POLL & Discussion: Keysight 1000X Giveaway

[Fungus]

You cannot right a wrong by committing another wrong. Everyone should be able to participate IMHO.

Why would it be 'wrong'?

[metrologist]

You cannot right a wrong by committing another wrong. Everyone should be able to participate IMHO.

Why would it be 'wrong'?

You must first accept the premise that the Keysight scope giveaway is wrong because some regions are excluded. Then that wrong would be righted by holding another contest and excluding the regions that were not initially excluded.

It's like this. Nancy brings candy to school and she gives it only to her friends. Well, a teacher sees this and notices all the crying kids not getting candy. That must be a wrong so the teacher decides to buy candy and give it only to those kids who are not Nancy's friend, which would normally be a wrong too. But this way, all the kids have candy! See how right it is?

[nctnico]

I'm also feeling like it would be nice to give one away to a young beginner based solely on my discretion.

IMHO that would be a very good thing to do! I was reading this thread to see if someone already had -sort of- suggested this option. Especially for someone who normally can't afford this kind of equipment it can easely be a life/career changer.

[metrologist]

I'm also feeling like it would be nice to give one away to a young beginner based solely on my discretion.

IMHO that would be a very good thing to do! I was reading this thread to see if someone already had -sort of- suggested this option. Especially for someone who normally can't afford this kind of equipment it can easely be a life/career changer.

Keith Fenner and the machining society put on a What's in Your Box contest and have given a fully stocked machinist box to a few young apprentices. I think one of them actually works at the Rolls Royce plant as an apprentice. MrCrispin - he has youtube.... Something like that...

Here's a site, in case you searched: http://turnwrightmachineworks.com/whats-in-your-box-the-giveaway-project/

[palindrom71]

C'mon, who would like to get something found in trash bin anyway?

I would.

[mtdoc]

You cannot right a wrong by committing another wrong. Everyone should be able to participate IMHO.

Why would it be 'wrong'?

You must first accept the premise that the Keysight scope giveaway is wrong because some regions are excluded. Then that wrong would be righted by holding another contest and excluding the regions that were not initially excluded.

It's like this. Nancy brings candy to school and she gives it only to her friends. Well, a teacher sees this and notices all the crying kids not getting candy. That must be a wrong so the teacher decides to buy candy and give it only to those kids who are not Nancy's friend, which would normally be a wrong too. But this way, all the kids have candy! See how right it is?

But the assumption there is that this would equalize the odds for all.  That is not the case. Surely there are many, many more entrants to the Keysight direct giveaway.

Maybe reserve just one scope for Keysight excluded countries only?

[metrologist]

You cannot right a wrong by committing another wrong. Everyone should be able to participate IMHO.

Why would it be 'wrong'?

You must first accept the premise that the Keysight scope giveaway is wrong because some regions are excluded. Then that wrong would be righted by holding another contest and excluding the regions that were not initially excluded.

It's like this. Nancy brings candy to school and she gives it only to her friends. Well, a teacher sees this and notices all the crying kids not getting candy. That must be a wrong so the teacher decides to buy candy and give it only to those kids who are not Nancy's friend, which would normally be a wrong too. But this way, all the kids have candy! See how right it is?

But the assumption there is that this would equalize the odds for all.  That is not the case. Surely there are many, many more entrants to the Keysight direct giveaway.

Maybe reserve just one scope for Keysight excluded countries only?

Now you are suggesting a very difficult solution to determine. I'm sure the Keysight giveaway will have many more entrants, especially if restricted. Keysight, however, is giving away 5 scopes per day for the whole month. Dave is giving away how many scopes? You'd have to calculate actual odds of winning, which would be difficult as it is a moving target, but not impossible if there were some cooperation... And then what can you do to even the odds? Only select the right mix of regions or limit the actual number of entrants. What if the odds were actually up-side-down?

[Lafy]

You cannot right a wrong by committing another wrong. Everyone should be able to participate IMHO.

Why would it be 'wrong'?

You must first accept the premise that the Keysight scope giveaway is wrong because some regions are excluded. Then that wrong would be righted by holding another contest and excluding the regions that were not initially excluded.

It's like this. Nancy brings candy to school and she gives it only to her friends. Well, a teacher sees this and notices all the crying kids not getting candy. That must be a wrong so the teacher decides to buy candy and give it only to those kids who are not Nancy's friend, which would normally be a wrong too. But this way, all the kids have candy! See how right it is?

