Testers Needed - New Engine for Latest Deals
Latest Deals
Hi everyone! 
To handle how big and fast Latest Deals is growing we’re testing out a new “engine” that powers the website and app.
We’re hoping we can get some volunteers onboard to give it a go and let us know how they get on!
What's different?
- Every time you see a list of stuff (on the homepage, after a search, in your dashboard, on the website, in the app, etc) they’ll be generated by the new engine.
- Alongside the engine, we’ve made a bunch of improvements to search to hopefully provide more accurate and relevant results (both for deals and in chat)
- If you don't see anything different, that can be a good thing. It means the engine is working and behind-the-scenes is much more efficient.
- Are the results right? e.g. if you’re on the competitions page, is every post a competition? If in your preferences you have “show expired deals” enabled, do you actually see them? We want to test every possible combination of preference/setting/page to make sure we’re always showing you the right thing.
- Is search any better? Is it faster? Does it show more relevant results? Does if favour more recent content?
- Is it quicker? When navigating to the 75th page of results, of adding in a bunch of category filters, do the results come back faster than before?
How can I compare the new engine vs the old engine?
If you opt in to test, you’ll use the new engine whenever you’re logged in. If you log out, or access Latest Deals in an incognito window, you’ll go back to using the old engine. So, if you’re super keen, you could try testing the new alongside the old to see which you prefer! 
How do I opt in?
Just comment below and I’ll activate the new engine on your account 
Can I opt out?
Of course - if something isn’t working right comment below with what’s wrong and that you want out and I’ll disable the new engine for your account.
Thank you very much in advance for any pioneers willing to give this a go 
All and any feedback is very welcome!
I'll be glad to, used to Q&A back in my old life so will do what i can to help when i can
Just tried it for a couple of minutes. Doesn't look like anything has changed? Am I supposed to log out and back in?
It looks like it’s working on the app - the sort function and filter appears. Not on safari though
hspexy Hey So in an ideal world (where there are no bugs!) you shouldn't notice any obvious differences as it's the stuff behind the scenes that's changed
Hopefully you may notice an improvement in search and perhaps in the speed of the website/app.
But if you use it for a week and notice nothing different then that's good too as it means the new "engine" (which is a lot more efficient) is producing the same results as the old one
Kelsey having used it occasionally throughout this week, I can’t say I’ve noticed a difference on the web version. The search seems faster from the app, and the sort function is useful, but I would personally find it more useful to be able to sort by price as well, not just date and relevance
Dont think we'll see anything different unless you compare screens whilst logged in and logged out at the same time. To do that you'll need one tab logged in and a incognito window logged out of latestdeals.
Then depending what you want to test, go to your Settings page then Preferences, you'll see various check boxes, ie 'Show expired posts' tick and untick these one by one and then see if the results are correct on your logged in screen. These wont look the same as the logged out incognito window though as they are only relevant when you are logged in
love to trial this 
Many thanks for offering to help!
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I've enabled the new engine on all your accounts. Fingers crossed it all runs smoothly!
If the new "engine " does not help to cut down the amount of "posting , liking and chatting "for points currently rampant on the site then it is pointless . Fiddling while Rome burns comes to mind ?
I am very aware of the commendable efforts put in by the team to improve the site . Sadly the reality remains that members are just "playing " the site to obtain points resulting in the site being swamped with "non deals".
I realise you have a small team , but wouldn't the teams time be better spent moderating all the appalling bad deals currently being posted just for the points ?
As you know , as a loyal and very concerned member , I have made several suggestions over the past months - none of which have been implemented . Perhaps you can't see the woods for the trees ?
The main problem now (which I have only recently realised ) is that members can "click and paste " a non deal in about 5 secs (ie 3 within a minute ) with no idea what the deal is !
Surely you know this ? or are you not paying attention to your own site ? Maybe you should consider my suggestion of a "time lapse " between posting deals and also the same lapse between "liking " deals as a starting point .
If I can see this happening I'm sure you can - or maybe I'm totally out of order (which I accept ) and that your income depends solely on the amount members you have and the amount of deals posted (however poor ) and not on the quality of those deals .
As ever I strive to improve this site but it seems my efforts are falling on deaf ears .
Hey Golfforall
We'd never want to discourage people sharing anything on LD as ultimately deals are subjective and what's a great offer for one person may be of no interest at all to another. In that vein we want to try and avoid moderating deals based on our own perception of their quality.
That said - we of course don't want to encourage people sharing the first thing they see/find just for points as that isn't really in the spirit of Latest Deals.
So our ultimate goal would be to create a system that achieves the balance of encouraging people to share and rewarding them for their time but that doesn't promote sharing anything (irrelevant of quality) just to get points.
We are considering lots of things on this front and have a few things in the pipeline already!
If it's okay I'll ask that, in this topic, we stop the discussion of deal quality here so we can keep it to it's original purpose. Feel free to tag me in an appropriate existing topic if you'd like to reply or continue the discussion. Hope that's okay!
Kelsey I liked a post last night but this morning on the front page the heart isnt shown as red, i tried to vote again and got a message correctly saying id already voted. To double check i went to my account page and checked what ive voted on and the post is there. So the Heart on the post on the search page is missing.
Just a heads up I've taken the new engine down to try some changes and have temporarily reverted everyone back to the old one
I don’t know if this is an issue or how it’s supposed to be, but I’ve noticed if I search (and don’t click on a suggested option from the list) from my dashboard, it doesn’t search for anything. It just stays on the dashboard page. It does this with both the old and new engine though, so this may be how it’s supposed to work.
Maybe that's why this morning maybe my homepage was showing no deals or no chat topics.
Hi guys could I have my account back to the old if that OK notice when people like my deals dosent go up stays same number I'm not bothered but I'm just pointing this out hope that OK keep up the great job you do xx 
Kelsey its for the bambootay shower gel on my notifications it says people liked but then it stays at same number of likes must be a gremlin lol x I love what you do here keep up the amazing work x
Hey all
Just an update that I've re-enabled the new engine just now. Please continue to let me know if you have any issues!
cocolgooh thanks for the heads up It is unrelated but is indeed a bug so I'll add it to my list to tackle
Ann1984 yup, there was a bit of temporary downtime which is why I switched you guys all back to the old engine for a bit. Sorry about that!
Anyone else interested in testing out the new engine please let me know. I probably won't enable it for anyone else immediately - will wait to see how all our existing volunteers fare for a few days first!
Thanks again everyone for all your help!
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