NightGhost wrote:So you just say to her, "Honey Bear, could I just have $8 from that $300 handbag of yours so I can pay for my crap?"

Could I insert "Pookie Butt" and use this same line, or is that still plagiarism?

MorbidEclipse wrote:I seriously started clapping and jumping up & down when I realized I scored a coveted Bottle of Cortexiphan ...twice in a row!! I feel like I hit the lottery or somethin'!!

WOOT WOOT!!

At least it'll give me some happy times until Fringe comes back on the air with new episodes!

Love Fringe. John Noble is the...er, crap!

Mydnyte wrote:What, everyone else didn't get the letterman's jacket for being the A/V geek?

I'll take a cheap point every now and then!

I got a varsity letter for chess. No, not making that up. Of course, I already had my jacket for being a *real* jock, since I had my bowling letter.

Mydnyte wrote:I'll definitely give NightGhost props - all the posts I've seen from him have been quality in nature.

I can fix that...

BillThePoet wrote:No major league scores for me, but I've received some wonderfully quirky junk in past bags.

Rangers 6, Yankees 1. How's that?

sno719 wrote:Could I insert "Pookie Butt" and use this same line, or is that still plagiarism?

"Plagiarize,
Let no one else's work evade your eyes,
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes,
So don't shade your eyes,
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize -
Only be sure always to call it please 'research'."

- Tom Lehrer

Dreadfulsoul wrote:I think woot should throw an item up there with the name Random Crappy something or other, most bots looks for certain words and usually buy right away. i know this happened a while ago when random crappy calenders popped up. so woot if you want to make the "cheaters" suffer if there are any do this and lets all have a lol

They did that in April, 2009, when they sold something billed as "The World's Crappiest Projector."

Rumor is that some of the bot users ended up with one or three crappy projectors at 60 $imoleans each.

paradise wrote:Got one! First in 5 1/2 years.

Me too.

I think we've are ready to move to phase 2...

________________________________________

The Phases of the Bag of Crap (according to DrGandalf):

Phase 1: The discussion of getting vs. not getting the Bag of Crap, with the usual reference to the cursed bots, Woot's horrible servers, and related.

Phase 2: The discussion of when will Woot finally ship the Bags, and did you get your tracking number, and the creation of the spreadsheet.

Phase 3: The discussion of how much the packages are predicted to weigh, how big they are, how Smartpost is sending them all around the country, and whether they are arriving early, late, or maybe never, and how to find out all the tracking information.

Phase 4: The revealing of the contents of the much awaited Bags of Crap, with much hooting and Wooting by those that are happy, some grumbling by those that are not, but with most folks happy that they got to play the game no matter what they got. Plus, the great hunt for The Letter!

Phase 4a: The waiting for and the revealing of the contents of the POC (Pallette of Crap) that the recipients of The Letter receive.

While we wait for Phase 2, a picture of my Woot Monkey Sanctuary. As you can see, we never turn down a Woot Monkey in need of a home, much to my wife's regret.

Dreadfulsoul wrote:I think woot should throw an item up there with the name Random Crappy something or other, most bots looks for certain words and usually buy right away. i know this happened a while ago when random crappy calenders popped up. so woot if you want to make the "cheaters" suffer if there are any do this and lets all have a lol

But, with the way they let you cancel orders, this wouldn't really end up being that effective.

nemo2005 wrote:While we wait for Phase 2, a picture of my Woot Monkey Sanctuary. As you can see, we never turn down a Woot Monkey in need of a home, much to my wife's regret.

HOLY MOTHER OF MORTIMER, I WANT THAT!

I'm posting something tonight, because no one else has recently... :-)

acdawg wrote:But, with the way they let you cancel orders, this wouldn't really end up being that effective.

sigh..... true... it will just proove that the bots exist :/

AnniKat wrote:Have you thought that it might not get to you until after your birthday? My birthday is Nov 8, one day after yours and I'm not sure if it will be birthday crap, pre-birthday crap or post-birthday crap.

Whichever, I'm looking forward to it!

My b-day is Nov 6th. I'm starting to see a pattern. Hmmm

smartazz66 wrote:My b-day is Nov 6th. I'm starting to see a pattern. Hmmm

yay! long lost triplets! our poor mother, in labor for 72 hours... hopefully one of us gets a roomba to send to her after all that trauma we put her through

Dreadfulsoul wrote:sigh..... true... it will just proove that the bots exist :/

But then those accounts can be blocked due to some random "violation of terms"...

fyredriftwood wrote:... I just noticed that I was the "first sucker" on this go-around.

