Disappointed in meh
51It’s not just the fact that so many of us are unhappy with the homepage changes, but I’m even more disappointed that no one in charge has had the decency to respond to our complaints. After all these years of supporting woot and meh, we expect and deserve better communication. Maybe a “Hey, we had no idea it meant so much to you all and we’ll bring it back.” Or even, “Fuck you all, it’s our site and we’ll do what we want with no regard for your opinions.”
- 32 comments, 109 replies
- Comment
I can see how that’s frustrating and disappointing.
The main reason I haven’t gotten into the discussion is that it’s complicated. There are reasons to make changes that aren’t easy to explain, and easy to misinterpret. There are possibilities of new things that may or may not happen, which could lead to more disappointment. And there’s the overall difficulty of not being able to always do what the community wants, and the challenge of how to respond when that happens.
I’m following along, and I’m listening (or reading, I guess). I’m sorry that that’s not a very definitive response, but it’s where I’m at right now.
@dave
@dave How much is @snapster selling Meh (Mediocre) for?
@dave
typical corporate bullshit speak
most of us hear it every day
people don’t get it that it is recognized for what it is
Donald Trump says:
@dave All we have right now is is disappointment. future disappointment is a given!
@dave It’s not like it would be hard to move the code to the user profile page. A real derp move, Meh.
Just like (illegally) charging sales tax for VMP membership fees when there are no tangible goods involved.
@Barney @dave @snapster Could you please publish one more ohshit?
@dave (this is more broadly directed than just at you but since you are the one corporate designated to respond you are tagged).
OK so this is long
You say many reasons?.. Lack of communication makes these reasons appear to be more likely along the lines of: Meh doesn’t make mediocre much money and the resources thrown at it are no longer seen as valuable (eg good ROI) as we have served our purpose so working to make it less costly? Snapster may no longer feel as sentimental about meh as he was (reference the older thread I am too lazy to look for), we have served our purpose and so has decided he’d rather have the money in his pocket than thrown at the site? Or… go look at the many threads and see other interpretations of this action.
My 2 cents which may be worth nothing since I have no idea (nor do any of us) what is going on inside the company that led to this (and in this case silence is not golden) is that mediocre, in trying to solve one problem, didn’t think this through, and is now being bit in the rear by unintended consequences. Also perhaps someone may have backed themselves into a corner and is looking for a graceful way to back down so there is, essentially, radio silence from corporate… Of course no one died and gave me ESP so I could be way off – just judging by what is visible to me.
Perhaps mediocre is underestimating how easy it can be to destroy a cult like following that even has people volunteering to work for a for profit company and instead figures people will follow the company down whatever path it takes? (Of course since meh is such a tiny part of his business and no longer important to drive business to snapster, this may not matter to him at all). And/or - fill in the blank based on what has been said in the multiple threads about this - other reasons… In my opinion if corporate doesn’t want customer interpretations to be the explanation (and mediocre is not coming out of this so far smelling like a rose) then now would be the time to address the underlying issues…
If there are good things that are potentially going to happen why not wait to destroy one of the iconic things about the meh site when those new things are about ready to become a reality? Why not tell us hey, we can’t so this on the home page anymore because it causes too many coding problems, then wait to take that away until you, at the same time, replace it with whatever…
And, by the way, addressing this from the underlying issue point of view and then asking for suggestions for where to park the information and how, might get you some more popular and viable solutions. Instead this has been cast as a distributive issue (eg I win you lose, you lose I win can’t have both win) and in my opinion it is far from it (but what do I know, I don’t code). That it has been cast as a distributive issues is, in my opinion, seriously problematic and contributing to the current community crisis you current have.
If it is a coding issue, and either meh can’t figure out how to solve it or doesn’t have/want to throw the needed resources at it then why not create a contest? There are a ton of geeks on here - if there are issues the company doesn’t have time to solve over the calendar, put out a coding contest with IRKS for life for the winner or something? As I am sure you know companies do that all the time for hacking their site and then closing those backdoors (although those have monetary awards), there has been some DNA work done via coding contests with rewards (again monetary)… and some people do this just for the fun and challenge, it’s their hobby. Here it would be cheap - IRKS.
Heck as a non geek - could you not put a link to a page (not our profile page that is too many steps if you keep it private for privacy reasons and if that page crashes before we can relock our profile it leaves it open) that has the calendar and our click record? Heck even have us click on the meh face, have it automatically takes us to that page (if the excuse that it is making the home page too slow to load is the actual reason), we then see the calendar, the meh face - even if we have to click again (leaving the meh face on the calendar linked to its daily deal) so that we still have that part of the page, just moved to a place that is fast and easy to find… then if it takes a long time to load it doesn’t affect the home page, buying the deal… it just affect the click record calendar page and isn’t tied to much else. Grant you I am not a programmer so don’t know the issues but I am sure this is solvable.
