Competitions Discussion Thread Part 13

grannybiker

GeorgeBee wrote: »

Lol same! I post competitions from several craft magazines, every month there are new prizes, I post every month.

Is that considered a regular? Not that I'm going to post it in Regulars!!!

When did all this change come about btw? I only started comping again in December after having a break since the beginning of October.

The comps you mention are the same as the ones I've (and others, so please don't think this is my motivation for joining the debate!)posted in the past and had removed- i.e. A new entry needed each month for a new prize. There really is no definitive answer or consistency is there?
One "Monthly" that really confused me about being allowed to stay without ever being challenged was that Dell one where no-one seemed to be able to enter again anyhow as we couldn't get the unsubscribe to work, :rotfl:!
The Sci-Fi ones which are a favourite for moving and have been used as an example in discussion before, have only one prize, but an extra entry per day. With their definite end dates, these shouldn't, apparently be classed as regs :huh:.
What about the Barclaycard, Facebook/ Handbag, Dreamkitchen to name just a few? They've stayed on the main boards for ages...
What about Daily Mail Wishlist that's up every week? The Waitrose vouchers that have a new question each week?

The changes were discussed before Christmas, as Korky has kindly provided links for, but we were assured nothing would happen without a full debate. Comps then started to disappear into Regs...

furndire wrote: »

Here's the home page, but does not appear to be a comp on there http://www.pubsun.co.uk/home.aspx

The problem with these comps is that there is no expired button, as they have been grabbed onto regulars board.

I posted this one a few times last year & it got moved to regs.
I posted it out on the main board as it hadn't been updated for a few years, so felt it needed an outing. As it was moved into regs, I assumed it they would have been merged with this original...:huh:.
As you say, the lack of an expired button has proved a problem, e.g. https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/2607223

Mamzie wrote: »

I think your very brave, its looks like loads of work BHG, thank you for that, I'll have a nosy, but not sure if I'd be any help?

Huge thanks to Gilla for all her work, you deserve to get lots of comping karma, xxx

Agreed :A

piraterob

hi all just a quick question

do most people who win get prizes out of the blue or are notified

also if notified does it take a while to receive?

Mamzie

This is another comp in regs, which is posted quite a few times, so possibly as this thread is not very informative it could be deleted. Its a link to the comps that are posted in many other threads and that are also discussed above.

Plus another thread that is out of date, as prize has now changed. You have to link through to a different website and prize is now a WIi game E: 30/01

bargainhuntergal

I'd already started to do the format for the thread last night so I've coped it over, obviously I need to add in all the links, but as a general setup, does it seem to work?

Link here

Thank you!

And thanks for all the thanks I do dailies everyday (from my spreadsheet and bookmarks and then I check the daily thread for new ones) so it feels sort of natural to me now to do them! (I still need people to send me the links though as most of the time I just can't keep up with things as they're posted so I'll miss them, and I always do a day behind when I'm trying to keep up too as I find it easier when I can just open up all the pages from each day and work from them!)

Edit: Meant to say, following toni's fab idea on the Advent thread of having different colours for things when they're added so you can see it easily, I was thinking of picking 7 colours and having them for each day of the week, so that things added on say a monday are pink and things added on a tuesday are orange, and then at the end of each week changing back to black and then starting again with newly added comps? I was going to change the end date of each new one to the different colour as then it's all in a straight line and easy to see at a glance? Would that work do you think?

blackmidnight

piraterob wrote: »

hi all just a quick question

do most people who win get prizes out of the blue or are notified

also if notified does it take a while to receive?

There's a great post in IWIWIW about how people are notified https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/526089

Once notified I allow a month and then start chasing. Most prizes arrive within this time. Some arrive very quickly but they can often take a few weeks

piraterob

thanks
it seems pretty much all are by email then

purplecatlover

the way talk inhere is going we dont need the regular threads anymore so id hold off putting loads of effort into it bhg since its not wanted except by a very small minority of us who use it and value it! at least thats the impression iom getting form the people who are posting in here complaining about there being a regular forum at all and telling us all to keep our own bookmarks rather than use a maintained thread! thank you for agreeing to take it over and i look forward to using it

massive thank you to gilla for all the effort and trouble she has put into both daily and weekly threads, its been greatly appreciated

ppd wait until things get decided or sorted out or something before you even consider doing anything with monthlies. ill happily give you a hand with sorting it but there is no point in doing so right now if they are all going to end up posted on main each month. which would only work if the exact same comp is posted every single month with an end date of the 28th/29th/30ht/31st of that month as otherwise it will be a never ending ongoing thread bumped everymonth, lost amidst the hundreds of new comps ending before the end of the year and missed by everyone who doesnt enter by newly updated! which wait isnt that what people are objecting to as happens in regulars?

as i understood it the whole point of the RGEULAR THREADS which are maintained was so that you didnt have to keep your own individual bookmark folders and remember to go check for new posts to add to it every day etc. i frequently find posts on main that are clearly identified in the op as daily but no one cba to add a link in the thread because THEY PERSONALLY dont use it and forget that those of us who enter by end date then miss out on all but the last day or two (not everyone, some are brilliant at adding).

