I submitted most of this directly to woot, but once I saw that there was a forum, I thought I'd state my comments here as well:

I've been a wootster for many years. The new layout is very, very confusing. It is so busy that I can't see what you're selling amidst all the noise. Once you moved beyond a single product-a-day, the screen became incredibly cluttered - especially with the informal woot joking around comments. I have to stare at the screen to see what you've got and, more often than not, I just close the page and move on. I haven't bought a thing since the new layout.

I suppose that you have to increase your profits to justify Amazon's purchase. Fair enough; businesses grow. If that's the case, why not learn a lesson from Amazon's daily deals screen. That's clean and easy to scan.

Once you became something different from the deal-a-day program, you needed a different model for the interface. On Woot 1.0, I would land on the Woot home page, be able to take it in immediately and then read the patter if I wanted to know more. In Woot 2.0, I land on the home page and don't have a clue about what you're selling.

The deals are still great. Just simplify the interface so that it doesn't give me a headache.

Thanks for listening.

halperez wrote:Mods: this post is not for you. Please do not read it. I don't want to be accused of "mod baiting" and get put on posting probation again. This post is related to what appears a new feature that coincides with the redesign and is on-topic in this forum. This post is for myself and the other customers who are discussing the redesign and its effects.

I have been on this site since 2005 and have been seeing something since the redesign that I haven't noticed before. I don't know if it's part of the redesign but it appears to be. It appears that more posts in the product discussions are being edited and/or deleted. Yes, the terms of service clearly state that they can edit and delete at will but I've never seen it this bad before. People are having their posts deleted because they are making jokes about the product description.

For example, it seems that somewhere in a description, it was said that woot is where bad products go. A user joked that the MacBook Air must be a bad product. His comment was deleted. He posted a comment about being deleted. I replied that they're quick to delete comments and put you on probation for off topic comments. I know, it's happened to me. I then went on to post some useful info about the product. I ended the post stating that the useful info made my post topical and was not deletable. My post got edited. The quote, the part about being quick to delete and probation, and the part about not being deletable was removed. I edited my post and fixed it to it's original state. Then the post was deleted completely.

Since I've learned to screen cap my posts, I put the screen cap in my sig under the heading "Posts that have been deleted by Woot". Someone accessed my account and removed the screen cap from my sig. I posted in here (the forum to discuss the redesign) two nights ago about this new feature. That post was deleted, along with another post of mine in here, and I was put on posting probation.

I've been on woot since 2005. I've got a few posts under my belt including 4 quality posts. In the last 3 months, I've gotten put on probation twice. Has anyone else noticed a change in how much fun people are allowed to have in the discussions since the new change?

This. The new design is not good. The prices are getting beat more often. But I have bought some things. The wootoffs aren't worth the time anymore. But that's good for work. But the editing and deleting of completely harmless or honest posts. Regardless of the terms of service. Has gotten rediculous. It destroys the sense of community. It destroys peoples trust that they are getting accurate info. And people see them disappear and see the "where's my post" posts. And wonder. And its not even consistent.

And its worse than i thoughg apparently. I'm done. I don't need to buy stuff I don't need anyway.

ThunderThighs wrote:We've always tried to keep the product threads more focused on the product discussions and will delete some posts that don't add to the discussion. That's not to say that we edit out all humor but we do want a balance between the product discussion and other posts. We get just as many complaints when people can't find the product discussion because of the other "off-topic" posts.

There are places like this thread to post other off-topic concerns and we appreciate your feedback.

I understand that. But its never been done to this extent or in this manner. Combine that with no indication the thread has been tampered with, and messing with peoples sigs and partial editing posts... Its disturbing. Maybe you should consider letting US vote for helpful posts, or to collapse nonsense ones. Something like deals.Woot. Sure that has issues to.

Either way its your site. You're here to sell a product. You can try and do that however you feel is best. It may even be working. And if it is what I think is irrelevant. Its just not working for me. Or anyone I know. The community sense, writeups, videos, what got Woot where it is, are now a sideline, and you lose the community you lose trust.

I don't think I have ever bought anything I actually.needed on Woot! Its always been an "impulse buy, get talked into it by fellow wooters" site. Seeing hidden censorship happen in every thread does not bode well for that model. And I can find other things to do with my money.

unksol wrote:...the editing and deleting of completely harmless or honest posts. Regardless of the terms of service. Has gotten rediculous. It destroys the sense of community. It destroys peoples trust that they are getting accurate info. And people see them disappear and see the "where's my post" posts. And wonder. And its not even consistent.

