Should LTT give-a-ways be limited to contributing members only?

[Dazza_the_Dragon]

Finally got caught on the latest WAN show and when I got to that part, I face palmed really hard that the winner was a 1 post no show and those on page 8 were majority nubs.

 

I believe give-a-ways and stuff on LTT should be limited to actual members of the forum that have a post count high enough to warrant a custom title, so 500 posts minimum. (or even 100 min since that's not even hard to acquire) ((shoot, even 10 with actual meaning and not e-begging would be better than what we seem to get for contests)) I understand the friendly nature of give-a-ways, but it bothers me the sheer amount of <10 post users that show up strictly to fuel their greed and not actually be a part of the community.

 

I can't be the only one who feels this way.

 

*I didn't even enter so this isn't a rant of wanting skewed odds.

I can see where are you coming from with this post, but their are people dedicated to Linus and his community by just watching his youtube channel. That alone gives them the right to be involved in giveaways in my opinion. May just be me.

[Rennan24]

As an generally inactive person trying to win give-aways i can see this being a good thing, members don't seem to have much of a benefit but i would also like to win give-aways soooooo..... maybe 2 give-aways? lol

[wrath]

Finally got caught on the latest WAN show and when I got to that part, I face palmed really hard that the winner was a 1 post no show and those on page 8 were majority nubs.

 

I believe give-a-ways and stuff on LTT should be limited to actual members of the forum that have a post count high enough to warrant a custom title, so 500 posts minimum. (or even 100 min since that's not even hard to acquire) ((shoot, even 10 with actual meaning and not e-begging would be better than what we seem to get for contests)) I understand the friendly nature of give-a-ways, but it bothers me the sheer amount of <10 post users that show up strictly to fuel their greed and not actually be a part of the community.

 

I can't be the only one who feels this way.

 

*I didn't even enter so this isn't a rant of wanting skewed odds.

arent you a bit selfish?

[LinusTech]

We run giveaways through the forum because managing "likes" or "comments" on YouTube is impossible when you get as many entries as we do.

 

I see some requests for some forum specific giveaways, and while these aren't impossible, I can't think of many fair ways to manage it... Post count is easily artificially inflated and I don't want to encourage rubbish posting, rep points are just going to turn into a massive circle jerk, and if the solution is to announce it only on the forum and not make a video about it... I guess that's cool for the 20-50 people who see it... but the forum moves so fast, even many loyal members would never notice it.

 

So these are the challenges...

 

I saw some speculation about our motivation for giveaways - we do them for a variety of reasons, but unless it's a cross-channel collab it's not to gain traffic or subscribers. They do literally nothing. In this case it was because I got a lot of requests to review the Z2 and dbrand offered to give us one to review if we give it away. It was cheaper and less hassle than buying one. That was the only reason

[The Crazed Child]

We run giveaways through the forum because managing "likes" or "comments" on YouTube is impossible when you get as many entries as we do.

 

I see some requests for some forum specific giveaways, and while these aren't impossible, I can't think of many fair ways to manage it... Post count is easily artificially inflated and I don't want to encourage rubbish posting, rep points are just going to turn into a massive circle jerk, and if the solution is to announce it only on the forum and not make a video about it... I guess that's cool for the 20-50 people who see it... but the forum moves so fast, even many loyal members would never notice it.

 

So these are the challenges...

 

I saw some speculation about our motivation for giveaways - we do them for a variety of reasons, but unless it's a cross-channel collab it's not to gain traffic or subscribers. They do literally nothing. In this case it was because I got a lot of requests to review the Z2 and dbrand offered to give us one to review if we give it away. It was cheaper and less hassle than buying one. That was the only reason

Well said. 

[skywake]

I don't think you should make random restrictions to competitions for three reasons:

1. LTT is more than just the forums, why should competitions be restricted to just active forum members?

2. How do you measure "active forum memberage"? Is a 99 post user not "active"? Seems pretty arbitrary

3. If they're not active members and don't watch the WAN show then odds are they won't find out if they win anyways

[Clyne]

I don't think you should make random restrictions to competitions for three reasons:

1. LTT is more than just the forums, why should competitions be restricted to just active forum members?

2. How do you measure "active forum memberage"? Is a 99 post user not "active"? Seems pretty arbitrary

3. If they're not active members and don't watch the WAN show then odds are they won't find out if they win anyways

agree, like one the giveaway on July 18, somebody won the gaming laptop but didn't respond to it. I think because their not active and don't know what's going on in this forum. 

