Friday, March 12, 2010

A Question of Ethics

Jennifer from J. Leigh Designz received this email:

"I really don't think its fair that you enter contests when you can easily blog things. you should step aside and let regular people win these contests. I would hope that other bloggers wouldn't chose you if you were to win."

You can read her post here.

Now, personally, I have no problem with review/giveaway bloggers entering contests. Seriously, the entries would go way down if they didn't.
In my comment I flat out stated that some bloggers (very, very few) cheat.
Her response was:
"Oh I wasn't implying they cheat. I've seen many of my readers win on the sites in mind. I just wondered if maybe they didn't pick fellow review bloggers."

Here's my opinion on that subject. If you state that you will choose a number at random, then that is exactly what you should do. Your first number stands & IS the winner. (Except in the case of the original winner not following the rules; that's a different thing entirely) You don't get pick again because you don't like that entrant or because that person has won on your site recently or because that person is a fellow review blogger. The ONLY reason to push that button (or draw another name out of the hat or count the number of licks to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop, however you randomly choose) is if the first winner didn't follow the rules. Otherwise, it isn't random. It's picking & choosing.
And if you're going to do it that way, be honest. Say, I'm just going to choose whomever I feel like letting win today.
What do you think? Is it cheating to choose again?

6 comments:

Anything Fits A Naked Man said...

In MY humble opinion, it's YOUR blog. YOU get to make the rules, break the rules, do WHATEVER it is you want!!

But, that's just me!

Jen R said...

I agree with you. Unless you set a rule that fellow review bloggers aren't eligible, they need to be as likely to win as anyone else.

http://www.myinnerfoodzilla.blogspot.com

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Anonymous said...

I do it completely random....and don't mind who wins..