And its worse than i thoughg apparently. I'm done. I don't need to buy stuff I don't need anyway.

ThunderThighs wrote:We've always tried to keep the product threads more focused on the product discussions and will delete some posts that don't add to the discussion ... We get just as many complaints when people can't find the product discussion because of the other "off-topic" posts.

There are places like this thread to post other off-topic concerns and we appreciate your feedback.

Posts in product threads that paint Woot in too negative a light are generally deleted. There's the consistency. It just wouldn't look too good to have that in the terms of service.

"Off-topic" has literally nothing to do with it, if we're to be honest. Not that other off-topic posts don't get deleted too (sometimes), but really the posts that tend to disappear are the ones they have an interest in getting rid of for that reason. "Off-topic" is really just a convenient clause that lets them get rid of the particular off-topic posts they want gone for other reasons; a convenient umbrella, like "National Security".

We all know this, including the mods who aren't allowed to admit it, so I'm just saying it for the record. If it bothers you, you're not alone, and it's been discussed at length before in other forum threads.

ThunderThighs wrote:As with any other site on the Interwebz, people will take the time to post negative reviews and comments more often than they will positive ones. That's why you see the trend for deleting the negative reviews about the site in the product discussions...

Not really sure what that's supposed to mean. There are likely to be more negative than positive site reviews within the product threads, and therefore... you delete the negative ones? Incidentally you do bring up a good point: Product thread posts that praise the site are generally left alone.

ThunderThighs wrote:We're just trying to help those that want to shop by keeping the product threads focused on the product....

That's inaccurate. If you're claiming otherwise you're in denial and rationalization mode. No one is fully equipped to characterize their own behavior, so I get it. But if you're interested in getting more reliable information about what you've been doing, rather than going by what you'd like to think you've been doing, listen to what others tell you they've observed about what you (mods) do.

The vast majority of not-about-the-product-yet-relating-to-Woot posts have historically been left alone, while the particular ones criticizing Woot have disappeared with relative consistency. Whether intentional or subconscious, when you're trying to keep things all nice and "focused" by looking for off-topic posts to eliminate, there's a certain post type you inevitably gravitate towards.

If there were actual off-topic or even not-about-the-product consistency, people would be less pissed off.

Not that it would bring me back. I haven't looked at anything but this thread since Woot became the antithesis of everything that made it Woot. But just saying.

ThunderThighs wrote:We appreciate any and all feedback on the site via Beta Feedback or appropriate threads like this one. Each and every Beta Feedback note is read. That doesn't mean we're going to implement every suggestion, of course. Those that we do decide to implement have to wait their turn in the development priority queue so it may be a while before you see it.

Here's another idea. Show the queue. Or show a list of the changes in the works. People who have an issue like to know they're being heard and their complaints are being seriously considered or at least looked at.

Woot won't list the queue, I know that. The reasoning would be that it will just lead to more discussion about whether a particular change should be implemented or not. So how listing the things that have been changed based on customer feedback? I haven't noticed anything that has changed in quite a while. It appears that everyone is busy working on something other than that development priority queue. One of the biggest complaints, at least as I've observed the complaints, is the layout of the site. I would have to speculate that fixing the layout should be at or near the top of the queue because it would have the biggest impact.

But don't worry, I don't expect you to reply to my post and address my concerns. Someone has to reply and echo my concerns for you to even talk about them, with the exception of the concern with who has access to my account. You did address that one after I reposted the deleted concern.

You just don't seem to get it. the original front page was good for those that wanted to just shop AND for those that liked the fun of woot
for those that just shopped ,all the information about the item was there
for the true wooters there was the fun of the write-up
you had the best of both worlds and wooters would be your advertizing for more(I know I told many about you,now I don't)
I have said it before and will say it again
"Bring the front page back and just reduce the deals woot to the same as the other woots in the corner"
if you do that the shoppers still get to see all the woots and all the info on the currant days woot.and the wooters get to see their fun.
Isn't it all about getting as many to view your site as possible from all walks of life?

equazcion wrote:Not really sure what that's supposed to mean. There are likely to be more negative than positive site reviews within the product threads, and therefore... you delete the negative ones? Incidentally you do bring up a good point: Product thread posts that praise the site are generally left alone.

