Competitions Discussion Thread Part 13

Glad

rather than quote and answer I'm just going to post some points/thoughts and hope it doesn't come over too confusing

when I first started discussing the regs board it was because some people found it difficult to use and were questioning why some reg comps were on the main board and some in regs, the initial discussion was how to make it easier to use,
moving more regs over and trying to discuss how to make things better during the busy xmas period was confusing so I did say that we could carry on after xmas, that meant carry on the discussion on how to make the regs board work better alongside the main board

as it stands MSE has a board set up for comps that can be entered regularly, BGs are asked to move threads to the most appropriate board if they spot them and that's what we do. The whole point of adding a 4th BG to comps was because the workload was too much for 3 BGs, I just happen to have more time to spend BGing than most so the increase in moved threads is partly down to my having more time to put into it,
I'm not an avid comper so can't comment on wether it's easier or not to have 2 boards when comping, and really was listening to both sides of the discussion, all I can say is that while there are 2 boards I'm not going to go against what MSE have set up, but was quite willing to discuss the problems here with you and even put both sides to the team.
surely the best argument would be
'we've tried using the regs board properly, but feel it doesn't add to our comping experience'
not
'we don't want the regs board even though we haven't really tried to use it properly'
ie we put all reg comps there, we make sure links are sent to the OPs of the stickies, we've discussed easiest ways to search (and posted them in the comping guide) and we have tried it for x amount of time, but even with all of this it doesn't work

BGs can't change MSE policy or remove boards but we can listen to the users and put reasoned ideas to the MSE team

I've actually had this in mind over the last month, thought of some ideas and would like to discuss them here with you all
I've also had many ideas via pm about searching etc
a lot of users don't want to be involved in a public debate at the moment but might be persuaded if things were less heated

I have given the team and Andrea a brief overview of the situation too and asked for a clearer description of the regs board, but please remember they are very busy and will get to it as soon as they can

I'll put my ideas in a seperate post as that's what I'd really like to discuss, I've posted the above for your info of where things are until the team get back to me on my email to them

thanks

Glad x

Glad

so on to ideas
this is all very basic but.....

if all comps on the main board were single entry with the usual end date format, would that make that board easier to use freeing up a little time to look at a 2nd board

if all other comps were posted on the regs board then clicking on 'new topic' each day should list the threads so you could see any new comps posted since you last visited?

compers who search by date - using advanced search you can select both boards to be searched at the same time bringing up all comps ending that date - I know that compers comping by end date would miss out on multiple entries but how did they find these comps on the main board? was it by 'new topic'?

I don't know if it's even possible but would having an 'entered button' on every post in a reg thread help?
and would an 'expired' button in there help?

one user has suggested to me that instead of having 'WEEKLY until ??/??' etc we just use , W: and M:

the most confusing regs thread to me are the ones with a single entry but no end date
ie register for our site/newsletter and be entered into one (or multiple) draws
would it be easier to have a seperate sticky linking to these? to make the other monthlies easier to find

more to follow and thanks if you got this far

Glad

ok I'm going to try and answer as much as I can today

One-Eye wrote: »

I just wanted to add something to the regulars debate that hasn't been mentioned before (as far as I can see) but may make you think.

In http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=18799951&postcount=2 divadee states “Any weekly or monthly comps should be placed on the regular competitions board. These will be locked after a month of posting just to archive them.” We know this did actually happen and Glad went through loads of comps unlocking them recently, but does anybody wonder why this locking was implemented in the first place? I would be interested if any of the long-standing forum members remember and can tell us all.

After trying to think of a good reason for this, I am wondering if the weekly/monthly boards were originally meant to be just for those comps that have the same prize and URL and no (or the same) question each time – an example being https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/65797 which is nearly six years old and would still be just one post if it wasn’t for dupes! Other comps that just happen to run weekly or monthly but have different prizes/URLs/questions each time could not be appended to these locked threads – so maybe these comps were meant to go on the main board anyway!

These competitions in regulars with new links and/or prizes and/or answers each time soon build up to be long threads and can contain loads of out of date posts. An example I am familiar with is the “zoo jewellery” competition https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/845167 which currently stands at 85 posts, and posts 2-82 are out of date – if the comp was posted on the main board each month they would have been automatically moved to Game Over.

as far as I know and I've been here a long time the regs board was set up when the comps section of MSE was much much smaller, there were way less comps with reg entry and threads were locked there to prevent bumping, I unlocked them all so new answers/links could be added if people saw them as people are more inclined to post on the comp thread than go and post on the monthly sticky when they saw a change

I agree with the confusing nature of your last comment too, but as it stands some people would pm for a merge to BGs into the regs board and some were left as being posted seperately each month, at the end of all this I'd be inclined to say those types could be posted each month on mains, with a clear description posted in the comping guide

blackmidnight wrote: »

Can we PLEASE have clarification and a proper definition of what is regular, I think this is what is annoying people the most at the moment, not having a clue of what should be where!