[ShadowCaptain]

but the forum moves so fast, even many loyal members would never notice it.

 

 

This is very true, there are so many topics posted in a day, within a few hours a topic can be buried a few pages back!

[virtualTune]

I think there should be a minimum post count, but only making it for paying members would be wrong. It would be like pay to win, a concept LTT surely wouldn't support. It would give LTT a bad reputation. At the end of the day, the people that contribute are doing it to support LMG and not to buy anything. If anything you could make an argument for making an entry by a contributor count as 5 instead of 1 (just an example). 

 

@LinusTech, don't you guys send PMs to the winners?

[Woohoo]

I agree with most of the answers. I just made an account on this forum to enter the z2-giveaway. I guess that means I'm not a 'contributing member', but I've been watching every single video on youtube for quite a while now.

I understand the frustration of contributing members when a single-post-member wins a giveaway, but I don't see any good solution for this either. Maybe forum-only giveaways is the best option, but still not perfect.

From now on I'll try to be more active on this forum, so at least the giveaway added one contributing member to the forum

[tdreher123]

I agree with what Linus said.....A one time poster could be a long time viewer.

I am one of those people. I'm not really into forums that much. I just enjoy watching videos that Linus is in.

[seekthetablet]

Lot of replies, but reitterated two cents: no. It's a way to get people involved watch the channel more and eventually be involved more in the forum. And if someone is not involved in the forum, who cares? Like I'm sure many people say, countless people probably watch videos and interact on there; this all supports the company.

 

A good example of what these guys are trying to acheive is the Tek Syndicate car giveaway. He asked Linus to include a whole group of people he might not otherwise reach (me included) to be a part of the giveaway. These guys are all about promotions and don't exactly hold excluvisity in high regard.

[Real_PhillBert]

What if I have a lot of posts but dont really contribute much? Do I get to be in the give-aways? 

[Clyne]

I got an idea where if people signed up before a specific date then they can enter in the giveaway, if they signed up later than the specific date then they can't enter in(their vote would be invalid if they enter) and would have to wait for the next giveaway.

[ZiggyManSaad]

As someone who rarely posts and doesn't have the money to be a contributor, I think that idea is stupid. I watch every single one of Linus' videos, but because I don't post on the forum all the time or give Linus money, I'm going to be penalized when there's a giveaway? That's a great way to segregate the audience. If you contributors want special giveaways where only you can win, set up a contributor's sub forum and do giveaways in there so the general public can't see it and feel obligated to give money to enter.

[Jrjy3]

Linus addressed this when he picked the first winner of the laptop that only had one post. Even though the person that won only had one post on the forum, they could be one of the people that have been watching since the NCIX/LinusTechTips days. He said that they aren't going to make it only open to contributors because everybody contributes by viewing and clicking on the ads on the YouTube videos. 

[GrmanRodriguez]

The idea of a giveaway is to get more people into the forums, do you think they spend hundreds on dollars on PCs and then give them away out of love? So no

[Nicolas]

wait latest wan show? They announced the winners?

the winner of the laptop didn't claim it, so it was re-drawn

[Ursad0n]

This whole thread is absurd. Not everyone has the time, or wants to sit on forums and post about stuff just so that they can be considered in giveaways for a channel that they love. That's a stupid idea.

[TheSLSAMG]

You realize something like would never work, right?


The point of these contests is to drive traffic and ad revenue to the forum. Linus doesn't do this out of the goodness in his heart, he does it because it generates traffic, views and revenue. To limit it would be to limit the revenue recieved by LMG. And to be part of Linus' community, you don't need to be a forum member... There are plenty of people that watch the videos but do not interact here.

[Tech_Dreamer]

i wonder half the people voted "NO" have close to 100 posts or even 20 

 

well, it'd be quite awesome if once in a while they did something like that, i mean this could trigger already forum members to make multiple accounts from further segmented email accounts & enter in on to win the contest & this is worst than sh** post encouragement to get to certain post level, plus it invites a lot of attention to trolls ,