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THG donation for hardware - good or bad?

Forum Old Man/Woman's Club : Polls - THG donation for hardware - good or bad?

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I recently read a thread in the flat-panel section where the apple 23" lcd screen was the topic. The users were discussing why thg doesnt review mac hardware and the conclusion seems that this is because apple would refuse to give thg hardware for review purposes and THG will not or does not have the funds to purchase the hardware. For this reason I have thought of purposing a solution, have the community give thier thoughts and perhaps get reviews on apple hardware as well as pc hardware and perhaps other hardware as well. The solution is simple: readers of THG would be able to donate cash which will be used to purchase hardware for reviews, any hardware purchased for a review funded through donations will be raffled among the donating readers once the review is complete. readers will NOT have to PAY for this, but would only get an option to donate for the cause. If anyone here would be interested in such an option or not, post your opinions. I know I would like to see reviews of head to head between mac and pc,etc.

thanks.

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I had asked that question not long ago to one of the big guys. It was mostly a question of money but also that Apple isn't supplying THG IIRC. I think it's mostly money related.

You could always ask the authors at THG.

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Reply to Eden

I'd go for that. The odds are really great if THG would limit the prize drawing to only those people who contributed. That's like a 1 in 200 chance for a top of the line hard drive or 1 in 1,000 for a 20" LCD. Great odds if you ask me. I'd contribute everytime a piece of hardware came along I wouldn't mind having. It would only be a $1 to try.

(P.S. Toms, I'm a web developer and could build you a nice credit card or PayPal type system and auto-lottery admin system for it for say two 200GB Serial ATA hard drives or a top of the line P4 CPU)

<A HREF="http://www.proactivedesign.net/eric" target="_new">More than you want to know about me . . .</A>

Reply to p05esto

I have to admit it's a pretty damn fine idea. I will actually ask one of the guys there and see if I can't get some news back about this.

THG is widely reputed and read by millions, one must wonder if we finally made a famous site review a MAC G5 high end system against the best of AMD and Intel's, what the general public might think. THG can probably influence big companies that require tons of racks of systems to render CPU-intensive tasks, especially companies like Pixar who still favor MACs.

EDIT: Wow, all the e-mails were pulled off THG's Contact webpage.

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NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNEdited by Eden on 07/09/04 02:48 PM.

Reply to Eden

THG won't need to do this for everything, but for something like the new Apple 30" display I really think it's a great idea.

The problem is that if not enough money is raised things get complicated.

Edited by Scamtron on 10/11/01 09:58 PM

Reply to dhlucke

Im glad to see there is a positive response to this poll. With that said, think of how a company such as apple would have to deal with the fact that THG is reviewing thier products? it might push thier standards, it might change thier perspective on the fact that they dont give away hardware for reviews cause a change such as this will be a statement saying "give us your hardware or not, we will review it for the good and the bad!" .

keep posting you comments fellas.

Reply to kopykat

I am interested.

Here's my thoughts on the system that could be implemented

1. Paypal, Credit Card, whatever type of paying system. the more the better.

2. Current Donated $'s to 'X' Fund

3. For every dollar you donate you get one ticket for the draw.

4. just an Idea, list of Top Donators and their donation.

Toms could post how close they are to meeting the goal, possibly inticing ppl to donate that last few Dollars.
OR Toms can put up a Product Price estimated value $2000 and say that the review will be on X date with the Draw Winner's name in the review, or once the donations exceed a certain percentage.

# 4 might invoke a little compition, should someone drop $100 on such a cause.

It would look something like this

Apple 23" Monitor

$586 of $2000

KopyKat - $100
Eden - $50
cdpage - $25
annonymous - $20

Possible -
Required - $1500 by Oct. 1 2004

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Reply to cdpage

Quote :

The problem is that if not enough money is raised things get complicated.

lets just theoreticly assume that donation was to begin in order to supply an expensive apple 30" lcd screen and the amount of money raised was not enough. the money can always be used to buy whatever other hardware will be affordable for the amount raised and raffled, thats the worst scenario i can imagine, a bunch of readers lose a few bucks trying to promote a review and a few users might win a few prizes.

Reply to kopykat

It can be interpreted in the end as a typical lottery but with much higher chances of winning, really. We pay about 2-5$ donations and we might get back a 2000$ piece of hardware. Far easier than the normal jackpot lottery chances, that's for sure!

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Reply to Eden

if you want to help promote this idea, try to direct members you know to this poll to post thier thoughts.

Reply to kopykat

The issue is POLLS never really get attention from the authors of the site. Only if we directed one to there to check the idea will they. POLLs here are generally just to gather information.

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Reply to Eden

would be smart to grab thier attention after this thread is a bit more crowded with readers' comments. This way we can prove there is a true intrest within the THG community to help make this happen, otherwise we would just be wasting time. feels great to create a small movement such as this :-)

Reply to kopykat

Oh I did contact one author. I'm just waiting for his input.