But the assumption there is that this would equalize the odds for all.  That is not the case. Surely there are many, many more entrants to the Keysight direct giveaway.

Maybe reserve just one scope for Keysight excluded countries only?

Now you are suggesting a very difficult solution to determine. I'm sure the Keysight giveaway will have many more entrants, especially if restricted. Keysight, however, is giving away 5 scopes per day for the whole month. Dave is giving away how many scopes? You'd have to calculate actual odds of winning, which would be difficult as it is a moving target, but not impossible if there were some cooperation... And then what can you do to even the odds? Only select the right mix of regions or limit the actual number of entrants. What if the odds were actually up-side-down?

When you lose a contest are you comforted by the odds you had of winning? I think the odds are somewhat irrelevant. It seems to me the way to make things fair is to wait until the Keysight giveaway is over and exclude the 125 winners.  If N people enter the Keysight giveaway they each have a 125/N chance of winning (more or less, depending on how many times each person enters) and the people from ineligible countries have 0 chance, but once the giveaway is over N-125 people are in the same boat with 0 chance of winning.

[metrologist]

You cannot right a wrong by committing another wrong. Everyone should be able to participate IMHO.

Why would it be 'wrong'?

You must first accept the premise that the Keysight scope giveaway is wrong because some regions are excluded. Then that wrong would be righted by holding another contest and excluding the regions that were not initially excluded.

It's like this. Nancy brings candy to school and she gives it only to her friends. Well, a teacher sees this and notices all the crying kids not getting candy. That must be a wrong so the teacher decides to buy candy and give it only to those kids who are not Nancy's friend, which would normally be a wrong too. But this way, all the kids have candy! See how right it is?

But the assumption there is that this would equalize the odds for all.  That is not the case. Surely there are many, many more entrants to the Keysight direct giveaway.

Maybe reserve just one scope for Keysight excluded countries only?

Now you are suggesting a very difficult solution to determine. I'm sure the Keysight giveaway will have many more entrants, especially if restricted. Keysight, however, is giving away 5 scopes per day for the whole month. Dave is giving away how many scopes? You'd have to calculate actual odds of winning, which would be difficult as it is a moving target, but not impossible if there were some cooperation... And then what can you do to even the odds? Only select the right mix of regions or limit the actual number of entrants. What if the odds were actually up-side-down?

When you lose a contest are you comforted by the odds you had of winning? I think the odds are somewhat irrelevant. It seems to me the way to make things fair is to wait until the Keysight giveaway is over and exclude the 125 winners.  If N people enter the Keysight giveaway they each have a 125/N chance of winning (more or less, depending on how many times each person enters) and the people from ineligible countries have 0 chance, but once the giveaway is over N-125 people are in the same boat with 0 chance of winning.

The problem with 'odds' is that it is something abstract and not really realized (you either win or loose), but they are still real. I think you truncated the situation. After the contest is over, we are not talking about all the people that have 0 chance of winning, we are talking about the people that should have what kind of chance to win the continuation of the (similar) contest  by Dave. It's not over yet on April 1st.

So, is it fair for the N-125 to get yet another chance to win or should they be excluded because they have already had their chance and should not get a second chance.

I would look at it this way. The contest involves the infinite population of Earth and the one martian on Mars. Mars is excluded in the first contest. The question is, should Earth be excluded from the second contest? Does that make things fair? I do not think so. What if Mars had 2 martians, 3, half of Earth, or equal population of Earth. Maybe only if the populations were equal would such an adjustment be "fair". Would it be fair (to the martian) if the second contest only excluded the winners from the first? Well, that's not fair either because, in a practical sense, the Earthlings all still had twice the odds of the Martian (if the contest giveaways were equal).

So neither adjustment seems fair either to the martian or to the earthlings to me.

[nctnico]

Can this go back on topic?

[metrologist]

Can this go back on topic?

How is that not on topic? Besides, what is the topic anyway? Are we supposed to discuss the Keysight 1000X Giveaway or Dave's contest?

I thought we were talking about whether the contest should be limited. How do you determine that? Darts, statistics, discuss odds and such things? Probably the discussion is just a side show anyway and the determination will be by the popular vote.

What else is there to discuss that is ON topic?

