First off, Thank you for having such generous give-aways.

I think the post limit minimum to join the give-aways should be upped to 10 or something. It was kind of odd the last day when you had tons of people joining and giving out two quick responses just to enter. Their two posts didn't seem to do much to make them feel like part of the community, it just seemed like the two easiest to answer general discussion topics were being spammed. (Which piece would you upgrade if you had 100m - page 2-3 for example)


Saying that, I know that it is more about post quality which makes a person part of the community, not just the quantity. But when people only need 2 to potentially earn 1, 25, or 100 million, I don't think you are going to see much quality from just those 2 posts. Nor do I think a majority of those people will stick around if they do not win (well besides to enter another give-away)

I Agree completely with this, immediately after the competition died off it was back to the same people posting on the Forums. The 2 post people did not become part of the community which is in itself pretty sad. I happily admit i came for the first competition but stuck around after and have made good connections with people here @baldy @Buzzel @Methrin and the Admins for one, including others.

The majority of the posts were just "I Agree" or similar posts with the same content just longer. I hope some of the people stick around and make connections here, this Community has more to offer than others with such a small userbase.

Increasing the post count or minimum membership time (e.g. 1 week) for the higher tier prizes could be good options

increasing the required number of posts won't improve things that much.

maybe some secret algorithm that skews the winners toward those who have more posts (assuming spammers/flooders are banned), longest membership time, and how many times they didn't win previous contests.

maybe increasing the minimum lenght of posts, to avoid teh Iagreen ones...

maybe we can downvote the mindless iwanttopostanycraptogetintheraffle posts to invalidate them? can it be done?

Yeah, the last day of the contest was pretty spam-happy.

Posted by Venoom at 09/18/2012 07:52 AM

increasing the required number of posts won't improve things that much.

maybe some secret algorithm that skews the winners toward those who have more posts (assuming spammers/flooders are banned), longest membership time, and how many times they didn't win previous contests.

I like this idea. Maybe for every two posts in a month a person gets a raffle ticket up to ten tickets? Then we could add one ticket per consecutive month a person is active and did not win.

It depends. If it's truly a "random" giveaway, then there shouldn't be any selection bias towards anyone; every single person, as long as they fulfill the specified requirements, should have an equal chance to win.

For the good of the community, there are some issues with this as has already been discussed. The only way to implement a system that is both fair and excludes "garbage posts" and spam, is to restrict the number of people who are allowed to enter based on certain criteria. I'm not sure what the best way to implement this is, but maybe something based on tenure/post count/number of upvoted posts or some combination. Personally, I don't care who wins (other than myself, ha), but there are certainly a lot of those casuals/spammers that I would NOT want to see winning.

I agree, and I'm not even up to 10 posts yet. This is not uncommon in the forum world. Lots of sites require a minimum amount of posts just to be allowed to post in certain forums. I came because of the maximum stats spreadsheet, But stayed because of the awesome price tracker system, and great users that are here.

Up the number of post requirement don't solve the problem. Let's just say , you requirement 10 posts or even 20 posts for entry . It just means people will spam more . Normally give away period atl east 2 or 3 weeks long . It's plenty of time to make even 100 posts if that's the requirement for winning somethings.

My suggestion :

Take an extra step to make sure that post that make by entry isn't a spam post

Rule: Posts which are downvoted are ineligible for consideration in meeting any requirements to enter a contest.

Posted by Ammostiel at 10/04/2012 11:22 AM

Rule: Posts which are downvoted are ineligible for consideration in meeting any requirements to enter a contest.

I don't think that would do any good either. You'd just encourage people to run about downvoting everything to make sure they give themselves a better opportunity to win.

1. Post would need "3" downvotes to be ineligible.
2. Posters registered more than one month can only downvote one post per day.
3. Posters registered less than one month cannot downvote any post.

As much as I'd like to see the contests go to active members of the community, I think a 2 post minimum is a good balance. It won't flood the forums with spammers and the people here only for the contest have to visit a minimum of 2 threads which gives those people twice the chance to be impressed by our collective awesomeness. There is also going to be a population that visits the site that doesn't regularly post in the forums except for the contest.

There might be something to gnawol's idea of "tiered" prizes. Make a second "Veterans" drawing with, say, 3 equal small prizes where eligibility is restricted to members who registered sometime before the previous contest. The contests are here to drive new traffic which will ultimately become more traffic. You don't spend your marketing dollars on your most loyal customers. Anuiran already has the regular forum members' eyeballs. He needs fresh meat.

