Hi everyone, I see quite a few kind and generous giveaways here on BLF. Also, prizes offered up by stores and vendors in exchange for some store exposure or basic market research.
Usually these gifts are offered for little more than an “I’m in!” post from us BLF users. My concern arises from one of the particular methods used to perform the final prize draw:
An online randomiser (ie. random.org) is fed with input of just a starting post number and ending post number. It selects a number between the ranges and that is the prize winner. This is indeed random, and so seemingly fair with equal opportunity for all posters… or so it seems…
The obvious and simple fact is that any user with more than one post in the thread between the two post values has a higher likelihood of being drawn. A user who simply posts twice, even a "thanks again" or "good luck everyone”, has DOUBLE the chance of winning than the user who posts just once. Amongst threads sometimes totalling hundreds of posts in popular giveaways it would be very difficult to spot two or more posts made at distant intervals by a single user.
Better and fairer model is to compile a list of the unique usernames in order of posting and filter out any later duplicates. This numbered list of usernames can be displayed by the organiser in the OP if they wish to give full transparency of the process and draw-pot. Then draw using random.org using that filtered list.
This seems to be a common factor that is not considered during some prize-draws using the actual raw posts as a "draw-hat". Its akin to having two raffle-tickets in the pot. Hope that makes sense and can be considered with other future giveaways on the forum.
All in the name of fairness - I hope you don't mind me saying.
After random.org picks a winner you can just check to be sure they have only one post. Set comments per page to 300 then Find “Halo…” will quickly show a second post even among hundreds.
I think most everyone would check to see if there are double posts.
I also think that someone suggesting how someone else should do their giveaway isn't necessary. I think each person has the right to do their giveaway just as they see fit, since they are the giver and everyone posting is a possible taker. Fair or not, it is not the place of the person trying to get something, to tell the person giving how they should run their giveaway. If it isn't fair, then I would think that the giver knows that already and decided to let it be that way. Maybe not, maybe people have to be told how to do everything.
Not slamming the OP personally, just putting my thoughts in the mix.
When doing giveaways I keep track of users by post, then copy it to excel to weed out duplicates before using a random name picker, so far I have not run into any problems.
I always just choose the name of the person I want to win, and then hit Random.org until it gives me that person’s number. I think that’s totally fair! 0:)
This is simple and effective. It is much easier than trying to maintain a list of all entrants. In a giveaway where each entrant is allowed only one submission, this is probably the best way to go.
The guys who raise a giveaway can set whatever rules they like as they are doing every one a favour by putting up a free gift. I dont even think they need to provide a screen print of the random.org screen or whatever they use to pick the winning entry. It’s not like a raffle where we pay for tickets, it’s a free entry.
Thank you to all of you who put up a giveaway, you make the effort to organise it and present it to all. No one should ever complain about how it was conducted when it’s totally free to enter. I dont think we should set any generic rules, it’s up to the OP for the giveaway.
