I'm tired of looking at bot posts.
16I hate the @wootstalkerbot posts.
Crucify me if you must, but I think they clutter the forum and don’t belong here. It would be one thing if the forums over at Woot were shut down, but they’re still alive and kicking. There’s no need for the deals to be auto-posted on meh. If a human feels that the alert needs to be put out for other deal seekers, that’s fine, but unsolicited bot postings are annoying and unnecessary.
Furthermore, the fact that when I check meh every morning, seeing mentions of Woot on the main page of meh.com seems troubling. This morning there were three mentions of Woot in the “community section” of the main page. Why would meh want to drive traffic to another company (especially a company they used to own/run)?
I’m aware that a lot of the community that hangs out here came from Woot. And that’s awesome. All are welcome, people are loyal, anything goes, yadda yadda. I was a lurker over there, too. I like the way these forums have a wild west kind of feel, but maybe we can put the Woot stuff in it’s own corner of the site?
Plus @mediocrebot is so much cooler than @wootstalkerbot.
- 12 comments, 25 replies
- Comment
Is ANY thread solicited really?
Also, @wootstalkerbot is not brought to you by the same source as @mediocrebot, so…
I’m well aware of that. I was trying to put a lighthearted spin on the end of a rant. I am also aware that neither of those things are actual robots and that they are just lines of code on a computer somewhere AND that they don’t have the ability to appear “cool” or “uncool” in case you were wondering.
@Willijs3 I’m not certain from this exchange and I’d like future readers to know: Meh/Mediocre is not responsible for @wootstalkerbot. (though we supported the idea)
Non-usage would be the main reason to not continue it. Otherwise, it is deemed of interest.
I agreed on principle it would be a best starting place for a consistent source of third party daily deals to discuss, in addition to the Meh deal.
I think an off-site-deals category of the forum was a desired next step, though we might start with that option turned on for all new users. That might create the corner you want to put it in.
@snapster
Or, you could, you know, let us have deals.meh.com.
And yes, I know that you didn’t like that whole idea when it came to Woot.
@PlacidPenguin If/when we create a deals site, we wouldn’t hide it behind meh as a subdomain. Maybe that’s what you’re saying I didn’t like.
@snapster They may not be utilized that much, but I like them to read discussions about products when people here want to talk about them. The woot-off ones are good too. Let them stay. They don’t take up much space. It would be nice if they gave a listing of each main product of the day - not just the wOOt tab one. Then I wouldn’t have to stop at wOOt at all unless I wanted to buy something.
@mfladd
Or you could just complain to @lichme.
Maybe putting them in a corner isn’t the best option because the threads are actually used. And they are able to keep the traffic here at Meh instead of other sites. Anything to get those clicks, really.
A tagging/filtering system could work, but then staff would have a bitch of a time moderating the forum trying to pigeonhole or move posts that don’t fit the rubric. And someone who is already busy would have to create and code the system. But it would let users filter what they want/don’t want to see.
I guess the thing that really irritates me is that the posts are made by a bot. To me, it’s no different than the spam bots we see from time to time. If the posts were put there by a human who was genuinely interested in spreading the content, I would be much more acquiescent.
@Willijs3
Counterpoint/another way of looking at things: that’s actually exactly what’s happening, there’s just an additional layer. A typical spam bot is not in any way vetted, is posting for some direct financial gain, and is ultimately thus just some random stranger shouting out “HERE’S A THING YOU CAN BUY, BUY IT, YOU SHOULD BUY IT!!”
(AFAIK): The woot bot is just @lichme’s project, and lich does not make money off of it. Woot did not say ‘hey, we should just go spam the meh folks with our products’ and make a bot. It’s one independent person doing a thing that they thought had value to a community which has a large overlap between the two sites. Which is point two - woot isn’t some random fly-by-night that nobody here has heard of. At the very least, it’s vetted to the point where folks here understand it’s a legit business. Beyond the very least, a lot of users here came from woot, and/or are still active with woot. The genuine interest is that lich was genuinely interested in building a contraption to share woot deals with us. Even though it’s ultimately a bot, I think it’s considerably more personal than some random
spam.sh.I personally haven’t set foot in the woot threads over here, but I just ignore them and don’t worry about it. I actually think it says a lot about @snapster and the attitude here that it’s allowed. It’s not a whole deals.woot situation, but we’re allowed to talk about other shopping sites and compare notes and prices, and I think that’s really a selling point. People don’t shy away from putting it out there that there might be a better deal (or just a better product) than what’s on meh any given day, and I think that all plays together. I like that the atmosphere here allows and even welcomes that conversation.