Holy crap. How cool! \o/

On the last round the first sucker got a letter!

drgandalf wrote:They did that in April, 2009, when they sold something billed as "The World's Crappiest Projector."

Rumor is that some of the bot users ended up with one or three crappy projectors at 60 $imoleans each.

Yes, I recall a few posts where people said they had three of them show up at their door unexpectedly. I for one LOL'd

I second the motion for moving onto phase 2.

No word yet whether mine has been shipped. I'm predicting a Tuesday ship date with a Monday, November 1st delivery.

I haven't had a Bucket of Candy in 3+ years, can someone out there tell me what the "Letter" might be?

kimbobalong wrote:I haven't had a Bucket of Candy in 3+ years, can someone out there tell me what the "Letter" might be?

It's like getting the golden ticket in the Wonkabar.

It means that you're getting something special. Like a 7 foot high pile of random crap shipped to you on a pallet.

jsh139 wrote:I second the motion for moving onto phase 2.

No word yet whether mine has been shipped. I'm predicting a Tuesday ship date with a Monday, November 1st delivery.

I think Tuesday is little optimistic. "Five business days" on the calendar would be more like Thursday.

I don't think I've ever had smartpost deliver anything in less than 7 days, so that means a BS-ETA* of November 4th.



*Basically Scientific. What, you thought it meant something else?

jsh139 wrote:I second the motion for moving onto phase 2.

No word yet whether mine has been shipped. I'm predicting a Tuesday ship date with a Monday, November 1st delivery.

LEM- wrote:Ok, let's do it one more time - for those who don't like to go back a page or two (or three, or five, or seven)...


-----cut here-----

FedEx SmartPost primer for newcomers, and a reminder for the rest of Wooters (v. 1.4)

1. Before the tracking information shows up: Sometimes Woot is not e-mailing the tracking numbers until a few days after the packages are shipped. You can try and get the number by reference, by going to https://www.fedex.com/AltRefTracking?cntry_code=us and entering these three things: Your Woot order number goes to reference numbers box, select United States in destination country drop down, and Your Zip Code in a respective box. It's important to get all three pieces. Keep refreshing it, and if you're lucky, the tracking number will pop-up before the official e-mail comes. It doesn't ALWAYS work, but there's a good chance. Note, that if you've made multiple orders from Woot, you can enter several order numbers into the reference box, one per line.

1.1 If your weight shows as 1lb, it is most likely a placeholder, which will be replaced by more accurate weight once the package actually starts moving (or reaches a sorting station - see below). The dimensions will probably show as NA/NA/NA on those placeholder packages. Some people have reported packages showing as 1lb all the way until delivery, but turned out to be anything but, though there's always a slight chance that your package actually is a 1 pounder. So you never know.

1.2 To make it even more frustrating - the actual fact that you can track by reference, but if it shows as a 1lb with status Shipment information sent to FedEx does not yet mean the package actually shipped or even exists. All it means - a label which will eventually be attached to your package has been printed. It may be a few days before your beloved box will actually hit the road. Patience is the key here!

1.3 So how do we know for sure that BоC's are out? Keep looking through this thread, and you may spot a post by threepiecewoot or on rare occasion another staff member, stating that all packages are shipped. Sometimes it will take FedEx a while before they show up or update, but once it's said here on the forum, you can be sure that they are out! Also keep an eye on other staff members posts announcing possible shipping delays or otherwise!

2. To get the dimensions you need to create My FedEx account (no charge, and you don't have to give them cc number if you don't want to): http://my.fedex.com/ and make sure to switch to new or advanced version. Enter your tracking number, and the dimensions will pop...

2.1 Another way to get dimensions: If you have problems with My FedEx site, or just to make things easier - you can also download a very convenient FedEx Desktop application. It uses the same log-in credentials as your My FedEx account (you'd still need to have one), and tracks the same packages right from your desktop, without the browser.

3. Don't get too exited. For the first few days most people will probably have some sort of cubed dimensions. This is because in the beginning the dimensions are not real. They are guesstimaged by FedEx based on weight (which may or may not be accurate). Here's the famous formula for you to check:

SIDE = ( 330 * WEIGHT ) ^ (1/3)
(side in inches, weight in lbs)

If it matches your dimensions to a few tenths of an inch - you know they are not real. That's for smaller packages. Those over 15lbs would always have the "dimensions" of a 15lbs package (or was it 16)... Again not real...

