRE ORDER from Tesco Entertainment weeks ago. Just utter crap deals, please please please at least moderate what he posts as being an actual deal instead of just posting anything. He's seriously just clogging up the stream and stopping other possible deals from getting through.

I posted the TE sticks on the Dealstream at £70 when Shopto.net notified me they had came back in stock, it got ignored. A lot of people would have missed out on that. Instead they got Red Dead Redemption posted for the super low price of RRP... Give me a break.[/QUOTE]

The problem is that sometimes I have around 100 deals to moderate as soon as I wake up, and most of them don't qualify - they're either reposts, not deals (i.e. the same game has been around for the same price or cheaper before), or just a few pennies cheaper than an old deal. Often they're not even the cheapest around. It takes a long time for me to check each one, so sometimes the results are a little sloppy as I have to go on memory with what qualifies as a deal or not.

I'm going to make some changes to allow users to moderate other deals before they go live in the stream. Here are the main points of how it's going to work (feedback is welcome):
- Any registered user can moderate (although we'll be able to revoke that privilege from anyone who abuses the system)
- A game will need three approvals from three different users before it goes into the stream.
- We're going to have a comments system added to deals, so people can discuss whether or not a deal is too shitty to be worthwhile putting in the stream.

That should clean things up and stop non-deals getting through, as well as stopping good deals getting accidentally deleted.
 
[quote name='JohnWordCena']What about if we say, i put on a deal, someone enters and says its no deal, then he posts it himself?[/QUOTE]

quote from john:
- Any registered user can moderate (although we'll be able to revoke that privilege from anyone who abuses the system)


Wouldn't that take care of that problem? If somebody abuses the system they get banned and IP-banned from the stream?


I guess if somebody has a high rate of delivering deals to the stream and at the same time are bashing others, they will be found out quickly.
Some sort of statistic that is open to all who are able to moderate can at least give clues to abuse.


The problem so far, as I see it regarding the stream, is that probably more people than expected has participated, which makes it very hard for John to take care and moderate it all by himself. Especially if it quickly clogs up, where deals has to be looked up upon and may have expired.

Maybe also the Zavvi Sunday deals should be excluded from the stream?
I guess that is a flood of sumbissions that several people try to be first on.
The Sunday Zavvi deals are so far, regular and occuring every week.

And John already does a fine job of putting up a list of the games on the forum. That would lessen the burden a bit.
 
[quote name='John']The problem is that sometimes I have around 100 deals to moderate as soon as I wake up, and most of them don't qualify - they're either reposts, not deals (i.e. the same game has been around for the same price or cheaper before), or just a few pennies cheaper than an old deal. Often they're not even the cheapest around. It takes a long time for me to check each one, so sometimes the results are a little sloppy as I have to go on memory with what qualifies as a deal or not.

I'm going to make some changes to allow users to moderate other deals before they go live in the stream. Here are the main points of how it's going to work (feedback is welcome):
- Any registered user can moderate (although we'll be able to revoke that privilege from anyone who abuses the system)
- A game will need three approvals from three different users before it goes into the stream.
- We're going to have a comments system added to deals, so people can discuss whether or not a deal is too shitty to be worthwhile putting in the stream.

That should clean things up and stop non-deals getting through, as well as stopping good deals getting accidentally deleted.[/QUOTE]


I completely appreciate that you have a lot of work to do sorting out the deal stream submissions. Maybe a system similar to the one found on HotUKDeals where heat is added to deals and they rise up the listing the hotter they get (oooh metaphors).

User moderation is good, and it definitely needs to be added to the Deal Stream because the current state makes CAG worse than what it was before. It's always the same with user generated content though. So much crap gets submitted before the gems appear.

Would it not be an idea that if a deal gets resubmitted after a while, such as what I assume is what happened when I submitted those TE sticks and they got rejected, that they rise back to the top of the stream and credit to the original submitter is given (holy run on sentence batman!). I don't mind that, but of course people would have missed out on those TE sticks coming back in stock. I'm not having a dig at you John but it's a shame that you don't allow deals to come back onto the stream if they have been submitted before, I know I keep banging on about it, but the TE sticks appeared on the stream, and sold out very quickly, they came back in stock and so I wanted to let people know of their availability. I just think that with certain deals where it expired due to availability should be allowed re-entry on the deal stream should availability come back.
 
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Niode - right, your example of the TE sticks going out of stock is an example where we do want to allow it in the stream. I'm referring to cases where someone will post a game that's been the same price for 2 months, is widely available at that price, and then gets reposted again. Each deal needs to be moderated with some common sense... like the TE sticks. That's tough to do when it's just one person trying to get through 100 deals, but with community moderation the rules aren't going to be as strict anymore.

It'll be a case of if three people decide it's deal-worthy, then it goes in. The only rule will be that if a deal gets posted, it can't be cheaper elsewhere unless there's a good reason for it. (Which is where the new comment system will come in handy.) And with regard to moderation, if a user keeps on approving sub-par deals we'll have to disable their moderation privileges.
 