and yes im focussing on entering by end date because thats mainly how i comp, thats not to say that only those who enter by end date should be catered too, but IMO the regular threads and thus board are a decent attempt at catering to both.

glad/bgs/admin is it possible to have the expired button etc in the regulars board as well as on main? since thats a large part of peoples objections to the regular board?

purplecatlover

piraterob wrote: »

thanks
it seems pretty much all are by email then

ive had emails, phone calls, letters and texts all informing me of wins. ive had prizes turn up with no notification that i had won prior to the prize landing on my doorstep. in other words there si no specific way to be notified, nor any standard for what happens.

bargainhuntergal

purplecatlover wrote: »

the way talk inhere is going we dont need the regular threads anymore so id hold off putting loads of effort into it bhg since its not wanted except by a very small minority of us who use it and value it! at least thats the impression iom getting form the people who are posting in here complaining about there being a regular forum at all and telling us all to keep our own bookmarks rather than use a maintained thread! thank you for agreeing to take it over and i look forward to using it

massive thank you to gilla for all the effort and trouble she has put into both daily and weekly threads, its been greatly appreciated

ppd wait until things get decided or sorted out or something before you even consider doing anything with monthlies. ill happily give you a hand with sorting it but there is no point in doing so right now if they are all going to end up posted on main each month. which would only work if the exact same comp is posted every single month with an end date of the 28th/29th/30ht/31st of that month as otherwise it will be a never ending ongoing thread bumped everymonth, lost amidst the hundreds of new comps ending before the end of the year and missed by everyone who doesnt enter by newly updated! which wait isnt that what people are objecting to as happens in regulars?

as i understood it the whole point of the RGEULAR THREADS which are maintained was so that you didnt have to keep your own individual bookmark folders and remember to go check for new posts to add to it every day etc. i frequently find posts on main that are clearly identified in the op as daily but no one cba to add a link in the thread because THEY PERSONALLY dont use it and forget that those of us who enter by end date then miss out on all but the last day or two (not everyone, some are brilliant at adding).

and yes im focussing on entering by end date because thats mainly how i comp, thats not to say that only those who enter by end date should be catered too, but IMO the regular threads and thus board are a decent attempt at catering to both.

glad/bgs/admin is it possible to have the expired button etc in the regulars board as well as on main? since thats a large part of peoples objections to the regular board?

I know what you mean pcl, but honestly, it's ok, I don't mind taking the time to do it (I spent 5 hours last night just sorting out the format, but I'm a bit sad and actually quite enjoyed doing it! :rotfl:) and if it helps us that do use it, that's what matters, although it would be nice to see people give it a chance.

I do think the Daily/Weekly and Monthly stickies will always be there for us that want to use them, even if we don't have a regulars board anymore I think they will be at the top of the main board because it's not really fair on us that do use them to get rid of them completely unless as I mentioned before, everything gets it own individually end dated thread.

What I don't understand is that people are taking about missing competitions now, but if everything is on the main board with it's end date and not mentioned anywhere that it's a regular entry or regular draw, then how many people will be missing them then, more than there is now I would have thought? Surely the whole thing is about making sure less people miss them, not making sure more people do? *confused look*

If everything was on the main board there's only really a few ways I could think of it working, one of them is tagging, I'm not sure if the forum supports it? But if, when posting, a tag could be picked (or added by members that spot it, as is done by sending to dailies at the moment) to indicate which type of entry it is, eg, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, One Entry/Multiple Draws, As Much As You Like, etc then the tags are searchable so that ONLY things with the tag searched for show up, that would work?

The only other way I can think of is to have the end dates of the regulars similar to what they are now, anything that's ongoing is just 'E: DAILY - Win...', 'E: WEEKLY - Win...' or 'E: MONTHLY - Win...' etc - the main problem with guessing end dates of these ongoing ones is that if the OP doesn't go back into the thread and change it (I'm pretty sure that after something like a month, only the end date inside the thread changes and not the one that shows on the main page of the board, as when I changed the end date of the Gina shoes one recently, I had to PM a BG to change it for me as it stayed the same on the board, but showed as changed above the first post when the thread was open, I've seen this before too, and toni asked about it on the advents when she was changing the 'updated 15/12' bit and it didn't change on the board past a certain date, but did when you open the thread up) when nearer to the date the comp is still running, it gets GO'ed and then instead of PM'ing a BG to bring that one back and change the date, another one gets posted, and the cycle keeps on happening. Anything which is daily, weekly, monthly etc with an end date gets posted as 'E: DAILY 01/01 - Win...', 'E: WEEKLY 01/01 - Win...' and 'E: MONTHLY 01/01 - Win...', if you put the date first then unless you can easily search for things they would be completely mixed around on all pages of the board depending on the end date, but doing it this way, they'd be in end date order, with the other regulars, so for example:

(Page 1 in thread title or 'end date' order)
E: 01/01 DAILY - Win...
.
.
.
(Last few pages in thread title or 'end date' order)
E: 31/12 DAILY - Win...

(The same page in thread title or 'end date' order)
E: DAILY 01/01 - Win...
E: DAILY 02/01 - Win...

I hope that makes sense?

bhg

toniq

Mse crashing? xxx Hope not as it takes ages to sort out at weekends if it does x