We're Giving $2,000 for the Best How-to Posts!

[JMcEntegart]

Who doesn't like to win money?

We're Giving $2,000 for the Best How-to Posts! : Read more

 

[grieve]

US Residents... grrr...

 

[grieve]

How-To include the rest of the planet....

 

[tronika]

sorry but i'd rather have real techs vote on my How To, not to use us fools as an advertising campaign (trust me, $2,000 is a very cheap ad campaign) to whore all of us out on facebook, myspace (really?), and the twits. count me out! good luck to the rest.

 

[beznet]

How To: Eat a Corndog

Im winning for sure

 

[ohseus]

So let me get this straight MyFace "friends" trump technical knowledge and writing ability? Lordy will articles be judged like the music industry? "Sure (s)he can;t sing a note but (s)he's cute"

 

[mauller07]

I dub the Text-Factor!

 

[Sihastru]

You lost me at "it's your job to get your friends, family and co-workers voting for you by popularizing your how-to on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc."

$1500 is not enough for such an extensive advertising campaign.

 

[dan117]

Tom's Hardware is getting lazy...

 

[banthracis]

Basing the quality of a How To Guide on how many people the author can get to promote their How to is a very bad idea if you want good, quality How To's.

On the other hand, as a means to promote a new website on the cheap, I guess this contest does its job.

Rating System also Sucks.

Take Tecmo's very good PC building How to, which is rated at 4 stars
http://www.computing.net/howtos/show/guide-to-building-a-pc/509.html

now compare to this 5 star rated 2 sentence how to...that basically says don't click on weird links
http://www.computing.net/howtos/show/how-to-prevent-loading-a-fake-antivirus/475.html


Further, if one bases quality on popularity, How To's done extremely well on highly technical articles will lose out to stupid ones such as that don't click on random popups to avoid fake antivirus's how to, simply because more users will see the silly stupid one and read it.

Ex. How many people will read a detailed how to on Why overclocking Dmg's a CPU incorporating layman level explanations of quantum mechanics, vs a a How To titled "How to find the cheapest Ipod/Ipad" with a single sentence saying "google cheap Ipod/Ipad."

Guarantee you the latter will be far more popular despite being worthless.

This also damages the reputation of your new site if all the award and top ranked How To's are a bunch 2 sentence fail post's with a catchy title.

In short, seriously flawed system here...

 

[jonpaul37]

Oh My God! ... With this Rhode Island nonsense!!! I swear I am going to move out of this wretched state just so i can enter contests here on Tom's!!! FML... 🙁

Ps. This is one contest i would have LOVED to attempt...

Pss. Don't let all the negative-Nancies (or perhaps Debbie-Downers) try and bring you down Jane, I think it's a great idea!

 

[smeker]

What if I hate facebook, twitter and that other social networking crap?

 

[micr0be]

i get that outside the US there are legal bla bla bla .... but why are you all picking on Rhode Island? .... not popular enough or smthg ?

 

[Grove]

The contest sounded cool until they admitted that half of the vote was based on popularity, because obviously, popular people write the best How-To articles.
I understand the point of "popularizing" your How-To post and thus popularizing the site but you've gotta come up with something better than that.

 

[Vampyrbyte]

[citation][nom]jonpaul37[/nom]Oh My God! ... With this Rhode Island nonsense!!! I swear I am going to move out of this wretched state just so i can enter contests here on Tom's!!! FML... Ps. This is one contest i would have LOVED to attempt...Pss. Don't let all the negative-Nancies (or perhaps Debbie-Downers) try and bring you down Jane, I think it's a great idea![/citation]

Why is Rhode Island always omitted? It seems stupid, like a competition in the UK omitting people from Norfolk.

Or like a website shunning a good 95% of the english speaking population with its US only competitions. Nice business guys.

 

[jonpaul37]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with helping out a website community that you visit frequently to either help or be helped, want to catch the latest tech news before it hits mainstream, etc... This community has saved many people lots of cash, time, resources and headaches. If you have ever benefited from this website, it is the least you can do. Tom's wants to get their name out there, help them! I know I do... Plus, there's a chance of wining cash!

 

[ram1009]

Obviously, those of us who don't do the "social networking" thing have no chance here regardless of the quality of our writing. I'm not sure what the agenda is but it's certainly not what's being stated.

 

[erloas]

The legalities involved in giving stuff away is actually fairly complex, and certain methods of doing it are illegal (or just exceptionally difficult) in different parts of the US and world. Limiting who can enter by location is the only practical way of doing it.

 

[computerlame]

Rhode Island is unique because the state law actually requires the company to file a legal statement before it can run a contest in that state. The statute, Section 11-50-1 of Rhode Island General Laws, reads:

"Any person, firm, or corporation proposing to engage in any game, contest, or other promotion or advertising scheme or plan in which a retail establishment offers the opportunity to receive gifts, prizes, or gratuities, as determined by chance, in order to promote its retail business, where the total announced value of the prizes offered to the general public is in excess of five hundred dollars ($500), must file a statement with the secretary of state."

The statute then details exactly what information must be included in the filed statement. In addition, the law requires the company pay a $150 filing fee. If a company runs a contest in Rhode Island, and fails to file a statement correctly, the company is actually guilty of a criminal misdemeanor...

 

[razercultmember1]

why is rhode island always getting shafted?