Reader Dave asked a question.
CJ, I'm really curious about something.
Since you don't like voting contests, why do you keep creating posts about them?
Just don't bother giving these useless contests extra publicity.
Hi Dave,
I'm glad you ask. I assumed you folks knew but I really shouldn't have assumed. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to explain to everyone here.
I dislike voting contests, for reasons found
here.
So why do I keep posting them up?
Here are the reasons.
1. To tell companies that holding voting contests are doing them no favor - When I post up a contest, I will link up the contest site to the post. Many companies do track where visitors come from and when they land on my blog, they will get a chance to read about our views on voting contests. If we don't speak up, how will companies know that such contests are frowned upon, serve no purposes, can be easily manipulated and susceptible to cheating?
2. To warn new readers about such contests - For people who have been here a long time, you will be sick of my rants already. Even I am quite sick of it myself. But to people who only discovered the site recently, they may not know yet.
3. I can choose not to bother to post up these "useless" contests. But I bother to. Some companies are new to social media or holding contests on Facebook and just cluelessly jump into the voting contest bandwagon. I do hope that after reading our rants and feedback they will hold better contests the next time. I do care enough to give feedback though I recognize that they do tend to come in the form of sarcastic rants. Well, that's because it's faster to type out a rant rather than a politically correct feedback. All in all, I do want our Singapore companies to improve and I do want to join good contests too. Don't you?
So please speak up. For companies who hold good contests, please praise them too. If you don't have time to write a short note, then I hope you can at least try to indicate your "Like" or "Dislike" under the "Reactions" part at the bottom of each post. It doesn't take up much time to do that.
Many people have been speaking up more often now against poorly organized contests. They go directly to the companies' FB Page now to air their views and that's even better. I thank them for speaking up and bothering to. It takes time to draft a comment you know? If we don't speak up, how then would companies know AND improve? I do hope that you, Dave will also speak up more in future.
4. So when a company keeps holding such voting contests despite being told by contestants that it is easily subjected to abuse and rendering the contests unfair, then all the more I feel everyone should know what kind of company they are. Deal with them at your own risk.
5. I do take a look at who are the contestants first before posting the contest. If the names are unfamiliar to me or contestants look like they bother to put up good entries and have real profiles voting for them, I usually won't post the voting contest up. When I do post up voting contests, you should go take a look at the score board. Very soon, you will know who are those that only join voting contests and keeps winning them. If you meet them at work in future, be very careful. These people see cheating as being smart and nothing wrong. Deal with them at your own risk.
If you haven't also noticed by now, whenever I post up a voting contest, I will post up another contest at the same time. Ok I try to most of the time though I may not always be successful. I don't post voting contests just to meet the target of 1 post per day. In fact, voting contests takes up more of my time to draft.
So Dave, I hope I satisfy your curiosity and once again, thank you for asking and giving me the opportunity to explain.
Cheers,
Cee Jay
