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New Year's Resolution -- Let's organize the HD Forum

W

Wurlybird9

Member
The mods may lock this down. That's ok. I want the mods to see it.
I already tagged a thread with this idea, but no one seemed to notice.
However, I'm sure it's something most of us would like to see happen.
Perhaps an AT new years' resolution? 🙂 appropriate timing....


It would be tres cool if there was some standard people followed while posting hot deals.
For example, when I search for hard drive deals.
I have to search for "HD", "Hard Drive,"
maybe use storage keywords "gb," "gig."


I think there's a better solution. Some possibilities:

Scenario #1: Develop a "~~~posting guidelines~~~" thread to be locked by the mods at the top of the hot deals list, so people might actually read it before they post, and use standardized terms for common deals such as hd's, cdrw's, mobos, hi-fi, etc. (this would be easiest to implement).

Scenario #2:Establish subcategories within hot deals for commonly posted products (might not work with this shell? if it would this would probably be the best solution of the 3)

Scenario #3: Have drop-down boxes or something of the like to search for deals. When people post, setup cascading fields to register the post for searching (ie. Category____ (hd)---> Capacity____ Rotational Speed ____) This solution is definitely most insulting to Anandtechers' intelligence and probably overkill. But it would definitely be the most precise and bulletproof).

Implementing one of these scenarios would definitely enhance the anandtech experience. I know this may anger some diehards who scour the forum every 10 minutes; they might feel that casual lurkers will beat them to the hottest deals. My retort is simple, go ahead and doom the rare stuff to obscurity in the general section, hidden among offers for free candy bars and movie tix. Not that those things are bad. And I enjoy reading posts like "athlon system for $113,874" or "486 for 50 cents plus 5 bucks shipping!" Diversity should continue to enhance our downtime.

But, I think a good new year's resolution would be to streamline the Anandtech Hot Deals experience for those who can't hang out 24-7 and read and track each post as it comes. Easier searching will prevent reposts. Better organized deals would attract new users and also make it easier for loyal users to keep tabs on who's serving up hot tamales and who is cluttering the board with cold potatoes.

Just my 2 cents. (after CC, PM & MIR 😛 )
Who's with me? Bump it up!

~Jonathan
 
I like the guidelines idea. so bump bump. But I'd hesitate to talk about categories, because then it becomes more difficult to see all the hot deals at once, without a specific goal, and that's half the fun of Hot Deals - just seeing what comes along.

Love y'all
 
It would be nice to sort the columns on the fly by latest post time or thread creation time without having to go to customize and change preferences. That way you can see 'whats hot' and 'whats new'.

Just my 2 cents.
 
I voted for More Well Defined Posting Guidelines because people like you just don't know what's acceptable and what is not. Talk to a mod about setting up something like this. That way they will be able to perform a more controlled experiment.
 
I resist change

but after reading, i prefer Guidline #1
not like i post any hotdeals anywho

"my name be leach"


A happy and heathly one to all
MoleX
 
I love the idea. I am especially interested in better guidelines on thread naming.

Case in point, from a current thread I read today:

Bad Thread Name: "Super Nova Hot Deal, better than Spears Naked" (or whatever)

Good Thread Name: "Low Gas prices in Texas"

See, if the guy would have named the thread properly, he wouldn't waste all of our time, clicking into the thread to find out what the freaking deal is about, only to find out it's for GAS in TEXAS. (Firstly, as if anyone cared about "hot deal" gas prices, and secondly it's only Texas, eliminating ~90% of Anandtech readers.)
 
I know that I don't post much, but I disagree with changing things.

The point of a forum is exactly that -- it's an open discussion for people to say whatever they want within reasonable guidelines.

We are not trying to create a database of hot deals and code or standardize entried -- I believe that goes against the nature and principle of a forum.

There are also many other websites out there that let you search databases of hot deals. Anandtech is unique and superior only because of its format. Let's not restrict they way in which people express themselves.

Also, the search feature on this forum is quite good. So what if you type "hard drive" on the Hot Deals forum and get 45 hits? Just reject the false positives and be assured that you did a thorough search that did not miss any hits.

Do you tell your friends to "codify" the subject lines of email messages they send you and threaten that you may not read their messages if they don't?

Please, we are human each of us and thinks and expresses ourselves in different ways. We aren't robots, and the hot deals *forum* Anandtech is not a hot deal database, nor should it be.
 
I like the idea of *guide*-lines, a *preferred* list of terms to use in post titles. But I would frown most darkly on anyone taking someone to task for not following the guidelines - they are not *rules*.
 
We can't even get people to stop posting deals that aren't hot (like this one). How do you plan to get them to start following further rules? And come-on now, when's the last time you saw a poll in the Hot Deals forum? Just use some common sense.
It's nice that you want more rules for the Mods to have to enforce. Now where's the money you're going to donate in order to pay them for their time? Just go ahead and send it here: Me@paypal...