And then there is the separate issue of broken “promises” to the community; ones you may not realize you have made…
Right now you created yourself a problem based on (besides removing an iconic symbol), in my opinion, violating community norms (which develop whether or not you make an effort to shape them – and initially you did work hard to shape them, then when it started to die without active meh input you changed your approach and reinvested into the community). You build a community to the point that people are willing to work for you for free no less (and you aren’t even a non-profit), throw resources at it, say we are important to you even though we are not a large part of your business and then corporate stabs the community in the back (or heart depending on the member) and don’t look back. That sends a message. And it hurts some people.
By nurturing the community, you got people to care about meh and the community. You created a strong customer culture that includes things like telling external sites, for example the teacher one we donate to every fall, Kiva, etc. not that THEY personally donated, but that meh was behind their donation. You have members supporting others as they go through hard times… Corporate built this and your customers and community members believe(d) that this is part of who mediocre is (perhaps now was?). That is something rare and from the point of view of some companies, enviable.
It takes talent (and hard work) to develop that in a community. And now the first step is being taken to dismantle this? That is one way to interpret what is happening (eg if you cared you’d have asked first, or at least warned and asked for alternative solutions, assumption). That corporate isn’t responding with anything meaningful (and then only responds after multiple threads and hundreds of messages including from folks who seldom, if ever, post) sends another message - that you no longer care (whether or not that is true – without meaningful corporate responses the community will run with it how they see it).
I’d guess corporate also underestimated how the calendar, how it is presented, etc. is an iconic symbol of meh and like most/all symbols has all sorts of other meanings/things tied into that. Strong communities develop strong symbols that have multiple meanings. One removes them at their own risk. Of course you are a for profit company and can do what you want. BUT since you sunk the resources into the community, made people think by your actions that this was important and part of who mediocre is, that you are now ignoring this breaks expectations and “promises” so to speak. No surprise people feel betrayed as there are those who have made this site part of their life well beyond a company’s attempt to build a loyal customer base.
In my opinion, now would be the time to invest some time and energy and respond in a believable way to the loss of the click face calendar (eg the loss of an iconic symbol with complicated meanings to people) and address the underlying concerns that folks have rather than taking your current course of action (eg click on “ignore” and for the most part walk away).
Of course this is a for profit company and management/owners can do what they see fit. In my opinion though, that people even care should mean something and that now is the time do engage in some credible damage control if there will be no attempt to reverse this decision. It seems to me though it would be more useful to find an alternative way to present the click face calendar and other information that makes people happy (the current alternative clearly doesn’t) and is viable from a company point of view, so that the symbol lives on in a way that both parties are reasonably happy with.
And obviously I am one of the people who was sucked into this community or I wouldn’t have spend over an hour writing this response and instead would be doing my taxes and grading projects as grades are due tonight.
@dave meant to say even has people who work as volunteers for a for profit company.
@dave @Kidsandliz I heard once that when lawyers are wrangling patent agreements between large enough companies, instead of trying to comprehend the relevance and value of individual patents, they simply print out each company’s entire patent portfolio, and then compare the height of the resultant paper towers with tape measures.
@dave I am curious if the response is what was expected when the decision was made.
@speediedelivery I would bet my barely existent paycheck that it was not. If they had anticipated this likely they would have given warning and discussed it, solicited input for alternative places to park that part of the page, had a poll, etc. (or I hope they would have based on at least some past responses, if not then there are more problems than just this action). Of course unintended consequences can blindside, especially if they didn’t/don’t even consider the potential for that. Let’s hope it wasn’t due to hubris. And lets just hope they are willing to say, “oops, let’s work together to find a solution that best (as it can) meets both the company’s needs/constraints and the users’ needs/desires”. That alone would build back some credibility and trust.
@dave @Kidsandliz I am one of the silent ones, a lurker I guess. But here I am, expressing my disappointment in a decision by a company whose very name implies it couldn’t give a damn. I was one of the many former Woot followers that quit Woot because of it’s “Sell-out”. Meh sucked me in with the possibility of returning what I believed to be the roots of what made Woot special in its early days. Alas, this appears to be the end of that promising illusion, all good things must end. I ended my $5 monthly membership and am much less drawn to my daily routine of checking Meh and, they could care less which only confirms my decision that it is time to kick the can down the road, though I will hang on for a bit longer on the “hail Mary” chance Meh actually does value it’s customer base, but I am not betting the farm…
@Kidsandliz
Damned good stuff! Thanks.
@f00l You are welcome although it may be on deaf ears. Oops on my typos. I just caught a few more.
@Kidsandliz
I use a mobile swipe KB. So my life is normally one huge walking typo/error.
