One thing that annoys me more than anything in this world are lazy people who don’t like to follow (possibly just because they don’t read them) the rules. Â If you are going to enter a giveaway here on A Daily Dose of Toni, your best bet is to follow the ONE required entry. Â I am seriously debating adding everyone who doesn’t to a banned list where you comments go straight to spam so you will never be able to enter again.
My giveaway entries are not that hard. Â I always have ONE required entry and that is the only thing you have to do to enter and it’s never something that requires a lot of effort. Â It’s just some people are too lazy to see what it is and instead leave a comment that doesn’t qualify and wastes my time.
The following (unless I say comment anything you want, which never happens) do not count for giveaways:
- Great contest enter me.
- Wow I need that.
- I would like to win thanks
- Count me in
- OH I hope I win
- I have been needing something like this
- and many other random comments that are absolutely no where close to what the ONE required entry is.
Usually the required entry is as simple as visiting the sponsors website and telling me something you would like to have. Â Sometimes it’s letting me know something you learned about the product. Â Other times it’s telling me a tip. Â But it is NEVER “Enter Me Thanks” Â “My vacuum is on it’s last leg, I hope I win this” “Wow great giveaway” and the other “I am too lazy to read the actual rules so I am just gonna say something random” comments.
In my opinion the idiots (yes I called them idiots) are LAZY. Â Well guess what, Lazy people get banned here at A Daily Dose and probably will never even get the option of entering a contest. Â I mean come on really is it that hard to read the one required rule, heck you don’t even have to read the whole post usually (though I would like you to). Â Just do the required entry or don’t bother entering because you won’t win and when I see your comment it WILL be deleted.
And that is all for this Public Service Announcement. Â Being Lazy and not reading the rules doesn’t win giveaways it keeps you from being able to enter at all. Â SORRY YOUR LOSS! Â Now have a GREAT Saturday and remember to READ THE RULES!
Toni Patton
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I always read the required entry, but will also add a little something. Like “thanks for the chance!”
Is that okay?
.-= Single Mama Central´s last blog ..What I Need. =-.
LOL yeah thats’ fine to add if you do the required entry 🙂 just don’t do that in a seperate comment or make that your only comment LOL
Toni,
This is so long overdue! Thx for posting this. It is a pet peeve of mine as well. Mainly because the entry that is “illegal” messes up the whole list of entries since random.org is used, if the person who “commented” didn’t use up that space, another person w/ an actual entry would be in that spot and be able to win… Not to mention, these people want to win an item sometimes valued at $100- or more but don’t even have the decency to check out the company’s website!
Thx for posting this. Hopefully it prompts people to correctly enter or move on sothose who really would like to win, can w/o conflict.
I do hope it makes a difference. It’s a bit tongue in cheek but if people don’t like that maybe they shouldn’t be reading my blog LOL. And what really sucks is for me to catch it I would have to have my comments to approve every comment and I can’t do that or I would be sitting there all day having to approve comments and go through them and I just don’t have that kind of time.
OMG – AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL
.-= Dawn @ Dawniemom Reviews´s last blog ..SOAR! Scholarship – review =-.
I know right 🙂
Concur. It’s a waste of our time. To me, the ones like you mentioned that just say “Enter me.” etc. are just disrespectful to the blogger AND the sponsor. Anytime one of those comments is pulled as the winner I redraw immediately. Not worth my time or stress.
.-= Mrs. Cox´s last blog ..‘Nuff Said =-.
Precisely. I try to moderate them out but it’s too time consuming so some do get through and that sucks for the ones who are entering correctly
I completely agree! I also really can’t stand it when I just ask for an answer to a simple question and don’t even require them to click over to sponsor and they still leave ridiculous comments. I hope I win is the worst, hello EVERYONE hopes that.
.-= Katie´s last blog ..I’m Going!!! Social Media Moms Celebration at Walt Disney World =-.
Oh I totally hear ya LOL. It’s pure laziness imo.
I dont have a blog…wish I could do one, but I can see how it get’s frustrating when people dont OPEN THEIR EYES!!! I know I am just catching on to this (very cool way of marketing) and the fun, personal side of it too. I think at FIRST I might have messed up a couple times. Putting it in BOLD works for me…or the word MANDATORY FIRST ENTRY. So you think some people do not know what Mandatory means…for real?
I am sure your post will clear things up! No one deserves to put this much work into their JOB and make extra work by trying to railroad ya’. THanks for the head’s up!
