Idea for Competitions

[KeyboardDemon]

I hope it’s ok to re-open this can of worms, as the recent debates on various threads relating to competition entry and people’s contribution to either the Hexus site or the Hexus community pages, such as the Forums has got me pondering over the issues and I think I have an idea that could satisfy nearly everyone.

I don’t know how easy it would be to implement, but hope that if the idea itself can’t be used that some of the concepts are evolved into something that can be implemented.

My idea is to start by rewarding every activity with points, so points can be awarded for posting comments on articles, reviews or in the forums and for liking articles so links get posted on facebook, twitter and other social networking sites (for both the Hexus site as well as on Hexus forums and the associated competitions).

Points earned could then have a trade in value and users should be able to exchange their points for competition entries with no limits to the number of entries made by any individual (assuming they have enough points to cover the number of entries they wish to make).

Joining the Hexus site and posting on the Welcome to HEXUS! Board should earn each new member enough points for one entry into a competition, but that member will not be able to participate in further competitions until they have done enough to earn the points required for the next entry.

This way people who contribute more can build up more points and this can be used to give them more chances to enter, so positive contributions are rewarded while negative contributions could be ‘sin binned’ so in cases where a mod deems the contributions to be spam solely for the points those points could be taken away or if the posts are disruptive, abusive or otherwise considered to be generally unacceptable behaviour according the accepted norms on the site.

So that’s my idea, it means those that want to enter and spread the word through facebook, twitter etc.. can do so, those who don’t want to use facebook or twitter accounts can still enter but clearly won’t be winning points that contribute to increasing their chances, it makes this a choice based element rather than a requirement. What do you think? (Please keep comments as constructive, thanks).

[KeyboardDemon]

Close to 100 views in 2 days and no one has commented. I take it that means no one likes the idea.

[DR]

Hey KeyboardDemon,


Thank you for the post - I do appreciate the input

... However, one major issue with this is the increased overhead, and challenges which it brings. The aim is to make competitions easy to enter (for the main site ones and FB ones) and as many people to access them as possible.

We are happy with the spread which we put on for competitions, however it seems that whatever route we take there are particular members who have no aspiration apart from to complain or moan.

We have looked at doing forum specific, site specific, and others to bring people to the community.

It is not a stipulation in all of these that HEXUS requires people to be a forum member.

We want to welcome new members to our community - we want to grow it and we want more people to learn and experience the forums as well as our great content.

We also do not force people to enter the competitions ....

and remember, you all have free shipping at SCAN for being ACTIVE members of the forums.

I guess there is no pleasing some!

[KeyboardDemon]

Thanks DR. I have been in forums where people were awarded points before, one of these allowed people to trade the points in for virtual prizes such as titles and custom avatars, so I thought why not try that with the option to trade points for additional entries.

Do you think there is anything in my idea that might help both drive additional traffic, get extra members joining and deal with the issues that have led to the negative comments on the forums?

It does seem that one of the recurring issues is that there are people who feel contests are weighted in favour of newer members on the site, my idea of rewarding active members with additional entries was to try to redress the balance and encourage newer members to participate in order to increase their chances. Plus when vendors run a contest they might see that they are getting more entries per contest run then they were before, even though there might not be an increase in the number of unique entrants to the contest, but this might help secure more prizes as the contests would look better subscribed to the budget holders that are funding the prizes.

[DR]

Thanks DR. I have been in forums where people were awarded points before, one of these allowed people to trade the points in for virtual prizes such as titles and custom avatars, so I thought why not try that with the option to trade points for additional entries.

Do you think there is anything in my idea that might help both drive additional traffic, get extra members joining and deal with the issues that have led to the negative comments on the forums?

It does seem that one of the recurring issues is that there are people who feel contests are weighted in favour of newer members on the site, my idea of rewarding active members with additional entries was to try to redress the balance and encourage newer members to participate in order to increase their chances. Plus when vendors run a contest they might see that they are getting more entries per contest run then they were before, even though there might not be an increase in the number of unique entrants to the contest, but this might help secure more prizes as the contests would look better subscribed to the budget holders that are funding the prizes.

We have promotions for our members via different routes - we have promotional paths on the forums for free shipping, custom titles and custom avatars in place.

I personally think your idea is great - but it will create more confusion and overhead on the ability to execute so many compeittions.

The recurring issue is people moaning, and not understanding that HEXUS runs so many competitions and many, many people enter them.

They are not weighed in favour of new members, if anything they are fair on all - you can get additional entries on some competitions by liking us on Facebook and by other methods.

I appreciate the thought but the execution side of things would be more complex and we are keen on running as many competitions as possible.

[scaryjim]

I think it's worth considering another point which isn't mentioned often: the competitions aren't just run by Hexus, they're run by Hexus in association with industry partners. The prizes (generally) aren't paid for by Hexus, their provided by the company sponsoring the competition: usually with the aim of increasing product/brand awareness and good will.

If Hexus started insisting that competitions were limited to forum members only, I imagine a lot of those companies would simply take their competition prizes elsewhere, as Hexus competitions would no longer meet their business objectives. Of course, there are exceptions, and I know DR is working hard to run more "members only" competitions (like the recent beQuiet PSU comp), but he can only do that with the agreement of the company providing the prizes.

Let's have a hypothetical, shall we
If I'm a marketing exec from Corsair, Gigabyte, Thermaltake, Sapphire, KFA2, AMD, ASUS, or any other of the countless companies Hexus has managed to arrange competition prizes from, I'd rather have my competition open to any reader of hexus.net, rather than a select few members of the Hexus forums. The forums don't have anywhere near the exposure that the main site does, and to further restrict entry by post count or a points system is more likely to damage my company's reputation than enhance it - it smacks of "jobs for the boys", and I don't want to portray that image. So if I approach Hexus with a competition idea, and they turn round and say "Yes, we'd love to, but it can only be open to forum members, who've been members for x months, and have accrued x points in our good member scheme", then I'm going to turn round, put the prizes back in my pocket, and walk away. I want to increase awareness of my brand, and limiting entrance to my competition is going to limit the extent I can do that.

So even if DR wanted to only run forum-only competitions, I doubt he'd be able to get many companies to stump up prizes for them (much cred goes to beQuiet for agreeing to do just that).

[KeyboardDemon]

@scaryjim: Thanks. That makes a lot of sense, it was a good hypothetical situation, I appreciate the feedback as it illustrates how the idea could back fire.

[ironleg1963]

I have a question about the competitions. I know you do Facebook on some of them could you add twitter for people like me who don't like or use Facebook.

[KeyboardDemon]

I have a question about the competitions. I know you do Facebook on some of them could you add twitter for people like me who don't like or use Facebook.

This is something that would increase exposure to more people. Possibly add other services too like Google+ etc...

[dav532000]

Me being a newbie sounds fine to me, not been on here for a while as disabled and been having problems with my lower back not been able to sit on my pc chair for very long, hope to keek popping back from time to time, great site.

[KeyboardDemon]

Me being a newbie sounds fine to me, not been on here for a while as disabled and been having problems with my lower back not been able to sit on my pc chair for very long, hope to keek popping back from time to time, great site.

It would be great to see you when you do. I've not been on here very long myself, but as forums go this has a good group of active members with heaps of great knowledge, I have learnt so much on here.

Oh, and I wish you well with the issues your having with your back.