@InnocuousFarmer Good GOD dude. You’re acting like they built a fence across your yard. Shop elsewhere and cancel any memberships if it’s literally THAT important to you. He’s not running for office; he owes you nothing. This sort of long winded analysis critical of personhood and morals should be reserved for far greater causes
@brandon Hey there. I think you meant to write that reply to someone else. But, maybe don’t? Yelling at people because they’re yelling is… still yelling.
@dave @speediedelivery I’m pretty sure the response was not considered, because it doesn’t matter to those making the decisions.
@InnocuousFarmer based on the comment I am pretty sure he meant to trash me. Shrug.
@InnocuousFarmer yes sorry, though I disagree on resonance. At present it’s an echo chamber of praise for @Kidsandliz declaring a representive vote is deserved based upon seniority and amount-of-cared’ness over someone else’s business
@brandon Sure, but you can’t change other people’s opinions via brute force, especially not when they care about something, and when they’re strangers on the Internet. (This is borrowed from a larger private rant I have about social media and/or propaganda in general.)
If you wanted to, your best bet would be reframing the story to help people believe that they did not, in fact, care about the thing they thought they cared about. But, that probably wouldn’t work either, and only could work to the extent that you could speak from within their existing point of view.
Que sera, sera.
@brandon Representative vote? Seniority??? That has nothing to do with what I wrote. Nor does “amount-of-cared’ness over someone else’s business”. I was commenting on why people might be upset based on norms the company had encouraged and supported in its community and then violated by how they did what they did. We all know a business can do what ever it pleases as long as it is legal. And that includes imploding something they set up, regardless of how others value it (or not) and regardless of who or how many they upset by doing that. Their right. Their choice. And then their problem (or not) with whatever consequences follow their actions.
@Barney @dave @snapster You beat me to that question by a full day. I’ve got to get here earlier.
@Kidsandliz Brava!
@magic_cave Once bit, twice shy, huh?
@Barney Pretty much, yes, indeed.
I’m out of the loop. What are the home page problems?
@jrwofuga The click face calendar is gone and people are having hissy fits.
@jrwofuga @sammydog01 Wait seriously? Is that what this entire thread of disappointment is about? Do people not have lives in which they can experience real live disappointment and complain about that?
@patti Exactly the reason to not have to be disappointed here. See my response below to haydesigner.
@patti
Real communities - even communities that built themselves over apparent trivialities and frivolities - still have morally and culturally valuable norms. Violating those norms can still be a serious issue. These acts can sometimes break the communities.
IE
Peoplecome here daily not to buy stuff per se, tho most of us consider the product.
We come here because we love the place. And because we love and trust the communities and the company.
If the company or community acts in a way to appear to threaten to destroy that fragile trust that binds us together, they risk destroying the loyalty and joy that are the social and cultural glue.
And all that trust has, even in the biz school sense of things, “tangible economic value” as well as social value.
We all have lives. We all know what real tragedy and trouble are. We can go back to those; or seek other places for our daily doses of apart-from-real-life-social-pleasures.
Trust bonds are often clustered as much around the nearly-invisible choices as around the deliberate.
It could be that Meh is no longer much of an intrinsic portion of the visible corporate focus and energy. Perhaps it’s served its purpose, and is now just barely a side hobby for mediocre.
Or this could just be an accidental cultural miscalculation.
Dunno.
@f00l OR there’s a general plateau in any COMMERCIAL brand growth that needs to be understood. Not every athlete answers letters for 50 years
@brandon
It’s kinda obvious that Meh was always a special purpose site.
I don’t know the innards of the biz. But I always gathered that the bulk of the activity, growth, profit come from MorningSave and from invisible-to-us wholesale b2b connections and behind-the-scenes fulfillment and logistics stuff unrelated to or barely related to Meh.
@f00l ok and? He hasn’t rolled out anything new or ripped down the site tenants. He’s using meh at times to be the over ventures’ garage sale. And a calendar thingy went away. I’m sorry for everyone’s loss. This feels like people lashing out that an accessible item in their life that didn’t live up to their hopes needs to be ripped on versus being… an occasional joy? Idk, he didn’t ask for people to give more than their attention, confidence in products being semi ok and added a comment section. It’s not what it used to be but it was only something, possibly, because it was new and self effacing. Idk, it’s not like @Dave asked to be a role model, as the old phrase goes
@brandon It would appear, based on the fact that he is the only one who has responded, that @Dave has been designated as the company point person for this. I am not sure where “role model” came from.
And I think you miss the point. The company spent considerable time,effort and human resources building a forum community. Then how they did what they felt they needed to do violated the very community norms they had set up by past behavior. That pissed a number of people off. Especially since there was no explanation. Do they owe anyone an explanation. Technically of course not. The catch for them is that with oh shit reports and other “explanation” posts (for example the demise of VMP, the tooth brush saga, etc.) they set up a norm for explanations and that didn’t happen in this case.
Of course, as a number of people have noted, myself included, it is a company’s right to do whatever they want regardless of the reaction of those affected by those choices. It is, however, not always wise to operate that way.
