Share Your Views

[Colonialgirl]

I do like your swepstakes and do enter them; However, I don't have time to enter them every day and I don't understand why that should be possible as it gives some an unfair advantage.

[SandyK]

I understand your frustration and concern. Like you, I'm always forgetting to go back and re-enter these types of  enter daily contests. The idea of entering everyday is to keep the excitement going for those that have just learned of the sweepstakes...it also gives folks several chances to enter. You'll be happy to learn that what we've found is that most folks are just like you - they don't have the time to enter everyday. We find that individual's will enter the daily sweepstakes an average of about 24 times over the life of a year-long sweepstakes. So if you just remember to enter once every other week, you'll be ahead of the game.

Be sure to check back at the AAA Community around the end of April. There are a couple of really cool giveaways that are coming up.  I'll keep you posted!  Good luck on your entries!

[debbiedee01]

Ever since I entered the sweepstakes & contests, I have been receiving hundreds of e-mails in reference to them. WHY????? I do not want anymore e-mails. When the sweeps & contests are over, just let me know if I've won!!!

[paddler4x]

Entries into a sweepstake should be private - period!  if someone wants to discuss the sweepstakes in an open forum that they know they will receive replies from, that is totally acceptable and they should be able to do so.   In the past, I have only entered sweepstake in which I returned the postcard from the magazine.

Just over a week ago, I entered my first contest on this site, count the sunshine, something I did not expect or realize was an entry into an open forum board.  Almost immediately I started to receive updates regarding other member's guesses - something I DID not want in my inbox and began deleting them immediately upon seeing them arrive - something that soon was taking up way to much of my time, so I created a filter so that they would get moved automatically into a separate email folder that I keep removing its contents.   As of now (Sunday May 23 12:50 PM) in this folder that was recently emptied, I have received 68 guesses from other members in less then 5-days as of May 18, 5:48 PM.   I am  now deleting all these messages in order to keep my storage space for emails under control and to prevent them from being downloaded to my computer and phone. 

The only option I see to prevent from getting these emails updates for the contest, is to stop receiving all messages from the entire forum or to leave the site. 

AAA WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?  SWEEPSTAKE ENTRIES AND OTHER CONTESTS SHOULD BE PRIVATE NOT POSTED TO A MESSAGE BOARD.   PLEASE STOP THIS PRACTICE THAT IS CREATING SPAM AND AN EXTRADINARY AMOUNT OF UNNESSARY TIME FOR YOUR MEMBERS TO MANAGE THEIR EMAIL.  I HAVE THE ABILITY TO FAX TO ANYONE EMAILS I RECEIVE, WOULD YOU LIKE TO BEGIN RECIVING MY FAXES FOR EVERY UPDATE I GET FROM ANOTHER MEMBER THAT POSTS THEIR GUESS INTO THE SUNSHINE CONTEST!    I THINK AFTER ABOUT A DOZEN OR SO FAXES, YOU WILL UNDERSTAND THE INCONVIENCE YOU HAVE IMPOSED ONTO MEMBERS BY CONDUCTING OPEN FORUM CONTESTS.  CRAZY - WHAT WERE WAS AAA THINKING OF WHEN YOU DID THIS? 

[StephenW · Accepted solution]

I appreciate your comments, Paddler. Every email you receive from AAA Community lists two separate methods of unsubscribing from threads. Also, we have made numerous posts throughout our Community with instructions on how to unsubscribe. I'm sorry that we couldn't have made this more apparent for you.

The reason why is simple: we're trying to make as many AAA members as possible aware of the Community, and to encourage them to participate/share/question/comment as often as possible. We're certainly not trying to upset anyone.

AAA Community is still pretty new--for both you and for us. Your comments will help us make it better, so thank you again.

For those who may have missed it, following are instructions on how to unsubscribe:

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If you are getting too many email responses, here's how to unsubscribe.

1. Select My Settings near the top left of the page (you must be logged in)
2. Select the Subscriptions & Bookmarks tab.
3. Select the Email Subscriptions sub-tab
4. Check all threads that you wish to unsubscribe.
5. Select Unsubscribe from the red options box.

If you ever need help with AAA Community emails, please email me or private message me. Thanks!

[paddler4x]

I received a private email from Stephen W. from AAA regarding my post below - that explains clearly why we all by default are receiving everyone's guesses to the contest.  Below are excerpts from his emaiil to me that I will share in hopes that others will benefit as well and understand what occured as I did with understanding.  

I am not knew to message board, in fact I run a few as a volunteer to organizations I belong too and most sections have default settings that moderators setup to make creating, displaying, and using message boards by its members hopefully easier to use.  I made an assumption, something I realized after my own entry, that the default setting for this contest was that I would receive replies to my own post only, which in this case also was for anyone's entry.   Having his setting on by default is not practicle for any message post that is likely to generate a high amount of traffic / messages.   Here is Stephens reply to this issue, ""You are correct, the default setting for the contests was subscribe. I have certainly learned my lesson on that one! Until we have a better contest tool, I will make sure the default setting is unsubscribe." 

Just to clarify, what Stephen means by unsubscribe is that once a member enters a contest, he/she will NOT receive other members posts into the contest and your entry will remain in tact. 

I am simply used to whenever I enter a contes via the Internet, it is not on a message board, instead I click on a link on a web page to fill in an entry form and when I click submit, I get a page that says somthing to the effect, "Thanks for your entry".  AAA in my opinion needs to invest money into properfly creating web pages that are designed to handle entry forms, whether it be for contests or collecting information - message boards are not the venue for this.

What Stephen did to STOP the excessive emails from being sent to me, was to change my subscription to unsubscribe.  I was not aware that I can unsubscribe to receiving replies to any particular email thread, in this case the sunshine seeker contest.  I have relied to other message posts, and did not want to stop receiving any future replies to those as well.  I assumed it was an all or nothing setting, similar to what other message boards have.  Thanks Stephen for taking this action on my behalf, something all of you can do as well.

Like Stephen said this was a lesson learned and will should not occur in the future - speaking out on this message board was productive - thank you AAA for listening and I am glad that AAA is actually moderating the boards and responding publicly and privately as neccessary - something I learned as I browsed other message threads - entering this contest was my first expereince and what a lesson learned it was for me as well.