Advents 2015 ... Chat

So, it seems I've volunteered myself to be the master of ceremonies when it comes to this years Advent comps.

Everything seemed to run good last year (Thanks JamboDP), but I figured I'd chuck up a "chat" thread so we can discuss what would be good to have that we maybe haven't had before or discuss anything that maybe didn't work too well previously?
Possibly nothing at all to discuss, but I reckon the advents will start to appear in Newsletters and such around the start of November, so this gives us a few weeks to hammer out all the details and do's and dont's.

Firstly, for any newbies ... here's some info, so please read through before posting any new "What's an Advent?" type threads.

What is an Advent?
Basically, think of the Advent Calendars you got a kid, you open a box each day and got a "treat". Advents are basically that, you open todays box and enter that days competition.

So a site may do a standard advent which opens on the 1st December and closes on the 25th December, each day of the advent there will be a new competition with (generally) a new / different prize. So you would return to the site every day (open that days window) and enter the competition. Some advents will for example not open until the 15th December, some may close on the 15th December, some may run straight through to the New Year etc etc

Why all the fuss / stress?
It can be tricky to keep on top of the advents because there might be 200 sites running advents, on various platforms (ie Twitter / Facebook / Instagram / fill out a form etc), with varying prizes ... while all this is going on you will still have the standard competitions being posted (generally there are probably more competitions that will get posted in the run up to Christmas that aren't necessarily "advents"), so it can get a bit "busy".

How are Advents typically posted?
Advents are posted on the main Competitions forum with the word "ADVENT" added to the title, Someone, generally whoever posted the comp will then add a link onto the Advent thread, this is then sorted and updated to the "main list" for quick reference.
This is Jambo's Advent post from 2014 :
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5098487&highlight=advent+thread+2014

You click the link and it takes you to the Advent post for that competition where the "chat" for the advent should take place.

Is it worth it, do you win?
Yes and yes, a lot of MSE'rs win on the advents, some don't win anything, it's no different from any other type of competition really. The thing with Advents is that a "competition" will only run for 1 day then the next day there will be another one. This will generally mean that it won't have as many entries as some of your standard competitions ... but then a lot more people will pick up "comping" in the run up to christmas ... so who knows.

Do you have to enter every day?
Nope, not unless it specifically says to, generally you would just enter for the prizes you want (ie, sometimes a "Prize" is Free Postage, or 10% off your order, which you just wouldn't bother entering at all).
Some "advents" may have a "Grand Prize" where they might stipulate that you have to enter, for example, on 10 days over the course of the advent, these won't stop you from winning an individual days prize though.

How do you keep track?
In the standard way on the forums, clicking a link in the Advent thread will take you to the Advent post, if someone has posted a "Here's today's comp" reply, thank them, you'll then know you've entered this because you have the "thanks" registered against the reply, you can't specifically Green tick the reply so use the "Thanks" as an alternative.

A lot of users will setup Spreadsheets, word documents or setup folders in their browser and save their preferred advents into it (ie the one that has the best or more relevant prizes to them), some people just go Hog-wild and enter everything. It's up to you.