RAW Prizes - April 9th-13th, 2007
[update - April 9th, 2007 - 5:02 pm PST]Valerie suggested something which prompted me to update this post with more info on how I will choose a winner. Thank you Valerie. 
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April 9th is approaching fast, so I want to post this before time runs out. I am offering at least 5 prizes to you during the Reader Appreciation Week that runs from April 9th to April 13th of this year, 2007. You do not have to do anything to participate. Do not even comment on my site if you want to win prizes, if you have already commented before. I will choose a winner and that winner will choose from a list of many prizes. If you are the winner, you can also tell me what you want and I will do my best to rob a bank or some nursery or something to get the prize for you.
If you have ever commented on The Reasoner, you are automatically entered. I will not make you comment more than usual, and I will not make you run around in circles holding a flame in hand to create special effects in the middle of the night. Now that I think of it, I may give you money if you can create such a special effect at night for me. 
I will award prizes in a special way. I will choose winners, and ask them what they want. If the prizes you want are part of any of the prizes I offer or something similar, I will give it to you. You can choose one prize, even if it is not listed in the list below.
Prizes I may offer for the RAW
Following are the prizes that I will offer, copied directly from the RAW Prizes page, which Ronald wrote so well. I have edited the list to offer prizes that I can definitely order.
Monetary Prize
These can be offered via Paypal, via gift coupons or via money order in the mail.
- Gone! - Money anywhere from $20 to $100 - Gone! Claimed by Penguins on April 11th, 2007
Non-Monetary Prize Ideas
- Free hosting
- Free advertising space
- Free consulting (blog, design, etc…)
- Reader Spotlight - Write a post about a particular reader
- Create a Readers’ Hall of Fame
- Special invites to non-public betas in the future
Non-Technical Prizes
The following prizes are ideal for readers that are not interested in technical prizes.
- Merchandise (T-Shirts, Mugs, Mouse Pads)
- Retail store gift cards
- Money Orders
- Candles from Little-Light.net
- Transportation tickets, like BART and other tickets (as explained on RA site)
Technical Prizes
The following prize ideas are ideal for readers comfortable with the online world and online shopping.
- iTunes gift certificate
- Amazon.com gift certificate
- Flickr Pro Account
- LiveJournal Paid Account (as suggested by Stacee)
- DeviantART Choice Membership (as suggested by Stacee)
- Yahoo Mail Plus (as suggested by Stacee)
- Paypal Cash
- Design magazines such as HOW and ID (as suggested by inspirationbit)
- Help move someone from a hosted blog account to their own domain.
- Game subscriptions (such as WoW)
- Books from Amazon or BN.com
- Magazine or Newspaper subscriptions for a year
That is it. Please let me know if you want any other prize.
All you have to do to win these prizes is to comment if you have not commented on any part of the site already, and to check your e-mail at least every 24 hours starting from April 8th until April 15th. Every day, early in the morning hopefully, I will announce the prize for the day. All you have to do is to wait for my e-mail announcing that you are the winner. I will also announce the winner in a new post 12 hours into every day of the Reader Appreciation Week, so that you can be sure that if you do not get any e-mail from me for any reason, you can check the post.
How will Bes award the prizes?
Here is a summary of how each day will work:
- Bes will announce a winner. Bes will choose someone randomly. Hitting on Bes might get you more points, and stalking Bes might get you no points. Hmmm, if you are cute and stalking Bes, you might get some points.
- This point was added later, as suggested by Valerie, to be more clear as to how I pick a random commentor. The random number I choose can be anything. Once I have a random number, I will go to the admin area for this site and into the “Stats” area, which lists all the commentors on my site, ever, in a numbered list. I will use the random number to find the winner who is numbered with the same number on that list. I also created a section called “How do I choose a random number?” because of Valerie’s suggestion. Thank you!
- If you are the winner, you will have 24 hours to contact Z and choose one of the prizes. “Who the %^&* is Z?“, you ask. I am Bes Z, so relaaaaax. Prizes only go to people who are relaxed. If you are a person who does not like to relax, I may offer you a massager or something.