And the funny thing is that is what I do. It says REQUIRED ENTRY (in bold). If someone can’t catch that then I don’t know how much more simple to make it kwim
People are stupid, but I don’t think it’s worth banning them over. This happens at a lot of giveaways.
.-= Becky´s last blog ..What is Lockerz? =-.
Banning essentially means their ip gets put in a directly to spam area. Chances are if they don’t follow the rules for one giveaway and just leave an enter me thanks, they are going to do that for most giveaways. Though I do go through my spam b/c some legit comments end up there for some reason. So it’s not as though they won’t be able to get to my site and enter other contests their entries will just go to spam but if they are legit they will be moved out.
Did that make any sense LOL
Um.
Enter Me.
I really want to win.
I hope I win.
Oh wait………. this isn’t a contest post. Let me go put these comments on a contest post so I get the blog owner angry. lol
Seriously, why do people waste our time by not reading the whole stinkin’ post?!
.-= Sara@MommaFindings´s last blog ..Surviving Cold Weather and Frozen Pipes =-.
No idea my friend no idea
Interesting post…don’t u think you are too hard on some people who may comment?
.-= Corve DaCosta´s last blog ..Zodiac Signs and You =-.
Not if they are not following the rules. I am not talking to general commenters just those who want to enter giveaways but don’t want to take the time to read/follow the rules.
I think you are right on and I would feel the same exact way if I ran a blog and was having a giveaway and only asked one thing of those entering. I see this all the time on giveaways on other blogs too and most of them have just one required rule as well. If you are too lazy to actually visit the sponsor and check out their site then you must not want to win their product too much!
People like this should be banned and every other blogger should want to do this as well. : )
It just makes it unfair for those who are actually reading and following the rules, in face if I were entering it would upset me b/c I would be taking the time to follow the rules.
I appreciate that you establish rules and clearly make an effort to not allow people to win who don’t comply. There will always be cheaters, driven people who enter multiple times under different names, who have unfortunately a great track record of winning blog drawings by simply posting ‘I want to win’ in as many drawings as they possibly can. My personal issue is with those bloggers who actually ask for ‘I want to win’ as an entry and especially those bloggers who award prizes to comments not in compliance with the rules. Some bloggers appear to be focused on bottom line number of comments in a thread and have no apparent concern about rules or control of the promotion.
You are one of many bloggers who are frustrated and speak out trying to convince people to follow the rules. I suspect your efforts like the posting of this thread, are futile simply because the lazy cheaters who won’t read the rules don’t bother to read non-giveaway threads. And they just win too many times to consider slowing down to bother with pesky rules.
Your rules are perfectly clear and anyone reading knows what is required to enter. It’s unfortunate that the entry situation pushes you to adding warnings that you do enforce the rules. I think auto banning would make it easier for you and fairer for all.
The big contest administrators for sweepstakes automatically disqualify entries that are noncompliant.
Yes I don’t agree with the I want to win as an entry either. Or those who award it to someone who says that when clearly that was not the means of entry. As for auto banning I have it set to where those ip’s go directly to spam (which I check b/c sometimes a real entry due to strange website/email gets put in spam so I always check spam over). If they ever enter correctly and it does go to spam but I will see that they did it correctly and can then un spam that particular comment. I won’t allow them to have free reign to comment away though. It’s the only fair way. And I agree with teh way the admins do that it’s precisely what I do when I catch them 🙂
I see that a lot.!!! This isn’t Rocket Science!!
Toni you spend a lot of time writing out the Reviews,and I think Sponsors appreciate readers viewing their products and websites. If they follow the Mandatory entry, get to know the products that the sponsors are generous enough to donate, they may learn something.
I absolutely agree hence the Tongue In cheek sarcastic post LOL. I just don’t see how it’s that hard to read a required entry kwim
Rules are rules. Every giveaway has them and they should always be followed. And its on the person entering to read them! Sorry for the disrespect. 🙁 I don’t have a blog, but I know that hard work and lots of time go into these. Thank you for the giveaways! And thank you for your hard work
Thanks so much for the comment and support, I imagine it is just as frustrating to the ones who enter and follow the rules
Thank you so much!!! I’ve seen ALOT of this lately & it makes me sick. So many of us make a special effort to read everything thoroughly & abide by all of the rules – & when people do this it makes me so angry (& I’m not the one who has to go thru them). Thanks for posting this – from all of us rule abiding giveaway fanatics & blog readers!
