ChoiceCheapies Weekly Deal Posting Rewards 2016

scotty on 18/01/2016 - 11:01
Last edited 30/08/2016 - 16:27 by 1 other user

We have been running our monthly posting competition for over a year now. To encourage more participation from the community however, from this week onwards (18 Jan 2016) we will be giving out the same prizes every week instead.

We will be giving out 3 prizes every Monday to the posters of the top 3 deals from the previous week. The prizes will be 1x $50, 1x $25, and 1x $10 which will be paid in PayPal credit, a gift card of your choice, or donated to your favourite charity. From past experience PayPal credit has been the most popular choice and the most convenient method for us.

Here are some rules / terms & conditions:

  • Deals are judged from the number of + votes
  • Moderators and Store representatives are excluded from participating
  • Users resided outside New Zealand are excluded from participating

Update: As of June 2016, the announcement will now be delayed by 1 day (Posted Tuesday am, instead of Monday am) to give deals posted on Sunday an extra day to gather votes.

Update 2: As of 17 August 2016, any user receiving a ban for artificial and/or manipulation of voting will be first disqualified from the competition for 1 month, and if found to be committing this again, will be removed from contention in the future. This goes for not only the weekly competition, but any and all competitions run on this website. Giving back to the community is of huge importance, and we want to be able to continue this well into the future.

Site Discussion

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      • [Deactivated] on 13/07/2016 - 10:45
        +1

        Can we stop warehouse free delivery codes (to a lesser extent), junk food (KFC, Pizza, Burger King) and fuel discounts posts from being eligible for the weekly prize draws? These vouchers come up almost every week, and they have their own Wiki pages already.

        I actually haven't seen any Warehouse Free Delivery Codes for a few weeks, KFC & Burger King coupons come up monthly not every week and I only do a monthly Domino's post. What Wiki pages are there? There was once one for warehouse free delivery codes but it is no longer updated.

        Rarely do free-shipping, junk food, and fuel deals make the front page of HUKD or Ozbargain, so why are they so popular here? The way I see it, these types of posts are the ones that get significant upvotes (in the absence of any other 'real' deals).

        What? I'm not sure about HUKD but here are some examples form OzBargain:

        And it's just a matter of someone catching on and subscribing to newsletters and scrambling to post the deal first.

        Thats how it is with most deals, infact with KFC and Burger King coupons emails aren't sent out. Domino's deals are even harder though.

        It's up to users what wins the weekly draw, you don't have to vote on deals.

        • [Deactivated] on 14/07/2016 - 16:48
          +1

          @Sam91:

          Maybe each new deal could get a brief amount of exposure on the front page.

          Already if a deal reaches 2 or 3 votes quickly it will reach the front page. Also the time in between deals being posted isn't even and sometimes no deals are posted at all for a day. Then if a crappy deal was posted the day before it would be on the front page for a whole day.

        • techhit on 13/07/2016 - 11:44

          No, but it is indicative of the "quality" (Yes, I know that is subjective) of posts here. Like I said, I don't have the answer and can't speak for the shopping habits of what Kiwi shoppers are truly looking of, or whether it's just a general lack of good deals in general. I subscribe to many newsletters that offer a promotions, but given the lack of votes/interest/comments/clicks from the likes of retailers like ComputerLounge, Farmers, Playtech, Toyco, Toy World etc, so I've stopped posting those deals. I can only assume that people aren't interested in these offers.

          The only other types of deals that generate a lot of interest are offers available from overseas stores that ship to NZ, and quite often these are reposts from OzB.

          Like I said… I don't have the answers, and I don't know what can be done to improve the situation. But it's obvious that a relatively small number of users (and the small population of NZ in general) is severely hindering this site's potential. It's not a criticism of the site by any means. It's a great site, and the only one of it's kind here. The posting rewards is a great way of spreading the word through word of mouth, but perhaps we could forego the weekly prize draws and have that money directed towards paid targeted advertising on google ads or facebook etc. Having more users can only be a good thing, which in turn will mean more posts/participation.

        • Sam91 on 13/07/2016 - 13:40

          @techhit:

          I agree, there's definitely some good deals that go unnoticed for whatever reason, so they're not really worth posting.

