Website & Forums Make Contests Safer!

I've seen and entered in a few contests during my time here on Wynncraft, but recently I've had some concerns about how they are run. Namely, how do Forums Staff ensure that they are fair? So I reached out to our helpful mod @Viridian with my questions.



Q:
Hello! I have a quick question about "guess my number" giveaway contests. Do hosts have to choose a number and run it by Staff first, so to ensure the contest is fair and without bias? Thanks!

A:
Don't believe so, nope


I followed up by raising my concerns about this gap in the system:

Q:
I just worry that somebody could essentially pick their winner by not agreeing to a set number beforehand with staff

A:
I mean, the person in charge of the giveaway thread has full jurisdiction regarding what they're giving away and who's getting the item(s) in question. Don't believe anyone on staff should have a say in that (nor would we want to) even as a means of verification.
Participation is completely voluntary and if you don't win you're not losing out on anything (as opposed to being scammed in a trade)




My fears basically boil down to Players being able to rig contests in their's or a certain indiduval's favor. What I am suggesting in this thread is for 'guess how many' contests to have a set number that is verified with Staff before the first entry is submitted. This would protect the winning number from any biased fluctuations, and therefore potentially save somebody from having their win stolen.

Spoiler: How This Loophole Can Be Exploited

To truly understand why we need these extra protections, we must understand how they can be abused. If you're a miscreant who is searching for easy hacks to scam Players, stop reading immediately or the FBI will crawl through your computer screen and arrest you.


Scenario 1:
Theoretically, a Player could host a 'guess what number I'm thinking of' contest. Suppose a person they dislike picks the winning number. That Player could then purposefully choose a different person, scamming the real winner out of their prize. Staff don't see this as an offensive against the rules, as their definition of "scam" seems limited to that of unfair trades.


Scenario 2:
A Player could host a "guessing" contest, and select a friend or guild member as the winner. This way, they may not even have to give up whatever prize they were offering, or the reward could remain in circulation within their Guild.


Scenario 3:
The contest host could simply "award" the prize to a second account, keeping the prize for themselves. To avoid suspicion, this second account could have been seeded sometime back, and might even have dummy posts to make it appear as an active and real account.


Motivations:
Before I explain why somebody might attempt this, let put this out there- what do we gain from allowing these blatant loopholes to persist?
Anyways, a person could host these seemingly gratuitous contests for likes, good press, and general trust from the community. Bear in mind, trust is the currency that helps bond Guilds from loose groups together, and it's never pretty when somebody misuses that trust.

Did you read what's in the spoiler? If not, go do that before going any further!

What I am asking for is simple: Anybody who hosts a "guessing" contest must privately inform a Staff member of the winning number and not divulge that digit to anybody in the Wynn community until the contest is over. I seriously doubt that anyone would go out of their way to rig these contests, but better safe than sorry, right?
The way I see it, this is just a common sense suggestion that places an infinitesimal burden on Staff- so what's the holdup in adding an addendum to the rules?

 

i don't think you realize how much of a commitment it is for staff to moderate every giveaway.
it's just an unnecessary expectation of the staff if it isn't a server management run giveaway.
and then to have to write a foolproof rule around it just because

at that point you would then have to start asking staff to verify people are actually chosen randomly for randomly selected giveaways, etc. this is just gonna becomes too much of a burden after a bit

if the one holding the giveaway wants to try and drag in a trusted figure in the community to try and garner authenticity for their giveaway, sure, but to add another expectation on to staff for it is unreasonable.

in reality its your choice to join it and evaluate if you think its fair or not, or to trust the giver, in reality, you aren't losing anything so what's the point of needing such intervention.

 

an EXTREMELY simple solution to this entire issue is just post your number on some platform in private (a channel on discord, twitter, i dunno man this really isnt needed so im stretching here) so there's a timestamp, when the giveaway is up just post the image with the timestamp for proof

yeah you can fake it but like man if youre gonna go to that much effort then whatever, not everyone will. the way i see it is that 99% of giveaways are almost certainly done legitimately, and with how generous this community is with them if you lose one just move onto the next one and try your luck again, you have to be in an EXTREMELY small pool of people to be so universally hated by the community that you have every giveaway on the forums rigged against you--if thats the case here, then maybe there's bigger problems that need addressing

 

But you would lose something if you pick the correct number and the host deliberately chooses somebody else. If I'm entering in a giveaway contest, it should be an expectation that the host is fair and unbiased, an expectation backed up by the rules themselves. Why is the responsibility on potential victims to make sure contests are safe, shouldn't that be on Staff and the contest host??