4. Once your package passed the first sorting station - the updated weight and real dimensions may show up. Usually that's the first stop it makes after Dallas. In my case (North-East) in either Kansas City, KS (as of recently - FedEx must have adjusted their routing in my direction) or Martinsburg, WV, for many others it's New Berlin, WI or another major SmartPost hub.

5. USPS Handoff: Once the package is reported to have passed a city near you - start tracking it on http://www.usps.com/, because that's who's delivering it to your door, and once the package is handed over by FedEx, they will have more up to date information. Do make sure that you track by actual tracking number (it will show up if you got a hit with reference tracking), because USPS does not track by reference. A thing to note - when handed over to USPS, FedEx always says a standard "allow 2-3 for business days for delivery". This is a standard message, and if your USPS facility is efficient enough, you may get it delivered as soon as the day of handoff (if it happened early enough).

Good luck to all waiting for their hauls, and let the Woot Gods bless you with some amazing crаps!

acdawg wrote:But, with the way they let you cancel orders, this wouldn't really end up being that effective.

Well, Woot could just ship them out that next day? Woot typically ships in 5 business days, but I have had items ship in 1 or 2 days. The person would e-mail in later that day or the next. Woot would respond and say the items have already been shipped out and cannot be canceled .

hackman2007 wrote:Well, Woot could just ship them out that next day? Woot typically ships in 5 business days, but I have had items ship in 1 or 2 days. The person would e-mail in later that day or the next. Woot would respond and say the items have already been shipped out and cannot be canceled .

But this is a Bucket of Candy - WOOT ships them *after* all the Woot OFF items are shipped, it's a MINIMUM of 5 business days. The last bunch took 7 or 8 business days to ship. WE have to entertain threepiecewoot for over a week before those boxes move out.

edit: oops - you're saying this is NOT a Bucket of Candy, it's something else Random. WOOT isn't vindictive, just tricky.

And then there's Smart Post...

zen21tao wrote:My best two Bags of Crap yet:

(1)
Philips Streamium WACS7500 80GB Wireless Music Center & Network Station



Box is beaten and torn up a bit, but is otherwise sealed and looks to be in new condition. Was going to give away as wedding present, but decided to keep instead. Still haven't opened and used it, though.

MSRP is $699 but, last I checked, sells on Amazon for approx $350.

-----

(2)

1 x Talking Ronald Reagan Doll
1 x Amcor 3900 Nativation System
1 x 8 gb Sansa View (works)
1 x c240 1gb Sansa (works)
1 x c250 2gb Sansa (works)
5 x e250 2gb Sansa (4 work)
2 x e260 4gb Sansa (both work)
1 x e270 6gb Sansa (doesn't work)
1 x e280 8gb Sansa (works)
1 x m300 2gb Sansa Clip (works)
1 x 1gb Sansa Express (works)

[14 Sansas in all, 12 working]

10 x Sansa/Sandisk earphones
11x Sansa to USB cables
3 x KORUSA AM/FM Auto Scan radios
1 x Lower pro Rezo 30 digital camera bag

-------

My last few hauls haven't been anywhere near as good as these. I sure hope this haul is more like these above.

That second Baggie is the bag I've dreamed about getting (with the exception of a letter from TPW) ever since my first Wootoff. Geezzzz I wish the Woot Gods would unearth another treasure trove of Sansa's to load up this Bucket of Candy with.

NightGhost wrote:

Yep, I checked the Track-By-Reference site earlier.

I just wanted to post a typical "phase 2" response

I love this part. The anticipation is 80% of the fun. This is my second Bucket of Candy. The first was full of iPod locks that I couldn't give away.

jsh139 wrote:I second the motion for moving onto phase 2.

No word yet whether mine has been shipped. I'm predicting a Tuesday ship date with a Monday, November 1st delivery.

I think you're wrong. I got some other items during the woot off that haven't shipped yet, either. And the bags are usually towards the end of the line. I say Bags start to ship out on Thursday.

kimbobalong wrote:I haven't had a Bucket of Candy in 3+ years, can someone out there tell me what the "Letter" might be?

Check my sig. Basically, someone will get a letter from threepiecewoot that says that their other item won't fit in the bag. It gets shipped later (mine was by FedEx Freight). Then, you get something else. The last letter (about a month ago) was just random stuff. Mine was a pallet of car wax. Someone else got a pallet of action figures (I was hoping for that, personally). Others have gotten TV's, etc. Just like with the bags of crap (and apparently boxes of chocolate), you never know what you're gonna get. Just ask Forrest Gump's mom.