          In my opinion, there is a lack of voting in the new deals section, so it's down to a few users whether or not your deal escapes. So it's very easy for a good deal to die in there and never get to the front page. Maybe each new deal could get a brief amount of exposure on the front page. Obviously you'd limit it to one new deal on the front page only, and that slot just gets rotated every hour or so. Just an idea : P

        • Sam91 on 14/07/2016 - 17:53

          @ClipIt:

          That's interesting, I didn't know how it works. I just thought it was 4 votes and it reaches the front page. Fair point, I guess you could give each new deal a maximum of an hour, and if there are no new deals, then there's no new deals on the front page. We just need to encourage people to vote for new deals somehow. An example would be this deal. He posted it with 2 hours remaining, by the time it got to the front page it had probably expired.

          There's one thing we can definitely agree on, more people need to vote : )

      • Dunno on 13/07/2016 - 12:57

        It's making people aware of the offers, if people didn't like the junk food posts etc they wouldn't vote for them or have a 100+ page thread on gpforums dedicated to pizza store deals.

        • techhit on 13/07/2016 - 13:50

          It's a gaming forum… Gamers eat shit food (and yes, I'm a gamer too). So what do you expect? A lot of people who have heard about this site are from geekzone/gpforums.

          This site needs to appeal to more than just gamers.

          Do you not understand my point? It's about broadening the user base, and doing more to encourage the diversification of posts.

        • techhit on 13/07/2016 - 17:41

          I'm an avid movie fan and I eat steak

        • [Deactivated] on 13/07/2016 - 14:59
          -1

          @techhit:

          It's a gaming forum… Gamers eat shit food (and yes, I'm a gamer too).

          I'm not a gamer and I eat Pizza

  • scotty on 14/06/2016 - 01:47
    +2

    13 June, 2016

    As Shaw has announced last week, the vote calculation and announcement for our weekly competition is delayed for 24 hours to account for deals that have been posted on Sunday. Those are the winners from last week:

    Congratulations!

  • scotty on 21/06/2016 - 00:45
    +2

    20 June, 2016

    Weekly competition prize announcement — here are the winners:

    Congratulations!

  • scotty on 05/07/2016 - 00:23
    +2

    4 July 2016

    Winners for our weekly competition are:

    1. asmcar for $50 Warehouse Gift Card with Credit Card Application
    2. Wellington for Free Touch Voicemail Pro Lifetime Subscription
    3. ClipIt for 10c/Litre off at AA Smartfuel

    Congratulations!

    • asmcar on 05/07/2016 - 00:30
      +3

      Thanks Scotty,and well done to Wellington and ClipIt too!

      • Wellington on 05/07/2016 - 09:12
        +2

        Thanks all. :)

  • techhit on 12/07/2016 - 08:54
    +2

    First time winning first prize! Thanks!!

    • [Deactivated] on 19/07/2016 - 13:14

      Thanks Scotty! Especially big congrats to asmcar for posting 7 Amazon Prime Day deals this week.

  • Jay on 26/07/2016 - 08:25
    +2

    Thanks CC community for the votes. Thanks also to those who voted after the deal was finished. Most kind of you all.

    My first win, though to be honest, it isn't something I consider when posting a deal. In fact I'd forgotten we'd moved from monthly to weekly comp. I had looked at the top deals for the month wondering if it would possibly sneak into third spot. So was pleasantly surprised at this weekly prize.

    Thanks again all. I just hope these prizes do help us to come together as a community, and not become a source of contention. Peace

    Cheers.

  • scotty on 30/08/2016 - 01:49
    +2

    29 August 2016

    Winners from last week are:

    Congratulations!

    With ClipIt in penalty box temporarily, number of deals has certainly gone down. As stated in the original post that the purpose of our weekly competition is to encourage participation and I certainly do not want to see financial incentive actually hinders contribution. Keep the deals coming!

    • [Deactivated] on 30/08/2016 - 15:59

      Not that may deals at all this week. Really surprised nobody posted the free calls to Italy on Spark / 2Degrees deal though.

    • bigbosssnake on 30/08/2016 - 18:03

      All good! As long as the quality of post is good. =)

  • scotty on 04/10/2016 - 02:52
    +2

    3 October 2016

    3 more months to go for 2016! Winners from last week are:

    Congratulations!

      • scotty on 18/10/2016 - 13:29
        +1

        Winner list updated.

  • scotty on 01/11/2016 - 01:31
    +2

    31 October 2016

    Winner announcement time, and for last week…

    Congratulations!

  • scotty on 15/11/2016 - 01:39
    +2

    14 November 2016

    Winners from last week:

    Congratulations!

