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davis_meta, someone posted a question earlier this week:
However, we moderators are reluctant to impose a new rule on the community unless a strong majority appears to support it. This subject was discussed here once before last September, with no clear consensus emerging then. One of this week'sdavis_meta commenters suggested a poll, so here it is:
[Poll #1665624]
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davis_deals is not hypothetical, by the way. We created it specifically for this purpose after last September's discussion. However, nobody has yet posted anything to it.)
davis_meta, someone posted a question earlier this week:Is there any consensus on DSLJ posts promoting group buying deals for local businesses? I kinda figure that if someone is interested in that silliness they'll subscribe to notifications from the coupon sites themselves. What say you?A number of other frequent posters agree, as you'll see in the comments there.
However, we moderators are reluctant to impose a new rule on the community unless a strong majority appears to support it. This subject was discussed here once before last September, with no clear consensus emerging then. One of this week's
davis_meta commenters suggested a poll, so here it is:[Poll #1665624]
(
davis_deals is not hypothetical, by the way. We created it specifically for this purpose after last September's discussion. However, nobody has yet posted anything to it.)![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 03:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 03:15 am (UTC)But do you really think it's wrong for mods to state their views?
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 03:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 04:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 03:16 am (UTC)what about selling them
Date: 2011-01-08 03:26 am (UTC)I'd be fine with that. I assume the poll is about notifying members about an existing deal, not about trying to sell one that is already purchased.
Re: what about selling them
Date: 2011-01-08 03:27 am (UTC)Re: what about selling them
Date: 2011-01-08 03:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 04:20 am (UTC)it's really not a big deal at all - i actually feel like discussions like this come up and are more annoying than the posts themselves :p
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 05:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 04:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 05:14 am (UTC)mainly, i feel like groupon, coupme, livingsocial, and buywithme should be banned. these are fairly major sites that are well known. however, weeklydig also rarely posts some decent deals and it was through LJ that i found out about that, so I think *new* deal venues should be fair game. At this point i feel like it becomes a bit too complicated, but the "online deals" thing has definitely ventured into spam territory lately.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 02:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 08:01 pm (UTC)That said, a year or two ago I posted my sole groupon link to this comm and got 6 referrals out of it, which translated into $60 in groupon credit so I see the temptation :)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 02:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 05:13 am (UTC)I wouldn't have said "banish" though, cause that makes it sound like they're going to the land of wind and ghosts. But that's just semantics.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 06:30 pm (UTC)On the other hand, if we get a lot of these posts on the community, I think that'd be annoying.
I'm voting "let them stay" as long as they stay a very small fraction of total posts here. If they start getting to be a significant percentage, I'd change my vote.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 04:36 am (UTC)I posted 3 davis ones this week, and it had been what, early december when the last ones were posted? 2 of the davis ones were done in the same post to avoid spamming.
every time more than one deal comes up, someone throws this tantrum. 4 times now, and every other time it's come back that people would like them. And then the next time it happens again, in, I guess, the hope that this time it'll end.
right now there are 69 'keep them', 75 'get rid of them' and 44 'don't care'. the 'get rid of them'. That says to me that once again, people who like them or who don't mind them are in the majority, but I bet the next time there's more than one deal in a week (even if it's been a month since the last one), we'll have this conversation.
Again.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-08 06:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 12:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 07:31 pm (UTC)I understand that there are slightly different profiles of events each week at Havurat Shalom (and other organizations) but it's a lot of traffic to make the distinction between this week's potluck and film and next week's potluck and lecture or whatever.
Just a datapoint for consideration.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 09:00 pm (UTC)I'll suggest to Havurat Shalom that they reduce the frequency of their posts to monthly, unless they are holding a special event such as Tu B'Shevat seder, Purimspiel, etc.
Edit: I posted such a suggestion here.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 01:38 am (UTC)The Groupon and other such posts are usually short and easy to ignore, if I want to. I've also been alerted to a few deals I'd have missed otherwise, so they're also more relevant to me, personally.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-11 04:42 am (UTC)I try hard to make sure I know about all the deals in the immediate area, and occasionally I refer to deals in Union, Porter, Ball and Teele, after I search to make sure that the business has been discussed in this community previously (so Yak & Yeti in Ball, or the Taza Chocolate in Union, but not a thai place in Union that I've never seen mentioned here, today on Eversave). Then I try to make sure they're all in one post, and I keep that post short. Unlike this reply! :-P
no subject
Date: 2011-01-11 04:01 pm (UTC)Personally, I like seeing the deals posted here, since I do not check 25 sites a day for local deals and I think it's nice that I get to reap the benefits of someone else who does.
