It's always nice to win something - thank you!
Thanks, in fact, to everyone here at DonationCoder. As I see it,
everyone here contributes to the success of the site and so -- directly or indirectly -- helps to make every aspect work well, including the giveaways and discounts.
Extra thanks to mouser and CThorpe and to others who worked directly on arranging (and donating) the current, very impressive list of items to win!
mouser: The fact that the optimizer does not keep track of how many times you've won, only that you've won in the recent past. If I modified that those who have won many times would not be winning so often, even if they have been entering a lot and for a long time.
and
Should we more actively try to bump the weights of people who are actively contributing on the site?
It seems that the more you try to weight things, the more subjective the system becomes. My vote would be for the closest approximation to a truly random system that can be accomplished. That way, everybody has exactly the same chance to win, every time. When one tries to impose 'fairness' on a system the higher becomes the chance of introducing inadvertent inequities.
mouser: It might be nicer to put in some term which looks at how many times a person has entered and lost and boost their chances of winning if so.
Should the optimizer keep track somehow of whether you won the most prized prize or the least?
Again, my 2ยข goes onto the pile for random selection, same argument.
There are so many variables and imponderables to try to control -- entered and lost often, entered and lost seldom, didn't enter at all because no desired software in some drawings, entered every drawing no matter what...and on, and on...
To be 'fair' requires some subjective assessment of, and assumptions about, behaviour and you don't have access to the required motivational data. Seems to me that every attempt to 'deskew' the system will only skew it in another direction.
And, mouser, it's no small tribute to you that whatever you decide after taking the collective pulse will likely be just fine with almost everybody here!
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