Dear woot gods: I bow before you for the speedy purchase I experienced. It was so incredible, I was nearly moved to tears. Therefore, all I dare ask for is a larger box for my kitties. The last woot box has been nommed and jumped on to smitherines and sadly they're not tiny kittens anymore to fit into a standard woot box like back in May.


DSCN0432 by Zamiel4tw, on Flickr

Zamiel4tw wrote:

DSCN0432 by Zamiel4tw, on Flickr

Dear woot,

Please send me a box of kittens. Please remember to put holes in the box.

Thank you.

Dreadfulsoul wrote:I think woot should throw an item up there with the name Random Crappy something or other, most bots looks for certain words and usually buy right away. i know this happened a while ago when random crappy calenders popped up. so woot if you want to make the "cheaters" suffer if there are any do this and lets all have a lol

Why don't they just add a CAPTCHA? I hate them as much as everyone else... but the adventure crap lasted for the longest time before the bots figured out the order page...

jackmcdowell2 wrote:Why don't they just add a CAPTCHA? I hate them as much as everyone else... but the adventure crap lasted for the longest time before the bots figured out the order page...

The adventure crap stayed around because no one knew how to get there, not because Woot built in something to keep the bots out. As soon as the bots found it (as well as other people), it got flooded and sold out.

Plus CAPTCHA's can be broken and if people are determined enough, they will. And then Woot's traffic will go down considerably when people stop purchasing because of this. Personally, I think it would do more harm than good.

LayneRobinson wrote:Check my sig. Basically, someone will get a letter from threepiecewoot that says that their other item won't fit in the bag. It gets shipped later (mine was by FedEx Freight). Then, you get something else. The last letter (about a month ago) was just random stuff. Mine was a pallet of car wax. Someone else got a pallet of action figures (I was hoping for that, personally). Others have gotten TV's, etc. Just like with the bags of crap (and apparently boxes of chocolate), you never know what you're gonna get. Just ask Forrest Gump's mom.

I just got my first Bucket of Candy ever this time around. Out of curiosity, what did you ultimately do with a pallet of car wax?

hackman2007 wrote:The adventure crap stayed around because no one knew how to get there, not because Woot built in something to keep the bots out. As soon as the bots found it (as well as other people), it got flooded and sold out.

Plus CAPTCHA's can be broken and if people are determined enough, they will. And then Woot's traffic will go down considerably when people stop purchasing because of this. Personally, I think it would do more harm than good.

I daresay the bots never found it. Once Woot requires even the slightest non-standard move to purchase, it will foil the bots. For example, they could have a multiple choice question where the answers are links, and only one takes you to heaven:

Who is the president of the United States?

A) Matt Rutledge
B) Barack Obama
C) Katy Perry

A bott would see the item title as "Random Crap" and just hit the Buy button.

As long as a different strategy was required each time, there would be no way to program a bott to follow it.

BTW, I think it's "C."

NightGhost wrote:I daresay the bots never found it. Once Woot requires even the slightest non-standard move to purchase, it will foil the bots. For example, they could have a multiple choice question where the answers are links, and only one takes you to heaven:

Who is the president of the United States?

A) Matt Rutledge
B) Barack Obama
C) Katy Perry

A bott would see the item title as "Random Crap" and just hit the Buy button.

As long as a different strategy was required each time, there would be no way to program a bott to follow it.

BTW, I think it's "C."

I'm not sure what is all involved with a goblin or how hard it is to reconfigure them, but I imagine a few nerds were around to do it quickly since all that was required was a link change.

As for typing something out, that I think would destroy Woot and is not a good thing for them to do. However, I would be for what you mentioned, as long as the question is a common sense question and not something people have to think about for a long time.

hackman2007 wrote:I'm not sure what is all involved with a goblin or how hard it is to reconfigure them, but I imagine a few nerds were around to do it quickly since all that was required was a link change.

As for typing something out, that I think would destroy Woot and is not a good thing for them to do. However, I would be for what you mentioned, as long as the question is a common sense question and not something people have to think about for a long time.

As I mentioned above, they would need to make the required strategy at least slightly different each time. Then the nerds can reprogram all they like, and they'll always be a Woot behind.

Why would typing out a captcha destroy Woot? Plenty of sites use captchas, and I don't think any of them have spontaneously combusted yet. In fact, it's not that different from having to type in your CVV.

hcsencsi wrote:Dear woot,

Please send me a box of kittens. Please remember to put holes in the box.

Thank you.

PS remember to take the cats out of the box before putting holes in the box.

