Lottery vs Competition

[Victor Leigh]

I have been on a number of active forums and I have seen many different ways of stimulating forum activity. One very common approach is to have a competition. Usually it's a posting competition. This has proven to be effective in some cases and less effective in other cases.

 

Here I would like to compare the effectiveness of a lottery vs a competition as a way to stimulate forum activity.

 

First, the costs. In both a lottery and a competition, the best prize is hard cash. So in terms of costs, they are about the same.

 

Next, participation. In both a lottery and a competition, all members can participate. However, in a competition, very often, the number of participating members drop when there are one or two members who are so far ahead that the rest don't have any chance of catching up.

 

This is where a lottery has an advantage. Since the choice of winner is random, every member has a chance to win. So what about active members? Would the active members have more chances? Yes, they do because lottery tickets are usually bought with virtual currency and the more active you are, the more virtual currency you will have and the more lottery tickets you can buy. Naturally as you buy more lottery tickets, your chances of winning is improved.

 

What do you think?

 

Ooops! Can someone please help to correct the thread title? Thank you.

Edited July 29, 2012 by Nathan

[Nathan]

Title fixed.

 

I like the lottery option good idea, I will have to give it some more thought.

[Victor Leigh]

I think the first thing you need is an addon for creating a lottery. There are some available for SMF and myBB. Not sure about this forum software.

[Nathan]

I could create one.

[Victor Leigh]

That's even better. Are you that conversant with PHP? You seem to be able to create addons at will. Myself, I am only good at copying other people's work.

[beans902]

The lottery is really better than competition, like you say above competition completely rules out nearly everybody but two but if you offer a lottery at least people will think they have a chance of winning. More chances of winning equals more entries.