Can fluther have a competition where they would give away free gifts to winners?

Please, no competition among members and no material value for lurve points. It will only cause harm and not do anyone any good. There is no existing need that this would fulfill.

I’m sure your idea is well meant, @Eggie, so I’m not criticizing you. But I feel strongly that this would be the wrong direction for us to go.

I’m sorry….I didn’t know that it would cause such harm. I just thought about it when I saw the fluther items on sale…..also I thought that it would be fun and it would attract more users to the site.

It’s a cute idea. It wouldn’t harm the site. It’s just something different and definitely should be a one time thing. I would be in favour of it, it would spice things up.

I’m with @Jeruba on this. What lurve score would you choose and why? How would you explain it to those that that immediately excluded? How would you make it so those not able to take part don’t have to see all the competition stuff so as to not rub it in?

What would the criteria be for the competition? Answers of a certain length? Answers containing the use of a certain number of tricky grammatical accuracies? (According to whom? I have yet to attain the Perfecto Fish award…) Wouldn’t that detract from what we are here for, which is to answer questions to the best of our ability and knowledge as and where we think it will be helpful? What kind of content would a competition lead to?

Who would administer it? Who would do the artwork needed, the programming, the marking/judging? What specific good would it do for the site itself, as an enterprise, that would make all this worth the cost and the time of already swamped people?

And (least relevantly but) logistically, how would said fluther gifts be distributed? We have members all over the world.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m also with @Jeruba in being sure that your idea is well meant @Eggie. It’s lovely that you are thinking about ways for the site to engage with its users. It does that rather well already though, eh? :-)

We had one a long while back, but it had nothing to do with lurve. It was open to everyone, and was a sort of video scavenger hunt. The winner got a t-shirt, if I remember correctly. I wouldn’t be opposed to something like that. I’d never want it tied to lurve in any way, though.

Edit: Found the blog post about it.

Sounds like recreation period in a home for the permanently bewildered.

Oh God. You have to watch the video linked in that blog post. Cute!

I want to win a lunch date with @Jeruba and @augustlan!

An open competition would be fun, but a competition whose entries are based on lurve score wouldn’t be a good idea, IMHO.

Ok, maybe basing it on a certain lurve score would be bad idea, but what if we had a competition like scrabble, or some other idea(to be created).....other users would see this and spread the word. Internet users would like what they hear and would want to join fluther because it is full of surprizes. It should be a one time thing though…like on the anniversary of fluther or a once in a two year kind of thing…..people who win the said competition could enter a mail address and fluther could mail the prizes to them..via Fedex or something. It should have one ultimate winner… and better yet it should be like for one day…..like an Enter the Dragon Tournament or a Mortal Kombat tournament where only one winner could emerge….and it should have chat so people could have fun while doing it. The prize doesnt have to be grand, it could be a slipper or key chain or jeans. Maybe if you want to take it up a notch….a fluther trophey made of glass with colorful liquid in the glass!!! It is just an idea that I think would make fluther more fantastic and I think that it would definitely attract more users..because believe it or not I was speaking about fluther with some people and they like the chat parties and that created some attration towards it. The persons I spoke to wanted to join when hearing this. I think that it is something that is worth looking into….seriously.

eggie you should get into event management. Some cute ideas there.

@Jellie, by “harm” I mean giving rise to competition among members, which leads to animosity, envy, hurt feelings, temptations to game the system, partisanship, and other divisive things.

In my opinion those effects would be harmful, to individuals if not to the site. I did not specify “to the site.”

Would all members react that way? No. Is it rational and mature? No. Is it a common human weakness? Yes.

Would it drive people away? Yes, starting right where I am.

What’s more, those who are attracted by that sort of thing would then come here expecting and wanting that sort of thing. If that is not what we are, it’s misleading. Why would we want to create a host of new members who are in for instant disappointment? or, on the other hand, let those expectations change the character of the site?

I think we do best to try do be known as we are, so those who would be comfortable here will recognize us and want to join, and not pose as something we’re not in order to inflate numbers. I’ve seen this happen before in other groups, one of which lost its soul permanently.

As always, I’m only offering my opinion, but I do have a reason for it.

@augustlan I watched the dictionary video. I’m completely lost! Were people supposed to guess the questions based on the drawings? Where were the results??

I would like to win pizza. Okay,how about we all just order pizza and go into chat and play games? :D

Hey @Jillthetooth Do you have any cheesecake?

@Dog Good idea! What’s your credit card number! I’ll get my pizza ordered and meet you in chat!

@Dutchess_III A W E S O M E !!! :D

Ok…let’s see…. awesome… 12351915135…got it @Dog! Look for a $14.99 charge. I won’t order extra cheese, I promise!

Hey! Can you tell me what the outcome of that pictograph blog was?

@Dutchess_III Yes, they were supposed to guess what questions the drawings represented. There was a winner, and I think he got a t-shirt. I’m trying to find the follow up blog, but the blog site is down at the moment.

Oh, here it is!

O wow! I was in on the ”....sending cake but never asks you out” question! Oh, splendid! I agree. Let’s have ‘nother one! I would also be interested in Ben and Andrew’s home video, featuring their home space…now that they’re big yahoo’s with Twitter! :)

more! more!! more!!! more!!!

The second one…I really thought that the turning over of the ‘hour glass’ was a hint as to the first question, about salt, that AndrewBen posted. But..at what point did they realize that ‘Fluther’ was “bigger than they were’? Was it the ‘Frizzer’ Q? Was it the enrollees from Kansas??

@Dutchess_III I think it was the cake Q. It was mentioned elsewhere on the web, and we got a ton of new traffic because of it.