[apelly]

Seems silly to exclude the majority of forum users

[mtdoc]

It seems to me the way to make things fair is to wait until the Keysight giveaway is over and exclude the 125 winners. 

I like that idea  .

Although it would mean waiting until April and perhaps Keysight requires Dave to give them away during "scope month".

[tszaboo]

Seems silly to exclude the majority of forum users

There are 196 countries in the world. KS managed to choose 18 of these for the contest.
Everyone from those countries are free to enter to the contest. They probably already registered their wife, all the kids and the dog for the contest. And they will have some two magnitude higher chance to win a scope.

[b_force]

Seems silly to exclude the majority of forum users

Everyone from those countries are free to enter to the contest.

That's only true if people have the same amount of (easy) access to the internet.
Which is definitely and actually not the case.

[Brumby]

Seems silly to exclude the majority of forum users

Everyone from those countries are free to enter to the contest.

That's only true if people have the same amount of (easy) access to the internet.
Which is definitely and actually not the case.

People's access to the internet is not a constraint in their eligibility to enter the giveaway.  It is a secondary factor that relates to their physical ability to do so.

The issue of eligibility is one that they simply cannot overcome.  However, if eligible, they DO have control over their ability to enter.  Yes, there may be some inconvenient logistics involved, but they do have the opportunity to act.  Certainly this exercise will be onerous for some - and they may choose to consider it more trouble than it's worth - but that is their decision.

For those people, Keysight has allowed them to participate and they have chosen not to - for whatever reason.

[aargee]

Just doing a bit of background on the Keysight competition... and made me think about Dave's competition idea...

So, playing devil's advocate here  , if you choose to run a competition and only Patreon subscribers can enter.. does that change the legality?

ie "No purchase necessary to enter" etc you often see on competitions.

http://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/ftw/Businesses/Advertising_and_marketing/Special_offers_and_competitions.page the whole thing is a bit of a grey area.

[Nusa]

For Dave it's pretty easy, so long as he's acting on his own and not as someone elses agent. Even though he has a global audience, he only has a small physical presence in one place. So for the most part he only has to worry about contest laws that are local to him, even if the winner lives elsewhere. The worst other jurisdictions can do is confiscate the prize, if they choose to spend the effort to intercept it. That rarely happens, although there could be tax/custom charges for the recipient.

For international corporations it's another matter. They have physical offices around the world, which means they need to respect all the contest laws for most of the countries/jurisdictions they offer the promotion in. For instance in the USA, while there are federal laws, there are also 50 states each with their take on exactly what is an illegal consideration or promotion.

Note I'm using "contest" generically to cover all the things giveaways get classified as, be it sweepstakes or gambling. This whole subject is pretty well covered by internet articles....just start searching.

[EEVblog]

So, playing devil's advocate here  , if you choose to run a competition and only Patreon subscribers can enter.. does that change the legality?

It's not a competition. I found a used scope in a dumpster, I already have one, so figured I'd just give it away.

[MarvinTheMartian]

It's not a competition. I found a used scope in a dumpster, I already have one, so figured I'd just give it away.

Tell you what Dave, just to make it simpler for you (so you don't have to make any difficult decisions) I'll lighten your load and take it off your hands for you!   .

I'm nice like that - it may cause me some inconvenience picking it up but I'm always ready to help a friend out. 

[bji900]

I would like to win a scope and the more chances that I have the better. It is like the age old argument "I dont like snow, well you live in Canada, so..., so you can move to Florida, but I dont want to..., well then stop complaining.)

[Brumby]

It's not a competition. I found a used scope in a dumpster, I already have one, so figured I'd just give it away.

Tell you what Dave, just to make it simpler for you (so you don't have to make any difficult decisions) I'll lighten your load and take it off your hands for you!   .

I'm nice like that - it may cause me some inconvenience picking it up but I'm always ready to help a friend out. 

Perhaps Dave would not want to inconvenience you like that.  I could pick it up - and it wouldn't be an inconvenience at all.   

[naldo]

You're voted     ! 

[kaz911]

Hi Dave,

would it be allowed to cast an entry/vote - but designate the vote towards a good purpose? Like a local school in your area?

[MarvinTheMartian]

Perhaps Dave would not want to inconvenience you like that.  I could pick it up - and it wouldn't be an inconvenience at all.   

LOL - I'm sure I can live with the inconvenience thanks Brumby, wouldn't want to put you out at all.