- I may announce more than one winner a day, so be prepared.
- If you do not contact me within 24 hours of the winner announcement post, I will have no choice but to sadly find another winner.
- I will keep doing this until all the prizes are gone, or until we hit April 13th, or until I go poor giving away everything from my savings account.
- After all the prizes have been given away, I will realize I should have used all the prizes myself instead. So I will cry. This stage of the process will not be visible to you, fortunately.
That is it. Please let me know if you have any questions. If you have any more suggestions for any prize, please let me know.
How do I choose a random number?
I also talked about this before as a response to Stacee’s comment earlier. There is a list of commentors in my dashboard which lists all the commentors one by one. I will choose a random number out of the blue and pick that commentor as the winner. The random number will sometimes be computer generated, and sometimes be a number I see on a bag of chips. I am trying to be as random as possible. For example, if the random number is 45 and you are listed in that commentor list as being commentor # 45 [which is not related to the number of commentors at all or even who posted first], you will be the winner of the day. If the number is too large, then I will add the numbers to come up with the first set of winner possible.
For example, if the random number is 59640 and I do not have that many commentors [ 
], I will add all the numbers: 5 9 6 4 0 and come up with 24, which will make the 24th commentor on the commentor list the winner. How does that sound? I am open to any suggestions if you think something else may be better.
Why am I doing this?
Because I feel like it, and because others like Ronald at RA Project feel like it too. I do not yet earn money from my site, but you read my site regularly, so I want to give something back to you. I do not like being treated like another visitor # 4849328 on sites that claim to love their readers but do not do anything for them. Many blogs claim to love their readers by giving them prizes, but those bloggers also make their readers comment more and work more than normal. I do not like that. I do not like manipulation where only one side benefits and the innocent side does not, whether direct or indirect, conscious or unconscious.
Thank you for supporting me in different ways. 49% of my site’s success is because of your support. 51% is because of me. Come on! I have to give myself some more points, no?
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( April 5th, 2007 at 10:50 pm )
Bes, you are a funny guy. If I win, I want the massager. And a keg.
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( April 6th, 2007 at 2:08 am )
If I’m one of the winners, I’d like to be able to take a day and a half to relax, think, and read. Heck, that’s not one of the prizes. Actually, Bes, I’d be happy as a clam (and I’d love to know who determined clams are happy) if you’d be part of my conference next month. Now that you’re home and settled again (it seems) we can talk.
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( April 6th, 2007 at 8:03 am )
I’m curious to find out how can you identify a cute stalker on your blog?
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( April 6th, 2007 at 9:13 am )
Ronalfy, lol. I will have to hold the keg until we meet then, maybe? The massager, I think Amazon can provide without any problems.
Carolyn, that should definitely be the best prize: relaxing, heh! lol @ the clam. I would love to be part of your conference next month [May]. Yes, let’s talk!
I would love to know the details on how it all works.
Vivien-inspirationbit, lol. I can request all people to send me their pictures or flickr urls!
What do you think? lol.
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( April 6th, 2007 at 3:21 pm )
Oh wow, I didn’t even read this last night! Haha. I just looked at it, and then installed my other programs that I needed to do last night. Hahaha.
But wow… That is soooo nice of you, Bes! Hmmm… The part about “Hitting on Bes might get you more points, and stalking Bes might get you no points. Hmmm, if you are cute and stalking Bes, you might get some points.” Hahah, you don’t consider me as a stalker, right????! LOL. Hmm… If I am a stalker, in your eyes, I’m cute though, right?!
HAHAHAHAHA.
Wow, the winner has to contact you in 24 hours?? Hmm… LOL.
Anyways, that is soo awesome that you’re doing this, Bes. Many people just say they’re going to do stuff, but they never do it. Others, like you, say they’re going to do it, and they actually do, do it. So good job, Bes. Kudo points for you!
Heheh.
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( April 6th, 2007 at 3:56 pm )
Bes, you can “request all people to send you their pictures or flickr urls”. However I know two things:
- I won’t be sending you mine
- I’m cute but I ain’t a stalker
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( April 6th, 2007 at 5:02 pm )
Awesome prizes! Thanks for even having a giveaway like this! I’ll definitely be checking my e-mail a lot!
