As part of my new website launch (partial though it may be at this point), I’m giving away one of the (scads of) domain names I currently own. The “entry threshold” is, I hope, not overly high.

As part of my new website launch (partial though it may be at this point), I’m

Rules:

When: The contest ends in a week — specifically, midnight (12 AM) next Saturday, April 11th. (All times referenced will be using CDT, which is GMT-6.)

Who: Anyone other than employees of Ars Arboris is eligible to win.

What: The prize will be one of the domain names I have listed for sale (Domain Names for Sale). Note that the “prize pool” consists of all domain names available at the end of this contest, so if somebody purchases a name this week, it will no longer be eligible for the giveaway.

How: The pool of people eligible to win will be composed of everyone who leaves a reply to this post that fits the criteria listed below. Who the winner is will be determined randomly from among the pool of eligible replies. (Note that it’s OK to post multiple eligible replies, and this will increase your chances of winning. In the interest of keeping the contest sporting for non-ADD people, I’m going to set an upper limit of five eligible replies. You can reply more than five times, but only the first five eligible posts will count.)

Reply criteria:

Subject: The post subject must be “one or more methods to choose which domain name should be given to the winner” (there’s a small loophole below). This can be either a suggestion of a method that has not yet been mentioned among the replies, or a discussion of one or more suggestions that have already been made.

Content: The reply must offer something original to the conversation. A method for choosing that hasn’t been mentioned yet obviously qualifies. A comment on one or more suggested methods must provide new information and/or an original observation. If you have several original comments to make, you may want to divide them among multiple replies, unless you’ve already hit the limit of five.

I will be the arbiter of “acceptable level of originality.” Hint: “me too” and “Seconded!” aren’t going to make the grade. Blatantly ridiculous suggestions may also get tossed out (but see below).

Insults and abuse — as defined by me — may get you banned from the contest and/or replies in general, so keep it civil.

Subject exception: Replies that are trying to be funny, but don’t meet the criteria of Subject and Originality had better actually be funny. I will be the arbiter of what is and is not “funny” for this purpose .

E-mail: You must leave a valid e-mail address with your reply, so I can contact you in the event you win the contest. I have not yet posted the site’s “official” privacy policy yet, but I will not be keeping any e-mail addresses once I’ve successfully awarded the prize. Note: if my e-mail to the winner bounces, or I don’t receive a reply within 24 hours, I will re-choose a winner, with the offending reply removed from the pool.

I hope that this will be fun and interesting. If nothing else, at least I’ll be able to unload a domain name .

Have at it!

Tags: contests, domains