Hi,

To celebrate the launch of the new vault9, we are going to be holding a post-a-thon to get things rolling. This time however we will be doing things slightly differently. Firstly, the first prize is a cool $250. Secondly, we are going to be giving away two $50 random prizes to random posters (this excludes the winner). The post-a-thon starts today (the 12th of December) and will continue until the 7th of January 2007.

Now for the rules!

• This is open to everyone. Even new members joining after today are legible, they just need to register and start posting!
• Only new topics posted will be counted. The topics need to be longer than a 1 liner and must have some discussion value.
• While you may reference other articles please submit your own works. Cut and paste jobs will not be counted towards your final tally
• The competition will begin at 00:01gmt on the 12th of December 2006, and end at 23:59 on the 7th of January 2007, a 3 (Three) week duration.
• Please allow up to a week after the close of the competition for totals to be published.
• The judges decision is final!
• Rules are subject to change.
• Posts can and will be moderated as per normal during the post-a-thon and if your post gets deleted, it wont count towards your total. If you disagree with a post or topic being deleted, you can raise that concern with either a moderator or management.
• This competition is open to anyone. Admins and Moderators are also welcome to take part in this.
• Full results will be published at the end of the competition and will be verified by at least 2 (two) members of the management team after the totals have been made.

Lets spread the word!!!!

The current list of participants:

cyfermaster
JuCa
Gitano
Carrots
Creation
RustPuppet
millenia
hunter
fx
toasted
Fudzy
W@rp@}{
Shi-shi
Krow
Fishfly
Rush
Cyberstorm

right, count me in. As Rusty said last night. We should only let people who "enter" in this thread participate. I.e. If you want to participate say so in this thread.

I will start my posting once I get to work. already running late.

Sign me up Scotty.

Me too! Im only able to post for today and tomorrow, as Im on the plane to SA on thurs morning, but hell, Im going to make a go of it.

ahem. Are you actually going to be available for a visit this time???

I would but seeing as i'm going on leave is it really worthwhile?

Sure, count me in.

I doubt I will be in contention, but it wont hurt to try.

No coz you wouldnt win anyways, and you owe me the $250 too

Yes, we should have lunch or something



Even if you are on leave you could still win the random prize by starting just one topic?



Same as above



Hahaha!

Yup, I'm in!

I can start a couple of topics

Just to keep that $250 outta wadesley's hands

I need dollars

Hahah if only I was able to compete its like a bunch of xbox games just waiting to be played

Why can't you compete? I thought it was open to everyone???????

Yeah, admins should be allowed, surely? Unless you are paying for this yourself, in which case, you'd be paying yourself..... mmmmmm...


Cyfer: whoa! Slow down dude, give everyone else a chance!

NO Gitano. I need as many posts as I can. I sense a busy day at work coming, which will hamper me in my quest to be number 1.

Can we add a list of contenders to the first post? I'd do it but it might seem insubordinate

Kay count me in.

Please take note of the rule change where 1 liner topics wont be counted!

Show me the money!

Good luck Fudzy. Remember there are those 2 bonus prizes up for grabs as well.

Well Well Well, good luck to everyone else, you might as well add me although I don't know how hectic i'm going to be today etc.

Some of us have to work

hmmmm... ok... add me too

Is it too late for me to join ?

No, you can join. You have until the 29th to compete. So get posting, and good luck.

Just an observation: I've seen a couple of new topics that are bordering on spam i.e. short posts, linked articles, irrelevant threads, etc. Please note that slapping in links from other sites (like digg, for example) and heading it up with a 2-line blurb does not constitute a valid post for the post-a-thon. While we want to encourage board activity we also don't want to flood it with useless threads.

Please bear this is mind when posting in future

Another question... isn't 5 small posts made by 5 new members better than 1 long original thread made by 1 long-term member? As much as I'd like to win this competition I think we should look at ways of promoting or should I say, re-promoting this site rather than building idle banter.

go for it

just send it to Ian for approval before posting it

The aim is to promote the site, but that doesn't mean we want spam topics all over the place. Posting a link to another article or a one- or two-liner post with little or no effort by the poster WILL NOT COUNT TOWARD THE POST-A-THON. I'm getting quite tired seeing threads thrown together in a lame attempt to make a few bucks. If you post something, have an OPINION about it at least, or start a discussion about the topic, rather than just copy/pasting a link you found on another site or got in an e-mail.

Otherwise, there's some great new content and some good discussions going on. Those who are posting quality stuff: keep it up

I think the next post-a-thon we have should be 'Who starts the most interesting/active discussion.' We could narrow it down to a few topics at the end and then vote on it as a poll or something. I reckon that could work better, as currently the competition favours those who are online more rather than those who spend time creating quality topics: ultimately this leads to useless spam.


I'll type it up tomorrow.

eh that's strange I haven't joined???? DOH plz add me

List of participants added to first post.

what about me?

Added.

Sign me up.

PLEASE NOTE!

The Post-a-thon has been extended to the 7th of January 2007 to make up for the lost posts.

There is still time to enter and get in on the action.

that makes it harder for me now. I was doing well. Never fear. I will be in full force for the next week, as always, internet connection permitting.

LOL, the peer pressure has gotten to me too, so I'll give it a shot.

Most of you will know that my loyalty is usually split (between work, blogging, and my social life), so I'm not much competition, but what the heck?

Count me in!

lol danette

you only have a few days so get posting!

and stop eating so much!

btw, why did you only join now?

Yes, why did you only join now. Welcome anyways. Happy Posting.

Welcome Danette....Enjoy!!

welcome

The post-a-thon is now over! Thanks to all the participated and the results will be published soon

Regards
Ian

It was good yeah. Good luck peoples.

Without being mean or anything, but did you ever consider that some of us couldn't really care about the post-a-thon?

This thread ranks 8th on a Google Search.

I'm sure you could find many more posts that rank high on Google and other search engines. The point being the more content that V9 has (within the bounds of being worth while) the more visitors V9 will receive. What is one of the main goal of forum sites? To attract visitors which in turn increase the chances of more members signing-up.

Now feel free to flame me...

if you don't care about taking part, then feel free to pass the opportunity of winning a prize for doing what you would be doing anyway on a forum

tyler it's not about spam topics that can get you lots of traffic... the arcade already generates tons of traffic yet these people don't even care to post anything in the forums... we trying to build a community of forum users not just arb spam topics which has no discussion points.

Fishfly: ok true, I suppose if thats the admins view for the forum then hey, sharp just dont refer to it as users spamming, by all means do not allow those posts to count in the post-a-thon.

The problem is that there are some spam topics, and they were made in an attempt to rack up post-a-thon points.

The real point is to have quality posts that make people participate and be active on the forum, not to fill it with spam crap that gets us Google results and draws in even more spammers.

but at the same time you have to keep the variety of posts wide enough to keep people coming back... with all honesty I hardly check the forums as much as I used to because there isn't a lot of activity or topics I'm interested in are dead or not apparent. Something you or I might find to be a quality post might not be a quality post to another person.

another point, we do make sure that the topics that are in contention for the post a thon are actually worth while. you can post a link and a little blurb and it might not be counted if it's not worth any merit.

but then again, you may do that and spawn a mass discussion on the topic which in that case it might be of merit. it's not just a case of who posted that most in a given time period. it's a logical process.