[Kat]

Let's take one step back a moment. Let's say we had done what you are asking, and the four site Admins got together last night to choose our unanimous favorite entry.

I guarantee you someone would still be crying "foul". They wouldn't think that the one we chose was most creative. Or maybe someone would scream about some obscure rule.

Unfortunately, we absolutely will never be able to please 100% of the people 100% of the time. No one can. We conducted the drawing of the winner as FAIRLY as possible. Each and every one of you who entered had exactly the same chances of winning the laptop as the next person. We did it randomly, and fairly.

To me, being fair is what mattered. Nowhere was it stated that the entry would or should be based on creativity. It was stated from the get-go that it would be a random drawing.

Rules were not "changed" after the onset. It was simply clarified that you could print to screen.

And as a side note: not everyone does have a printer, NOR easy access to one. I don't have one. I live in a very small area. Kinko's? What the heck is that? Had I been allowed to enter the contest, I would have been printing to my screen, as well.

[Advertisements]

I'd like to say thank you to the admin team for giving their own free time to run and judge this contest and hopefully there will be another one soon.

[keithr128]

I'd like to say thank you to the admin team for giving their own free time to run and judge this contest and hopefully there will be another one soon.

[Otto28]

So sure, one man's trash is another man's treasure, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to recognize when someone put in effort and creativity...

on this we agree, but remember the rules at this site did not call for creativity, it only offered additional incentive for creativity. i understand your frustration, i really do, believe me, i do.

did you enter at any other sites?

[SmileyXX]

All in all it was a fun contest and I would like to see more coming.

[PengLord]

Rules were not "changed" after the onset. It was simply clarified that you could print to screen.

And as a side note: not everyone does have a printer, NOR easy access to one. I don't have one. I live in a very small area. Kinko's? What the heck is that? Had I been allowed to enter the contest, I would have been printing to my screen, as well.

I'm sorry, but the rules were PRINT, allowing people to not print, is changing the rules not a clarification. Plus I highly doubt that someone in Indiana (the United States) has never heard of Kinko's.

It is what it is, but don't try insulting those of us who put in a concerted effort to try to follow the rules only to have them relaxed/altered. I didn't say that I was angry nor do I think it was entirely unwarranted to allow pictures of screens, but the fact is that the rules at the end of the contest did not match the rules at the beginning of the contest. Don't piss in a glass and call it lemonade, I know the difference. All I ask is that, in future contests, set rules and stick with them. If you want input, but plan to complain when you don't like it, don't ask in the first place.

Ranting aside, I think that the random choice was just fine, everyone went into the contest knowing the final selection would be random (I would be angry if that had changed during the midst of the competition).

I was in the top 25 for the-gadgeteer.com's drawing and I was rather pleased to get recognized for the effort, though I was omitted from the top 12. Though I don't agree with the outcome of that competition, I support the choice of the selector, much as I do in this matter. More to the whole premise of this competition, I've now gained knowledge of this site's existence, and as a result I may return and become an active member as I reviewed the site's content and found it worthwhile.

I am certainly pleased that this site's contest didn't ask me to name an administrator's house-mate that was not mentioned on the site anywhere, asking me to spend 2 hours searching for the answer to each question of a 1/2 dozen.

Edited by PengLord, 21 May 2008 - 06:49 PM.

[Kat]

I'm sorry, but the rules were PRINT, allowing people to not print, is changing the rules not a clarification. Plus I highly doubt that someone in Indiana (the United States) has never heard of Kinko's.

Do not patronize me. I know full well *what* Kinko's is. In this tiny little town in West central Indiana, I would have to drive nearly an hour to get to the nearest one. Completely not worth the time and gas money.

It is what it is, but don't try insulting those of us who put in a concerted effort to try to follow the rules only to have them relaxed/altered.

Not once did I attempt to insult anyone. The rules were NOT changed. They were merely clarified to state the obvious. Since we had already been allowing them, and not removing/disqualifying them from the beginning, it was quite obvious that it was allowed. We simply chose to put that into writing, so those who didn't understand they could do it that way would know.

[keithr128]

I would like to say this, since I just realized it.
I thought that the way it would be was that the winner would be chosen at random out of, lets say a top 20 or 30 where each of the admins chose their favorite 5,6,7 entries instead of just every entry that followed the rules since some people put in a whole lot of effort and creativity into their post.
Also, I thought this contest was supposed to have a theme (Where Do You Geek) and entries were supposed to show what other hobbies people have besides computers. Ex. hunting geek, baseball geek, aviation geek and on and on.
Then again I may have gotten that mixed in with some of the ideas that were being tossed around before the contest started.

