2 hours to get in.. Why isnt this run lottery style and winner are banned from the next 3 sales?
For many reasons-
1) I have done lottery style sales here before and they went ok with perhaps a slight negative bias.
2) It requires far more work to do a lottery style sale
3) lottery style sales don't seem to work that well for multiple item sales
4) My schedule fits this type of sale quite well (and not all of them will be like this)
5) Members actually don't have a better chance at getting items when it's random/lottery
6) constantly banning people from sales would be harsh, would upset many, and these works are not a food staple for dying people.
7) would likely lead to many more new members getting in on sales that have no history here or experience, no comfort zone (so to speak)
I have numerous other reasons, however some are more personal, but just as important.
ClickClack, please don't run any more sales on GH. Your keycaps are too popular. Not only do you create undue stress for buyers to purchase your goods, your sales also bring down the site for forum members who are not interested in your sale.
There are many other better ways to do this. As simple as asking people to send you email to clack factory sales email alias (at specific time or within a time period for a drawing), to setting up a "survey" on surveymonkey.
And most importantly for yourself, private messaging is probably the worst possible way to manage and triage a large number of incoming messages, especially on a slowed down site that is being DDOS'ed. Other methods are much easier on yourself.
That is a very strong request you have there, one that I hope is not shared by many. And here is why I hope you are in the very, very tiny minority.
I feel very connected to this site/community and these sales are available in this community ONLY. It is one of the ways I would like to show respect, support, and gratitude. Clearly I mean no harm by them, that would defeat the point entirely. It saddens me greatly knowing that I could be in part compromising some peoples enjoyment of this site. Lets however keep this in perspective, the previous sales with the exception of the last canceled one went decently well and the site really didn't experience problems. I was lead to believe that the previously canceled sale was just unfortunately timed. I truly did not believe that this recent sale would contribute to the same problems as last time or I would not have done the sale, PERIOD! I enjoy and respect this community too much just to **** with it for some sort of lulz.
I would also like it to be noted that I made this sale almost exactly 2x larger than any previous sale in order for everyone to get in on it who ordered within some sort of reasonable amount of time. These accomodations would have sufficed easily for any of the previous sales. This recent sale however produced 4x the number of orders as my last large sale, far exceeding my extended accomodations.
I would like to dispell some misconceptions while I am at it now that I have a bit of "experience" under my belt.
1)PM's are quite accurate and the work flow luckily happens to be quite efficient (it took me somewhat by surprise as well a while back)
2)Emails (not pms) are very innacurrate timing wise and I would have to verify each individual member (it also makes me more vulnerable)
3)If I did more sales outside of gh our members would have a much slimmer chance of getting keys and most accomodations will be out of my control.
4)I have not implemented any of my ideas lightly or quickly, they have been carefully thought out over a good long while and many have been gained from community feedback and experience.
5)If I could do things differently right now then I would. I have now spent around 30hrs on the last (canceled) sale and this one and I have not made a dime yet (nor is it over) and this sale will not equate to being in any way financially worth it when you take into account the other problems it has inadvertantly caused.
BTW every single person who tried to order in the first 4 hours who did not get a key in this sale will be given the chance to get something in the next sale, which will be specifically set up for them. I will always try my best to make things right and/or as fair as possible and reasonable!
tl;dr -
Please all, please none and hindsight is indeed 20/20.