  • scotty on 06/12/2016 - 10:36
    +2

    5 December 2016

    Sorry about the late announcement. Here are the winners from last week:

    Congratulations!

    • [Deactivated] on 06/12/2016 - 10:54

      Thanks Scotty!

    • singh on 06/12/2016 - 11:58

      you mean 5 December 2016? lol

  • scotty on 13/12/2016 - 00:36
    +2

    12 December 2016

    Winners last week are:

    Congratulations!

  • scotty on 20/12/2016 - 00:20
    +2

    19 December 2016

    Winners from last week:

    Congratulations!

    • Hamster on 20/12/2016 - 12:00

      Thanks, much appreciated :)

  • Hamster on 15/02/2016 - 20:28
    +1

    Thanks, much appreciated.

  • scotty on 29/02/2016 - 01:24
    +1

    29 Feb, 2016

    These are the winners from last week:

    Congratulations!

  • scotty on 30/05/2016 - 01:32
    +1

    30 May, 2016

    Here is our weekly announcement for last week's deal posting winners:

    1. eXDee for Spotify Family Plan
    2. ClipIt for KFC 5pcs + Reg Chips $9.90
    3. Mark Wasley for Creamy Mayo Cheeseburger $1.50 @ Burger King

    Cheap food & cheap music — what else do you need? Congratulations!

  • scotty on 28/06/2016 - 00:28
    +1

    27 June, 2016

    Last competition announcement for the first half of this year — here are the winners:

    Congratulations — especially to CLlipIt for grabbing all the most voted bargains last week and for winning every week this month.

    • [Deactivated] on 28/06/2016 - 06:13

      Thanks scotty! Not many good bargains last week hoping to see some better one's this week.

  • scotty on 12/07/2016 - 01:32
    +1

    11 July 2016

    Winners for our weekly competition are:

    Congratulations!

    • coolstorybro on 13/07/2016 - 23:18
      +1

      Thanks Scotty! Congrats to Techhit & zajnic!

      • zajnic on 14/07/2016 - 22:07
        +2

        Thank you and Congrats too!

  • scotty on 02/08/2016 - 01:46
    +1

    1 August 2016

    Winners are:

    Congratulations!

  • scotty on 16/08/2016 - 00:30
    +1

    15 August 2016

    Winners from last week are:

    As of Sam91's comment

    It's a shame that one of them decided to strategically revoke their vote…

    Yes deal posting does get competitive sometimes, and often at the cost of community spirit. However in this instance, the other party never voted in the first place so I think the result is still fair.

    • Hamster on 16/08/2016 - 11:17
      +3

      Part of me feels a little bad for Goelamit who got third, because my post about the LED lights from bunnings quite possible split the vote (except for people who voted on both).

      The only reason I posted was because someone in the comments of his post suggested I should, but I didn't want to steal his thunder so to speak as he possibly could have gotten first place.

      Also if it wasn't for him posting his mitre 10 deal I wouldn't have even been aware of the bunnings deal.

    • Jay on 16/08/2016 - 00:40
      +2

      Fair? All depends what your values are I guess. And whether you rate personal integrity over financial reward. Pretty clear, actually.

      • scotty on 16/08/2016 - 00:50

        The rule for the competition is that the deals are judged by their votes. Someone revoked the +1 vote, and another person never voted, so in my opinion the number of votes they received at the end is fair.

        I won't comment on the integrity issue. People are often motivated by financial gains, however we can only speculate from what we have observed, but don't think it's appropriate to make the actual accusation. Moderators will continue to monitor voting patterns.

    • Sam91 on 16/08/2016 - 11:07
      +2

      In the case of 2nd and 3rd you're right. 3rd didn't vote for 2nd, so I guess you could argue it's ok for 2nd to revoke his vote.

      However, 1st vs 2nd had both voted for each other, but one of them revoked their vote in an attempt to win. In the end the revoked vote didn't affect the outcome, so that's good.

      If you've both voted for each other, just leave your votes in place and have a fair competition. It's a flawed attempt anyway, the other user could easily remove their vote as well.

      Reminds me of the TV show "Golden Balls" : P

      • Dunno on 16/08/2016 - 11:35
        +2

        June 6th deal winners the same person revoked a vote to tie for 2nd place, while they have not succeeded this time it appears they did in the past. Maybe if the top 3 prizes were the same value there's less of an incentive to work the system(other than trying to get 3rd).