@dave, I sympathize with you having to provide vague, not-very-helpful responses, but damn, dude, this was such an unexpected, out-of-the-blue change, with no notice, no warning (and obviously no request for feedback from us!) You might have awesome things planned for the future, but how hard would it be to throw us (back) a freaking bone?? Seriously, no one seems to be on board with your new tweaks.
LEGOS! EGGOS! STRATEGO! AWESOME!
@cbl_wv damn right!!
The topic bubble gif for this thread alone gets a star. I like it!
I’m not dismissing people’s concerns, but… isn’t this really not worth getting worked up about? I mean, in the grand scheme of things, there are WAY more important thing in our individual lives.
Right?
@haydesigner That’s exactly why people are worked up about it. Most of us deal with plenty of bullshit in our lives. To alleviate that bullshit we come to meh for some entertainment. When they take away one of the things that was integral to our entertainment, it’s disappointing. Not responding to all the complaints or finally responding with a convoluted reply that doesn’t address our concerns is simply taking that knife in our backs and giving it a good hard twist.
@cinoclav @haydesigner well said! Maintaining my meh streak sometimes felt like the only thing keeping me out of that downward spiral…to despair. It was one of the only things purely in my control; if i failed to click/verify, my bad. But when I remembered, and looked at that glorious calendar filling in day after day, I got a sense of accomplishment.
I do understand your hesitation to speak up @Dave and thank you for this small bone (TWSS) but it just feels like a huge fuck you guys, we’re going home and taking our toys coz we don’t wanna play with you anymore.
@cinoclav @haydesigner.
Or maybe for those of us with Oldtimer’s, who could swear we checked and clicked evey day, but would miss a day and have to start ALL OVER again (I think 78 days was my record), it was irritating to see.
I get the feeling that there were few people that had those long streaks, and more of us that kept getting frustrated at seeing a reminder of our forgetfulness.
But there should have been some notification about the changes.
@llangley
Well, it’s more like “my ball, my rules”. You can still play the game, but be prepared for the rules to change as the game plays out.
@llangley @ruouttaurmind But the catch is that the community that was painstakingly built has norms, a past history with explaining decisions… and they are being violated. So yes, technically, you are correct with respect to “my balls my rules” but then why bother to build a community if you are just going to thumb your nose at it? Better, in my opinion, to deal with changes in a way that respects the community they built. Of course nobody died and made any of us king…
@Kidsandliz Dunno. I guess ultimately, it’s a business. As I understand it, the community was built with the goal of contributing to the bottom line. In support of that goal, they change the rules of the game as their inspiration strikes.
Sometimes I am at a loss to understand why, sometimes I understand why but I’m not a fan, sometimes I look back at changes gone by and smirk. But always I understand it’s their ball, their rules, and the rules are subject to change at any time.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Its also possible tracking visits violated cookies disclosures and it wasn’t worth confirming every person’s willingness, especially in different places, for an Easter egg
@Kidsandliz 100% true. Which is why when you leverage a community in order to grow your business and then proceed to prioritize decisions that hurt said community, they proceed to voice their displeasure.
Sometimes people deeply value the communities to which they choose to belong. Sometimes this is important. For business reasons.
@dvermilion @Kidsandliz True, except that Meh is not the cash cow of Mediocre. That’s Morningsave and if you check the forums you will notice a major difference. Meh exists not to make a profit but because Snapster likes us. When we stop doing that we will stop existing. And I don’t think we’re entertaining him now.
@Kidsandliz @sammydog01
Interesting insight (I don’t touch Mediocre Labs beyond Meh), but as far as I’m concerned the point still stands: if Meh is operating at a loss, the dipshit who maintained the green light for the past 5+ years should fire themselves; if Meh has managed (and continues) to generate a profit, whatever dipshit is currently jeopardizing said profit by pissing off the community should also promptly fire themselves.
Full disclosure: I’ve been accused of being overly pragmatic in the past.
@dvermilion @Kidsandliz @sammydog01
My take is that companies are complex beasts, just as people are.
Some probs that look like utter disasters: companies just ride thru and do fine in the end.
Some probs that look tiny and trivial turn out to be monstrous and horrible. And then can snowball from there.
/giphy “no telling which”
@dvermilion If you sold your first business for $110 million your perspective might be different. Or maybe not, I don’t know.
Woah! It IS gone. It seems like such a weird reason to finally cancel VMP but I guess it’s the nail in the coffin. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Do I hold on? For what?
@5665150 @Dave I’m setting a calendar event for the day before my membership renews and if the calendar isn’t back or something better in it’s place I’m canceling and I’ll never be back to any of the sites.
@5665150 @dave @espotoaster I think this is what they want. VMPs are probably not the real profit center. In fact, some of us may be a net loss. New or occasional customers (who pay for shipping each order) are likely where the main gains are.
