Prizes on forums

I got lost. What's the question? Yep, I think some form of contest (or maybe "incentive program") is a great idea. Yep, I think the books and such are a good idea. Great idea actually. Books = knowledge! "A book worth reading is a book worth owning."

and the final answer is ????

hmm... I guess logistics would get in the way. Perishable foods are out too... *sigh* So much for my green pepper, sausage and onion pizza. Yep... books it is.

True, I don't think a poll would be the way to go, but if you see a good answer, you should be able to nominate it for consideration.... And, just from a practicality standpoint, what would be the postage to mail a stripper to the winning member? :) -James

Sounds good to me. You would have to allow a "write in vote" rather than a rigid poll because no one can possibly monitor each and every post to see who's responding to what and in what way. But... uhm... I hate to harp... uhm.... but... uh.... are the strippers still viable?

Okay, so what if we just had open nominations for Best Response each month, that way anything that thought a post was helpful could have a say...

"So how about it... have you decided on a way to spice up the forums?" That mean my stripper idea got nix'd? Ok... books it is. *grumbles as he walks away dejected*

I dont know where to start? I have about 20 books sitting here and we can distribute 5+ each month. May be more. Once I am done with NYC meeting, I will contact publishers and product vendors who want to participate in this process. Once they agreed, they can ship the prize to the winner direct, we just need to provide them winners' address. We will also have to modify the header and footer of the forums so we can promote the sponsors ;) Since they are the one who are supporting us.

So how about it... have you decided on a way to spice up the forums? :)

That is a very could idea, Mike. Maybe it might encourage some Microsoft People to pay attention to this forum, and some of these helpers could get an .NET MVP, which is a great reward as well.

Sounds like a good idea, although I'd prefer to be a judge than a prize recipient (not that I couldn't use more books, but I'd rather encourage others to post good answers). -James

I think it's a great idea, but I would rather the books go to those programmers that need the help and support more. I have a nice library and (thus far) my company is willing to keep reimbursing me for my increasing collection. I think that programmers without fingertip help are floundering about and need the support. I can't tell you how often I see posts like "how best to write data to a file in C#" when perusing a book or two will often offer up countless different ways, ideas and optimizations. Books are our single greated resource. Even the almighty Google hunt-n-peck programmers and all the beginner programers that rely on cut-n-paste inheritence are doing themselves great disservices by not taking the time.. and granted, expence... in building a library of their own. The learned rule today, the learning, tomorrow.