What is the Price of Your Reputation?
Nov 4th, 2007 by msdanielle
There is a lot of buzz around the blogosphere lately about unscrupulous bloggers and their attempts to swindle our fellow peers. What do they do, you ask? Well if you haven’t heard by now, there have been instances where blog contests have been held with promises of lofty prizes that are never dispatched to their “winners” (example). Some are left angry, some are left wondering, some like me are left feeling indifferent. So why am I not one of the angry ones since I “won” one of these contests? I mean, a Nintendo Wii is a pretty sweet prize, and not receiving it sucks, right? Well here is my reasoning:
It Didn’t Cost Me Anything
Entering into blog contests usually don’t cost anything. Write about someone’s blog or leave a comment, and you’re entered. It’s not much effort for the possible reward.
I Didn’t Lose Anything
I’ve never owned a Nintendo Wii, I didn’t pay for one, nor did anyone take one from me.
The Law of Cause and Effect
Herein lies the most important reason of all. I believe in causality1, or the law of cause and effect. An action denotes a relationship between two events — one cause and one effect — whereby the consequence is the result of the first action.
In the philosophical sense, cause and effect is not immediate. I believe that there is a natural balance in the world that is affected by our actions. Tip the balance one way, and the consequences will have a certain effect, and vice versa. Therefore, an action you create today — good or bad — can result in a consequence weeks, months, or even years down the line. If your intent is to swindle those around you, beware that the effects you feel later are a direct result of your own intent.
Loosely, I refer to this as karmic repercussion. Now I am no spiritual philosopher, but I do believe that if you do good things, good things will come to you. If your intentions are deceptive, conniving, or underhanded, then the negative repercussions you will feel later will come ten-fold. Therefore, if others act in this manner, I can only say, “Wait and see what happens to you.” This is more powerful than anything I can say to such swindlers out of anger.
Conclusion
All of this brings me to the topical question, “What is the price of your reputation?” If you become a part of a community, as some of these individuals have, and shatter the trust of other community members, as some of them have done, then what is that worth to you? Is it worth the cost of one Nintendo Wii to shoot yourself in the foot and discredit yourself among hundreds or thousands of united voices? Hell. No.
There is no price tag I can put on my reputation, no prize to take the place of my voice, no risk that I would take to shatter your trust. I am more valuable to myself than that. Can you imagine putting a price on your reputation?
[What do you guys think? Leave your thoughts and comments in the Comments section. Thanks!]
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that logic makes no sense, if you actually won. if you lost it holds up but your saying that if you won it costed you nothing, you commented and blogged about something you wouldn’t normally do. so there lies the cheating of bloggers that hold contests and dont delivery on promises.
technically it doesn’t cost anyone anything, so the loss was to his reputation. but yes there was some cheating going on. as the philosophy goes, the effect was hidden in the cause.
That would make me mad… I don’t like being taken for a fool… and that is how I would see it…
Reputation is meaningless for a lot of these sites, most have hidden whois… probably see the site auctioned off in a few weeks and a new one set up somewhere else.
HA somebody held a contest and never gave you the console?
Oh well. I wouldn’t have cared much at all either – I don’t play video games anyhow.
Not really the point. I mean, if you won it, it’s yours. You can just give the prize away again if you don’t use it like Danielle did with the Zune.
I’ve yet to win anything but if I did, I’d make damn sure it arrived.
I agree, a person’s reputation is their most valuable online commodity. You can only swindle someone once, but by maintaining your integrity you can build relationships that will profit all involved.
agreed. it’s the same as business in the real world, right? why burn bridges if it will hurt you?
You can swindle someone as many times as you have online identities / a scheme they will fall for…
My reputation is going to skyrocket now. Since i have a contest and I’m 100% going to be giving away the prize I’ll look great against these losers.
i hope it does, browie. you’ll be getting positive karma points!
I must admit that after my giveaway promotion ended, it did take me a couple of weeks to finally get the prize in the mail, but I definitely did not dodge/ignore emails from the winner. Most importantly, I did actually send it and it was received.
Let me sidestep your question and ask this one: Who is the bigger fool, the fly by night blogger who hosts his own contest among 75-200 million bloggers, or the eager beaver who enters to win a wii thinking she/he will gain notoriety among the 75-200 million for winning?
I’ve lost all taste for blog contests whatever their assumed level of “prestige.” 75-200 million, 75-200 million . . . keep telling yourself that when you are tempted to be crowned a tiny king or queen,
Good post!
contests are another phase, indeed. wonder what will come next…
Yup, Darin.cc screwed me too, I “won” a 2GB USB drive and never got it:
http://egonitron.com/2007/07/09/blog-contests-dont-be-an-asshole/
He did the same with John Cow too, I’ll never hit that douchebag’s site again.
