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Your Inner Child Contest = Where are the voters?

2K views 27 replies 23 participants last post by  DMIHOMECENTER 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
G'day

This is somewhat allied with the current post: Noncontributing members ( 18,092 ) http://lumberjocks.com/topics/34832 but more specific in terms of its question.

In the recent "Your Inner Child" contest there were a grand total of 98 votes cast.

Now in a purported membership of 38,000, reduced to 20, 000 by rmoore and then down to 2800 fairly active members by WudnHevn's estimate, I am still perplexed. One out of 28?

Hell, the entrants almost equaled the votes!

I'm perplexed as well because we vote thousands of time a day as it is. We click on interesting projects, we vote again by leaving a comment, favoriting it even; then go on to watch the post, send a note to the poster, be their buddy and be buddies back - votes in every single way. So with $500 and bragging rights at stake, no small cheese it would seem to me - wondrously, no one bothered.
$500 is nice walkin around money to anybody and even if you weren't entered you all still gotta have your favourites.

I'm not disappointed in my own result#, the best man certainly won, so much as wondering about the few people down at the bottom of the list, those with a discouraging 1 or 2 or no votes whatsoever. With worthy entries, they deserve a little more positive feedback than that for their effort. That is mostly why we come here and stay here imo.

Now take real participation in a contest and imagine the 70th place guy that now sees 10 or 20 people vote him in 2nd place. Still the same position on the list but what a difference.
There has been disappointing participation in the last 2 or 3 contests and perhaps others may notice this pattern come time for the next one, and pause and think; "Will my entry be good enough that I'm not embarrassed?"

So why is this so and how can it get better? There was certainly no lack of serious entries.

gene

#(sure, I would have loved to win but was really hoping for a random T-Shirt, real good odds they were)
and well, why not; a big shout out to my sole first place voter
 
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#3 ·
Could LJ add a tab at the top labeled "Contests" after "Jocks"? I am guessing that could increase awareness of any ongoing contests and/or increase traffic to this website. I thought I had read through most of the Forum subjects and spent a fair amount of time on this website, but I sure missed the one about this contest, so you can label me as part of the problem. Another issue could be the intimidation factor. There are so many great projects on this website that it can be overwhelming to the more casual observer and they in turn may believe, to borrow a phrase from Wayne's World, "I'm not worthy" to vote in such a contest. Just a couple of thoughts/suggestions to throw in the mix.
 
#4 ·
Gene
I am glad you are taking up this issue and I can honestly say I did not have a good enough project to participate .
The problem I have is that I have forgotten how to play and think like a child and with my grand kids growing up I have to make a big effort to understand what interests them .
I put time aside to get them interested in woodworking and listen to there ideas and build things for and with them having a lot of fun doing it .
The feeling I have is that the majority of us love our children and grandchildren but have problems relating to the new generation as they are way different then we where and creating things that they would be interest in.
We are creating play things that reflect our childhood which is not relevant to current times as much as we would like it to be and I believe the voting was strongly influenced by the current generation .

Kiefer
 
#6 ·
Wow Gene. I have to say you all are so much smarter than I am. I don't even understand what you are talking about. Seriously. But I'm listening. Something about voting maybe? Yes, we vote in many ways. I would have entered if I had the time. Maybe next one. :) Carry on…
 
#8 ·
That's horrifying Gene.

Now i'm not 100% sure on this but I think you have to enter a project to vote.
I'm fairly sure I've voted in competitions I didn't enter (which is most of them), so I don't think that's the case.

I confess - I didn't vote in this one, although I've voted in others.
Why?
Because I forgot.
And I'm annoyed that I forgot - I actually like opening up those windows and looking at them all, and thinning them, one by one, down to the top few.
I think it would be a good idea for the site to send a reminder email when voting opens - "Voting now open for the next 7 days", or some such - then I would not have forgotten and there would have been at least 99 votes cast.
 
#9 ·
I had never heard of the contest and I still have no idea what it was. I go on LumberLocks every day and look at viz. everything.
I think the contest should've been advertised more.
An e-mail alert would probably do the trick. I would've been happy to cast my vote.
 
#11 ·
I didn't see the vote count or compare it to the member #. But, 3% is pretty low.
The only way I knew about the contest was because I follow one of the contestant's blogs and posts.
 
#12 ·
I wanted to vote! However, since I have not posted a project, YET! (nor have one worthy of posting, IMO) I was not allowed to vote.

I'm not complaining about not being allowed to vote, just explaining my APPARENT lack of participation or involvement!!!
 
#14 ·
I'm on LJ's nearly every day, and I would have voted but for some reason I forgot about the contest, and didn't see any notice that the contest was open for voting. Today is the first I've read it was over…..but thanks for letting me know…at least I can go look at the projects…
 
#15 ·
I didn't vote. I heard about the contest, but I had no interest.

I don't make toys, or things for kids. I do like kids, and I see from a quick scan of the entries that there are a lot of cute / interesting items. But it's just not my thing.