And for the record, Ronnarong is excellent, and now that you just mentioned it, I will be joining Eversave (*sigh*) to take them up on it today.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 09:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 09:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 04:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-09 11:23 pm (UTC)Could we have a guideline that such posts are discouraged?
no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 05:10 am (UTC)many people don't even know that many of them exist. So it's hard to subscribe for notifications to sites you don't know are out there.
I post, of the approximately 750 deals I see each month, 3-4 that are Davis specific to the Davis Square LJ.
I don't think a lot of people really want to do the work I do to find deals, but they do want to know when there's a deal a block away from them.
That said, I greatly dislike the idea of splitting into dozens of little communities that everyone has to monitor to stay connected. It's a DSLJ, and Davis Square deals should be considered appropriate. I'm not going to join incredibly splintered communities. This community should be for everyone (even when a post is irrelevant to me, and posted a bit too often, like the Havurat Shalom posts), I just skip to the next one, because *someone* will find it useful. Community isn't just what I want; someone's going to find that post welcome.
Every time we have this conversation, the split is about the same between people who want them, people who don't, and people who are fine with it but don't really care.
Part of why I post with referrals is also to see what the interest actually is; if at any point I posted three or four things and never got a referral, I'd stop it, not because I wasn't getting referrals and was taking my ball and going home, but because that would mean people weren't interested.
I'll talk privately to people about the referrals if they ask, but I am absolutely certain based on referral numbers (and referrals only happen on completely new users, not on people who have bought before - I rarely get referral credit on groupon these days because everyone uses 'em), but since this is the only place that I really share links, I am *certain* that people in the Davis Square livejournal are using the links.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-10 09:32 pm (UTC)I agree. and I thank you.
"group buying posts"
Date: 2011-01-10 07:37 am (UTC)1) The number of these posts is not excessive. At the time I post this comment, there are 24 posts in 2011. Three of these are "group buying posts." Looking at all the posts I can see by scrolling down on just the most recent page, there are 40 posts. 3 out of 24 or 3 out of 40 is hardly excessive. It just so happens that these 3 all came in the same week, but this was an unusual week. So what?
2) These groupons, or whatever else they're called, actually help some people. Like the Brown School cards and the Somerville Youth Soccer League "Kicker cards," it's a win/win/win situation: The people who buy them save some money. The local merchant that offers the discount gets business they might not otherwise get. The poster of the deal gets what I imagine is a small amount of cash as a reward. This practice (potentially) benefits lots of people.
3) Those people who don't like such posts are displaying a discouraging level of intolerance. I don't "like" all the posts here, but so what? I just scroll past the ones that don't interest or apply to me. It takes an insignificant amount of time to do this. (Apologies to the person who complained that doing this on a phone is difficult.)
4) I thought this was settled months ago. Ron, did you expect a different result this time? You and the other moderators who may object to these posts should bear in mind that you are the *moderators*, not the *owners* of this site. Some degree of responsibility should be excercised in this matter. Just because you and your buddies don't like the nature of these or other posts, doesn't give you the right to lobby against them, much less *banish* them. This strikes me as censorship. I am surprised that you have such a low regard for freedom of speech and freedom of the press. (OK, I don't know how the "founding fathers" et al. would treat the internet, but it strikes me that there is something very wrong about what you're doing here.) Characterizing these posts as "that kind of silliness" is not helpful. Maybe others would label some of your posts as such, but I don't recall seeing it. Furthermore, just because "a number of frequent posters agree" with you is immaterial. They don't "own" (my quotes) this site either and "a number" is too vague to be meaningful. Ron, I have come to expect better from you.
5) And finally, I noticed that all three of the "group buying posts" in question here were posted by the same person. (I have no idea whether this has been the case for posts made before the last week in December or so.) Do you and/or the other moderators have some kind of grudge against her?
Re: "group buying posts"
Date: 2011-01-10 01:38 pm (UTC)Re: "group buying posts"
Date: 2011-01-11 04:56 am (UTC)I don't think any of them have any grudge against me, and have never assumed they were attacking me, just that some people in the community (and they are in the community same as thee and me) don't like the voucher sites. I do get irritated by the conversation only in that it comes up every time there are more than 2 voucher referrals in the same 10 day period, and we've had pretty nearly the same results each time since. I wind up typing 40 times as much as I do just putting together the deal listings ;-)
Ruling?
Date: 2011-01-14 10:47 pm (UTC)Re: Ruling?
Date: 2011-01-19 09:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 09:29 pm (UTC)Let them stay in davis_square - 84
Banish them to davis_deals - 80
Don't care - 54
Other - 2
so there will be no change in davis_square rules.