[Crumb]

administrator's house-mate that was not mentioned on the site anywhere

That was one of the easier answers to find.

Edited by Crumb, 21 May 2008 - 09:23 PM.

[Kat]

I would like to say this, since I just realized it.
I thought that the way it would be was that the winner would be chosen at random out of, lets say a top 20 or 30 where each of the admins chose their favorite 5,6,7 entries instead of just every entry that followed the rules since some people put in a whole lot of effort and creativity into their post.
Also, I thought this contest was supposed to have a theme (Where Do You Geek) and entries were supposed to show what other hobbies people have besides computers. Ex. hunting geek, baseball geek, aviation geek and on and on.
Then again I may have gotten that mixed in with some of the ideas that were being tossed around before the contest started.

I don't understand how you came to those conclusions? We never stated anything about we would pick a random winner out of a select few. From the rules:

From the pool of contestants who properly enter the logo competition, a random entry will be chosen as the Grand Prize, HP "Dragon" notebook winner...

Nothing was ever said about showing a "geek" type photo, either. Again, from the rules:

Simply print the Geeks to Go logo. Display it in an unusual, creative or funny place and take a picture or video of it. Update: If you don't have a printer, display on a monitor or other device is allowed.

[TheQuickBrownFox]

I see nothing wrong/flawed/unclear with the way the contest was run. Everything was good from the start. Good work organizers! Looking forward to the next and maybe I'll be a participant rather than just a spectator.

[Unplug Your Charger]

And anyways I'm very very dumb...........I could have got my hands on the

lappy wit ease if only i had read the admin's post properly..........

Here's how :

1) Only one entry per person. So, to make multiple entries, i only had to

signup as many times.
2) Signup requires only an E-Mail ID!
3) I manage close to 25 domains and on close to half of them i use the

"Catch-all" option i.e., [email protected] wud be forwarded to one

preset E-Mail ID.
4) So i could have signed up for over a hundred or thousand or a million times

[sharkhead7854]

ah.... people are complaining about the stupidest things...
USE YOUR BRAINS
it told you beforehand that it would be at random, so you should have known you didnt have to put effort into it!!!!
unless you were going for the best pick for vista, so stop complaining "some people were creative!" cus they didnt have to be to win
besides, 1. if you won I know theres no chance you would have said anything, and 2. if they picked the best entry youd just complain about something else like how they cheated
i think the admins did a good job handling everything for such a big contest
thank you for hosting it, im grateful i got the chance to be in it
and good luck to everyone else on the other sites, ill be competing with ya!

[Tokar]

Let's take one step back a moment. Let's say we had done what you are asking, and the four site Admins got together last night to choose our unanimous favorite entry.

I guarantee you someone would still be crying "foul". They wouldn't think that the one we chose was most creative. Or maybe someone would scream about some obscure rule.

Unfortunately, we absolutely will never be able to please 100% of the people 100% of the time. No one can. We conducted the drawing of the winner as FAIRLY as possible. Each and every one of you who entered had exactly the same chances of winning the laptop as the next person. We did it randomly, and fairly.

To me, being fair is what mattered. Nowhere was it stated that the entry would or should be based on creativity. It was stated from the get-go that it would be a random drawing.

Rules were not "changed" after the onset. It was simply clarified that you could print to screen.

And as a side note: not everyone does have a printer, NOR easy access to one. I don't have one. I live in a very small area. Kinko's? What the heck is that? Had I been allowed to enter the contest, I would have been printing to my screen, as well.

There always be someone crying, but you would at least have FEWER people crying with a selection panel method. Hey, this is why we have 9 justices on the supreme court...not every justice sees eye to eye with the other 8, so they have a majority, heck some stuff they overturn or whatever wins 5-4. I can go on and on about this, but there are so many scientific ways to go about selecting a winner by actually judging the entries.

With the contest just being "hey we will select a random winner" you shouldnt have said "hey put our logo somewhere creative or interesting". You might as well have just said "Just click ADD REPLY and enter 'hello' and you are entered into the contest". Seriously...if you werent going to take the time to actually INSPECT the entries put forth by people then why even ask people to do it? It is a waste of both of our time - our time to set up the picture and your time to conceive of the contest.

on this we agree, but remember the rules at this site did not call for creativity, it only offered additional incentive for creativity. i understand your frustration, i really do, believe me, i do.

did you enter at any other sites?