You're not the only one that sees it. That's what triggered the behavior that lead to my 2nd probation. I was replying to someone who had posted a joke about woot that got deleted. I told him that woot was quick to put people on probation for off-topic posts. I was warning him, helping him out. After that post got edited by a mod and fixed by me, it got deleted completely, even though it had topical info relative to the product being sold. The bottom line is that the mods make emotional, rather than rational, decisions. Here's an example. When I initially got put on probation, it was for 72 hours for "mod baiting". Within an hour or so, the probation sentence had been changed to 48 hours. I wonder why that is? Maybe the mod who put me on probation was thinking a little more emotionally than logically? As far as the "baiting" part goes, I work in law enforcement. I've seen baiting. I have people try to bait me all the time. I know what baiting is. I didn't bait the mod.

The beta feed back overlay text box doesn't accept input on ipad2 w/ latest OS. Neither keypad nor paste :-(

Just noticed that it works fine if you have nothing in the clipboard, but if you do have something in the clipboard you can't paste it in, nor can you enter text.

brianryer wrote:The beta feed back overlay text box doesn't accept input on ipad2 w/ latest OS. Neither keypad nor paste :-(

Just noticed that it works fine if you have nothing in the clipboard, but if you do have something in the clipboard you can't paste it in, nor can you enter text.

You should use the beta feedback box and let them know.

(Sorry...being a smarta@@. I copied your concern and pasted it in the feedback box in case you weren't able to.)

unksol wrote:I understand that. But its never been done to this extent or in this manner. Combine that with no indication the thread has been tampered with, and messing with peoples sigs and partial editing posts... Its disturbing. Maybe you should consider letting US vote for helpful posts, or to collapse nonsense ones. Something like deals.Woot. Sure that has issues to.

Either way its your site. You're here to sell a product. You can try and do that however you feel is best. It may even be working. And if it is what I think is irrelevant. Its just not working for me. Or anyone I know. The community sense, writeups, videos, what got Woot where it is, are now a sideline, and you lose the community you lose trust.

I don't think I have ever bought anything I actually.needed on Woot! Its always been an "impulse buy, get talked into it by fellow wooters" site. Seeing hidden censorship happen in every thread does not bode well for that model. And I can find other things to do with my money.

Agree 100%. What brought me back to Woot! time and again was that it was irreverent fun within a community. The product write-ups were smart and funny and didn't take themselves - or the product - too seriously. The comments were smart and sassy. That's what kept people at the site for sometimes days throughout a Woot!Off, and what would convince people to buy something like Leak Frogs at 3 a.m. to move things along. Negative reviews/comments were often helpful, and when they were just b.s. we were smart enough to recognize that ourselves. We didn't need nannies to make up our minds for us. What we certainly didn't need were Amazonian lunch ladies to hide negative facts from us in order to con us into buying stuff.

I look in from time to time to see if any of people's suggestions have been implemented. They haven't - things have gotten worse if anything. But I surely don't come here to buy anything - I can't even figure out what the Woot! is anymore amongst all the stuff on the page.

Woot! is gone. They should retire the name.

catdance wrote:Agree 100%. What brought me back to Woot! time and again was that it was irreverent fun within a community. The product write-ups were smart and funny and didn't take themselves - or the product - too seriously. The comments were smart and sassy. That's what kept people at the site for sometimes days throughout a Woot!Off, and what would convince people to buy something like Leak Frogs at 3 a.m. to move things along. Negative reviews/comments were often helpful, and when they were just b.s. we were smart enough to recognize that ourselves. We didn't need nannies to make up our minds for us. What we certainly didn't need were Amazonian lunch ladies to hide negative facts from us in order to con us into buying stuff.

I look in from time to time to see if any of people's suggestions have been implemented. They haven't - things have gotten worse if anything. But I surely don't come here to buy anything - I can't even figure out what the Woot! is anymore amongst all the stuff on the page.

Woot! is gone. They should retire the name.

Funny - they edit out "Ovrlrds" to read "lunch ladies." I guess their feelings are easily hurt.

I'm sad to say that I haven't read a single product description all the way through since the re-design. I just realized that and that sucks. Sorry writers - I will make an effort to read your great work.

Site Designers - I shouldn't have to "make an effort" to access anything. It should be intuitive.

Most days I just click and hold the window slider, scroll the window all the way to the bottom. Look at the thumbnails for each W00t site and get on with my day. Usually there is nothing of interest to me.

Moofi is the only place that I go out of my way to check. most deals last multiple days which helps with "all you can ship" thing. If I like something, I hold for another Item and buy them together.