[quote name='John']Niode - right, your example of the TE sticks going out of stock is an example where we do want to allow it in the stream. I'm referring to cases where someone will post a game that's been the same price for 2 months, is widely available at that price, and then gets reposted again. Each deal needs to be moderated with some common sense... like the TE sticks. That's tough to do when it's just one person trying to get through 100 deals, but with community moderation the rules aren't going to be as strict anymore.

It'll be a case of if three people decide it's deal-worthy, then it goes in. The only rule will be that if a deal gets posted, it can't be cheaper elsewhere unless there's a good reason for it. (Which is where the new comment system will come in handy.) And with regard to moderation, if a user keeps on approving sub-par deals we'll have to disable their moderation privileges.[/QUOTE]


Glad to hear it, thanks for your replies. I look forward to Dealstream 2.0 (or 1.1? I don't know how these things work)!
 
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Good evening!!! :D
I'm a new user, and i found the deal stream a very good and useful idea!!!
Although i made a lot of confusion (i'm not a spammer...as it may seem...i only missunderstood how the thing worked) before i learnt how to use it in the right way, so if it's possible i would ask a moderator to delete all my posted deals (waiting for approvation)... ^^
Sorry for the inconvenience!!! I swear i'll contribute as much as possible to post the better deals out there from now on... xDDD

P.s. I'm not english...so excuse my grammar mistakes... xD
 
Something needs to be done soon for sure as right now the system is not so good. I got 20 pending for 3 days now, and some of the deals i posted yesterday, where made on the site today, from users who have submitted them after me :/ That surely sucks for me hehe..
 
[quote name='John']
- We're going to have a comments system added to deals, so people can discuss whether or not a deal is too shitty to be worthwhile putting in the stream.
.[/QUOTE]

THIS. I feel the deal stream is killing the forum discussion a bit and this will go a long way to fix that. Although some of it was bitching i liked to read it (especially when it was warning me that a game was crap). It reinforced the UK CAG community rather than almost anonymous deal postings. I don't really read any other section of the forums apart from the UK section, so as far as i'm concerned that sole section IS cag for me.

Also, just to put my two cents (moreso than i already have). Is it really necessary for you to get a ticket for every deal you post? I don't want a system that promotes crap deal spamming
(EDIT: just read your comments above and your community moderated deal stream idea, that's a great idea. Especially with CAG growing it wouldn't really be feasible for you to go through all the deals).

I mean, i'm cool with posting two deals gets you a maximum of one ticket. Post 5 deals = 1 ticket. Someone else will always pick up the slack if that major poster decides to not post any more than two, we never miss great deals here so it's not a problem. It gives everyone a fair shot and also means that new posters are likely to post deals because the reward is actually attainable.

I mean, i used to post deals but to be honest since the new system i haven't really bothered because there are people lurking on their rss readers jumping on each deal. Nowadays i don't even bother checking if it's been posted yet i just assume it is. The chances of me winning is pretty slim when there are a couple of guys with the majority of the tickets. Which is kind of messed up because i would happily post deals in the past when there wasn't any incentive.

I mean, i like CAG over HotUkDeals and the such because it felt like it was real people posting genuine deals rather a clinical list of price drops. I recognize names in the forums and usually know before clicking whether a deal is good or not by who is posting it.

Let it be clear that the improvements to CAG have been outstanding and i'm not against these changes at all. I just thought i'd voice my concerns.

I know you can't please everyone, but you're getting pretty damn close to. Keep up the fantastic work.
 
[quote name='JohnWordCena']It's not working yet? When i clicked save all i got was a bunch of words on a white display.[/QUOTE]

ditto
 
Take the URL of that white page and plug it into your RSS reader. I'll change it so it gives the URL in a friendlier way.
 
Google Chrome... maybe thats why?

Also any reply on my numerous pending deals? Some of the deals i posted 5 days ago were shown by another user 2 days after i posted them..

Thanks for your help.
 
Yep, it's because of Chrome - it doesn't have any native support for handling RSS feeds in the browser window, you just need to copy and paste the URL from the top of the white page into whichever RSS reader you're using. Seems to be working fine in all other browsers.
 
[quote name='John']Yep, it's because of Chrome - it doesn't have any native support for handling RSS feeds in the browser window, you just need to copy and paste the URL from the top of the white page into whichever RSS reader you're using. Seems to be working fine in all other browsers.[/QUOTE]

Yeah i am on Chrome too.
 
[quote name='TheToiletDuck']Also, just to put my two cents (moreso than i already have). Is it really necessary for you to get a ticket for every deal you post? I don't want a system that promotes crap deal spamming
(EDIT: just read your comments above and your community moderated deal stream idea, that's a great idea. Especially with CAG growing it wouldn't really be feasible for you to go through all the deals).[/QUOTE]How about a ticket for, say, every 10 clicks on your deal? Presumably the best deals would get the most clicks, and therefore the most tickets.

