Hot Deals Forum Rules Change --

[Tedtalker1]

Hell just froze over. Finally.I was here when the ban came and I'm still here today.Too many soccor moms posting about JC Penny white sales for me on Chubby Wallet.Anandtech hot deals has always specialized in what I really want deals on mainly-TECHNOLOGY. Amen on the new rule.

 

[Manyakis]

Nice to see some old fart posting here.

Hey Ross, I remember you had a CDCA under your name what does it mean?

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: BrianC
Well, regardless of how it actually went, that was by far the public understanding of the events that unfolded and Anandtech did nothing to dispel that. Actually, if I recall, Anand himself made the decree and sited legal problems as the justification. For those curious as to how things started, I'll give a brief history!

Several years ago someone posted about a price mistake on Buy.com in the Anandtech technical forums. This spread like wildfire and overnight Anandtech became the hub of this "deal". Well, Buy.com didn't handle the situation very well and there was a lot of ill will towards the general public. There were so many off topic posts in the technical forums that a new forum was created called "Hot Deals" so that the Wounded Monitor Children can botch and moan to themselves (I was one ).

The Hot Deals forum took off as the central site for deals. For a few years, every single deal site revolved around the Anandtech Hot Deals world. There were no other deal forums with 1/10th the traffic of the Anandtech Hot Deals forum. Then came the [disputed] issue with the coupon codes and they became banned. There was public unhappiness and essentially a revolt occurred. For the next month, several sites popped up out of nowhere to try to take the unhappy traffic. It wasn't until Tim of FW created a site with the same FuseTalk forum software did the revolters find a home. Tim took a fight till the end attitude towards legal challenges and won out at the end.

In terms of Hot Deals, Anandtech was the pinnacle at its time. The exodus literally created multiple other sites that are now popular today. A number of these other sites wouldn't even exist if the coupon codes were never pulled at Anandtech to begin with.

Ah, the WMC. Brings back memories. I was one by the way. Anyone remember the amount of the check we got?

 

[aldamon]

I still come here for hot deals because it's nice to read a deal thread on site where people probably won't ask if a SODIMM will work in his desktop or if that 8800 GTS will work in a laptop, etc. That being said, the banning of coupon codes and the borked search sent me elsewhere too. I'm glad these things are fixed.

 

[Manyakis]

Originally posted by: Robor

Ah, the WMC. Brings back memories. I was one by the way. Anyone remember the amount of the check we got?

I think it's $53.xx

 

[Woofmeister]

Nice.:thumbsup:

 

[bigfil]

now thats what i'm talkin about

 

[IksokChoy]

Very Good Change!!

 

[scott123]

Before stumbling on to AnandTech about 6 months ago, on various occasions I had been to other hot deals forums, but had never been impressed by either the quality of the deals or the number of tech-related deals.

Since joining, AnandTech has been it for me. The level of discourse is SO much higher than any other deal sites. The $40 motherboard that I'm using right now was acquired with the help of a phenomenal Anandtech post from 6 months ago. The lack of coupon codes was annoying, but since I hadn't spent much time in a forum that had allowed codes, not having them wasn't a big deal. I was just happy having a centralized source for great computer deals.

Now that the codes are here, I'm elated.

 

[Zap]

:thumbsup:

 

[Safeway]

About damn time, AT.

 

[Digobick]

Nice to see some old timers in this thread. Maybe more will come back now.

 

[kermalou]

Originally posted by: RossMAN

Originally posted by: BrianC
The Hot Deals forum took off as the central site for deals. For a few years, every single deal site revolved around the Anandtech Hot Deals world. There were no other deal forums with 1/10th the traffic of the Anandtech Hot Deals forum. Then came the [disputed] issue with the coupon codes and they became banned. There was public unhappiness and essentially a revolt occurred. For the next month, several sites popped up out of nowhere to try to take the unhappy traffic. It wasn't until Tim of FW created a site with the same FuseTalk forum software did the revolters find a home. Tim took a fight till the end attitude towards legal challenges and won out at the end.

In terms of Hot Deals, Anandtech was the pinnacle at its time. The exodus literally created multiple other sites that are now popular today. A number of these other sites wouldn't even exist if the coupon codes were never pulled at Anandtech to begin with.

Yep. I first joined AT for the Hot Deals.

Now I go to FW/SD for my hot deals

I hate to agree with Rossman.

Hot Deals was the best thing, then came OT, then got stuck in P&N.

Took me a while to ween myself, but never went to Hot Deals after FW.

