Competitions Discussion Thread Part 3

furndire

Just got the daily email update. Has everyone else?

azp74

I haven't had one all year ... I am going to try unsubscribing and then re-subscribing though it sounds like that hasn't worked for other people.

aytch

After moaning I had not received a daily update for weeks - it appeared today, but I did resubscribe last night!

princessmoneysaver

I got mine today too!

scottishfreebiehunter

Anyone having problems with skinny cow today?

catz747

It worked ok for me

scottishfreebiehunter

catz747 wrote: »

It worked ok for me

Cheers it worked for me now:D

southernscouser

I don't know why this has just hit me and it probably makes no difference but I thought I'd post it anyway.

Basically, whenever you click on a link posted here to be taken to a sites competition, their website can see where you were directed from, ie MSE.

Now I was just wondering whether that does, or maybe will in the future, affect your chances of winning! :think:

I know that winners are meant to be picked a random. I just wonder whether thats true or whether they chose a more 'random' entry, ie someone who has just stumbled upon it rather than from a huge comping group.

Like I say it probably doesn't affect anything but thought I'd mention it to you anyway.

Anyone got a spare Wii they don't want?

webbo100

I think its very unlikely they will spend hundreds of hours trying to tie up entries to the website logs. As it would only work if they recorded the IP address when the competition entry was made. Might work for a site where they only expect a few hits, but not the average site that is putting up a comp to attract hits.

gakochan

Yes, a site can easily get the URL of the page from which you came to it (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referer). You can prevent this information being sent in your Firefox or IE, but it's a bother.

However, I strongly suspect that the level of sophistication used to select a winner, from the loads of submitted forms (emails/text/post etc) is, for most comps, minimal.

I would guess that some companies which have an IT department with time to spare, might run a quick check on duplicate email addresses, but that's about it. I can't imagine they could be bothered about anything else. I further suspect that the "winner picking and checking" job is given to a lowly office employee! -- except perhaps for hi-profile prizes with big publicity attached. This is of course pure speculation! Does anyone here have any experience as the "winner picker"?