Another problem with POLL popularity, is that it's not THAT crowded. At the height of voter turnout, I'd say we once had about 100 voters in a POLL, which is very rare. Average is around 20 I'd say. Right now I'm banking more on the author's reply.

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Reply to Eden

Send me the cash. I'll tell you all about it when I get home from the pub. :smile:

Stadium of light and Urs Meier still couldn’t see.

Reply to Tom_Smart

perhaps a 'POLL' should also be made as well...
ppl have tendacy not to want to read too much.

In order to get the amount of ppl we'd deem as a crowd, ppl will start to turn away. Too much to read.

<A HREF="http://www.digitalgunfire.com" target="_new">DigitalGunfire-Industrial EBM</A>
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Reply to cdpage

You don't need a million votes here. This is a good idea and I really think that for a few bucks people could buy raffle tickets to win cool and expensive stuff they normally wouldn't be able to buy they'd take a shot. But you must not take in more money than an item is worth (or maybe like 1% more for your time only).

If the odds of winning stay good more and more people will use the system and I'm thinking it could be one of the most popular parts of the site. I could see myself entering drawings all the time for good hardware. Maybe 5-10$ a month and maybe once a year or so I'd have the law of averages on my side and I might win something. You could even have small things like games and such on there. Kick in a dollar and win Doom 3.

It just sounds like fun to me. Auction sites to very well with traffic because of this sort of thing. This would be better in my mind since you're not paying anywhere near to full price but taking a chance.

Maybe the few of us need to start a site dedicated to this sort of thing. There could be all kinds of raffle items and the whole system would be automatic. Just need to take a trip to Best Buy and UPS once in a while. Add a few dollars to the prize value to keep in business and ....become millionaires.

<A HREF="http://www.proactivedesign.net/eric" target="_new">More than you want to know about me . . .</A>

Reply to p05esto

Nice idea, but I'm not sure its realistic. I don't see a lot of people forking over more than maybe $5. you'd 600 people doing that to reach $3000, which is quite a lot.

I also fear there _might_ be legal issues, I don't know the legislation in the US (or would German law apply ?), but in many countries you can't just start a lottery system. I'm not sure if your idea would be considered a true lottery legally though. Any lawyers here ?

= The views stated herein are my personal views, and not necessarily the views of my wife. =

Reply to P4Man

Good points. I wonder what kind of traffic the THG sites gets? I bet it's 500K visitors a month though (just guessing). And most pieces of hardware don't cost anywhere near $3K, most complete systems don't cost that much.

I dont' know about the lottery thing. Here (US) every time I turn around there's some kind of raffle ticket thing going on. I was at a car show last weekend and you could buy tickets to win all kind of little prizes and this was just at a local tavern. We have raffle drawings all over the place over here. I don't see why the web would have different laws applied to it in that regard.

<A HREF="http://www.ericstoffers.com" target="_new">(My little web site)</A>

Reply to p05esto

Part of the lottery problem is that you aren't exactly allowed to start one up. Thats why everything says "no purchase necessary" So there are other ways to enter. For most raffles the people getting the money is a non-profit or a charity of some kind.
I am not a liar, uh...i mean lawyer, but i know some rules. I think that there would be a way to set this up easily. Becuase if nobody is profiting from it then there would be no problem. All money would go towards the items and shipping of the items to my house.

For those of you who think that this would be hard to get going....THG gets a lot of traffic. The first couple 'raffles' would be slow. But the reputation of THG and the volume it would be easy. out of 500,000+ people a month you would need $1000 for different things. thats like $5 for 200 people. VERY VERY Doable.
And if you go in $10 a month all year you spend $120 and maybe win something very cool.
Just my 2cents

Reply to pickxx

Quote :

For those of you who think that this would be hard to get going....THG gets a lot of traffic. The first couple 'raffles' would be slow. But the reputation of THG and the volume it would be easy. out of 500,000+ people a month you would need $1000 for different things. thats like $5 for 200 people. VERY VERY Doable.
And if you go in $10 a month all year you spend $120 and maybe win something very cool.
Just my 2cents

I agree and this is how I see it as well. Very much feasible and almost guaranteed to work if properly implemented.

Not sure what to say about your first paragraph though, I ain't no expert on this. :eek:

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Reply to Eden

I would pay good money just to get some good quality reviews on monitors; throw in the chance to actually win one and that's even better. I love this idea.

Reply to XChamp

Alas, I've had no reply from the author. I thought I remembered his e-mail, but they all removed them from their site, replaced by a universal Comments form.

Yall should submit each this suggestion!

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NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNEdited by Eden on 08/05/04 03:26 PM.

Reply to Eden

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THG donation for hardware - good or bad?

Forum Old Man/Woman's Club : Polls - THG donation for hardware - good or bad?

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