Poll: Group-buying posts (Groupon, LivingSocial, etc.) in <user site="livejournal.com" user="davis_s

[ron_newman]

Over in 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.)

Comments

[ron_newman]

I'm not voting in this because I want to stay neutral as a mod, but if I don't tick one of the buttons, LJ won't show me the poll results.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Actually, you can just hit "Submit" without selecting anything.

But do you really think it's wrong for mods to state their views?

[ron_newman]

No, I just don't want to take a position myself right now. The rest of you, please be as vocal as you like.

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

I'm all for moderators stating their views in this poll. They are, in fact, members of the group and they live in the area, they have as much a right to an opinion as the rest of us.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

You can also click on the poll link and then select "view results".

what about selling them

[mrsdollylevi.livejournal.com]

What about people trying to resell them?

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

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

This is about the ones that are available on a daily basis, my opinion as a mod on your question would be that it was as valid as trying to sell anything else.

[prunesnprisms.livejournal.com]

Well, I voted.

Re: what about selling them

[ron_newman]

Yes, this poll is intended to cover "Look at this Groupon for XYZ Cafe today", not personal "for sale" ads which are always OK here.

[in-water-writ.livejournal.com]

I like the posts. Sometimes they're about coupon sites I haven't heard of yet, and therefore don't know to subscribe to.

[sparkgrrl658.livejournal.com]

honestly, as someone who checks in on lj once every few days and reads all my posts, i've never felt flooded by DSLJ posts, nevermind the groupon/whatever ones. i personally don't want to sign up for another email list, or another community. further, it's not like it's one person just copy/pasting every single email they receive, which would be annoying. it seems to me they are mostly people looking for others to go in on the deal with them, or selling them, or adding that hey, this business/deal is particularly great, and i'd not want to discourage reviews of local places i might not have been to before or knew about.

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

[londo.livejournal.com]

http://www.livejournal.com/poll/?id=1665624&mode=results

[808.livejournal.com]

I think the problem is frequency. I didn't mind the odd deal post. But it seems like it's happening more and more now and it was kinda getting annoying. If they would post beneath a cut-tag, I think that'd help a lot.

[spatch]

I like the idea of using davis_deals for all kindsa stuff like that. May even join it if it starts seeing activity.

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.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

i think this about hits it. also, it's the same ppl over and over again flooding things so it gets tiresome :)

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.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

even though i fall on the side of "i wish these posts would not be so prevalent" i agree that the debate is more annoying :)

[kpht.livejournal.com]

yeah especially because i think the same people who post them all the time are looking for referrals - ie, they get 3 people to sign up, they get their coupon for free. so it's pretty spammy.

[turil.livejournal.com]

What about slightly repurposing the Somerville community for more general listings of things for sale, and such (like apartment ads, coupon deals, event announcements, city notices, etc.)? Then leave Davis Square for more social and Davis-specific events and discussion.

[cos]

I'm not that familiar with the coupon sites themselves, but I don't think they all have a "only notify me of deals for Davis Square businesses" option. If someone's only interested in stuff for Davis Square, seeing it here would be much more convenient than trying to hunt down each site that has such deals and figuring out how to get notifications of local deals, and probably getting lots of others.

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.

[infinitemorning.livejournal.com]

The deals posted here are generally Davis-specific, and easy to ignore if you aren't interested. I'd rather have them stay here, honestly, unless -- as cos said -- they start getting really annoying.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

An interesting compromise might be to ban referral links. then, people would only put up links that they are legitimately trying to help out the community with, rather than their own self. It might also mix things up a bit and cut down on the spamminess.

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 :)

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

agree.

[pywaket.livejournal.com]

I do think they've become somewhat excessive of late. Though I find the constant postings for Havurat Shalom to be more annoying. I mean, do we really need to have that posted every week?

[belladonna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm in a few comms that ban referral links for various sites (like ING back in the day when everyone was getting them) and it works pretty well.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

Agreed; I myself would like to ask some of the very frequent "Here's what's happening this week at our organization" posters to think about doing a once-a-month roundup instead of posting each week.

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.

[smammy]

Havurat Shalom - Yes, this is so annoying! On the other hand, I'm glad Sprout's continued to post about their events. It took me a few posts before I really noticed them.

[smammy]

Thinking about this more... maybe could we have a group calendar of some sort that people could post their Davis-related events on. Maybe this exists already.

[ron_newman]

Sprout's spaghetti dinners are only monthly, and each month is quite different from the last. I've actively encouraged them to publicize them here.

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.

[ron_newman]

Sounds like a good idea, but how and where should we do this? I don't know how to use LJ for this purpose.

[smammy]

At first I thought we could use a public Google Calendar. Each calendar has an RSS feed, and we could use something like rss2lj to dump the updates into a new davis_events community. But Google Calendar doesn't have publicly-editable calendars (only publicly-viewable ones). And we might not want it to be wide open anyway due to spam. If there was some way to have a calendar that only davis_square members could edit, that would be crescent fresh. Maybe some custom programming is in order?

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

As the person who started the September discussion, I'd prefer not to see so many coupon postings. But I don't know if we need a total ban.

Could we have a guideline that such posts are discouraged?

[talonvaki.livejournal.com]

Me, too! I'm not religious in any direction, so I'd rather not have religion-related posts. However, one reason these bother me is because they're long. I read LJ a lot on my phone, so yeah, it can be a pain in the ass to "just scroll past them."

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.

[ron_newman]

Havurat Shalom have been lj-cutting their posts for the last six months. I see no problem with their length, only their frequency.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

this is part of how/why I do it. also I'm up to checking 24 daily deal sites that offer Boston area deals. I add one or two a week, because local businesses *are* trying them.

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.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

they're more frequent when there are more Davis deals. there have also been weeks and weeks when there aren't any davis deals at all, and so nothing gets posted.

[ron_newman]

I posted the poll to gauge community sentiment. Clearly, a 69-75-44 result is not sufficient to cause a rule change. This should settle the issue for a while.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

I currently monitor 22-26 daily deal sites for Boston area deals, depending how you define the daily deal sites.

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.

"group buying posts"

[nadie00.livejournal.com]

I have voted to "let them stay in." I think the following points are relevant:
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"

[ron_newman]

I don't have a strong opinion on the subject and didn't vote in my own poll. We haven't had a previous poll on the subject, and it seemed to me like a good idea to let the community make its own decision. That decision appears to be "don't make a new rule", so there won't be one.

[emcicle.livejournal.com]

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

I agree. and I thank you.

[thespian.livejournal.com]

this is actually one of the reasons I make an effort to do the posts; for a while there were a lot of vouchers coming out, people were posting all of them that were in Boston, and they were being posted 3 or 4 a day, each separate.

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

Re: "group buying posts"

[thespian.livejournal.com]

thank you for your concern and kind defense. Just so you know, I've known Ron for about 4 years, through this community, cos for about a decade now, surrealestate for about 17 years now , and prunesandprisms through an online game we both played through most of the 90s (I think 16 years since we met online).

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 ;-)

[mayabutta.livejournal.com]

I agree with thespian here. I don't see the problem. This board is just not that high traffic.

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.

Ruling?

[daviscubed.livejournal.com]

So, there's an EverSave out there for Brunello Bistro ( http://eversave.com/share/upS7 <- my referral link), $20 for $45, still available for another day. Not sure if it's ok to post this in a new thread or not, but for anyone still paying attention...

[ron_newman]

I decided to close the poll today, 12 days after I posted it. The results are:

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.

Re: Ruling?

[ron_newman]

Ruling is that nothing will change -- feel free to post future deals either here or in davis_deals (but not both)