Strangely, it seems we've never done one of these, or at least not within the last few years. So, I'm doing one. Join me or die. Can you do any less? What's a Secret Satan? That's Secret Santa. And it works like this: a bunch of people (hopefully) sign up. Then, after a designated deadline, the person organizing it (that would be me) randomly assigns who each person buys for. You won't be buying for the person who is buying for you. It will be someone unknown. Everyone will receive a gift, and you won't know who bought for you until you receive it. Mysterious! Sounds cool. How do I get in on this? I'm glad you asked! Just go fill out this form. You need to do this by November 20th. When you sign up, please use your normal TrekBBS username, not your Halloween one. I want all signups done before (US) Thanksgiving, so I'll have time to sort out the responses and assign people. You can go back and edit your info if necessary, just please make sure it's finalized by the 20th. I intend to hand out everyone's Secret Santas on December 1st. I will send them via PM, or over email if PM isn't working. What are the rules? Yes, there are always rules! 1. The minimum spending limit is $10. You can spend more--as much as you want. I envy whoever gets a $500 gift! 2. Once assigned, you need to make sure you get a gift for the member you've drawn, and that they receive it by January 1st, 2014. Failure to do this will ensure you aren't allowed to participate in this in the future (at least so long as I am running it.) Don't sign up less you are willing to do it! (I will cut some slack for long-distance international shipping, just make sure you send your gift promptly.) 3. Contact me once you've sent your gift so I can mark it off. 4. Contact me once you receive your gift, so I can mark that off, too! 5. This is not a rule, but a nice suggestion: once you get your gift, take pictures and post them here! Share the love! See, that's not so many rules. What if I don't want "certain people" to have my info? I have two ways for you to deal with that: 1. Don't enter a shipping address, just provide links to wish lists on Amazon, Steam, or whatever you use for wishlisting type activities. I guess it might be hard to take pictures of a Steam game. Use screenshots? 2. There is a field for special instructions where you can designate people whose names you don't want to draw (and whom you don't want to draw yours.) You can also use this if, for instance, your significant other posts here, and you don't want to draw their name. Use either or both, it's up to you. As for me, once this is all done, I'm going to destroy the form and all responses. I have no interest in holding onto your shipping addresses and I am too busy to stalk anyone. THE LINK AGAIN, IN CASE YOU MISSED IT By all means, sign up via the form and post here that you joined up. Have fun, everyone! Remember the deadline: November 20th!
Yaaaay I was going to suggest this! We used to do this on another forum I belonged to, did it maybe 5 years in a row. Since I no longer belong to that forum, I wanted to suggest doing a Secret Santa on here~!
Yes, I'm participating. Would be kind of silly if I didn't! I'll be randomizing the assignments, though. No playing favorites.
OOh, Splendid idea. Does the gift have to be industrially produced (store bought) or could it be a handmade item?
Ok, so you're just being mischievous . I might be in on it. I'll have to think about it. I could have sworn I've seen one done last year, but I must be misremembering.
What about data security? You are collecting the shipping adresses of the participants on a Google list. Google is infamous for collecting and selling sensitive data. It'd be far safer if you'd use PM or email instead of that form. How about doing the whole thing like the Valentine Card "game", using PMs here on the board? You create a nice attachment, a picture, sound-file or greeting card, send it to a distributor and he/she forwards it via PM to the intended recipient (with or without telling who the original sender is). This would cost nothing but a little creative work and hence would enable eveyone to participate, even those who wish to remain anonymous. Also it'd be far faster than snail mail, thus guaranteeing that the gift arrives in time (unless TrekBBS' server crashes)
Google is "infamous" for something they don't actually do. They aren't selling your home address to anybody. A lot of businesses use Google Docs, and they would be quite upset if Google was selling sensitive info from that. Google, as far as I am aware, does not really mine the stuff you put on Docs for advertising/marketing/sales purposes, mainly due to the outrage it would cause. But, if this is a major concern for anyone, feel free to PM me the information the form is asking for. Someone else can set that up if that's what they want to do. Many forums do Secret Santas almost exactly as I'm doing this one without problems. Feel free to participate in this if you want! If you don't, that's OK, too.
I like this idea. I've been in such a good mood this month that I think I will take part too. The only thing I can't decide on before signing up is whether to submit my Steam wishlist (my Amazon wishlist is nonexistent ) or to submit a shipping address bearing in mind that I'll be international for most of you. Decisions, decisions, but I have some time to decide...
So this is about giving real gifts to people. I thought you were referring to virtual gifts, kind of like the Valentine's Day roses back in February.
No, they're real. Well, unless it's giving digital gifts. But we're still talking about actual gifts you spend money on.
If this works how the Secret Santa works on my other forum, basically you will be given a random person to buy a gift for out of the pool of people who are participating. The mod will either give you their address or if the person didn't give their address, then something like their amazon (gifting over the internet). What we would do on my other forum is not announce who each others Santas were until you got your gift. Then we would take pictures of the gifts if we wanted and thanked that person in the gift-posting thread. As far as I am aware, we never had a problem with address security on the forum I belonged to (however, we did it over PMs since at the time Google docs were not popular). The only issue that ever arose was that some gifts that were shipped internationally would be held up in customs. Other than that, it was always a wonderful time and it definitely made my holidays brighter! Sending gifts and getting gifts in the mail is super fun! It's always a nice feeling too when the person you are buying for posts the gifts you got them and likes them. Everyone gets all warm and fuzzy^^
This idea is awesome. I love it! I was expecting it to be avatars or pictures or somesuch but the idea that we're swapping real presents is red hot. Count me in.