Thanks 🙂 I hope this is just as much helping those who enter giveaways as I want it to help the bloggers/sites having giveaways
I understand that you must get very frustrated with people who don’t read or follow your rules. It’s something that we all go through everyday regardless of what our job is. I hope you can feel a little less angry over this though. Feeling such anger over this isn’t the right way to handle these people. You should ban them if it’s causing you that much grief, but calling anyone stupid is, I think, uncalled for.I’m not writing this because I’m one of the people who don’t follow the rules. I do follow rules on all giveaways when I enter.
Good luck with your future giveaways.
LOL Vickie I am not angry, if you know me I am very tongue in cheek on things to lighten them up while still making a serious point. But I can’t exactly call them smart if they aren’t reading the rules, I guess lazy could suffice though
Just wondering how much the tweets are looked at for valid entry. First someone was telling me they only tweet once, and then post the same link over and over for additional daily entries. They said the blog software accepts it if you reword things – Mondays tweet, Tuesdays tweet. This is not the way I read the rules, and wondering if blogs are actually concerned about it.
And second, sometimes I load twitter and there are people who have over a dozen tweets (the kind qualifying for entry)all submitted within seconds of each other. Are blogs concerned about the use of automation in getting entries?
Sweepstakes in general have long disqualified any type of robotic entry. A few of the contest administrators programs time how long an entry form page has been loaded on your computer and DQ those that do not meet the minimum time limit they have established for manual entry while other programs test for keystroke entry in certain fields which catches those who use form fillers.
Thanks for your concern Betty. For mine they have to have a minimum of 50 followers and as long as the tweet url is in the comment i can tell if it is the same tweet over and over. Everytime you tweet (even if it is worded exactly the same, which in my giveaway since I usually have what I want tweeted in the giveaway actually) it gives it a different time stamp and url so it’s a legal entry. ON my site you can’t comment too fast, it has to be so many seconds between each comment to stop the automated entries. Now if someone knows how many seconds and uses an auto entry and uses the same tweet url over and over they will be disqualified. I will be looking much more carefully into the tweets though since you have raised this to my attention to make sure it is a different url each time. Thank you for letting me know so I can look into that for future contests i would never have thought someone would use the same url common sense would seem to tell them it has to be different each time. Thanks again for bringing this to my (and other contest hosts) attention.
can canadians enter your giveaways , i didnt see it listed anywhere
roswello athotmail dot com thanks
The answer to that is on my disclosure page in the about tab above, but no unless the sponsor has specifically said it is open to canadians, in which case it will be noted in the post, giveaways are US only. But as mentioned it will be noted in the post so please feel free to read over each giveaway and see if it one that happens to be open to Canadians 🙂
I agree. It is not to hard to ask them to follow a simple rule. they don’t even have to do extras.
Say it loud!
.-= JamericanSpice´s last blog ..Monday Mingle – Travel – bits =-.
I think your rules are pretty clear. I hope I am entering correctly
I just wonder…if they wonder why they never win anything!!!
.-= Becca´s last blog ..Fun, Fit and Guilt-Free House Party – The Detailed Post =-.
You so right Toni, I don’t have a blog of my own but I don’t blame you for wanting to ban those people as it must be time consuming to weed out the dead wood. I see a lot of this on other blogs, so your not alone. Thanks for reminding us all not to take these giveaways for granted.
Hi Toni – stray thoughts on a Friday
The other side of blogger irritation with people who don’t read and follow the requirements … is blogs are preaching to the choir. What are the odds that they will ever read a chastisement that they aren’t reading and following the entry rules? Ah, but the the rest of us do.
Sweepstakes run by the sponsors themselves have way more extensive rules than blogs. Their legal departments simply include a phrase something like “entries not iaw rules or incomplete entries will be discarded/disqualified” Blogs are just more obvious because we usually can see the bad entries.
Just wondering if you find there is any difference in correct entering after you post a thread like this?
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask that people “follow the rules”. Your blog – your giveaway – your rules. I can understand your frustration.
I don’t have a blog. When I enter for an opportunity to be selected for a giveaway I always read the review first. If it’s not something I am interested in then I move onto your next post. If I decide to enter I read the rules.
A blogger who has a giveaway is investing their time to use the product, give an honest review and post the giveaway. I think it is only fair that I am asked to spend a few minutes following the rules – and that comes from a person who likes to rebel against the rules.