Example: yesterday (9-16-12) I bought the nostromo thing from Sellout!, along with the Moofi Razer backlit keyboard of 2 days before. I could had gone all out by getting the Orochi mouse (still available as I type), but the button layout in my current mouse is what I prefer.
The deals are not as good, but they improve if you buy everything on the same day. But, the day in which I'll be interested in buying every item across all woot sites has not come to pass. I don't think it will.

unksol wrote:This. The new design is not good. The prices are getting beat more often. But I have bought some things. The wootoffs aren't worth the time anymore. But that's good for work. But the editing and deleting of completely harmless or honest posts. Regardless of the terms of service. Has gotten rediculous. It destroys the sense of community. It destroys peoples trust that they are getting accurate info. And people see them disappear and see the "where's my post" posts. And wonder. And its not even consistent.

And its worse than i thoughg apparently. I'm done. I don't need to buy stuff I don't need anyway.

Woot has gone off the tracks and it ain't comming back.

Considering the daily reach is down 20%+ past 6 months, 18% in the last 3 months alone, clearly its not working.

Corporatism always destroys the small startup culture. This is why when Amazon took over, I knew it would be the end of woot.

No worries, slickdeals is alive and well.

I must say that after the new layout I barely come to the site anymore. It is way too busy and I can't find anything as easily as I used to. I liked when it was a one page layout of what was for sale, with a sidebar for comments/discussions.

I usually just scroll across the top to see what is for sale (nothing has interested me in a while), then I'm done. Even when a product has interested me I still don't look because the layout is ridiculous.

I really like Amazon.com, but this new woot is just awful.

Also, what's with the shirts being $12 now? $10 I could handle, but $12 is too much. I know that sounds nuts but for that much I can just go shop in the clearance section in a mall somewhere.

And another thing; what's the deal with having so many "woots"? I remember it being just one woot item and a shirt woot. Now I feel like this is a big marketplace with everyone peddling their stuff.

dpk3062 wrote:Agreed. Woot was simple, Woot was fun. Now it's just another online store.

I couldn't agree more. I'm sure the redesign was made in hope of increasing sales and maybe it will but none will be to me. I have the whole internet at my fingertips, I don't need it on my Woot page. Simple is better. Goodbye Woot.

Even the woot offs are boring now, they used to be worth staying up for.

I now understand why WOOT does not allow negative remarks about WOOT on the blog.....RIPOFFS

Can I please have my money back for the broken phones that your sent me and I sent back on the 5th and you claim "they are still in transit" by your shipping company???? never again woot never again

would be nice if I could (figure out how to?) order more than one shirt at a time. Seems like unnecessarily duplicative to go through the payment steps multiple times, and I don't see any info that you automagically bundle them together when I go on a buying spree, so I feel like I am being less good to the environment (possibly) than I could be, and it's all your fault.

lookitsaustin wrote:I must say that after the new layout I barely come to the site anymore. It is way too busy and I can't find anything as easily as I used to. I liked when it was a one page layout of what was for sale, with a sidebar for comments/discussions.

I usually just scroll across the top to see what is for sale (nothing has interested me in a while), then I'm done. Even when a product has interested me I still don't look because the layout is ridiculous.

I really like Amazon.com, but this new woot is just awful.

Also, what's with the shirts being $12 now? $10 I could handle, but $12 is too much. I know that sounds nuts but for that much I can just go shop in the clearance section in a mall somewhere.

And another thing; what's the deal with having so many "woots"? I remember it being just one woot item and a shirt woot. Now I feel like this is a big marketplace with everyone peddling their stuff.

Pulling rank about $2 is kind of petty. I mean, we have a local store called "Five Below" where all the shirts are $5 with silly liscensing, etc.

Shirt.woot is about the graphics - voted by popular audience, and if they had a change in ink pricing, shipping, etc, the price of the shirts may have changed to compensate.

Also, the mall rarely has cute shirts in my size in clearance. They're usually not $12, and more often than not... they're just not there at all.

WOOT'S BETA...WELL..SUCKS...

THEY ONLY SHOW ONE PAGE OF MY PAST PURCHASES....THERE SHOULD BE SEVERAL.

Nice to have "proof of purchase" for warranties, insurance, etc.

What gives? No responses from the Woot people.

I have purchsed a LOT from Woot. If your "BETA" doesn't work...go back to something that worked!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nicely done, love the new design and the options, slowly getting addicted to it. I do have a feature request. I would love to see a wishlist of some sort. I think this would be particularly useful for wine.woot. I love wine but don't have much knowledge about good wine vs bad. So I read through the community reviews to decide whats a good wine. after reading through the reviews, if I have an option to add the woot to my wishlist, then when that comes up again for sale, I don't have to think twice.