I think its a step in the right direction!!

 

[AAjax]

Originally posted by: RossMAN

Originally posted by: DerekWilson

Originally posted by: CKDragon

Originally posted by: DerekWilson
::EDIT:: Unlocked for comments ... let us know what you think.

Sure... when you know there's going to be a parade of praise.

Thanks, guys.

Seriously, I actually wanted to know if anyone had a problem with this as well ... I couldn't think of one, but I'm still listening if there are any.

To elaborate further, we want to get AT Hot Deals back to the top (where it started and should have stayed). Hope this helps!

While I applaud this decision, AT is about 5 years too late

Meanwhile FW/SD are steaming ahead.

True, but FW and SD are rather....um....well how do you say this nicely.. full of mean spirited asshats.

 

[XNice]

I remember when AT banned coupon codes. It didn't affect me all that much. I still only use AT, even when the other sites started to pop up. The interface and the aforementioned "level of discourse" was* much better than any other site. The only other site i may have visited semi frequently was TechD. Now I still use AT's hot deals, but for the smoking hot deals I just go to FS/FT threads.

*Now, this new interface is complete booty IMHO and the old one was 10X better as far as readability is concerned. This explains the choice of "was" instead of "is/still is". This is mainly directed towards each section's root page, where it lists all the threads. This criticsim is much less directed to the look of the actual posts even though it still applies somewhat.

But this allowing coupons thing is great I guess, but I found a lot of value in this site as a whole regardless of their stance. Plus most email coupons are easy to get... the second time. The first time you see a deal that requires an email code, you sign up for the emails. That way you'll get it the second time around.

 

[Gustavus]

iluvdeal
If you have been around that long you will recall why Staples threatened legal action. They were sending coupon codes to customers for their own use, but someone discovered a way to randomly search the Staples site for functional codes -- which showed the coupon amount and expiration date. All you needed was the functional coupon number code to use it either onnet or in a BM store. The details on how to do this were widely distributed in the hot deal/warez community and people here who were onto the game published the codes they found on AT. I found and used many in those days to get incredible hot deals on hardware -- free CD writers at a time they were still costly and a shoebox full of SDRAM etc. It was Staples fault for having such a flawed coupon system, but they apparently figured it was easier to go after Anand Tech than to fix their flawed marketing scheme. I can't blame Anand for folding in the face of such threats -- he had fewer than 10,000 members then -- but it was really Staples goof.

 

[ajwray]

I can come back from the wilderness.

 

[xDanielx]

as in the starcraft 2 trailor...


"it's about time"

 

[xDanielx]

Ah, the WMC. Brings back memories. I was one by the way. Anyone remember the amount of the check we got?

I have not forgotten the wounded monitor children either...

their damn threads would never go away.... but I didn't partake in that deal.

I remeber the.. what was it.. valueamerica deals? I took part in far to many of those, wasn't it like $100 off or 50% off for first time buyers? They had the items with insane prices with insane rebates as well at their end... though I never tried any of them. I still have a 19 inch crt and a 27 gig WD hard drive from that, not in use though.

I think I went to some site named agn before I came here,. Their FS/T forum, and it had links to anandtech. Got me hooked! I think I was an original member of heatware from it, but I must have been deleted from their system. AGN died around 2000 or earlier I think. I was *daniel*, and I was here as well but their new system killed *'s in names several years back.

Now it is just FW and AT for me, I think I visit these sites far to often. I gotta stop.. save more money or somethin... I remember when they banned coupons as well, does anyone have a date on that?

 

[Vasp]

O.K. Now lets start deal hunting - & make it kind of AT exclusive- What i mean is Deals posted here remain deals posted here - Basically avoiding cross posting on other boards.


AT will slowly become the cream again.

 

[najames]

No more vacations, what will people do now?

 

[No1ustad]

I believe these hot deals are going to get much hotter now...

 

[WolverineGator]

My browser's AnandTech link goes directly to Hot Deals and that was the reason I signed up years ago. However, I no longer look at any of the posts and I immediately click to OT or something else! Hot Deals are usually posted too late or are lame.

Hot Deals thread ratings of 0 to 5 are too coarse and make little sense. They need to be changed to a Cold or Hot Deal sliding scale with many more detailed points.

 

[alpha88]

Looks like I'll be back here more often!

 

[HumblePie]

YAY!!!!... finally the ban after that hitachi monitor fiasco has been lifted!

if memory serves me correctly about one of the factors leading to the ban.