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( April 6th, 2007 at 9:19 pm )
You can request that everyone send their pictures or flickr url, but that doesn’t mean those are real pictures of them. That’s the thing with the internet. Though it’s usually obvious when someone’s picture is fake though, and funny/sad when it is.
So you’d have to request a picture of the person holding a sign that says something like “I LOVE BES AND RAW” or a video of them saying that
How does this work? How will you be picking each winner? Is it random, or based on the quality of comments/participation/something else? Do you think I’m cute? If so, should I start with the stalking part for more points?
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( April 7th, 2007 at 1:34 pm )
Chau, you are funny. lol.
Also, yes, you already count as both, so you get a lot of points!
Yes, the winner has to contact within 24 hours. However, do you think that is not enough time? The reason I chose 24 hours is to get each contest done with within a day and to move onto the next winner. What do you think and suggest? I am open to any ideas.
Also, thank you for the kind words!
inspirationbit, heh. I was just kidding about the flickr url request thing, but now I feel maybe I should require it? =P I wonder how many people have flickr or not! I do see your picture in your About page and I agree with the 2nd point lol. Also, I myself had such a huge dilemma before posting my pics on my flickr account. I still require people to be my contact/friends before they can see my personal pics.
Jess, thanks for the comment and stopping by! Let us see what happens.
Stacee, you have a point.
You are right, on the internet, anyone can act like someone and get away with it in many cases.
Haha! I like that idea: “I LOVE BES AND RAW”!
Regarding the winners, I will be picking one up randomly. There is a list of commentors in my dashboard which lists all the comments one by one. I will choose a random number and pick that commentor as the winner. For example, if the random number is 45 and you are listed in that commentor list as being commentor # 45 [which is not related to the number of commentors at all or even who posted first], you will be the winner of the day. If the number is too large, then I will add the numbers to come up with the first set of winner possible.
For example, if the random number is 59640 and I do not have that many commentors [
], I will add all the numbers: 5 9 6 4 0 and come up with 24, which will make the 24th commentor on the commentor list the winner. How does that sound? I am open to any suggestions if you think something else may be better.
Also, I know you are cute, and we are almost neighbors too, so yes, from today onwards I will start expecting you to follow me. =P
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( April 7th, 2007 at 5:38 pm )
and what if she doesn’t start stalking you? Will you be stalking her to stalk you?
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( April 7th, 2007 at 10:27 pm )
Bes,
I still think you need to show the world the stud that you are. You will have to fight the stalkers instead of inviting them
Flickr is awesome. Those that do not have it are still in denial to its supremacy.
If I ever come to SF, we will have a least a couple of brews. Take care.
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( April 8th, 2007 at 12:06 pm )
inspirationbit, lol. Hmmm, that’s a tough question; I have to think about it.
Stalking someone to have them stalk you; what a nice stalking cycle!
Ronalfy, yeah right @ “the stud” I am! lol. You are funny, =P.
Flickr is indeed very nice.
Yep, looking forward to your trip to SF.
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( April 10th, 2007 at 2:43 pm )
How have I never heard of this RAW thing? I’ll tell you now, if my number comes up on the comment lottery - don’t contact me to lighten your pockets - if you’re that desperate to give away some cash then please by all means go donate some in my name here
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( April 11th, 2007 at 10:24 am )
Vics, thanks for coming here and commenting! I really appreciate it.
I think the reason you did not know about this is because we tried out best to advertise as much as possible without using too much money, or any money at all. Mostly, it was through word of mouth.
If you do win, I will donate it in your name to the “Help Me Research” organization in UK. Also, I am not desperate to give away cash, but only desperate to show appreciation.
Also, if you win, I am going to do this: I will donate something in the research’s name and also award you a prize for bringing this up. Let us see what happens, and let us hope that you win.
Thanks again Vics! You can still participate in this contest by being one of the participating sites; anyone can participate in this giveaway, and it can be continued to beyond this week if you like. It is not controlled by anyone specific but by all of us, by the way.
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