Out with the old, so to speak…
@shahnm I doubt meh is much of a profit center at all… based on past snapster posts. Now if Steve Harvey lost his TV show… who knows, maybe meh might increase in its importance. I was under the impression that other sites were more or less subsidizing some of meh.
@shahnm PS those who pay for VMP and then don’t buy 12 things a year are a profit center for them. Grant you it is likely at the level of rounding error, but still those folks wouldn’t be a loss to meh.
@Kidsandliz @shahnm @dave I’m sad about all of this.
@Kidsandliz @shahnm I’m in that category. I need to cancel.
“Disappointed in meh”
Isn’t that kind of the idea haha
I’m aware I’m A) not nearly as involved as the rest of the Meh community and B ) really swimming against the tide here, but while it did amuse me, I actually occasionally found the click-calendar stressful. I’m finally admitting to myself (and everyone here!) that a large part of my choosing to change phone plans was better connectivity so I could get my daily click in while on vacation (I switched to Project FI and HF guys, way cheaper and better than T-Mo in the areas I travel to).
Then, I’d see something that would make me think “Hey, I kinda like that, I should think about that” AND NOT CLICK. The day I realized I’d ended my 197-day streak because I’d simply forgotten to go back wasn’t soul-crushing, but it did start my day on a demoralized note.
So, sorry (to see it go) not sorry (to see it go).
@LinnE I get what you’re saying because I’m feeling it too to an extent. I miss the streak but I’m so forgetful and busy some days I would realize at 1101 that I hadn’t checked yet and now it’s too late. I’ve hit, broken, and had to restart my streak about 15 times and I’m still at 60-something. I’m ocd enough that when I forget to click, it ruins my day.
@ivannabc @LinnE I have a click face streak of just over 4.3 years, and I too have planned how to keep it going during vacations. That gives me very mixed feelings.
@ivannabc @LinnE @sammydog01 The last 5 years I’ve taken a ski trip every winter that’s taken me out of the United States. Three to Canada and two to Europe. One of the first things I’ve done is check to see if where we’re going to stay has wifi as otherwise I have no need for an international data plan for a week or two. My three concerns have been the ability to text back home in case of any issues, having access to my email so I don’t return to 1000+ messages to go through, and being able to click that face as it gives me personal satisfaction to keep my streak going. To note: “cinoclav clicked the meh button 1883 times, 1633 days in a row, with a longest streak of 1633 days in a row” That’s 4.47 years in a row I’ve clicked that button, though I know I clicked it that one missed day 1634 days ago and the site obviously glitched and didn’t count it.
@cinoclav @ivannabc @LinnE @sammydog01 weird flex(es), but ok
i’m just jealous ;{ could never go far beyond a month. weekends always ruined it for me, but i liked the culture around it; it provided me with a sort of cognitive anchor.
Look guys, I get that you like the click face calendar. I like it too. But maybe go look at the IRK reveal page and check out the stuff they just sent out for five bucks. And go look at the Schroedinger’s Club page- they printed t-shirts and bags and had coins minted for us. THEY HAD COINS MINTED FOR US! So maybe roll back the anger a bit? What has Meh done for us lately? A bunch.
@sammydog01 I think the
outragecommentsoutrage is because it was fine all along. It didn’t seem like its elimination was necessary at all.@sammydog01 I didn’t get an IRK. I didn’t get no T-shirt either.
@narfcake @sammydog01 Not to mention, the IRKs and the Quip issue/reward only affect a small number of users here. While 1000 IRKs seems like a a lot, there are many more users who didn’t get them. There’s also the large group of us who never ordered a Quip but actually bought the Schrödinger’s kit out of curiosity. I’m genuinely shocked while at the same time pleased at how many users have spoken up for the first time because of this.
Just to note, my IRK is STILL processing.
@therealjrn You had to pay for the toothbrush t-shirt. Cheapskate.
@sammydog01 I prefer “frugal”
@sammydog01 IRK reveal? Quip? Schrodinger? I’m paying $5/month for things I don’t even know about? Story of my life…
@LinnE @sammydog01 Yeah, well, you’re not alone on that “a day late and a dollar short” thing (as my mother used to tell me frequently). I would really have liked the Shrodinger things.
@LinnE yeah that coin was really, really nice.
@LinnE you and me both. First I’m hearing of this
maybe I should check my email more often?
Mehbe they need to institute an “Utlra Mehmber” landing page where for an additional $2.99 a month you can be greeted with your very own click-face calendar.
@therealjrn Make it a buck and I’m in!
@sammydog01 @therealjrn I’m already paying a fiver every month and haven’t ordered anything from the daily sale in months. For me (and I suspect a large percentage of OG VMPs) I’m paying for free shipping I’m not taking advantage of. Paying more for clicky faces isn’t going to happen.
