Competitions Discussion Thread Part 12

Catweazle

No you should just open it by clicking on the link. Admittedly it's harder for the original competition poster to post but it makes it very easy for anyone else who wants to enter the competition.

The only thing that should require deleting is the .com at the end of the email body. Of course you will also need to put in your details.

I have put an example now on this thread

--> https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2818576

Amilucky?

Catweazle wrote: »

No you should just open it by clicking on the link. Admittedly it's harder for the original competition poster to post but it makes it very easy for anyone else who wants to enter the competition.

The only thing that should require deleting is the .com at the end of the email body. Of course you will also need to put in your details.

I have put an example now on this thread

--> https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2818576

I don't wish to be a kill joy but when I used to do the comps from uk.rec.competitions automated email links caused a lot of problems if the OP made a mistake then the error was duplicated 100's of times and 100's of entries where then void

when email links are automated people become lazy and do not check the contents or the original comp page for errors but just click and send

constant errors where wrong subjects. wrong answers and also because the text in the errors was the same they could also hazard a guess as to where the original emails where copied from

I can also foresee a problem where mse'rs will forget to change the .com to .co.uk and there details could fall into unscrupulous hands

Best of Luck

weeowens

Personally I think it's Ok as is.Sometimes I even feel a bit iffy about posting the email address in case it gets the address spammed.Some people do not have outlook so prefer that the details are just posted in the simplest way.
Cheers for the thought & effort though.Way past my skill-set :-)

ikkle87

Op's will still need to post the subject and answer too for those of us who don't use mailto: options on our browsers.

I'm quite happy to copy and paste, and like has been mentioned if an op makes a mistake not everyone will check or even scroll down to see if anyone has mentioned the error, which would mean the op coming back and changing the link again which could be a bit more hassle and could result in lots of people not getting entered.

Amilucky?

weeowen67 wrote: »

Personally I think it's Ok as is.Sometimes I even feel a bit iffy about posting the email address in case it gets the address spammmed.Some people do not have outlook so prefer that the deatils are just posted in the simplest way.
Cheers for the thought & effort though.Way past my skill-set :-)

if the email link on the comp site hasn't been obfusticated then posting the email link on mse shouldn't cause the site any further problems spam wise

however when the site has gone to the trouble to hide there email link and it is posted in full on mse I can fully understand the site being annoyed if and when they get spammed

it is also understandable that some comp organisers don't like there emails been posted on mse because entrant's don't then visit the comp site

I always check the original comp page for errors in the OP or a change to the Q&A as I think it's good policy to do so before sending email comps, and also if there is a clickable link on the original comp page I always click on the link from the comp site

so if the automated links where implemented I personally wouldn't use them anyway

sorry to be a kill joy but I agree with weeowen that the way that the email comps are posted now is ok and shouldn't be changed

Catweazle

Yes I do see your points regarding the downsides of automated links.

To be honest it was more the fun of finding a way of doing it that spurred me on . Whether it is practical to use here is another matter. I may provide automated & manual links for any email comps I post then let the user decide which to use. I also usually test the links using "preview" before posting to weed out any errors.

Thanks for the feedback.
Cat

mandycr

grrrrr i feel a bit cheated today have not long found out i was soooo close to winning a facebook comp for a nights stay in a castle with dinner and breakfast its was a guessing comp the idea was to guess how many weddings were at the castle in the last year they said only first answer will be accepted so one woman guessed 1 away from the correct answer and someone elses first guess was nearly 50 away his 2nd guess was 2 away (i think) but i was the nxt closest in line feel as though that was a bit unfair anyone else think the same??? i have said to them will wait n see wat they say rannnnttttt over thanks guys pmsl feel better now x

Barnabysue

I know how you feel, I was in a comp recently where you had to write something in 50 words or less and 2 of the 3 winners used well over 50 words, so unfair. Hope something better comes your way soon.

mandycr

makes ya feel as though your being petty though dont it even though u know its them that was unfair x

glacier

Catweazle wrote: »

Yes I do see your points regarding the downsides of automated links.

To be honest it was more the fun of finding a way of doing it that spurred me on . Whether it is practical to use here is another matter. I may provide automated & manual links for any email comps I post then let the user decide which to use. I also usually test the links using "preview" before posting to weed out any errors.

Thanks for the feedback.
Cat

This has been done for a few comps in the past. It's just very time consuming for any regular poster to manually edit the post to make the automated/fancy clicky with subject, body etc. Also if for any reason you need to go back and edit the post you will find the fancy clicky is lost.

If MSE had a facility (a form) specifically for creating fancy email clickies (which also showed it in non fancy format for non outlook users) then that might be different