ENDED! Seek Santa for a chance to win £100 or £200

davethorp

Does someone who the code appeared for have an advantage over someone the code doesn't appear for even though they are on the exact same page? Let me think about that for a second.......

And as for the Santa code, that gives an advantage to anyone who has technical knowledge of HTML and website code. Not to mention an advantage to anyone who was using a desktop browser rather than a mobile one

sidsnot

grant1wish wrote: »

So if it wasn't administered fairly, what advantage did I or any other winner have? Surely every single entrant was equal.

I don't think anyone has a problem with you winning or begrudges you your win , I think people are a little peeved at wasting so much time looking for something that wasn't actually there and for a Site that actually campaigns for competitions to be run fairly to mislead so many is poor beyond belief. Not only that, they then offer no apology for their poor standards but try and wriggle out of accepting that they actually did mess up BIG time.Maybe next time they will keep things simple and give all users (including those who work during the day, when they decided to run this, a fair chance and just have a simple , basic random draw that every user has a fair chance of not only winning but entering too. Congrats on your win and too all other winners.

davethorp

sidsnot wrote: »

I don't think anyone has a problem with you winning or begrudges you your win

Absolutely, no one is saying that MSE should cancel the wins and re run the competition. That would be an even worse PR nightmare than the one they currently have.

However there should be some acknowledgement of the issues with the competition rather spouting some rubbish about caching which has been proven not to be the case, and expecting people to have knowledge of how the internet works which not everyone does. And possibly an additional run of the competition with a level playing field to give chance to those who were deprived wins through no fault of their own.

If another website or company had run this omni-shambles of a competition and Martin Lewis had gotten wind of it he'd probably be blogging and tweeting about it. However his own website doesn't need to live up to the same standards it seems

who_is_the_daddy?

grant1wish wrote: »

It is a real shame that the spirit of the competition has been completely lost, unlike santa who was found.

I feel compelled to post. The spirit of the competition was surely fun, fairness and equality.


However, a competition that relies on which browser is used, which version is used, which system it is used on, prior knowledge of caches and compatibility modes, knowledge of accessing source code, and being able to discern some implicit tangential meaning of seemingly straightforward instructions does not seem to be in the spirit of any competition I know of.


In the grand scheme of things, MSE does infinitely more good for us proletariat than almost any other consumer body on the face of the planet and can be forgiven for this fiasco.


However, an acknowledgement of the inequalities inherent in the competition would go a long way to dissipating the bad taste that this has left. Surely this would be more in keeping with the 'spirit' of MSE?


By the way, well done all the winners!

vikki_louise

I am very disappointed in MSE, if the competition was on any other site MSE would be telling us to look at the exact instructions which included the pictures and to stand up to the people running it to point out that was no what was originally said.

It's great someone found it and won but that does not mean the competition was fair and run to a professional standard

lynnejk

Just like to say Well done to all the winners


I still don't know what everyone is on about with caches and other terminology but I'm sure that it wasn't meant to be such a fiasco.


I think the whole idea was a bit of fun which unfortunately has upset some people which is a shame.


I hope MSE read these posted above comments and take them forward.


Here's hoping they run another SANTA comp next year but on a different and equal for everyone basis.


Happy Christmas everyone
Lx

senileturtle

grant1wish wrote: »

Absolutely hilarious. Please don't judge me. Or try to presume how I would feel if I had not won.

I entered a similar comp before when mse. Hid wallets. I didn't win, but also didn't then come on the site complaining that I wasn't good enough to find one.

It is a real shame that the spirit of the competition has been completely lost, unlike santa who was found. I hope mse are not put off running similar comps in the future.

Merry Christmas.

The point is, winners often don't complain even if a competition is unfair.

It's clear the majority thought they were looking for an image, not a image url. It was misleading.

bestpud

senileturtle wrote: »

The point is, winners often don't complain even if a competition is unfair.

It's clear the majority thought they were looking for an image, not a image url. It was misleading.

Absolutely! A lot of people aren't affected, or gain from, many of the unfair business practices this site encourages us to fight back against but that doesn't make them ok.

It's double standards.

MSE: If you actively educate and encourage people to speak up when they have been misled or unfairly treated then you must expect a backlash when you mislead them yourselves. It's really not on and I don't understand how you can possibly think it is.

MissMonkeyMoo

Senileturtle and bestpud are absolutely right. I am still waiting for Martin Lewis's own response on all of this.

BogsDollox

Surely a much better way to have done this would of been:

Hide the 10 images as you did.

Give people x amount of time to find all of them (allows people who couldn't be on here at 11am to play to also participate)

Enter everyone who found all 10 of the images into a raffle.

Would certainly have eliminated most of the problems we've seen here.

On a positive note, congratulations to all 10 of the winners!