Perhaps I should have reviewed entries in more detail, just to lend support and encouragement to the entrants. But since I'm not doing that kind of work, it never occurred to me to stick my nose in.

Mostly, I use LJ as a source of informed opinions. I very rarely have anything to contribute, and then its almost always a question. I do value the resource, and I've recently subscribed to one of the feeds. But I doubt that anyone here needs to regularly hear my uninformed opinions.

I also belong to many other websites: social networking, professional and hobby groups, mags, rags, blogs and forums - and I have for decades. I behave the same at each of them. I offer a comment, vote, opinion or response very rarely, only when I have a more-than-momentary interest in the topic, and only when I have something worth bohering other people to hear.

But I feel that I do contribute as a good listener. That's all I feel qualified to be, most of the time.

I don't think that makes me, or the other 98%, a bad guy. Does it?
 
#16 ·
I seem to recall that the links to the contests were more prominently displayed at one time (in fact, I had a hard time finding this one to vote on it. I ended up searching for Martin and clicking on his blog posts). I agree we need a tab for them across the top. I think it would also help if there were some kind of attention getter on the tab itself during the important phases (entry and voting).

And you do not have to have entered the contest to vote. You only need to have a project posted on your own project page.
 
#17 · (Edited by Moderator)
I am around here a lot. I saw the announcement, but never any reminders about where, when or how to vote. I am sure that it is somewhere on the site, but people generally do not go searching for such things. I am not saying that it was not posted, just that in my case, it did not register.

I think that the voting information needs to be front and center on the site to get participation. Either that or the information should be hidden in a thread with the word "SawStop" in the title!
 
#19 · (Edited by Moderator)
LJs offers so many choices and pathways for so many varied interests that I can easily understand how so many missed one particular avenue (contests). I personally think that this wide variety of choices/paths/forums is why LJs is so popular (even with the sleepers/non-active members). Nearly everyone can find a favorite spot or two on LJs and spend their entire day there, and still not get to every post in their chosen area(s). No complaints here, just amazement at the depth of what LumberJocks represents and offers.
 
#20 ·
Mike is correct. I even opened a Forum topic about it. The announcement was posted on the home page for at least a month before the voting opened, maybe longer. The splash icon is still there.

No, it wasn't required to have a project to vote on this contest.

The problem is that many times I do my daily browsing starting from a specific project or blog, I never even see the home page. This issue(if it is even an issue) is that there is so much activity now and things move by so fast because of the traffic that you will often miss a great project or other thread unless you now go and browse the projects or blogs tabs. Simply browsing the Pulse page is no longer sufficient.

Because I no longer live on LJ 10hrs a day, I now HAVE to go to the Projects tab to see what I've missed.

Yes, I voted, but it was because I saw the link on the home page and made a note to myself to go back when the voting began. How hard should LJ work to get more voters? I'm not a fan of more emails but that could be one solution. Another solution(and a better one, IMO) would be to incorporate a minimal number of Stickeys at the top of the pulse page. Contest status's could occupy one Sticky slot. My guess is that the Pulse page is the major area that folks use to browse LJ and could suffice for 'getting the word out' in a more proficient manner.

Thanks for bringing up this discussion Gene.
 
#21 ·
OK, so I had a look see on the contest…..I think if everyone here at LJ's would have voted it would have come out the same as it did…..That first place entry (Jack-in-Box) was one beautiful project…nothing better than an artist that works with wood..That is what keeps me coming back…
 
#22 ·
Color me stupid, I found the splash ad on the homepage as well, still there. I usually blow right past that kind of a link because I thought it was some kind of a gotcha gimmick. My bad. I also found the contest when I searched the term "inner child". They have a tab on that page for "Contests", as I suggested above. I have never seen that page in my many hours perusing this site. Was it a previous home page for LJ's? Could the "contest" tab be incorporated into the new home page? Maybe a post in the forum could remind LJ's it's time to vote, make your voice heard, etc.? Again, I may be part of the problem for not knowing anything about this matter, but I am trying to offer reasonable, cost effective, solutions as well.
 
#23 ·
I actually didnt know about the contest until I got the LJ's news letter lol. But I only look at the projects and a blog here and there, dont really mess with much else.I would have like to try something to enter and at the least cast a vote but I had no idea it was going on till it was over. I too think there should be a button for the contests or atleast an email announcing them.
 
#24 ·
Well, color me surprised. I use Kaspersky, and it has an anti-banner ad function, but it turns out it also blocks the huge contest icon on the home page. All I see there is a big blank square.
 
#25 ·
I read the headlines to the various topics via RSS, and only click through to participate when I see something that interests me. So, yeah, unless it shows up on Martin's page or somewhere else, I'll never know that there was a contest.
 
#26 ·
With so much on this site, and being relatively new, I barely navigate this site, am just trying to catch up in the projects page and today is the first time that I started to read forums. But had I known about the contest, I doubt that I would have voted, unless there was a reminder like "contest ending vote on your favorite". So my next task is to go check out the contest and see what folks entered.

Since this is my first forum post, THANKS to everyone who posts here, This is a great site.
 
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