I initially joined this forum just for the chance to win 100m. I forgot how I came across this, and I remember I was actually pretty cautious if I was entering myself into a vicious web scam. It took me a while to decide to join the contest lol (100m is a lot?).

I have no suggestions or solutions to the concern raised at this stage. It pretty much depends on what objective is it (e.g. to reward active members? Or to attract the attention of new people?). To me as a new joiner, I was just trying my luck on the 100m initially, without thinking about participating actively in the forum (I did put in some thoughts in creating and writing 2 'OK quality' posts to ensure I was eligible for the contest). However, you may have noticed I have participated in some communications in this forum. I found some useful posts, and the atmosphere here is better than the D3 forum. I still read D3 forum though, especially on those popular posts where so many different views (& I don't attempt to read all, just jumping around from page 1 to page x,y,z to page 26 and get myself entertained).

OK.
After I wrote that I have no suggestions or solutions, I did have something in mind about this when I was eating my lunch just now.

Let's say, the objective is to both
1) Attract new people
2) Reward active members

My suggestions (open to discussions of course):

Create a 3 Tier System (Tier 1 - max win = 25m, Tier 2 - max win = 50m, Tier 3 - max win = 100m)
See a b c below. Can consider just 2 tiers for simplicity.

a. New Recruit

New joiners in the month. They meet the minimum requirements to enter the contest. In my opinion can impose one more requirement (or just replace the 2 posts requirement) that new joiners should introduce themselves (by replying to a post titled "Introduce Yourself : [October 2012]". New joiners can write what they want about their main character(s), progression, experience with D3..........in one or two short paragraphs, although we can't stop them from writing about their personal matters :P.

In this way, new joiners are 'forced' to dedicate a little bit more time in this forum, while we all get a chance to know each others better.

b. Veteran I

Flows from a. above. Remains active in the second month e.g. a minimum of 2 posts in the second month.

c. Veteran II

This is up to Anuiran's decision. Some of you may have contributed much, and there must be a system to easily recognise your efforts. Let's say a minimum of 40 posts todate if we are looking at an objective measurement. Of course why I suggested 40 is because I passed this mark lol. If using subjective measurement (or a mixture of both), it is up to Anuiran or a panel of active unbiased members, which could depends on the quality of post/ contributions made. There is also a question of do you need some sort of ongoing-active-contribution (in real world we professionals call it Coutinous Professional Development) e.g. minimum 1 post per 6 month.

One note about minimum post requirement is that it might make the forum 'too crowded with too many posts and information', if the number of submission/ number of minimum requirement are too much..........I would rather not prefer a high number within a short period.

The above are my quick thoughts, gtg .....gotta catch up with some sleep now.
(edit: some grammars.....English is not my first language...)

As another user who opted to register and begin using the forums in part due to the contest I can see both sides of this. I did fire off a couple quick posts including one in the specifically mentioned "what would you do with the 100 million" post.

I have stuck around because I enjoy reading the posts and commentary of a community that has more to say than "TL:DR"

I think a simple solution would be to include a disclaimer that posts deemed to be "spam" by the discretion of Anurian will be set aside as disqualified. Once the winners have been picked but before they are announced the posts made by those selected can be reviewed. If a user has only made two one sentence replies to another post they can be disqualified and another winner selected in their place.

Really the two post min does what it should. The goal of the contests is to bring more people. With any marketing you never count on 100% of people becoming a member. Your goal is to get a small percentage of the spammers to stay. I came for the rare prizes and stayed for the atmosphere.

I think he is on the right track if his goal is to draw more.people to this site. If his goal is to reward loyal members then he needs to change the format a bit. Imo he already rewards his loyal players with great information, crafting, and advice.

Increasing the post min will just increase the spam

as others have already mentioned, i agree increasing the 2 post to something higher would only increase the amount of spam
i'm no marketing expert, but one of the earlier contest did bring me to the site, but the members/information/videos are what keep me around, and i think thats the point of the contests, right?

although i wouldn't mind a contest for existing members only :P

Nice improvement on gear!

On the topic of prizes. I would love a personal shopper for the day. I always seem to buy wrong itemized stuff.

I like the idea of a personal shopper.

I believe I have geared my monk badly. My new barb has more DPS (53k) after spending a few millions on gears (following the advice from a post in this forum). My monk's DPS is only 43k. I suspect it has something to do with crit damage, but I am at a loss now on which gears to be replaced.