NightGhost wrote:As I mentioned above, they would need to make the required strategy at least slightly different each time. Then the nerds can reprogram all they like, and they'll always be a Woot behind.

Why would typing out a captcha destroy Woot? Plenty of sites use captchas, and I don't think any of them have spontaneously combusted yet. In fact, it's not that different from having to type in your CVV.

You are forgetting that Woot is a DOD site, not something like Newegg, Amazon, etc. Sure, it may not cause problems most days, but Woot-Off's will suck.

The servers are slow enough just trying to get a Bucket of Candy with normal people. As you said earlier, maybe the bots didn't find the link, but the server still went to hell and was slow. I barely got mine and I don't see a CAPTCHA improving that.

I see a lot of people getting frustrated. And it is completely different from the CVV. The CVV you remember and always know what it is. It takes a few extra seconds to read a CAPTCHA. And what if you can't read it? Refresh the screen? Guess?

If they implement a CAPTCHA, I will no longer be purchasing things from Woot. I may not have the longest list of purchases from Woot, but as you know "you are unique, just like the rest of the people", so if I get frustrated and leave, most likely more will do the same.


And I was referring to the link change on the April Fool's crap.


And one more thing, to be honest, I don't think bots are as big of a problem as people make it out to be. I think it's more along the lines of normal people overwhelming the servers. At around 3:30pm, I noticed there were about 7,200 people on Wootalyzer, this is just Wootalyzer, just one tracker. Sure, they may not all be active, but for this example, just take a good portion of those. There are many others as well. I'm not sure on traffic numbers for the others, but I'm guessing the number of active people wanting to get a Bucket of Candy well exceeds 10,000 people, including the constant refreshers. 2,994 were up for grabs, that's a lot of people trying to access the same site and do the exact same activity at the same time. And we have no idea what kind of servers Woot has, so they may not support that large of a number simultaneously (smoothly at least).

hackman2007 wrote:You are forgetting that Woot is a DOD site, not something like Newegg, Amazon, etc. Sure, it may not cause problems most days, but Woot-Off's will suck.

The servers are slow enough just trying to get a Bucket of Candy with normal people. As you said earlier, maybe the bots didn't find the link, but the server still went to hell and was slow. I barely got mine and I don't see a CAPTCHA improving that.

I see a lot of people getting frustrated. And it is completely different from the CVV. The CVV you remember and always know what it is. It takes a few extra seconds to read a CAPTCHA. And what if you can't read it? Refresh the screen? Guess?

If they implement a CAPTCHA, I will no longer be purchasing things from Woot. I may not have the longest list of purchases from Woot, but as you know "you are unique, just like the rest of the people", so if I get frustrated and leave, most likely more will do the same.


And I was referring to the link change on the April Fool's crap.

I don't see what you have against captchas per se. Also, I don't think anyone was suggesting they use captchas on non-crap items.

I do know what you mean about their being hard to read. The first captchas were easy to read, but the programmers wrote screen-scrapers that were able to read them too. But if some Wooters were to read them correctly, and others couldn't, that wouldn't change anything. Sure, the losers would complain, and some would threaten to leave Woot, but how is that different from the way things already are?

In any case, I was suggesting something akin to, but different from a captcha. On one day, there could be a box with the instructions, type the word "MONKEY" before you continue, or whatever. The next Woot-off, the box could say "add 13 and 11, and type the result in the box."

I think the method that Joe Wooter would prefer is the one that allows Joe Wooter to win the crap. Unfortunately, with around 3000 craps, there will always be many more disappointed Wooters than happy ones. The best we can hope for is something fair. Botts aren't fair. Wooters with fast connections who live 3 miles from the Woot servers - your call.

In any case, it seems as though Woot may have already done something to foil the botts. This forum, and the previous forum, contain many references to surprised Wooters who, for whatever reason, went through the buy process very slowly, and yet scored.

BTW, I hope this discussion is just academic, and fun for you as it is for me. I'm not fanatic about it, and I certainly don't want to ruffle your feathers over it.

Ghost Wooters on the Storm

Oh don't worry about it, you haven't ruffled my feathers at all.

I do think it is healthy to have a debate on something that could be a possible solution to a problem. And I agree, many people would threaten to leave Woot and that wouldn't change much.

I am for a different strategy though, any of the examples you mentioned would be fine. I just don't like the captcha idea (by that I mean a unique code that changes every time you open a new window).


Anyways, on to the game of waiting for a shipping update!

Have the "I want one!" button take you to a different url each time (only BoCs of course).