Long story short I figured this post was quite relevant to a previous post of mine – the blogging world edition. This applies to contests/giveaways presented to us in the blogging world. Like I said in my other post, if you’re offended, I’m sorry I’m not sorry?
My pet peeves have became even bigger pet peeves since Rafflecopter released its program for everyone, and not just have it as a testing/BETA mode/invite-only kind of thing (I knew they were going to release it, but still…I liked it when it was in the testing process).
Donate $____
If it’s a contest focused on a charity, I think it’s fine. However, I don’t want to enter to win all of these prizes for points/entries/etc. for your _____ when I could 1) donate to a charity I’d much rather donate to instead AND 2) just buy whatever prizes that are being handed out.Personally, I don’t believe that their should be incentives to donating a money when a contest/giveaway is involved unless it is really for a good cause. Contests/giveaways in the blogging world just… I don’t really trust people, so… Especially when in the Terms and Conditions is a paragraph of poorly written crap that makes me wish I never even promoted it to begin with.[1. I took down everything I promoted (Tweets, link via sidebar, etc.), and I couldn’t resist putting “I donated to church. Does that count?” and “But in all seriousness…Forney Gentle Zoo…petting zoo…rescued animals…sister’s third birthday party…” afterward in the part where it asked for my donation to a charity and the forwarded email… That’s just a bit more personal than people should have to get in something like that.]
Different entry options/different number of entries rewarded
Not everyone uses Twitter/Facebook. It’s much easier to manage if you just count each entry as 1 rather than multiple ones, because I don’t really find it fair to the others who entered. I get that certain things are wanted to be done more than entry option A, but not everyone do that, so only certain people can do it. Also, is it really fair? Most likely not. It’s usually always the same people winning, anyway.
Free domain; required to pay fee to have it transferred to [winner themselves]
So if I win a domain name and don’t trust you with it [because you can therefore take it away from me at ANY time (I don’t trust people for personal reasons)], I have to pay you for it just to have it, even though transferring it is free? That’s ridiculous.
The terms
In middle school I had friends who I was comfortable around/with, and we were the teacher’s pets [sometimes], did our work, and make sarcastic/smart-elic remarks about the rules (like what people said, etc.; not really the teachers UNLESS said teachers joked around with us as well). Basically if your rules put some smart-elic/sarcastic remark in my head, don’t count on me resisting from blurting it out and about to you. It’s not necessarily me trying to be funny. In other words, your rules are stupid, ridiculous and childish, and “Does church count as a charity?” is a sarcastic yet serious remark.
Those are just my main ones, though. Congratulations – you now know a little more about me.
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Comments on this post
Jennifer
This has been my issue with contests for years! I’ve come across many contests that either I or friends of mine couldn’t fairly join. Being it we didn’t have a (public) twitter, facebook, or other social networking account. In my opinion, as you said, its really not fair. I think that when you (people in general) hold a contest, you should really make all points/rewards earn-able via the website. Hm… I guess I should explain what I mean, Lol.
What I mean is to earn say 1 point, you could… comment on one of the contest holder’s blog posts. You could link back to the person’s contest (on your twitter, facebook, website, whatever you have!). Or something similar. Then again though, I don’t really think that point contests are very fair. Unless every option (to earn a point) is something that everyone could do without a facebook, twitter, etc, then the contests really aren’t fair – as you said.
I never really thought of it as a pet peeve of mine, but I guess it is. Its just something that has always really annoyed me. I mean, contests and giveaways are meant to be fun, not unfair.
Moving on to the “free” domain issue. This is something else that drives me crazy, however, I can be more understanding towards it. I can understand that the purchaser may want to keep the domain in their possession. I mean, they put money into buying said domain, they usually just really want to make sure that the domain will be used and not put to waste. That being said though, I think that at about 9 months, they should push the domain to whomever won it. The winner then has the option to do whatever they want with it – renew it or let it expire.
In response to what Liv said, I don’t think that skill contests are too fair either. I mean, what if you have no art, graphic design, or coding skill? I know a lot of people who can’t draw, design, or code. So then the person with the best skill is going to win. You know? That’s not fair either because no matter how hard the less skilled person tries, they’re not going to win against the super talented person over here. Make sense?
Anyway, that’s just what I had to say. Well, I have a lot more, but my comment is already really long. Sorry for such a long comment, Liz!
Liv
I like how you have these subcategories of pet peeves. I think in general, contests that are not based on skill are my pet peeves. I did not know there are contests that make you donate money to charity then give you a prize for it. What the hell is that? Also, when you’re donating money to someone online you should always be careful. For example, my host asks for donations but right though her host, Dreamhost, which makes sure the money isn’t used on a DVD or a meal.
I’m also not sure why people who give out “free” domains insist on keeping ownership. Are you trying to taunt the winner? Then don’t give that kind of prize!
I recently came across a contest where entries had to be on Facebook, Twitter, and many other social networking. How social am I supposed to be to get a chance to win this?
Liza
They could also just make it easier on themselves and make all of the entries worth 1 rather than 20 or whatever — because in Rafflecopter those entries literally show up X amount of times.