"Topic Contests"

[Matthew Schenker]

...I still would have posted had I known about the competitions. I have no idea how I missed them, seeing as how I spend most of my free time combing through the archives. I think you should have had only one contest running at a time, and made that one sticky on the home page, right up at the top, with a very limited entry period, say a month.

I must admit I never even saw the original posts for the contest(s). With limited time I tend to look at the what's new and the posts I have been contributing to. A pity I missed it.
SteveD

I posted a general note about the contest, and put up six separate discussions -- one for each contest.  I also had them up as stickies for a while.  One of the goals of the contests was to inspire members to look back into the forum's posting history and bring out good discussions.  It was meant to get members to look beyond just the most recent posts.  Wouldn't it be ironic if the contest itself needed to be a sticky to be visible?

Im also very surprised ??? Fair dinkum, what a great offer was made and no one bothered. Shame it wasnt avail in Aus because there would have been the 7 or 8 of us breaking our neck to do something great for the sanders.
Good effort Matty, dont give up on em

Thanks!  I also think this is a worthwhile idea.  Keeping valuable discussions up front and visible is a major goal of any online forum, and this was meant to be a creative way to do just that.

But it looks like I'll have to rethink the way such contests are run.

Thank you to Festool USA for making such a generous offer.  Perhaps we'll take you up on it again in the future.

In the meantime, I'd like to hear from members how I might run a contest like this to get better results.

Matthew

 

[Matthew Schenker]

So the people that did participate and were voted on are just dust in the wind?  How disappointing!

I don't see any other solution.  The votes that were registered were for great posts.  But as a contest, this idea  never got off the ground.  We had a total of about five votes for all six contests.
Matthew

 

[Joe Jensen]

My 2 cents;
1)  I saw the original posts about the competition.  Looked interesting
2) I tried looking for candidates but it was not clear or easy to quickly find candidate
3) Was not clear to me how to vote.  I think we need some voting mechanism with a click to vote versus the system used this time.

 

[Matthew Schenker]

My 2 cents;
1)  I saw the original posts about the competition.  Looked interesting
2) I tried looking for candidates but it was not clear or easy to quickly find candidate
3) Was not clear to me how to vote.  I think we need some voting mechanism with a click to vote versus the system used this time.

Joe,
Regarding 1): I'm glad the competition looked interesting!  I hope others saw it that way as well.
Regarding 2): Yes, the goal here is to get members searching for ideas that have been posted, or to recall ones they like, then mentioning them in the contest.  By design, it involves searching.
Regarding 3): In this case, "voting" just meant posting about someone's idea.  I wanted to keep it fluid and simple.  Please elaborate on what "some voting mechanism with a click to vote" would look like.  I'm not sure how I could do this.

Keep the ideas coming.

Matthew

 

[cflansbaum]

ok, here's my input...

1.  I think like a lot of newbies, I've spent a lot of time reading through the archives and making links to topics of interest that I want to follow; after that I just try and stay current.  I'm not sure people are inclined to search through the archives to find posts to enter into the contest.

2.  In less I'm mistaken, by pointing to a post, one is actually entering that person into the contest, not yourself.

How about something like the following:  A topic (say best TS55 tip), people could either share their tip or point to another's.  Then make it a random draw of all those that submit a tip, instead of tying the winner to the number of votes...

thanks matthew for all that you do!

Carl

 

[Michael Kellough]

...I don't need any more tools, so it was my intention to give away whatever tool was awarded to the most needy forum member.

New contest!

 

[Eli]

I think each month or for each draw, Matthew should appoint a secret 'Festool Fairy' from the ranks of the active membership, chosen by private random draw of his own method of choice. He would notify them in secret, on pain of Simou not to divulge their alter ego. The Fairy has a month to select a recipient, on need based or merit based criteria, justified by the fairy in the end of month or end of draw presentation post. No one would win anything they didn't need or couldn't use, if the fairy does homework correctly. Plus it would add a great sense of mystery. We're already trying to impress each other, granted, but if you don't know who to suck up to, you'd be nice to everybody. We mostly are anyway, but it seems like it might be a fun way to do it. If nobody could be identified as the winner, the fairy's ID remains secret, the prize is bumped, a new fairy is chosen.

Anybody have a problem with being called a Fairy? ;D

 

[Tom Wales]

Coming from a long line of elves, I personally would never want to ve called a fairy, even though I did play the Sugar Plum one once ;D
Tom