@brhfl
Wootstalkerbot links use his affiliate links so there is some money to be made, but it was all OK’d by the powers that be…in fact somewhat suggested.
@Ignorant Makes sense, thanks for the correction.
The alive part is debatable. As a vol.mod to both, there have been times in which I’ve deleted more spam over here than there. Also there are things that can be said over here that cannot be said over there. Post “this is a piece of shit” over there without any backup, and it will probably be deleted. Post “this is a piece of shit” over here, and you’ll probably get a star.
A lot of us here are/were Wooters, not to mention a good number of Mediocre employees were Woot employees, so there’s still a huge connection between here and there.
As the subject lines are consistent, I hope it’ll be easy enough for you to simply ignore these topics.
Zapped the same amount on each today, so it seems that both have been equally
lovedtargeted last night.I have read a couple of comments in the forum about Wootstalkerbot cluttering the forum and doesn’t “belong”.
I’m curious if there is a similar reaction to the monthly deals topic? TBH, the only real difference between the daily Woot topics and the monthly deal topics is a slash command. Both topics post deals outside the mediocresphere, potentially drawing disposable dollars away from supporting the host of these forums.
So tell me… do the monthly deals topics also clutter the forum?
@ruouttaurmind I think the point that OP is making that they don’t mind when people share topics about deals because it’s something they want to share versus just a random bot spitting out a deal.
If that’s what they mean, then I agree.
@ruouttaurmind
i think the other difference is a monthly deals thread is 12 threads in a year, not 365
I personally agree the wootstalker threads are more annoying than useful, clutter up the front page with spam that has few replies.
sorry, if it were in it’s own sub section, i would honestly never go there
@ruouttaurmind @Cerridwyn
Very much this. If the @wootstalkerbot made it’s daily post in the monthly deals topic, I would be fine with that. I would even be OK with the bot starting the thread because I know that real users would use that thread like they have been.
I get the point. And I normally intensely dislike bot posts and spam posts not native to this site.
But I like that daily woot.bot @lichme posts.
Hope they stay.
@f00l @mfladd, the Woot-off topics are particularly useful and interesting for me. Many who participate in those don’t even bother with the strict, segmented woot->community threads, choosing to play here instead. There are a few who play in both forums, though I cannot begin to imagine how they keep up!
I never go to woot, well, hardly ever. There’s too much shit going on there. I do like seeing the one deal a day thread, and whatever other curated items people pick out to show there.
There are plenty of threads on the forum whose titles don’t interest me, so I just don’t go into them. I can leave them alone all day long with no problem.
Only chiming in because I’m feeling a little defensive for @lichme… I haven’t posted anything at Woot except BOC photos in a very long time. And I don’t visit much since they fired most of the writers. Instead, wootstalker is the 3rd site i look at every morning. Since I’m doing that, the bot posts are mostly redundant, but they don’t bother me at all. If I was going to comment on a Woot sale, I’d probably prefer to do it here. ¢¢
meh
Bots are the best- mediocrebot, wootstalkerbot, monkeybot, I love them all.
@sammydog01 @unclevinny
@sammydog01 @UncleVinny TOTOROBOT
/youtube we are the robots kraftwerk
@thismyusername This bot is better:
@daveinwarsh netflix upgraded it
@thismyusername Haven’t seen the new Lost in Space movie yet. I hope the new robot still waves it’s arms and says “Danger Will Robinson, Danger”.
ps… when I was a kid, I think I had a crush with ‘Penny’ from the show…
@daveinwarsh this is from the netflix series… he does say “danger will robinson”, but they sorta re-worked the script… you really don’t want to be around this one when it’s arms are flailing
@thismyusername I finally got around to watching the first two Lost in Space on Netflix.
Hmmm… haven’t decided if I’ll watch more or not.
@daveinwarsh I am like 5 in? but yea it’s on my pile for later.
@thismyusername
/giphy giggles
@medz
Yeah, seems dumb to me.