Thread: Ideas for my giveaway

I like the idea of a treasure hunt for those nominated by select senior members. If people are interested in helping, please pm me. Also, if anyone has specific questions from SRP posts they think would be good for the treasure hunt please pm or email them to me

. Heck, I'd hate to forever be dubbed "Poor Bill" instead of "smart ass" for the time I was on the forums. [/QUOTE]
What about a "poor smart ass" sorry Bill LOL


Its a hard thing to do,to get the conditions of your give away met and it is obvious that you have the best intentions at heart,however where I come from people that say they are broke all the time usually have pots of doe and the people that are doing it tough are proud and don`t talk about it. Maybe you could narrow it down by only including new members, helping someone get started in the world of straight`s is a good thing.
If you wish to make it soley based on financial hard ship ,you will probably miss the most deserved recipients,people have two things ,their word and their dignity and by admitting financial hard ship the latter is being attacked.
I know this hasn`t helped one bit ,sorry ,just my 2 bobs worth
Kind regards Peter

Originally Posted by Joe Lerch

After reading through this thread so far, I'm still left with the nagging feeling that the winner is to be someone "needy." I don't want to feel that way about anyone here, and I'm sure guys don't want to be viewed that way. So, the only reasonable conclusion is that it's not a criterion that should be used here.

The only way to avoid any kind of stigma is not to identify the winner, and that kind of ruins most of the fun.

I don't have an answer on this, but I'd hate to see a "poor me" contest. The way it was done in the past may not have been great, but at least it didn't stigmatize anyone.

If the problem is people joining just to be in the contest, we have ways of handling that. If we are upset about people not thanking us, we can a make an advance thank you part of the application.

But seriously, I find the "needy" standard troubling. If we limit it to those who have been members for some time (people we know), maybe we can just trust them to be gentlemen and not grab items that others can use more. A simple rule could be made that people who have their own razors and shaving equipment should not apply.

Joe, the thing is, I dont want to give this stuff away to someone who could easily go out and buy it themselves. I want to help someone who otherwise may not be able to afford to start straight shaving in the near future. It could be some college student, or someone who has kids and cant afford it, or a newly wed who is saving for a house and cant afford to start.

The only way I would be willing to bend on this requirement (and no promises) is if the list of questions are very demanding and take a lot of time to figure out, so that I know who ever wins is very interested in being part of the forums because they really had to work at it to win. I would also like them to learn in the process. What I dont want is to see someone win then just walk away and never participate in SRP or worse yet give it a way as a gift or sell it on eBay. I would be beyond pissed off, if this happened.

Originally Posted by JLStorm

Joe, the thing is, I dont want to give this stuff away to someone who could easily go out and buy it themselves. I want to help someone who otherwise may not be able to afford to start straight shaving in the near future. It could be some college student, or someone who has kids and cant afford it, or a newly wed who is saving for a house and cant afford to start.

The only way I would be willing to bend on this requirement (and no promises) is if the list of questions are very demanding and take a lot of time to figure out, so that I know who ever wins is very interested in being part of the forums because they really had to work at it to win. I would also like them to learn in the process. What I dont want is to see someone win then just walk away and never participate in SRP or worse yet give it a way as a gift or sell it on eBay. I would be beyond pissed off, if this happened.

Well, instead of making it public, let senior members nominate people privately. It might be someone they know personally, or someone new they feel has contributed a neat idea, like svnoto or Idaho Mike. That saves the embarassment of someone flat out asking for a freebie, and people can go about their business, instead of hanging around until they get one, because the only notice they'll get is that they won. You don't have to go through a whole bunch of B.S. essays or whatever, and since the winners would be nominated privately, they wouldn't have some ulterior motive to hang around until they won something, never to be seen afterwards, because they wouldn't even know they had been nominated. Sort of a merit-based giveaway, instead of handing out a freebie to every Harry Hardluck and Sally Sobstory who comes along poormouthing, hoping someone will give them something. That way, new people are rewarded for contributing, rather than just for showing up and being lucky that day.
Just my $.02
Joe

