The Knitting Fiend

The Knitting Fiend Forum is up and running!¹ Now, I’m going to bribe you to join!

In my experience, forums with fewer than 100 active members don’t work. So, I obviously need to get loads of people to join quickly. To do that, I’m going to have a drawing; the winner gets a prize!

I hear you all asking “What type of prize? How do I enter? How will you select the winner?”

How to enter
There are three ways to enter (do read the footnotes for methods 2 and 3):

1. Join The Knitting Fiend Forum before midnight 4/1/2006 central time and post at least twice but on two different days. (Yes. The point is to create conversation. BTW. If you’ve already joined and posted, you’re already entered. )
2. Post a link to The Knitting Fiend Forum on your blog² or
3. Post a link to this announcement at your blog. (That is, post a link to this url: http://www.thedietdiary.com/blog/lucia/747.²)

With any luck, I’ll get 50 people to join and start talking. That will give the forum a running start.

Added: Dani emailed me to say she was having trouble being activated. If you don’t recieve your activation message, check your spam filter to see if it’s blocking the auto-message from the forum. If you still can’t fix things, email me at lucia@thedietdiary.com. I can activate you manually.

The Prize

I’m funding this operation out of my pocket which is not deep. But, I think you’ll like the prize. I just discovered Taiga yarns and I like them. So, to let more people learn about these yarns, the prize is a Taiga $25 gift certificate.³

How and when will the winner be chosen?

If I have fewer than 50 entries, I’ll pull print their names on pieces of paper and have someone other than me draw the winner out of a hat. If I get too many entries to stuff into a hat, I’ll write a computer program,assign everyone numbers and use a random number function to select the winner.

I plan to run the drawing on April 6, 2006 which is when I meet with my knitting friends at Barnes and Nobles. With luck, I’ll get one of them to draw the name. (Or if they are all entered, maybe I’ll get the cute guy who serves me hot chocolate to draw the name!)

I’ll announce the winner here and at the forum. I’ll also contact the winner by email so I can send them their certificate!

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Ok, I know you all want to enter. How do you join the forum? Click here: The Knitting Fiend Forum. Then, look just below the little cat logo. You’ll see the words “login or register”. Click register! Then fill out the form.

So, after joining, what can you discuss? I’m hoping to make The Knitting Fiend Forum a place where people can learn about new yarn sources of all types, new patterns, tips and techniques and pretty much learn any and all knitting related news. I’d also like people to be able to show of their projects both while in progress or when completed; to facilitate this, the forum permits people to insert links to photos, and blogs.

While I want to avoid blatant commercialism during conversation, I do intend to permit people who sell stuff to post. I find teachers and shop owners are often very good sources of tips, free patterns and information on new products. However, forums don’t work if a vendor just starts posting “I carry brand X yarn” but never posts no tips, projects, free anything etc. (I’ll email them privately if they become blatantly commercial.⁴)

I may carve out an area to permit commercial enterprises to specifically announce sales, lessons, seminars etc. because, honestly, I think the knitters want to learn about sales! I’ll also be setting up a lot of resources at “The Knitting Fiend Annex”, so we can all find things we want there.

Hope to see your comments soon!

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1. Yes, I announced this before– and I used the earlier joiners to test out any glitches in the software.
2. If you are entering by posting a link at your blog, email me to let me know, or leave a comment here. If you don’t email me, I’ll probably still find the link through technorati or icerocket, but it will still help if you email me! (Trackbacks are weird right now. I’m trying to come up with a better trackback solution, and I may delete it accidentally. )
3. I am not affiliated with Taiga. Their ads appear through the Chitika ad service. I learned of them that way, bought and have been very happy. I can describe some of their yarns based on some free samples the owner sent me when I blogged about how much I liked his wool!
4. The sidebar will have a space for ads; those who want to be blatantly commercial will be invited to take out an account with Chitika or Google. )