What is a good way to assure randomness?
For arguments sake lets say someone doesn't believe that a character was chosen at random for the YCH. What site would you suggest I use that can take names I give it and pick one at random and display the winner in a public way anyone can see?
Is there one with a timer? Could I keep feeding it names, again in a way everyone can see and automatically make the pick once the timer is up?
It would be pretty rad to use such a thing for the sake of full transparency.
Comments (17)
i use for my raffles <a href="http://wheeldecide.com" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://wheeldecide.com</a> you can put on the names of the users and you will get a pic with the name of the winner over the top of the wheel
You could just associate each entry with a number (1, 2, 3, etc) and then go to random.org and generate a random number, then livestream it or somethin
Here, Tokifuji uses this to select random gift art winners every month; <a href="https://www.classtools.net/random-name-picker/." rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.classtools.net/random-name-picker/.</a> He posts a screenshot and the link itself.
I played around with this a bit and you can actually change the result by moving the wheel right before it stops and it kept picking one name more frequently then others when you didn't mess with the wheel. Great idea, just a bit flawed
A thing exactly like what you're describing doesn't exist unfortunately, though it'd fill a pretty great niche. But a livestream where you used random.org to select a winner from a public list would be the closest you could get I think. Just start up a browser screen-share and you could generate a random number to select from the list.
Even if you do this off-site, it's still a randomized reward for patroning, which is gambling. You need to manually pick, or not allow personal OCs similar to Fluff's request streams. As far as transparency is concerned, there are people who will always accuse you of rigging it when they don't win, because people get really fucking stupid about "muh free arts". Just use random.org if you need to and ignore the paranoid dingdongs.
Far as I know Ive never been accused of unfairness with my picks. This was purely for the sake of transparency. I wouldn't want to exclude OCs though. I actually want to do them. I really do. On a personal level excluding them would kind of defeat the purpose of me doing something like this. Although I still intend on doing the voting thing when my schedule is more stable (ie without computer dying and when Im no longer chilling at a friends couch instead of fully moved in) Im trying to come up with more ways to do OCs while trying not to play favorites.
Another artist I watch uses <a href="https://www.random.org/lists/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.random.org/lists/</a>
Make each suggestion a number but don't just go top to bottom (I.e., don't make the first suggestion "1" and the second suggestion "2" etc.) and then use a random number generator. Also another good method is picking Renamon ^_^
You do have a good point there. Renamon is ALWAYS an option.
If you want true randomness, film yourself rolling a dice or flipping a coin, and post it. But for the sake of Patreon content, I would stick to choosing yourself, because Patreon does not allow raffles and other such things that are based on luck, on account of gambling laws and so forth.
I see what you're saying but maybe it's just me that it's the presentation that counts. I didn't bill this as a raffle nor did I describe reward tiers as raffle entries. I think Patreon's interest in this is enforcement /preventing refunds/ chargebacks which I don't feel is hanging in the balance though. That said I, after reading all of the input, I might just keep my methods to myself it it really is jeopardizing.
Easy answer is just don't pick randomly. The fact is that the fairness of any choice you make comes down to trust, and if someone doesn't trust you then all hope is lost. You're better off just letting that person take their money elsewhere.
I don't know of any that would display the winner publically, but random.org + screenshot should do the trick. Or if you really, really, really wanted to make sure no one questioned it, you could live stream or record rolling the number. I feel like you shouldn't have to prove yourself, even if you weren't picking randomly it's no ones business, but we appreciate you picking it randomly all the same.
Honestly this was never a concern anyone brought up. I just wanted to nip any future issue in the bud by offering full transparency. Basically if everyone is cool with how I picked things in the past (and as far as I know they are) then I'm cool with it.
For simplicity's sake I'd say just make a numbered list of the contenders and use a random number generator off the web (think even Google might do it) to choose a number within the given range. Not transparent, but random enough.
Assigning numbers and using an rng is definitely easier.