$.02,
D.
 
The single worst thing about the HD forum is the number of "hall monitors" who seem to live only to pounce on someone and tell them (or decree) that their post is off topic, or uninteresting, or somehow not otherwise worthy of their time.

I can see locking posts (and deleting posts) that are advocating some sort of fraud or other illegal activity. But beyond that... geeze, give it a rest, people. The forum has a fantastic feature where threads people are no longer interested in sink to the bottom and die. The only threads that stay to the top are those with many posts. Which raises the quesion: Can threads with many posts really be that "off topic" to the general user base, when they get so much interest?

If your time is so unbelievably precious that you can't possibly bear to see OT posts (which, for reasons I can't explain, somehow people are FORCED to read, FORCED to open, FORCED to reply to), then perhaps you should examine whether your time is so well spent on a forum devoted simply to buyin things cheap.
 
Too anal. It works well the way it is. There aren't too many posts that are bothersome, searching is not that difficult, and you can use your own prefs to organize the way things show up. We have enough "mod wannabe's" who just wait for something to pounce on as it is. This would just compound that problem, and cause more unproductive crap to occur.

Bottom line: if the deal is super-hot, it's going to be at the top anyway.

-JB

 
I for one have been hoping that something like this would happen. I can't stand reading through page after page with "nuclear meltdown" and "white phosphor" hot deals which don't mention what the deal is about in the title, then you open it up to find that it's a sale on cough drops at the local pharmacy. How hard is it to say what the deal is actually for in the title? And creating a list of "preferred" key words won't restrict the "hotter than Britney Spears wearing nothing but a layer of baby oil" posters, just state that it's a deal on AA batteries, a big screen tv, etc.
 
Maybe an easier thing to do would be when you post a deal, have a drop down menu for something like primary category of the deal, which would then tag something (either visible or not) to the end of the title.
Categories could be stuff like HDD, storage, MOBO, etc.

Might enhance the searching feature enough to make the hits more accurate.
 
Change is always in the future and better is just plain better. Subcategories would be nice. I don't think that rules and guidelines should be overly strict if the post meets the "hot deals" basic criteria. Many new posters or dorks like me sometimes get frazzled when posting a deal and may leave out some tidbit of info. But that info is usually easily obtained and if it's a real deal then don't kill or criticize the poster. They are only trying to share and help. Some are just better organized at helping.
 
Hey,
I'm back. 🙂 Thanks to all that responded. Even those with flaming torches...it's ok. This wasn't about me or my ego, I have an easy enough time finding the deals i need...but if it could be better for EVERYONE...even better.

My ideas were really meant to simply be a springboard for more ideas. It seems the general consensus is for guidelines. That is totally cool by me. I'm willing to help develop a system. And yeah, of course it's not going to cover fake breast implants for 99 cents. But seriously folks, most of us are looking for computer stuff, right? I think some of the alternative posts are entertaining, but it concerns me that half of them are completely non-computer related. If I was looking for Tupperware, I would probably visit a different deals site.

Anyway, it seems the guidelines would be easiest to implement. Just a big tag stating ***Guidelines--Standard Terminology for Posting*** I don't think this prevents things from being an open forum at all. On the contrary, it will allow people to be heard better, because those who care to listen will be able to focus on their post.

As for the "database" comment....this system won't make things a database any more than, say, the WWW is a database. Most sites are free to express their own opinions. but most webmasters want to at least standardize the address (.com, .org, .net) and use a variety of specific keywords to ensure that their site will be noticed among zillions of other sites; so that those whom are interested will read what is being said. And in the same fashion, my friends, forum posters ought to tag their posts in a way that makes them most accessible.

Otherwise, your hot deal may get passed over as "hot air."

But this isn't meant to restrict anyone. I don't expect the mods or "mod wannabes" to police this stuff. If someone wants to offer a personal comment, then perhaps they can keep it private using a PM. The guidelines are simply to make common deals easy to find and compare. It just adds to the FAQ of Anandtech terminology, really. There seems to be a consensus on calling a hot deal an "HD" but no one can decide whether to say, for example, "gig" or "GB." It's not to say that one way is right and the other is wrong. It's just a standard.

And to be frank, those involved with PC computing who don't believe in standards should get the h*ll out. No, everything shouldn't be done by all-encompassing rules, but without any kind of common framework, would PC development be anarchistic? No, it would actually be the complete opposite. There'd be no democracy. No third-party developers. Think Apple. Ingenious ideas and marketing, but there comes a point that you have to lay ground rules and open up. Without standards for development, you don't encourage an open forum. You encourage monopoly. This discussion can apply to government. But I think I'll stop here...

Hope everyone's having a Happy New Year 🙂

~jonathan
 
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