last week we had our first raffle and it went off smoothly without a hitch. we're pretty happy how the mechanisms are working... tho there is one angle we're unsure how to approach.

there can only be one winner... but what if the winner doesn't come forward?

when the raffle is drawn, we pull 3 tickets. first, second and third place. the thought is if the first place person doesn't come forward within a time period, then we award it to the second place. after a similar period of time, if the second doesn't come forward, then we award to the third. if they don't come forward, then no winner is declared and the prizes drop back into the hopper to be eligible as potential prizes for the next weekly raffle.

when streamers hold live raffles, they give their audience members about 30 seconds to claim the prize. then again, the length of the raffle is also very short and people can generally be expected to be there to claim it. not quite the same here.

i'm leaning towards allowing a max of one week to claim the prize before moving onto the next ticket drawn.

i'm looking for feedback from you, our users. what are your thoughts on this?

When the new site was freshly launched and was promptly defaced a few months ago, probably that determined a lot of people to register with anonymous emails (like mailinator in my case) ... and if they won a raffle they didn't get the email notice since it would be sent to an address not usually monitored... they'd have to actually check the PMs here (if they remember to login...)

Even more, as i wrote in the thread "PHP error on site", i can't change the email address to a less-volatile one because of that fatal PHP error that the site is throwing up when i attempt to change my mail address away from mailinator. If i won any raffles and was sent the code via email only without receiving a PM here... that email was /dev/null'ed by mailinator automatically after a few hours.


Also, maybe it would help with the raffles if you had some sort of feedback for all people, not just those that win the raffles. Currently the "Raffle prizes" section in my account profile doesnt's show anything, not even a "sorry you didn't win" message. It's just a blank DIV with "Details" as the title and no details about what's going on.

as it stands, one winner per week sounds very reasonable. as odds become insurmountable, that may become a factor that i would see possibly as discouraging. ie: 1 in 500 compared to 1 in 5000 eligible. but hey, its a free raffle, not a pay-to-win lottery. altho, it isnt the factor in question.

with the topic, the 1 week sounds very fair. and if it requires logging on to this site specifically to claim, i see that as the simplest option since claiming tickets also has this requirement.

suggestion: (may already be happening, dunno) perhaps send 2nd/3rd place on-site notices stating they might be receiving a secondary notice for them to claim if 1st doesnt come forward (this, keeping them in contact rather than them possibly being idle another week). and then, if 1st does end up claiming, send a secondary notice stating such. (complimentary ty for participating, kind of thing).

loving the whole idea so far, love the addon (oQ). but beyond all that, the communication has been excellent.
thx, shovelready~zuluhed

Rass, I do apologize about the bug with changing your email. I just moved half way across the country so my life has been alittle spuratic xD, ill fix it I swear!

I will also work on improving the UI for all persons involed (like showing a "you did not win" notice).

Shovel: 2nd and 3rd place winners are computed, and we will notify those people should the initial 1st place winner failed to claim their prize.