I like the idea of a Discord channel! Contest hosts could simply post the solutions in this channel, and it shouldn't be burdensome to just check what the answer was. I am unsure if this is possible in DC or not, but to further automatize the process your submission could say something like "300, reveal in 2 weeks." A Bot would then automatically make that message public to everyone once the date you submitted (The day the contest ends) comes to pass. Players could then police the results themselves, and Staff intervention would only be required when somebody is late on their required submission or when a contest is rigged.

 

its their choice to giveaway the item in the first place, therefore they make the rules as it is their property. the mods only infringe on this when it infringes on other's property (such as duping to make more of the item or SELLING the item), however as the person doing the giveaway hasn't given you the item yet it is not technically yours. and no, word of mouth is not enforced by mods either, refer to Salkasm's post regarding loans elsewhere on the forums for more detail on that

nno god nope nope this is NOT what i meant having mods enforce things on discord is even worse, i meant like put a number in an empty text channel with yourself so it shows the timestamp of the day you posted the number, then just screenshot it and put it on the forums as proof with your conclusion post. also, this would be incredibly tedious with giveaways as not all giveaways are hosted in one central location EXCEPT the forums, and you can't post discord links directly on forums. if you want to deal with several hundred people starting forums conversations with you for a discord link be my guest, but the vast majority of people doing giveaways absolutely do not

 

Most contests have set rules, so shouldn't the host be forced to abide by them too? If they are giving away a certain item under specific criteria and somebody successfully meets them, to deny them their rightful victory is tantamount to scamming. It's like a trade, but with extra steps.

Screenshots can be easily altered, so posting the result in this manner after a contest has started still makes room for cheaters. Verification would need to be done before the contest begins, to ensure there is no bias.

If you make it common knowledge that all confirmation of the results will be in the Wynncraft Discord, you wouldn't need to link anything. Players could also just say "Verification is now available" once the contest is over too.

 

????? it's free stuff, nothing like a trade in the slightest. i can understand getting mad over solving some months long puzzle where you were promised a prize but get scammed, but giveaways are literally just posting a number. thats it. there is no trade, no rightful victory, no specific criteria. literally all you do is post a number and hope you get lucky. there is no need to moderate giving away free stuff. this whole thread just sounds like you're unhappy you never win giveaways and are paranoid that its rigged against you for some reason.

 

this sounds like an awful idea

what an excessive thing to do for free items. if you don't trust the giveaway don't get into it. you arent signing a contract or something and it shouldn't be the burden of the staff or some makeshift discord bot to act like you did.

 

If I enter a guess how many contest, it's not fair if the answer is suddenly changed halfway through! Shifting the goalposts whatever the reasoning may be is just plain unethical, and should be explicitly outlawed in the rules. My motivations for this thread in no way stem from a bitterness of defeat, I'm making this suggestion because I find loopholes such as these utterly ridiculous!

Posting an end date and winning number in a Discord channel is far from being an inconvenience, just saying. And again, why is the burden being placed on the Player to moderate? isn't it Staff's job to ensure that contests are fair and unbiased..? I'm not asking Staff to police giveaways every hour of the day, it should only take a few moments time to check whether a contest host has submitted the winning numbers. And if they do indeed deviate from that, then Players would at that point be able to check what the original winning digits were and report it to Staff, just as you would report any other unlawful behavior you encounter in Wynn.
It's a simple solution that requires little effort while sealing up any loopholes- I see this as an absolute win!

 

giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests giveaways are not contests

 

I don't really see any harm in someone rigging a simple giveaway. Sure, the money ends up in their friend's possession or whatnot, but it's still technically being given away, nothing truly changes.

Also from my experience the mod team has enough on their plate already, this is such a minor thing (and probably requires more work than one might think) and they have a lot of other stuff to focus on.

