[epub] Re: Picking a Contest Winner Fairly

["* Rev. G. M. Pace" <wicce@xxxxxxxxx>]

At 01:43 AM 2/2/01 +0000, mchtel@cytanet.com.cy wrote:
>I am starting a new ezine and plan to give away a prize every month to one 
>of my subscribers.
>
>Is there an easy and fair way to pick a subscriber randomly?

I, too, am VERY interested in knowing if there is an easy and fair way to 
do this.

I have a number of prizes that I received to give away to my members, and 
ran into this problem myself.

In early December, I had 4 calendars to give away.  Because I have over 800 
members on my list that is hosted at Listbot, and under a hundred on the 
one hosted at YahooGroups (formerly eGroups, formerly Onelist) I decided to 
draw three names from the Listbot list and one from the Egroups list.

The fairest thing I could come up with was this:

Listbot numbers the members according to when they signed up.  Like, most 
recent is one, etc.  So at the moment that I was picking members, they all 
had a three digit number assigned to them.  I knew if I "picked" a number 
it wouldn't quite be fair, but I rolled a dice three times and ended up 
with a three digit number randomly.  That number would then be picked out 
of the list, and whoever the name was, that person would be emailed to win.

Obviously this is not the best way to do it, although it was the best I 
could come up with at the time, and it DID seem to work out fairly enough 
in terms of being a blind choice that every person seemed to have an equal 
statistical odd of winning.....

However, I'm real interested in hearing how others handle this kind of 
situation.  =)



Gina

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