PemberDucky wrote:interesting.
imma forward this along to ppl who know things about stuff.

wow, I didn't expect someone to actually read and reply to my feedback, thanks!

muralie wrote:wow, I didn't expect someone to actually read and reply to my feedback, thanks!

Although we can't always reply to everything, we do read all of it!

I'd just like to take a moment to express my displeasure on how the last Woot-Off - specifically how the Buccaneers of Caribbean were done.

While it is a cute way of making sure your servers did not crash, for a large percentage of us I'd say, it was far too time consuming to participate.

Having to read the item information for code words or whatever it was (frankly I gave up reading the post on actually HOW to play as I determined then it was too much to do), to get clues, and then wait for other clues to appear - too much.

I GET IT.....you are trying to drive readers to be more engaged, and therefore - maybe drive more sales - maybe it worked for you - maybe it didn't, but for me - all it did was ensure I didn't try for a Buccaneers of Caribbean

I still followed along via txt messaging the items that posted - and if something interested me - fine - I'd log in and take a peek, but......Buccaneers of Caribbean are part of why I follow along (never having snagged one), if this continues to be the trend - my likelihood of following along will diminish

I used to check daily and stay up all night for wootoffs, like a college kid. Now I check once every other week or so, mostly out of fading habit. I really don't see myself ever buying anything from any of your sites ever again. Feels sorta dirty. Woot is just another crap-of-the-minute merchant like the rest now. Y'all had it. You HAD the magic brand cache. Something companies literally spend millions trying to craft, and most of them fail at it. Trust me. I worked for JWT and S&S, here and in London for 2 decades on everything from huggies to rolex, and I know the branding biz (too well!). I got paid to help create what woot just threw away. You crafted a powerful brand with a rabid following, almost overnight, and then flushed it all for short term dollars. Who was your financial advisor? Krispy Kreme? You replaced an army of willing minions with a handful of haters! A myopia/stupidity so staggering, I question your board's ability to breath without constant written prompting. I'm sure the w-o-o-t-a-z-o-n buyout deal was sweet. Good thing, because your brand is dead, lol. If you spent as much time thinking about your decisions, as you do redacting the word w-o-o-t-a-z-o-n, you may not have tossed your collective corporate cookies. When you file chapter for bankruptcy protection, I hope the one d-o-p-e who has to monitor this board thinks about this post as he wonders where his next rent check is going to come from.

Hasta la vista,

Amazon web developers/marketing engineers = demise of woot! proper

Blandness (or is it blindness?), over-hype, shoddy merchandise, and much higher prices have led me to frequent my visits to woot! for only quick scans of offerings. I dismiss 99+% as irrelevant to my needs because most are available at similar prices locally. AND, there is way too much crap being offered which minimizes the uniqueness of what woot! used to be... ONE DAY, ONE DEAL...

even this post is getting fewer hits and comments.I can't imagine that it isn't the same down the line

hippymailman wrote:even this post is getting fewer hits and comments.I can't imagine that it isn't the same down the line

I noticed this as well......I'd love to see how their website is polling now as far as influence and stats over the last 6 months.

mvsopen wrote:First, a server error on the feedback site? Strike one!
Second, why all the FaceBook garbage? Some of us still care about privacy, and refuse to use "FacePlant". Strike two. But the one that kills it for me? Making we, your customers, click to read the 2nd half of the product description! That's the reason we're here!!!!

Bring back the old site, please? It worked, and there really was no need to change it. Just because someone in upper-Amazon management said "Hey, this looks dated..." isn't reason enough for you to lose customers, is it?
(And you will lose customers over this "upgrade")

- Oh ya that must have been the reason for the change... the old dated part (sarcasm)... nothing to do with increasing monetization... More products = more money. I personally don't mind the change at all, more stuff to look at! Great Upgrade!

carlsonj816 wrote:- Oh ya that must have been the reason for the change... the old dated part (sarcasm)... nothing to do with increasing monetization... More products = more money. I personally don't mind the change at all, more stuff to look at! Great Upgrade!

Your train of thought makes TOTAL sense if you are indeed about 22 years old... Good Luck with your imbued partial theories on monetizing unstructured systemic economic strata... it is not as easy as you may surmise... .

EDIT: I will also submit that I am in no way an adherent to woot!azon's antithetical sweeping of an indigenous community-based system for a more affluent yet, less loyal, "pay as you go" constituency... .

sooo... how's the lowest traffic on the site since mid 2010 treating ya?

I say mid 2010 as it's as far back as I can see...