@ruouttaurmind @therealjrn I think your sarcasm detector is busted. Might want to take it in for an overhaul.
@sammydog01 Ya, it’s the missing clicky face calendar and stats. Up is down, left is right, dogs and cats living together… it’s a brave new world.
In defense of clicky-face calendars:
Here is a portion of a private note that went to one of TPTB last night.
(thru a whisper; don’t have email addresses or similar)
Your response as given is a frustrating one.
Sort of uses a lot of words to tell us nothing while suggesting much that is very vague and possibly will never have any meaning to us.
…
(Altho the silence from MGMT before now has contributed to the hard feelings)
About the clicky-faces and the loss of the calendar:
Without having any idea what else you might have in mind going forward, or what technical or other problems your might have with that calendar, I think this is a clear business and culture decision-error.
First off, mgmt has gotten a clear and universal negative response. A strong negative response. And people aren’t letting go of the issue for whatever reason.
Which leads me to wonder WTF you might have in mind that is worth all that. I’m having trouble imagining that whatever you intend to offer will compensate “public opinion” here.
(Since you are a biz, public opinion matters, I suppose)
What can you offer (thinking in biz terms if that is all that matters) that will cover not only the loss of something that people love, but also will compensate for the bad feelings that resulted when the feature was taken away without explanation?
So, questionable decision.
Second, if there are tech-related reasons (code probs, server load, etc), it would have paid to say so.
People would have been much more forgiving.
Practically speaking, that bought-by-explanation tolerance is worth something.
Third, because of those clicky-faces - and only because of them - you had one of the most charming homepages imaginable.
Yes, the rest of the stuff you have is good. It has charm.
But frankly, I barely care about any of it.
The polls? Whatever. They’re good.
The sources of visitors? I never look.
The videos? I am usually or often not watching, tho they are also v good.
The write-ups? V nice, but I am short on time and often I just glance.
Sales stats? I like the map v much.
The final photos? When I remember, I look. Nice.
The clicky-faces? Esp the calendar at the bottom?
FUCKING AWESOME. Amazing. Unique. I’m in love with them.
And now it’s gone. I loved it. We loved it. Gone.
No explanation. And that actually hurts some.
…
Is taking that away a good biz decision?
Would not seem so to me but i don’t own the biz.
And I think the community also had the trust that you all would not destroy something we all loved without a bit more communication.
And that also hurts some.
But I wish you had not done this at all, and I wish you had not done this in that way.
*[Note: The profile page still doesn’t always load properly in Mobile, fwiw. I tried to load mine 4 times today
iOS. Firefox and Safari
Each time was a failure. The page kept infinitely “refreshing” without ever completely loading.
I never got to see what it said.]
Not that I care about that re the clicky-faces. I don’t!
The homepage is the right place for the faces.
So that one sees them instantly, every time. No click-thrus to get to stats.
More reasons given below. But … Interesting that the site offered a potentially non-functional “substitute”.
But don’t get side-tracked!!!
Don’t offer a functional profile on mobile in exchange for the loss of the face calendars.
Please no.
If you do that, you take don’t understand the emotional and cultural value.
Last discursive response to the change that I wanna bring up right now:
The clicky-faces are, to me, a rather serious and very successful form of light-hearted art. They contain more serious and notable wit that most things I encounter when I seek wit and brevity.
Having the calendar at the bottom not only gave us the means to instantly see our streaks and to either be happy, or to moan over them;
they gave us a chance to appreciate the amazing and beautiful creativity over time.
Visually, these calendars full of faces were - easily - the best and finest things (visual things) on the site.
The faces are intellectually beautiful. The calendar itself was a visual form of wit. I was always sightly upset that therevwas no easy way to go back and look at previous faces from all the years all in one place. They are very wonderful.
And that’s why people loved it so. It was so very special.
And now we do get to see the daily face, if we click.
And then it’s gone.
And we can’t see them together, which makes them so much more wonderful.
And we can’t associate them with our streaks, which personalized the (emotional) connection the faces make with us!!!
And some art we love is beyond our reach.
So…
I hope you continue to communicate.
…
And I hope you being the faces and the calendar back.
And I hope you make a way for us to see all the faces, because they are wonderful.
And I hope much public honor goes to the designer.
And I hope you all retain good connections to your members, and good communication and response with us.
(Aside:
FWIW, the biz uses professional communicators every day. And you’ve been in biz one way or another for a long time.
Surely you have resources to deal with how to approach the public presentation of whatever you plan to do? Right? … Right?)
I do wish you (and all of you) the best.
Back to the public present:
Many people have given cogent reasons for why they loved the faces and the calendar and the homepage as they were.
Those are my reasons. Perhaps worth something.
I use lots of words, but my reasons are similar to, and less pithily expressed, than those given by others in 10 words or less:
I had a big connection to the calendar and the faces. They symbolized In some small way, the emotional tie to community, and the bond to the biz, for me.