 

Does it really matter that much though? I agree with Fish here. Even if it’s rigged and the prize ends up with a friend to the host of the giveaway because of bias, it doesn’t matter. It’s literally their property, it’s their choice to give it away, so if the items are to be given away by using a random number generator or by choosing someone specific is entirely up to the host of the giveaway. They can choose if they want to be biased or fair.

 

I kinda see your point but.... no.

First off, who really cares if they don't get the prize they never knew they "won" at the end of a giveaway? Unless everytime someone loses a giveaway they think, "Damn, I bet I picked the right number and it got changed afterwards."

Second, What if a moderator wants to join the contest? Well, now they can't because they already know the number, or worse, one of the sneaky sneaky mods has a secret alt that nobody knows about that can enter the contest for them with prior knowledge of the number.

Third, who tf would would participate in scenarios 2/3? Just give it to your alt/friend beforehand?

Fourth, My only worry would be Scenario 1, because that's something that may genuinely happen, "Ah shit, Salted won my giveaway, I really fuckin hate that guy, Imma just change the number real quick." But again, how do we fix this without running into problem 2?

The little system of giveaways is going to be flawed regardless, but I feel like the current system is the least flawed we can have. So I see your point, but nothing can be done about it.

 

It isn't the mod team's responsibility to moderate giveaways. If something like this happens, it's a scandal and not a scam. If someone is revealed to have done this, they should get no more than a verbal warning from a moderator.

 

But.. The contest/giveaway is literally being rigged and somebody is being robbed of their rightful win. How do you not see a problem with that?? Imagine the uproar if it got leaked that a Mythic giveaway was found out to be rigged; I bet that nobody here would be happy to find out their win was stolen from them!

Sure, it's the host's property but aren't they obligated to give it away when they start a contest? I would argue that if they rig it so that a second account, friend (Who could then gift it back) or Guild member (Who could also give it back or use it for the benefit of their guild), receives the prize that they aren't truly giving away anything. And think about what you're asking for here- contests that can be literally rigged, which is a definition of a scam. Does nobody else here see a problem with that?

I doubt that any of the contests I've seen have been rigged, and I haven't ever considered that they might be. However, it is more than concerning that is is not only possible but permissible by the rules for somebody to scam Players like this!

About your second point, there's an easy solution. In the Discord channel where Players would be required to submit the answer and end date, just hide everything from everybody until the giveaway has ended. That way, Staff can still enter if they wish but both Players and Staff can make sure that the contests they entered in were fair! Bear in mind, I'm not asking Staff to moderate this chat channel. If contest participants wish to check that the giveaway they entered was fair, they can do that themselves. I wouldn't call this 30 second check a burden on anybody, but 30 seconds could realistically save people from the pain of a rigged contest.

I've already explained the potential motivations behind all three scenarios. It's unlikely that these events will ever come to pass, but isn't it better to ensure that such scenarios never come to fruition in the first place?

 

no

you would be a dick to cancel a giveaway, but theres no obligation for you to go through with it

 

I can understand Players needing to cancel a giveaway in some situations (A glitch lost the prize, IRL stuff, etc.) but perhaps we need a rule saying that if you start a contest, you need to see it through. Asking for likes is against the rules, so an argument could be made that creating false contests is just a method of like farming.

 

But what if you change your mind? What if you suddenly choose that you don’t want to give it away anymore? Oh well fuck you I guess you are now obligated to give it away or else you get banned or smth

 

If you suddenly have a change of heart after committing to a contest, that's on you. Staff could give such an offender a choice to continue with the giveaway, or accept some sort of (Light) punishment. Though, now that I think about it a bit more, opting out of hosting could also be acceptable if major nerfs/buffs affect the prize you're giving out. Say someone was raffling a 50% Hadal, and in the middle of that contest Shaman and that Totem got buffed to oblivion- I would argue that in that instance and others like it, canceling a giveaway is OK. But closing a contest on a whim is a pretty jerk move that should be against the rules.

 

While it's certainly a dick move to rig a contest (which isn't what a giveaway is), there shouldn't be another rule for it. Wynncraft has enough rules as is that figuring out what's acceptable to do is like walking through a minefield, another one isn't needed for something that's happened like once and affected next to no one.