RE: MyGaming competitions
As a foreword, I'm not sore that I don't win in the competitions, as there are many of them and I simply don't enter a lot of them anyway.
That, and I'm typing this nearly naked, in bed.
Anyway. There was, as often is, a competition on the MyGaming forum; the competition's entry method consisted of a system that's been used a lot in the past by this forum as well as other forums of various types, and it's one that quite simply aggravates me, and I'm sure many other people.
It's in the form of a 'choose a number between x-y' raffle where you have to post with the number(s) you choose.
Why does it aggravate me? Because there is no way to see what numbers have been taken without trawling each and every single post in a thread and then taking special note of each and every single number that's been chosen by someone else.
Then you go post your numbers up and have to go through each and every single page all over again to make sure that someone that had duplicate numbers didn't edit their post with numbers you chose before you.
Then you have to go back and check again just in case someone else was doing the same and you're still choosing duplicate numbers.
This is a system that is not only counter-intuitive, but also favours the early posters for the thread, as they have 'the least work' to do for their entries.
Now, don't get me wrong, I appreciate free competitions as much as the next guy and I, in that way, have no right to complain. However, I find it discouraging to take part in competitions at all when the bulk of them operate on such a basis, and as such may often not even look at notifications for competitions that work on a different system where, as an example, creativity and peer review gains merit for entries, instead.
As such, I'd like to suggest, as I did in a pm I sent to Tinman (didn't see a 'read' receipt, brah), that someone with the required know-how set up a PHP module to use with the forums that allows for selecting numbers for associated competitions' raffles based on username. As an added bonus, the competition admins should be able to determine who can and cannot enter based on previous competition winnings and/or minimum post requirements or the like.
This way, not only will there not be over 9000 kids that don't read the competition terms of entry, but everyone can easily and effectively choose their numbers for their entries without having to suffer immense frustration and what could end up hours of trying to get their entries in.
That and,
please don't bother with supposed 'get extra entries' drives, they don't increase users' chances and unless you implement a sane number choosing system, only adds to confusion and frustration.
I'd have gone to promote MyGaming if asked without there being a competition behind it, but really, if you have 100 people entering a competition with 1 entry each, each person has a 1 in 100 chance of winning. If you now tell them they can get an extra 4 entries by doing this, that and the other thing, but the total amount of possible entries is expanded to 500, and 100 people enter, they each still have an effective 1 in 100 chance of winning anyway, you just got them to do something they might've done for you anyway had you simply asked.
/rant
Originally Posted by Blaze786