This biz created these special, beautiful faces, just for us!
That’s how I felt when first I began to love them, back at the beginning.
This is the song that came into my mind when the clicky-face calendar vanished.
Ah well.
I believe, as @shrdlu has mentioned:
"Everything changes. Everything."
@f00l If you look closely into your monitor you might actually be able to see me standing to applaud you for the best response and explanation I’ve read on this far. Until you wrote this, I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed just looking at the calendar and enjoying the creativity and humor each day’s image added to a surprisingly pleasing mosaic. Thank you.
@magic_cave
Hey now.
That clicky-face calendar is (or was) the best!
So awesome.
OWLS! TOWELS! JOWLS! AWESOME!
This is the part of the breakup where meh says: “It’s not you, it’s me.”
@therealjrn
no no no
they say
It’s not you, it’s meh
@Cerridwyn I can’t believe I missed that!
@therealjrn
/
Couldn’t have said it better!!
@Shrdlu
Fucking awesome.
EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!
@mediocrebot no, not everything, or this thread wouldn’t exist.
Picked my way through the “explanation” twice. When you cut out all the double talk and vague grandiose allusions, it boils down to :
We had to destroy Meh to save it.
Would you say that your recent experience on the site has been… mediocre?
@MrGlass No, but I hope that one day, perhaps in a far distant future, it may rise to that level.
@MrGlass Less than mediocre. Disappointing, actually.
What I can’t figure out is why they even custom-design a new Meh face for each sale if they won’t let you easily review them. Maybe that’s what dave meant by "things that may or may not happen, which could lead to more disappointment." Perhaps the daily unique meh faces are going away. If so, that would be a shame. Not world shattering but a shame nonetheless.
@squishybrain That’s such a good point that it scares the shit out of me.
@squishybrain
Have long wondered this.
Kept hoping they would figure out some means to make the past ones all visible, easily, in one or a few clicks.
Still hope they do that.
@f00l I don’t know if this has current meh faces, courtesy of @lichme, although I think I see the one from the recent Breathalyzer. At any rate, it’s fun to watch:
http://www.mehstalker.com/mehtrix.php
@f00l @heartny @lichme Goodness, that’s gorgeous. Meh is nuts!
Add me to the disappointed crowd. I don’t get around the forums a ton, but I lurk and throw my two cents in every once in a while. As ridiculous as it sounds, the click streak and calendar were the primary things keeping me returning to check in the site (almost) daily. Pop in, click the button, occasionally buy whatever was on sale that day, skip forum post titles for anything that pops out at me. With the changes I probably won’t bother checking in much anymore.
I will likely end up canceling my 4+ year old VMP membership, too. I maintained it not because I was ordering stuff frequently and it made financial sense, but because it was a cheap, silly thing. And though I realize Meh/Mediocre is a business, it made me feel like I helped support the silliness, traditions and sense of community that was lost when Woot got flushed down the commode.
Other comments talk about community norms and values. As menial, ridiculous or trivial as they might seem, they’re real and can function as a little stability in this crazy world; an anchor ever so small on the rough seas of life. The anchor rope has been frayed or even cut, so to speak, with no meaningful explanation. And though Meh is under no legal obligation to provide said explanation, it is something which has also become precedent in this community.
Though the community may have grown and evolved beyond the plans and expectations for it, you still have to respect it. You can’t pull the rug out from under peoples’ feet with no explanation and not expect backlash. Not around here.
My own reason for being upset about the change is somewhat specific to me: I’m worried that meh.com will just go . . . away, as deals.woot.com did. I’m several years past the age to collect Social Security, I’m increasingly unable to leave my house because of arthritis and back pain, I have few family members, and I don’t do social media. Fortunately, all of you here have provided me with an erudite, witty, caring, strange as hell, compassionate, generous and entertaining circle of net-friends. I’m constantly buoyed up by what mehicans can do and have done to care for our own and others. I’ve now forgotten his name, but one of us was dreadfully injured several years ago and hospitalized for quite a while. We provided more than just emotional support for him and his wife. When one of us has learned of a Good Cause (kiva.org and donorschoose.org, for instance) we do what we can when we can to make our part of the world a better place. As weird as it may sound, I actually feel honored to be a part of all this.
That’s why this change, which can appear to be very small and inconsequential to some, makes me feel sad and trepidatious. But as I said at the beginning, that’s probably just my own reason.
@magic_cave I believe you’re talking about @Pavlov.
@cinoclav @Pavlov Thank you! That is indeed the person I was thinking of.
@magic_cave No problem. And I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said. I’ve had enough jobs in my life where you just get that gut instinct that something is off kilter. Before you know it, they’re locking the doors on you. This situation has that feeling about it, especially considering the lack of honest communication.