I've answered this above (took some time to write it all)
I'm discussing it with the team and Andrea

lilias

"if all comps on the main board were single entry with the usual end date format, would that make that board easier to use freeing up a little time to look at a 2nd board"

So this would mean that comps like the daily Glamour comp, at present languishing in Regulars, could come back to the Main Board? It's single entry every day and a different prize every day.

Nicky63

Glad wrote: »

I'm not an avid comper so can't comment on wether it's easier or not to have 2 boards when comping, and really was listening to both sides of the discussion, all I can say is that while there are 2 boards I'm not going to go against what MSE have set up, but was quite willing to discuss the problems here with you and even put both sides to the team.
surely the best argument would be
'we've tried using the regs board properly, but feel it doesn't add to our comping experience'
not
'we don't want the regs board even though we haven't really tried to use it properly'
ie we put all reg comps there, we make sure links are sent to the OPs of the stickies, we've discussed easiest ways to search (and posted them in the comping guide) and we have tried it for x amount of time, but even with all of this it doesn't work

thanks

Glad x

I think that's part of the problem Glad, you admit that you're not a comper and don't use the boards, therefore you can't possibly understand why the moving of comps that have always been on the main board is upsetting so many people and causing them to vote with their feet so to speak and stop posting. This is not meant to be a personal attack on you, but an observation.

I have tried using the regular board for two weeks and it's not adding to my comping experience.

My personal choice/vote goes to having all comps on main board with a thread of links for daily, weekly and monthly for those who wish to use them.

Amilucky?

Nicky63 wrote: »

I think that's part of the problem Glad, you admit that you're not a comper and don't use the boards, therefore you can't possibly understand why the moving of comps that have always been on the main board is upsetting so many people and causing them to vote with their feet so to speak and stop posting. This is not meant to be a personal attack on you, but an observation.

I have tried using the regular board for two weeks and it's not adding to my comping experience.

My personal choice/vote goes to having all comps on main board with a thread of links for daily, weekly and monthly for those who wish to use them.

Likewise I have also tried using the regulars board recently and found it to be a bad experience there are still far to many comps that are GAME OVER (and you cannot click on expired) or have not been updated I found going through the comps slow and tedious so much so that I have got my comps database out of mothballs and have started entering the comps into the database and entering them from there

My personal choice/vote goes to having all comps on main board with a thread of links for daily, weekly and monthly for those who wish to use them.

I think that this has got to be the way forward and the ideal compromise between the regulars and main board

Mamzie

I could be wrong, but I thought that regs was also because of how hard it as to search comps before the expiry date format was implemented. So if a comp had the same url or prize it went into regs as otherwise it just kept on popping up on main, iyswim.

Now however its much eaiser for compers and bgs to see that comps with the same url but different Q's or prizes all the time have expired, so these could be back in main more easily I guess. But I guess this may have to be cleared first by BGs/MSE admin.

Glad

lilias wrote: »

"if all comps on the main board were single entry with the usual end date format, would that make that board easier to use freeing up a little time to look at a 2nd board"

So this would mean that comps like the daily Glamour comp, at present languishing in Regulars, could come back to the Main Board? It's single entry every day and a different prize every day.

that would mean it being posted every day though? and being moved to GO every day, I meant comps with an end date in the future that you could only enter once

and I know it feels like it's not getting as many views in regs atm but thats what I want to discusss, how people can search and use the regs board alongside the main board

Glad

Nicky63 wrote: »

I think that's part of the problem Glad, you admit that you're not a comper and don't use the boards, therefore you can't possibly understand why the moving of comps that have always been on the main board is upsetting so many people and causing them to vote with their feet so to speak and stop posting. This is not meant to be a personal attack on you, but an observation.

I have tried using the regular board for two weeks and it's not adding to my comping experience.

My personal choice/vote goes to having all comps on main board with a thread of links for daily, weekly and monthly for those who wish to use them.

I said I'm not an avid comper
I do comp and use both boards and as I only started a few months ago I just developede my own way of using both

I'm thinking of getting it streamlined and then asking people (with help on how to search) for some months before we can say it doesn't work

another point, there are 24 pages of comps on the regs board atm, many with no end date, merging all of that into the main board would cause other problems, with searching and bumping etc and some people do want them seperate

Amilucky?

would it be possible to reverse the changes that have been made to the comps moved to regulars that are upsetting the posters on main

so that the regular comp posters on main that have dropped out are happy to post again