Originally Posted by Joe Chandler

Well, instead of making it public, let senior members nominate people privately. It might be someone they know personally, or someone new they feel has contributed a neat idea, like svnoto or Idaho Mike. That saves the embarassment of someone flat out asking for a freebie, and people can go about their business, instead of hanging around until they get one, because the only notice they'll get is that they won. You don't have to go through a whole bunch of B.S. essays or whatever, and since the winners would be nominated privately, they wouldn't have some ulterior motive to hang around until they won something, never to be seen afterwards, because they wouldn't even know they had been nominated. Sort of a merit-based giveaway, instead of handing out a freebie to every Harry Hardluck and Sally Sobstory who comes along poormouthing, hoping someone will give them something. That way, new people are rewarded for contributing, rather than just for showing up and being lucky that day.
Just my $.02
Joe

I like the nomiation idea....but Im not sure I like the completely random winner out of those nominated. I like the fact that its objective so there is not favoritism among those entere, but I dont know if I want the winner to be randomly drawn, Im sort of on the fence for that particular situation

Originally Posted by JLStorm

Joe, the thing is, I dont want to give this stuff away to someone who could easily go out and buy it themselves. I want to help someone who otherwise may not be able to afford to start straight shaving in the near future. It could be some college student, or someone who has kids and cant afford it, or a newly wed who is saving for a house and cant afford to start.

The only way I would be willing to bend on this requirement (and no promises) is if the list of questions are very demanding and take a lot of time to figure out, so that I know who ever wins is very interested in being part of the forums because they really had to work at it to win. I would also like them to learn in the process. What I dont want is to see someone win then just walk away and never participate in SRP or worse yet give it a way as a gift or sell it on eBay. I would be beyond pissed off, if this happened.

I kindof like the suggestion that it be a "pay it forward" deal. The person who 'wins' would be expected to either return the razor or replace it or donate something for someone else once they've gotten their start.

There's going to be some drawback in the system no matter how you structure it, I think. You just have to depend on people to be mostly honorable.

Or we send several large, burly men with pakistani straight razors to their house to dry shave them.

Originally Posted by JLStorm

I like the nomiation idea....but Im not sure I like the completely random winner out of those nominated. I like the fact that its objective so there is not favoritism among those entere, but I dont know if I want the winner to be randomly drawn, Im sort of on the fence for that particular situation

I understand that. I don't think favoritism would be an issue, though. Rather than weeding through tons of entries from people who want a free razor (hell, I want a free razor, and I have hundreds) you'd only have to go through a few nominations from members who (I would hope) have a good reason for nominating the people they did. In this way, you'd get reasonable requests on behalf of others from people who have been there, done that, and can usually spot b.s. artists. I'm donating a razor, and honestly don't care where it goes, as long it goes to someone who will use it and appreciate it, so to my mind, the only way to make sure that happens is for private nominations, without the onus of self-interest. Plus, the winner wouldn't be randomly drawn. Not totally, anyway. You take nominations from members with over, say, 750 posts, and draw from that pool to get the winner. No giveaway is perfect, but after the lack of appreciation I saw from people last time towards those who donated (and I wasn't one of them then...but I can still get pissed for people who do a good thing and don't even get thanked for it), I think we damn sure need to narrow the field a bit.

Ok, thanks for all your help guys. I talked to Joe a while about this a few days back and I liked his idea, which was along the lines of what everyone else was telling me as well.

I will be making a post later today about the giveaway. Nominiations will be done privately over PM. Nominations will be accepted by anyone who has been a member of SRP for greater than 6 months with 400 posts, or any member who has over 1000 posts; Special circumstances will be considered, but no self nominations will be accepted.

In order to nominate someone I must receive a PM from a member who meets the criteria listed above, stating who the member is they are nominating and a short blurb of why they are nominating them. Each nomination will receive a number and the winner will be chosen at random. The deadline will be about a month from the start of the giveaway, which gives people enough time to submit an entry, but also enough time before the holidays that someone will have a nice gift.

Any problems or suggestions regarding my plan?

I am not exactly sure what the prize is, but from what I've gathered from the thread, it seems to be quite a few items already...

I know my idea works on the honor system too, but it would be nice if the winner could/would pass on the items he did not need to the second place, third place, etc.

For instance, I know a lot of guys on the board already have strops... If the winner would be happier with his current strop, perhaps he could suggest that JLStorm pick another name out of the hat, and the item(s) get passed to him.

We did this a lot on a hockey message board I was a part on when we would have equipment giveaways. Even though it relies a lot on honesty and frugality, it helped newer guys really spread out the wealth.