To quote IRK:
I agree that meh should let us know why the faces are gone. I mean, was that a really expensive calculation or something? We have other settings… why not hide Face Calendar from all but those who go looking to turn it on? Why not have an easter egg setting… maybe a cookie we set on the console or something?
But yeah, at least tell us why.
That said, the info’s still there, on your profile page, which means…*
If that happened, would it make things meh-er?
*If there’s a better source for this info than screen-scraping your profile, like a json feed somewhere, tell me.
For anyone wondering, you can view your profile and if you click on the ‘filters’ icon, you can select just the meh clicks. Not quite a calendar visualization, but you can see some number of your past clicks. Didn’t look to see how far back it goes, but it probably doesn’t go back to your streak start for the 1K+ club.
@mike808 yeah that’s where the picture came from. Looks like at least a month or so?
Did the calendar go back more than the current month?
@mike808 @stinks The calendar only displayed the current month, whereas your profile shows activity for the last 30 days.
And if you miss a meh click, your profile doesn’t have a gaping empty spot showing what you missed.
@lljk @mike808
An extension would fix that, and put it back on the front page.
And if the front page was just the current month (which is what I remembered), then we’ve got all the tools we need to make one [an extension, that is].
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@stinks
OMG that’s cool
Except it prob would not work on mobile.
WTF. The profile page (mine anyway) usually didn’t work on mobile.
I click to it sometimes for grins:. just to watch the page not load.
/giphy loading …
Enough has been said by many voicing their reasons for their displeasure and I would like to add my voice to the list. I don’t see myself visiting daily any more to see the deals and occasionally purchase something.
This is as bad as when Woot screwed up the monkey email.
Can only second all this. The absolute, single primary driver for my visits is the click streak count. My office mate said “What do you get for it?” Nothing. “Then why do you do it?” Reply: “I DON’T KNOW BUT I WANT IT BACK.” We all have those games we play, first thing in the morning, open the chests, get the day’s free goodies, whatever. Clicking Meh is part of that routine for me. Today, I scrolled down to see if I should berate myself for missing a day…but couldn’t find it. (I think my longest streak was 301 days…)
I feel like a small part of my world died! Heh. I’ll give it a bit for Meh to bring it back. If they don’t, well, they’ve lessened my morning load and I can get to work 60 seconds sooner.
@CaptainPalapa Aha! Now I can confirm it. From my profile:
Meh used to hire staffers in Vietnam who would manually put together your meh calendars for you each time you logged on.
Many of those workers died from exhaustion during the last mehrathon.
It became too expensive to hire Vietnamese workers who could do the work quick enough to satisfy users. They started demanding unreasonable things like, a living wage, medical coverage, and time to sleep.
@OnionSoup
Those workers minded dying for the cause of the clicky-face gave calendar?
Or they wanted more pay?
What? Didn’t they have any sense of honor and service?
/giphy service
I’m tired of coming and having to click through multiple pages to ensure I’m not about to break my seven-day max streak.
I don’t know what motivated this change, but I’d say it’s obvious you’ve made an error. I’ll check back in a week to see if it’s been reversed, until then I’m out.
@Asviloka You’d better check earlier! It’s back but only to those with a 7 day or longer streak. If you wait or will be gone
I’m a director of interactive marketing at an ad agency. We’ll be using Meh as a case study in how to blow everything while getting literally nothing in return.
@aaronshupp
Yeah we don’t like it. But …
/giphy Now, now.
@aaronshupp Hey, Interactive Marketing was what I was looking at getting into from college. Well, that and Transmedia Storytelling. Unfortunately my school didn’t have the right path, classes or professors to get into it.
What projects have you done?
My calendar is back.
@sammydog01 Mine is back, too. When Meh took it away, it made me fell as though I was just some random passer-by clicker instead of a VMP member with a Meh face click streak of almost 5 years and a multitude of purchases, plus I’ve agreed to give Meh personal data and daily statistics that have been useful in growing the Mediocre business. It made me feel unappreciated. Thanks for bringing it back, Meh. It “matters” to quite a few dedicated members. Are we worth keeping it?
Meh is dead, cancel everything. The click face calendar fiasco was the last nail in the coffin. There’s no coming back from it.
@ThomasF I guess you’re fired.
@Barney Yeah, bad taste, just really feeling the gallows humor today.
@ThomasF
Are you dead perhaps?
Hope not.
@f00l Perhaps I was dead all along and what remains is but the dream of some unknowable slumbering god.
@ThomasF
Ah.
Your “existence dream” need to be part of a Star-Trek ep then.
/giphy “existence dream”
Thanks v much. Totally appreciated.
Better comm next time perhaps?
/giphy “meh clicky-face”
@f00l
Damn. Often /giphy outdoes anything I could ever imagine.
/giphy “great giphy!”
/giphy still alive
@tnhillbillygal
/giphy stayin’ alive