        With the rate this site is now growing this shouldn't be an issue in a few weeks/months.

        • Jay on 16/08/2016 - 12:42
          +2

          Why have the ability to revoke a vote at all? Or put a time limit on it, as per post editing? Or perhaps make the overall thread voting invisible until after competition results are determined?

          I think it just sours the whole deal. Either this is 'just' a deal-posting site, in which case anything goes.

          Or it is a community with some sense of shared values. This kind of repeated spineless behaviour taints the site with a vulgar selfishness.

          Potentially could cascade in escalating 'strategic' (sic) retaliatory counter-votes blah blah blah. It's just tasteless juvenile nonsense.

        • [Deactivated] on 30/08/2016 - 18:40

          it appears they did in the past.

          Example?

  • scotty on 23/08/2016 - 02:15
    +1

    22 August 2016

    Winners from last week:

    Well done!

    • Mark Wasley on 23/08/2016 - 09:23

      Hi Scotty.

      I thought ClipIt was currently disqualified from the competition due to currently serving a ban for vote manipulation. That member is also in the Penalty Box.

      This would make the "second place" and "third place" deals, first place and second place winners for 22 August 2016, and my deal third most voted.

      Cheers,
      Mark.

      • Kiwi on 23/08/2016 - 09:26
        +3

        Hi Mark,

        In this case, it's a technicality. As the deal was posted before the 17th of August, he was still eligible for the competition. However, were he to post a competition winning deal within 2 weeks after his ban expires, he would not be eligible, as per the new competition rules.

        I have also checked all votes on the winning deal, and removed the ineligible ones. If removing these had reduced the number of votes to below other deals, then the standings would have changed. As it did not, and the number of legitimate votes was still the highest for the week, the result is what it is.

        • Kiwi on 23/08/2016 - 09:41
          +5

          @Mark Wasley:

          We did discuss this at the time, and as in this case the deal still won after the ineligible votes had been removed. With the competition rules the way they were at the time, we couldn't really do much about it.

          Going forward, I will be keeping a much tighter eye on voting patterns and will not hesitate to ban users who think that gaming the system is acceptable.

        • Kiwi on 23/08/2016 - 10:20
          +5

          @asmcar:
          @Jay:

          Cheers for the feedback. I had originally made a slight edit to the competition rules to reflect a competition ban during the first week of a users ban, but upon further reflection, and after taking in your feedback, have retracted this. It also makes sure I'm on my toes keeping an eye on what's going on.

          If anyone does notice any voting they feel is suspicious, please feel free to either PM me or create a private thread in the TWAM forum. Any assistance is appreciated, more eyes are better than 1 pair!

        • Jay on 23/08/2016 - 10:06
          +4

          @Shaw: For what it is worth, agree that the judgement for this week's competition and reasons given are quite sound.

          The boy done wrong, but he has also consistently been a major contributor to this site, and like all others here, worthy of fair and just treatment. #No Witch-hunt required#

          Let's not flay the hide off the chap while he's in timeout. Worth remembering he's just the one who got caught. Not to say others necessarily all have lily-white hands. It's about moving forward, not old testament retribution.

          Afterall, within ethical and community boundaries, 'gaming the system' is arguably the raison d'etre of CCs.

        • asmcar on 23/08/2016 - 10:10
          +3

          Shaw, The decision you have come to seems fair to me, I kept an eye on the voting and worked out that ClipIt had posted his deal prior to being 'In The Penalty Box.

          So fair enough he should be eligible for the prize, as you said, you have checked all votes were legitimate.

        • Hamster on 23/08/2016 - 19:47
          +3

          @Shaw: I guess there is only one option left now…DNA and Biometric testing for each user before their account is activated for voting…its the only way forward…:)

        • Jay on 23/08/2016 - 20:11
          +2

          @Sam91: K.I.S.S. rules!

          More prizes might make it more desirable to cheat as it may be easier to spread the votes across more posts, snaffling several prizes. (That's if the false ID's also post deals, not just vote.)

        • Kiwi on 23/08/2016 - 19:41
          +1

          @Hamster:

          A bit of both. A lot of accounts were created as if they were someone else, using that persons email address etc. But we collect a lot of information, and it's quite easy to pick them out, especially with our relatively small user base.

          It's at a point where if it were to get worse we will be forced to stop the competition.

        • Kiwi on 23/08/2016 - 19:49
          +1

          @Hamster:

          Will have to find a freebie deal for testing kits and set up a lab at Scottys house!