I’m sorry to hear that this happened to you guys…that really sucks. People should really consider their reputations within the blogosphere before doing something stupid to good people.
I’m sorry to hear that Danielle but I’m glad to see you are not bitter. The person/company giving away the prize was giving it away for a reason. Promotion (and perhaps the link value too). This has just had the completely opposite effect. I have a feeling that the world will always have people like this.
I put it down to lack of experience. We all did silly things when we started out because we were not aware of the consequences.
hi dave! i believe in this particular instance it was indeed for short-term gain (links). i would like to think it’s this person’s lack of experience that he did this. but i don’t think we’ll know for sure. it’s ok bc like you say i’m not bitter
the really unfortunate part was that i was going to give it away in some other type of contest. but not for links. just for my readers…like leave a comment to enter, like how JohnCow is doing in his contest. sorry guys…not my fault! 
I don’t understand why he announced a *real* winner. I mean he would still get the links back, and if he named a fake winner, nobody would be the wiser.
agreed…touche!
Then that is a “double whammy” for him. I am sure you would have mentioned him and his site in YOUR competition.
I suppose all your readers (myself included) should be mad now because if he would have actually sent it to you, we would all have a chance at winning it. His being a jerk is having a potentially negative impact on me and I don’t think I even entered his contest.
A wee would still have been great but I agree, why be bitter?
I would never make the mistake of not fulfilling things I promise on my blog.
Losing your reputation is the start of a failing your business. Is best that he honor his words.
It’s a shame that false promises were made, but as you mention, the costs to contestants were quite low. Lesson learned.
You did lose the most valuable resource we all have – time.
It is good that you do not lose more by being bitter. Your reputation is increased by it.
[...] personal blog as other projects are keeping her busy. But she did have a great post questioning the price of your reputation. I’m in agreement with Danielle that people that try to pull a fast one on people will [...]
Darin rep is going to be hurted. He lost the trust among the bloggers, if he is busy, i think that is a lame excuse to give. So what if you he works in a big company, if you don’t have the time to give out the prizes then don;t hold any..
It sucks that you didn’t receive your Wii, Danielle. On the plus side, you now have more time to work on your projects and update your blogs
hahah…i suppose he is doing me a favor … if i were indeed to keep it?
Danielle, while I sort of agree with you (I like to believe in karma) I’d still be po’d. Mostly because if I did win a Wii, it would have been for my kids. And I would have told them I won. And it would be those kids watching for the postman every day with their hearts broken.
And there lies the rub.. Hell hath no fury like a mama bear protecting her kids.
if that were the case, yes that would be extremely disappointing for them. and i’d be angry too. good point.
[...] One final big thing this week was that both Ms. Danielle and John Cow finally had enough and spoke out against a blogger who is not sending the promised prizes from a giveaway promotion. It might be worth your while to read the Cow’s post and Danielle’s post. [...]
MsD …Sorry about the wii contest that sucks. Pertaining to karma, my mother sent me a birthday present in the mail which I never received so I went to the post office and they said the Post office was broken into and my package was stolen. I was pissed. But I two believe in karma to some degree. My brother called and told me he had included for some reason 2 stickers that said “mean people suck”. So it made me feel better that the jerk at least had to read the sticker knowing he was an ahole. My point being they will get whats coming to them sooner than later. Anyways sorry for the long post. If you want to try our blog contest at Mixeddrinkworld.com We are giving away a Apple ipod and the winner will receive it, I will say again the winner will get recive prize even if i have to hand it to them in person. Hope the winner is from Hawaii LOL! We are also paying for the shipping which is a must. Hope this in not viewed a spam thx.
did he really put Meal People Suck stickers in the package? if so that’s really funny. sorry you didn’t get your present. hope you had a great birthday anyway
[...] Ms Danielle – Nintendo Wii [...]
One word. Karma.
[...] yet so I can’t vouch for the legitimacy of those contests. Meanwhile, some bloggers like Ms Danielle, Ego Nitron, and even John Cow and a contest blogger at Contest Beat are claiming not being able to [...]
Did you ever get your prize? I read over at contestbeat.com that he didn’t get his iPhone so I was curious if you actually received yours?
I’m not sure what someone could benefit to gain by cheating on a contest. I mean the negative publicity will wipe out any good he’s done in the blogosphere.
It seems you met Darin at Blog World at Las Vegas (http://www.darin.cc/blog/viva-las-vegas/)
Then does it mean you got your Wii like Egonitron got his USB Drive?
[...] Ms Danielle – Nintendo Wii [...]