Either that or the person with the most mates would win every week.
 
delutzes idea sounds good.

Things need to be fixed either way.
I'm not posting any more deals at the moment since it takes too long for them to appear on the stream, if at all.
 
User moderation is up (click on "view unmoderated deals" link in the right column, or the link under "deal stream" in the navbar). You'll earn a ticket for every 5 deals you moderate. :)

Also, you'll probably notice some changes to how the deal submission process works. Now, as soon as you submit a deal it'll take you to another page where you can refine the details, just to make sure that the system figured out the correct game to attach it to. A few other points:

- Users can't moderate their own deals.
- Pending deals can be seen by all, they just won't appear in the main stream until it gets approved by at least 2 others.
- We use IP checks/logs to determine whether or not there are shenanigans going on with moderation - so we should be able to easily spot and ban anyone abusing the system to earn tickets. (E.g. moderating their own deals on other accounts, or just blanket approving everything they see for the sake of earning tickets.)
- We're delaying the draw this week because of the new system implementation - all tickets earned over the last week will still count.
 
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Just wondering how long the weekly raffles are supposed to be?
Is it a regular 7-day week or a CAG-specific period of time?

It's a great idea but when the weekly raffle does not work and nothing happens, it might be a bit disheartening for some and they stop submitting deals.
 
[quote name='Benedict']Just wondering how long the weekly raffles are supposed to be?
Is it a regular 7-day week or a CAG-specific period of time?

It's a great idea but when the weekly raffle does not work and nothing happens, it might be a bit disheartening for some and they stop submitting deals.[/QUOTE]

Sorry, forgot to mention we took a break for a week and a bit to fix some raffle ticket issues. But if you've earned a ticket since the last draw, it'll still count towards the next one. (On Sunday)
 
Could you make it so that you have to log in to submit deals. Sure, you might miss out on some deals, but if you forget to log in before submitting a deal (like I have) then any tickets that deal generates are lost.
 
With the new system i don't even care about using it, since in my humble opinion it is not a good system... Last time i used it i had over 30 pending.... which resulted in the deals expiring and still being in pending... well i might give it a last try....
 
Tickets are quite a bit harder to come by, it seems. I've just got one (I think it's for moderating) and by my calculations it appears a grand total of 41 tickets have been given out this week.
 
Lots of tickets get awarded just before the drawing on Sunday. But then the counter resets after a winner is picked.
 
[quote name='John']Lots of tickets get awarded just before the drawing on Sunday. But then the counter resets after a winner is picked.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that seems to be the case (I've just bagged my second of the week.)
 
[quote name='John']Lots of tickets get awarded just before the drawing on Sunday. But then the counter resets after a winner is picked.[/QUOTE]

Has the weekly raffle been made? I got like 6 confirmed deals but show 0.
 
[quote name='JohnWordCena']Has the weekly raffle been made? I got like 6 confirmed deals but show 0.[/QUOTE]
Nope, I'm still holding my two tickets for moderating. It may be a case that the ticket system may be biased in favour of moderating now.
 
Also.. how come when i approve a pending deal, my username doesnt show on the right hand side to show that i voted it a good deal, just like other users?

Also yourself Delusibeta voted one of my deals as a good one, however it doesn't show you voted...

Is the ssytem working properly?

I got my doubts.
 
This week's draw will happen in a few hours.

JohnWordCena - there's a system in place that automatically ignores a user's mod submissions if they consistently vote the same way regardless of whether or not the deal is good or bad. (To prevent people from just mass moderating everything incorrectly to earn tickets.) Somehow you tripped that system, which is why your moderation stopped counting. (I've reset it for you now.)
 
[quote name='John']This week's draw will happen in a few hours.

JohnWordCena - there's a system in place that automatically ignores a user's mod submissions if they consistently vote the same way regardless of whether or not the deal is good or bad. (To prevent people from just mass moderating everything incorrectly to earn tickets.) Somehow you tripped that system, which is why your moderation stopped counting. (I've reset it for you now.)[/QUOTE] Thanks. Now, to Gamersgate to post their sale!
 
[quote name='John']This week's draw will happen in a few hours.

JohnWordCena - there's a system in place that automatically ignores a user's mod submissions if they consistently vote the same way regardless of whether or not the deal is good or bad. (To prevent people from just mass moderating everything incorrectly to earn tickets.) Somehow you tripped that system, which is why your moderation stopped counting. (I've reset it for you now.)[/QUOTE]

How come did i trip the system if i only used it yesterday? :s
 
[quote name='JohnWordCena']How come did i trip the system if i only used it yesterday? :s[/QUOTE]

It factors in other stuff like deal expiration. You expired a deal which wasn't expired, and got unlucky as it happened on the day when I implemented this stuff. (I've toned down the settings since then, it takes a lot more for the system to ignore a user now.) But like I said, it's all fixed now. :)
 
Hi, I submitted the Plain Sight deal and did not receive a ticket. Not sure if that was because I got the ticket and then the draw happened over night or was just unlucky.
 
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