Head Guru Posted November 30, 2003 Posted November 30, 2003 Hi, We have closed the threads on the computer giveaway contest. The winner has been notified via email. In the past we have given away - xbox, yearly hosting accounts, dvd burners and more. With each contest there has been a stink about how the contest winner was chosen. So we went to a panel of judges. That still didnt help, people still complained. This last round was enough to push me over the edge. I chose a winner based on what I thought was the funniest entry. However, contestants did not like the fact that the winner that was chosen had added a photo in the background. So here we are. Once again people complaining over why they didnt win. At this point I am not likely to run another contest on the forums. It simply hurts to much to dig into my wallet and pull out 15 $100 bills and know that the entire process led to this. I am sad. Someone posted "I am glad you run your servers better than your contest". It simply shows me that the time has come to cease the contest on our forums. Bill
aaron_ginn Posted November 30, 2003 Posted November 30, 2003 Bill, As I stated in the previous thread, I understand your frustration; however, calling your paying customers "sore losers" and "whiners" is really unprofessional, IMHO. TCH would not exist without these people. I was one of the ones that questioned the way the contest went, not because I had any illusions about winning - my responses were not nearly clever enough - but because the contest ended up being something far different than what the rules stipulated. You're certainly free do choose whatever criteria you want to give away the prize - it's your money after all - but I feel your reaction to the questioning of the winning entry was out of line. You certainly should have expected some of this type of reaction as you say it has happened with every contest in the past. The way you responded by closing and deleting the previous thread was tantamount to taking your ball and going home. That's all I'm going to say on this subject. As I said earlier, congratulations to the winner.
Head Guru Posted November 30, 2003 Author Posted November 30, 2003 You have the right to your thoughts. However, I am really sick of people telling us how to run a contest. I really dont care to go over this anymore. Thread closed again.
Head Guru Posted December 1, 2003 Author Posted December 1, 2003 Follow Up. After reading the post about the giveaway, I was very upset today, actually almost in tears. The bad thing about the internet is the ability to post while ticked off. I am sorry if I offended anyone. I did not intend to do that, but it just felt like others did not care if they offended me. But as the leader of the familly here, I should have shown more restraint. I have had time to reflect and wish to reconcile. I have reopened this topic and welcome your input at this time. Bill
Head Guru Posted December 1, 2003 Author Posted December 1, 2003 Bill, As I stated in the previous thread, I understand your frustration; however, calling your paying customers "sore losers" and "whiners" is really unprofessional, IMHO. TCH would not exist without these people. I was one of the ones that questioned the way the contest went, not because I had any illusions about winning - my responses were not nearly clever enough - but because the contest ended up being something far different than what the rules stipulated. You're certainly free do choose whatever criteria you want to give away the prize - it's your money after all - but I feel your reaction to the questioning of the winning entry was out of line. You certainly should have expected some of this type of reaction as you say it has happened with every contest in the past. The way you responded by closing and deleting the previous thread was tantamount to taking your ball and going home. That's all I'm going to say on this subject. As I said earlier, congratulations to the winner. Ok step by step. Lets take a close look at the rules of the contest. The rules are simple:Either save the picture to your hard drive and add the caption you want in your favorite photo editing software and repost it in this thread, or simply add your caption as a reply to this thread. Since this is a family forum keep the captions PG-13 or below, any offensive captions will be deleted by a staff member. There is no limit to the number of captions you can submit. Pretty darn simple set of rules huh? I thought so. Nothing was stated about adding images to the captions. Ok and now here is the winner. http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/forums/i...e=post&id=30911 Nice little entry, made me laugh. Now onto your complaints. I must have interpreted the Contest Rules wrong, I thought that it was a "Photo Caption Contest" not a "Graphic Contest", there must have been many more contest contestants that thought the same, by the amount of captions that were submitted. There were a about a even number of caption only vs photo added + caption. If the mods or myself would have had issues with the entries we would have disqualified them as the contest moved along. I thought that I had bent the "Photo Caption Contest" rules a little, when I added some small graphics to a few of my entrees, I though that those entrees of mine would be disqualified from the contest. Perhaps you should not have assumed so much. Like I said above there were many entries with photo additions. If I had known than what I know now, I would have approached this contest a little differently, as a matter of fact, I probably would have used the winner's graphics of the deer on the SUV in a little Flash Animation, showing the deer leaping off the roof of the SUV, have it run around a bit and than have the deer butt the kid that's holding onto the sign in his rear end and have the kid say, "Hey, that felt good" This would have been viewed as stealing another entries content and your post would have been void. I have to agree with Richard that the rules of this contest deviated from the original announcement. A caption contest assumes that the original image will not be manipulated and that the entrants will work with the existing image. I personally never have judged a caption contest. However, I viewed every entry on the same level. To be honest the entry that won was a terrible attempt at photo editing. It was the caption that made me laugh. It was the posters post that caught my attention. I have learned a very good lesson in all of this. I am not the best judge in the world This comment is the one that sent me in orbit. One thing that I'm grateful about, is that TCH runs it's severs better than it runs it's contests. The poster is right, we do run our servers better than our contest. That is why we will stick to running servers and not contests. You know the funny thing is. Everyone loves to complain, but very few people remember how to say thank you. I will repost what was posted earlier. Live and Learn.....
Head Guru Posted December 1, 2003 Author Posted December 1, 2003 In the spirit of the holidays and because TCH is a real family. We will be announcing a 2nd place winner on the caption contest. The 2nd place winner will receive the following. http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/p...s=19&l=en&s=dhs
Head Guru Posted December 1, 2003 Author Posted December 1, 2003 Lets keep all the replies in the followingt post. http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/forums/i...?showtopic=5902 I am closing this thread.
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