I entered the one which asks you to list your top 5 digital products. Random selection.
I entered the one which lets you fill out a survey 6 times for each of the 6 days for 6 chances to win. Again random selection.
I plan to enter the one where you record yourself telling how you would use a REAL DRAGON. Selection process here.

At least with the first two being random selection the entries require no effort at all...click a few buttons or list any old mundane digital crap (heck, i dont think they would mind if you listed the first generation of 32MB MP3 Players, as long as you get 5 products in a list)...every entry is on the same playing field regardless of what you do. No preference is given to "better" answers.
However, with GeeksToGo saying "put our logo somewhere creative" it was suggesting that the pictures were going to be graded on creativity and originality to win the laptop. If I knew that submitting a printscreen cap of my desktop showing my browser loaded to geekstogo.com would have worked as a winning entry I would have done that instead of wasting my time making a picture with my digital camera. I didn't enter the contest to win the consolation prize of Windows Vista, I entered for the laptop (hate me all you want for being like the majority of people who enter the contest who have contributed nothing to the site conducting the contest, but the sites are inviting this practice. There was one site which asked the entrants to participate in the forums after entering the contest - they even went far enough to eliminate the first choice winner because he did not participate to their satisfaction). People will say "hey man, it said 'random' in the rules." Yes, I did see that from the onset, however with the addition of 'put our logo somewhere creative' i thought the selection process would have been like "step 1: select top 5 entries or something, step 2: select randomly among those top entries".

I agree with Tokar!!!!!!!

The way the winner was decided was just so stupid......

If the winner had to be chosen by random entry method, then WHY ON EARTH

DID YA'LL ASK US TO SO SOMETHING CREATIVE WITH THE LOGO!!!!!!!!!!!! +

an option over there.........Ppl who don't have a printer can display it on their

monitor.......LOL.........infact this deserves a ROTFL{Roll On The Floor

Laughing}!!!!.... Ya'll could have asked us to just post out name/country/date

of birth over there.....

And anyways I'm very very dumb...........I could have got my hands on the

lappy wit ease if only i had read the admin's post properly..........

Here's how :

1) Only one entry per person. So, to make multiple entries, i only had to

signup as many times.
2) Signup requires only an E-Mail ID!
3) I manage close to 25 domains and on close to half of them i use the

"Catch-all" option i.e., [email protected] wud be forwarded to one

preset E-Mail ID.
4) So i could have signed up for over a hundred or thousand or a million times

{The lappy is worth spendin time for.... } with different usernames, display

names and E-Mail ID's and posted a picture of your logo on my monitor......

I wouldn't have been spotted.....

Think about it!!!!!!!!!

Somewhere about ten thousand posts from me + 300 posts from others......
Random pick............
Do i need to pray to be picked!!!!!!!!

But here's what i did......
Printed it with my hp 3600 series printer......
The printout looked weird.......The red color looked orange!!!!!!!!!!!
So went to printo.......
Printed your logo on 220 gsm A4 size sheets with a glossy finish......
Went over to polynation with a friend of mine.
Brought some strawberry cream donuts, Cold coffee, Pizzas, Red Bull and also

borrowed a cute lil teddy from my sister.......
then started the cut-paste job and ended up with this :


http://i303.photobuc...rfriend/g2g.jpg


Mine may not be the best entry but i would have preferred the "May the best,

creative entry win" rather the "Random pick" method!!!!!

And any other site planning to select by the Random entry method better

watchout!!!!!!

I'll be there with a million posts!!!!!!!
WISH ME LUCK Mr. Admin!!!!!!!!!!

Eh, you forget one thing my friend: Invision Power Board, like most forum software, records your IP address. This is why it says in the rules that its rather easy to detect multiple entries from a single person.

Edited by Tokar, 22 May 2008 - 03:50 AM.

[Kat]

There always be someone crying, but you would at least have FEWER people crying with a selection panel method.

As far as I can tell, there are only 2-3 people "crying" out of nearly 300 entries. That's not so bad of a ratio.

[Chopin]

Rules are rules. The addition about allowing people to take photos of the logo on their screen was for people who DID NOT have printers. If you had a printer, you wouldn't be affected by that rule in the least.

As far as I can tell, there are only 2-3 people "crying" out of nearly 300 entries. That's not so bad of a ratio.

Definitely agreed