        • Mark Wasley on 23/08/2016 - 09:36

          Cheers Shaw for clarifying that.

          In my opinion, any member should not be eligible to win any prize from ChoiceCheapies, while in the Penalty Box.

          Saying that, that's my opinion and while clearly not that of site management, that decision is respected.

          It is also comforting to know that all votes were legitimate to gain the first prize.

        • Hamster on 23/08/2016 - 19:28

          Just out of interest, when you talk about removing ineligible votes and voter manipulation, in this case is it someone who is family or friend to the original poster that has been removed or the same person has created several accounts pretending to be others in order to increase votes on posts?

        • Sam91 on 23/08/2016 - 19:31

          @Hamster:

          My understanding is it's the latter. The fact that some of the accounts had American flags next to them suggests to me a VPN was used to try disguise it. Only a guess, correct me if I'm wrong.

        • Hamster on 23/08/2016 - 19:38

          @Sam91: I can see how that would start getting tricky to police. I have also noticed a lot of new accounts posting their first post in the last couple weeks, not sure if this is indication of the site growing quite fast recently.

        • Jay on 23/08/2016 - 19:51

          @Sam91: Perhaps instigating minimum comment/posts before member has the right to vote may help? Push comes to shove though, if someone really seriously wants to game it, it would be difficult to detect casually. Especially if several false IDs built over time, each with its own posts/comments etc.

          There are ways to detect this sort of activity (forensic linguistics, sensitising site metrics etc), but it takes more moderator and developer time.

          Keeping the cash prizes moderate helps by making it not worth the effort. (except perhaps to the younger folk) The larger the membership, the harder this gets as the actual number voting increases. Much easier to disrupt a vote tally of 15 than 150.

        • Jay on 23/08/2016 - 19:57

          @Hamster: Now now, that's getting into species bigotry. As I recall, the internet was invented so us dogs could have equal net time to hoomanns.

          Let's not get retrogressive just because you folk can't control your urges to piss on each other's strawberry patch!

        • Sam91 on 23/08/2016 - 20:10

          @Jay:

          I agree with everything you've said. if someone really wants to cheat, they'll find a way.

          Perhaps the best solution is to remove the incentive to cheat. A different prize structure could achieve this, but I guess it ruins it somewhat. I'm not bothered if I win $10, $25, $50 or nothing.

          Could this work?

          1st: $20
          2nd: $15
          3rd: $10
          4th: $10
          5th $10
          6th $10
          7th: $10

          Maximum of 1 prize each person each week.

          It all but removes the incentive to cheat, and at the same time it increases the chances of winning, which should encourage people to post more often.

          I'd prefer lotto to be 20x 1 million rather than 1x 20 million ; )

        • [Deactivated] on 30/08/2016 - 15:49

          @Sam91: I don't think that would work very well. Some weeks there are only a few more than 7 posters who aren't moderators or Store Reps. Perhaps something like:

          1st. $25
          2nd $25
          3rd $25

      • bigbosssnake on 30/08/2016 - 18:02
        +1

        Yeah, sneaky clipit. He or she only votes after 12pm on Mondays when he/she thinks the other deal is a threat to his/her deal listed. We both had a deal with the same number of votes once but I gave an extra vote where I wasn't given one by clipit. Shame, therefore I got 2nd place while my vote made clipit win the first price

        • bigbosssnake on 03/09/2016 - 07:43
          +3

          @ClipIt: neither was i interested in the pizza deals. I just vote

        • Sam91 on 21/09/2016 - 15:31
          +1

          @Shaw:

          When working out the winner, you could remove the votes exchanged between the top deals from the equation. Then the winners will be decided by the community, not by strategic voting. People will just vote willy nilly without a vote possibly affecting their own chances of winning.

        • Sam91 on 21/09/2016 - 16:57
          +1

          @ClipIt:

          True, doesn't mean it's not a problem though. I'm sure there are people tactically holding back their votes for competing deals.

          When I made that suggestion, the main reason was to eliminate the vote revoking problem. I didn't realise that they already include revoked votes in the calculation. That's the main problem gone, so that's good.

        • Jay on 30/08/2016 - 19:34

          Yeah, I think the sad part about all this is that folk are now probably going to be reticent to vote for these posts simply on their merit, feeling that that same collegiate spirit will not be reciprocated for strategic reasons. Will have a lasting effect on the tone of this community.

