digitalpress
04-20-2004, 05:31 PM
To anyone who is curious about this policy, who might see no difference between the CGE contest and a raffle-style event, or between a raffle-style event and any other sale on the Buying and Selling forum, I thought I would share my thoughts.
1. The CGE drawing was webcast. There was no chance that any piece of the drawing would not be "on the level", no way anyone could suspect a "fix". The names of every person who entered were shown on webcam, cut from the sheets on webcam, added to the cup on webcam, and drawn from the cup on webcam.
2. The CGE drawing was made up entirely of DP forum members, not a mix of different places - so everyone knows everyone involved.
3. All of the money in the CGE drawing went into the prize and THEN some. I don't know if you noticed but we took the opportunity to give away five additional prizes including a NES Miracle Piano, Barcode Battler, a Famiclone, an R-Zone XPG, Intellivision handheld, and more. No profit was made by anyone involved.
4. The CGE drawing was sponsored by Digital Press, who own this website.
5. Having been run by the in-house team, no precedent was set to allow any member to run any kind of lottery anytime they want. This is what I fear the most - while Mr. D-Lite may be a stand-up guy, what's stopping the next guy who isn't so honest from fixing a contest, not delivering a prize, or otherwise burning a host of members simultaneously.
Things may seem unfair but you must believe that decisions like locking a lottery thread are difficult and are done in the best interest of this community. I've learned many things in my years of administering forums, and the team that moderates here is a veteran crew.
I hope this explanation will suffice.
1. The CGE drawing was webcast. There was no chance that any piece of the drawing would not be "on the level", no way anyone could suspect a "fix". The names of every person who entered were shown on webcam, cut from the sheets on webcam, added to the cup on webcam, and drawn from the cup on webcam.
2. The CGE drawing was made up entirely of DP forum members, not a mix of different places - so everyone knows everyone involved.
3. All of the money in the CGE drawing went into the prize and THEN some. I don't know if you noticed but we took the opportunity to give away five additional prizes including a NES Miracle Piano, Barcode Battler, a Famiclone, an R-Zone XPG, Intellivision handheld, and more. No profit was made by anyone involved.
4. The CGE drawing was sponsored by Digital Press, who own this website.
5. Having been run by the in-house team, no precedent was set to allow any member to run any kind of lottery anytime they want. This is what I fear the most - while Mr. D-Lite may be a stand-up guy, what's stopping the next guy who isn't so honest from fixing a contest, not delivering a prize, or otherwise burning a host of members simultaneously.
Things may seem unfair but you must believe that decisions like locking a lottery thread are difficult and are done in the best interest of this community. I've learned many things in my years of administering forums, and the team that moderates here is a veteran crew.
I hope this explanation will suffice.