        • techhit on 21/09/2016 - 14:21

          Yep, I noticed this too. Had the same argument with him a while ago about the GTX 1070s, and he didn't bother upvoting the techworld deal until it expired and didn't bother voting the more recent better deal. Plus he had a bad habit of retracting votes, and when I called him out for it and he had no proper defence, I realised I didn't want to be part of this community that condones this scumbag behaviour.

        • ModeratorKiwi on 21/09/2016 - 14:50

          At the end of the day, this back and forward bickering stems from the financial incentives, right? If these weren't in place, then the voting wouldn't be such a competitive issue, or be capable of causing inflamed discussions. I will have a chat with Scotty regarding removing the weekly voting rewards temporarily and reassess whether this is in fact the best deal for the community as a whole or not. Moving forward we want a healthy balance of community spirit to go along with the incentives, and if the latter is seen as cancelling the former out, it's not serving it's purpose.

          Let's all just chill and start voting for deals in a more rational manner based on how good the individual deal really is, rather than who is posting, and move on. We have already lost at least a couple of long standing members over this, and it's clear that things need to change.

        • ModeratorKiwi on 21/09/2016 - 15:35

          @Sam91:

          Start to run into issues when making it too technical/complicated though, we do already include revoked votes in the final count.

        • [Deactivated] on 21/09/2016 - 16:35

          @Sam91: I don't see why my votes for other deals shouldn't count just because I'm also winning a prize. I often really appreciate another deal and like to recognise it by voting.

          One idea I suggested earlier is to make all the prizes $25.

        • Sam91 on 21/09/2016 - 16:45

          @ClipIt:

          I don't mean all your votes. If you, me and another person finish in the top 3. Our votes for each other get removed to eliminate any "I voted for him but he didn't vote for me" etc.

          I realise it would get tricky though.

        • [Deactivated] on 21/09/2016 - 16:49

          @Sam91:

          to eliminate any "I voted for him but he didn't vote for me" etc.

          haven't seen any of that in the past.

        • [Deactivated] on 30/08/2016 - 18:39
          -3

          Guessing your reffering to this week? I wasn't interested in a printer and haven't purchased one for a while for $20+ ;). I often vote for deals not on Monday but I often check the popular deals page on Monday and might notice deals which I originally I didn't give much attention to.

        • [Deactivated] on 21/09/2016 - 14:33
          -3

          @techhit:

          Had the same argument with him a while ago about the GTX 1070s, and he didn't bother upvoting the techworld deal until it expired and didn't bother voting the more recent better deal.

          There are a number of products that I'm not an expert in, I don't know if it's a good deal or not. I've never purchased a GTX 1070 before and I don't whats a good deal or not. I revoked my vote simply because I found out that there was a better deal elsewhere. Why didn't I vote for the more recent deal? Link to that deal? I either didn't know it was a good deal or not or I was still in the penalty box.

          Plus he had a bad habit of retracting votes

          Some examples? You have retracted votes on at least 5 of my deals.

          I realised I didn't want to be part of this community that condones this scumbag behaviour.

          Why not contribute to this community instead of attacking others who do? I spend a lot of time finding deals for others and if you keep on attacking me I'll just disable my account and stop posting.

    • [Deactivated] on 30/08/2016 - 15:58

      Wasn't expecting to get anything. Cheers, Scotty.

  • Kiwi on 11/10/2016 - 11:44
    +1

    10 October 2016

    Winners from last week are:

    A lot of 4's this week.

    Congratulations!

    • asmcar on 22/11/2016 - 08:16
      +2

      Congrats to all the winners here!

      Scotty (and Shaw who seems to have been particularly active and under fire in the GearBest comments on OZB), thanks for all the work you do to keep the deals coming, obviously it's user contributed but you and the team facilitate the platform and ongoing discussion. Appreciate it!

  • scotty on 27/12/2016 - 00:43
    +1

    26 December 2016

    Here we go, the last weekly comp for the year, and the winners are:

    Congratulations!

    • notso on 27/12/2016 - 09:13
      +2

      Thanks so much! Merry Christmas and happy new year to you all.

  • tkiara on 18/01/2016 - 22:16

    geat competition. Keep up the good work!

  • deladani on 19/01/2016 - 10:52

    Wow, nice. I can't believe I won on my first ever post!

  • scotty on 22/02/2016 - 00:07

    22 Feb, 2016

    Winners from last week are:

    Those were the most popular deals from last week. Congratulations!

  • ModeratorKiwi on 07/06/2016 - 14:14

    Update on the rewards process:

    After reading through the comments above, and taking on board some user feedback, we have decided to implement a change to the competition cycle.

    The announcement will now be delayed by 1 day (Posted Tuesday am, instead of Monday am) to give deals posted on Sunday an extra day to gather votes. This does not change the period within which deals are included, it it still 0000 (12:00am) Monday - 2359 (11:59pm) Sunday, but there will simply be a delay in the judging and announcement to allow extra time.

    • [Deactivated] on 07/06/2016 - 14:46
      +1

      Might be worth updating the OP.

  • ModeratorKiwi on 16/08/2016 - 14:13

    UPDATE

    Revised winners for 15 August 2016:

    Due to detection of fraudulent voting, a number of votes have been revoked, resulting in a different result. We had discussed previously regarding reinstating revoked votes towards the total (Unless they were removed because of illegitimate activity) which results in the deal from goelamit having 1 extra vote due to the revoked vote.

    Also, just a friendly reminder to everyone that bans will be handed out for voting manipulation and each user is only allowed one account. Please also note that family and friends may not vote on your deals, this will result in votes being revoked.

    • asmcar on 16/08/2016 - 14:32
      +3

      Good to see a response on the issue Shaw.

      It's a real pity that it comes to this, I consider deal posting rewards as a nice surprise at the end of the week if I happen to win and they do somewhat encourage me to post more so i'm glad to see them continue.

      I hope as Jay said personal integrity can find a balance in the competition alongside the rewards in the future.

    • [Deactivated] on 30/08/2016 - 15:46
      +2

      ​I'm back! Just a note to everyone; I'm not posting this here to dispute what the penalty which the moderators have put in place, what happened violated the terms of this site and the appropriate punishment was completely fair. I'm just posting this here as I think the community deserves a response from me:
      A co-worker of mine created an account (Spray). He posted some deals and thought he could gain some easy money by voting for his own deals. He then connected via a work network which I have often connected to to vote up his deals, to make it less obvious that he was voting up his own deals he voted up other ones as well (including mine). He also used a VPN (which I had on a previous occasion recommend to him) to log in to these accounts. All of these accounts (except his main one) have been disabled permanently and Spray temporarily (like mine). What happened has violated CC’s terms and the penalty put on me is completely fair even though I didn’t know it was happening at the time.
      Though I enjoy the rewards I don’t post purely because of the, if I was only posting for the rewards why would I have posted 98 comps and massively improved the wiki. I think that the rewards should be a reward for posting, not a reason for posting.
      I don’t think there is a problem with people who know each other creating accounts, as long as they don’t both vote up each others deals. Both can separately contribute the site and share great deals.
      As the community grows the problem of shill accounts and revoking votes will become less. On OzBargain any popular has at least 100 votes which mean a lot more shill accounts needing to be created and one revoked vote would make a very small difference. I hope no more occurrences of this or similar actions happen in the future.
      Cheers,
      ClipIt

    • Jay on 16/08/2016 - 14:23

      s( ^ ‿ ^)-b

  • Sam91 on 16/08/2016 - 15:06

    In my opinion, 3rd place should go to another member this week. I don't see why someone caught manipulating votes should be eligible for any prize the week of the offending.

    It should go to either:
    https://www.cheapies.nz/node/7894
    or
    https://www.cheapies.nz/node/7860

    Then again, even that second deal is making me think : P

    Just having a look around, the number of accounts involved is quite staggering…

    • Kiwi on 16/08/2016 - 15:15
      +3

      Hard to disagree with you Sam, but we did have this discussion, and since we hadn't made prior mention of this, it's hard to remove someone completely. I have now made an adjustment to the OP, to reflect the change in the way it's run.

      Hopefully this can serve as a good reminder to everyone of why we are here, and move forward from it all.

      • Jay on 16/08/2016 - 15:22
        +2

        With fair balance, have to acknowledge that said member does bring in a lot of deal flow into the site which all of us benefit from. Fully appreciate the hard work done to make this happen. So kudos for that.

        However, playing nice in the sandpit with everyone else is also important. Mods have better use of their time than having to waste it trying to ferret out dodgy accounts etc.

        Hard not to see it mostly as a personal maturity issue. Hope that they can take it as a yellow card, and just lift their game a bit. Do appreciate the contributions and hope they continue. Slap, not hack.

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