Using Facebook with Disqus
Please, DO NOT log-in with Facebook unless you want your name and avatar from Facebook to show up next to your comment.
When you log-in with Facebook to leave a comment here, you are giving the Disqus app permission to use your Facebook name and avatar. DO NOT log-in with Facebook unless you are cool with Disqus using your Facebook profile information.
While we are on that topic: DO NOT give ANY apps permission to use your Facebook profile information unless you understand what you are giving them access to.
When you approve any app, you are giving it permission to collect information about you, your friends list, etc.
As has been mentioned before, if you prefer to have a more anonymous profile for discussion on this website, sign up for a free Disqus profile using an email you have NEVER used anywhere else online and make up a username you have NEVER used anywhere else online. If you use the same email or username for Disqus as your social networks, there’s a good chance that email address or username has already been collected by data mining companies and will eventually link your Disqus profile back to your social networking profiles.
Social networks are NOT private when you approve apps that tell you upfront they are collecting your data.
As mentioned in a recent court case, a judge stated there can be “little expectation of privacy” on a social networking site, but we all already knew that, hopefully.
How to Change the Appearance of Date and Time in Disqus
If you are logged-in, your profile setting with Disqus DEFAULTS to ‘Relative’ (approx. times) and it is overriding the setting ‘Absolute’ (exact date/time) for this website. Logout and you will see the exact ‘Absolute’ date/time. It will do this no matter which service (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) you used to login, but you can change the setting.
If you want to change your profile to ALWAYS show the exact date/time when you are logged-in, you will need to access your Disqus account, highlight your name and click “Edit Profile”, from that menu, click “Account”, and under “Date and Time Formatting” switch that setting to “Absolute”. You can also switch the time zone to your time zone. We are in Houston, so our default for the site is CST, but your profile allows you to override that when you are logged-in.
You can do a lot of cool things with your profile in Disqus, so be sure to check out all of your settings on there.
Our Comments Form Has Changed
In order to provide a more real-time discussion environment and lessen the moderators workload, we have switched to Disqus. What is Disqus? It is a blog commenting program that allows for more interactivity between users. If you sign up for a free Disqus account, you will be able to track conversations you’re having with other users.
- With this new program, you can help decide which comments are great. You will be able to “Like” individual comments left by Snazzywinners and boost that comment’s rating causing it to be the default first comment on the page. This is very useful when someone posts codes for entering games. You will no longer have to page back through comments looking for the codes, but in order for this to work, users will have to give the comment some “Likes” to boost it. If you preferred the newest comments to show up first, there will be a dropdown box for sorting the comments and you can choose to show “Newest First” or “Oldest First”, etc.
- You will have the ability to hide inappropriate comments. If you hover your mouse over the comment, the word “Flag” will appear. We request you click that “Flag” if a comment violates community guidelines. After 5 flags by different users, the comment will be hidden. If you see the same user violating terms again and again, please send the user’s name and a link to the post using our contact form. If, indeed, the user is not following the community guidelines, we will ban their email and IP address.
- The one thing that is a big difference is: You will have to log-in to the new program in order to leave a comment. Guest commenting will not be allowed. You will be given the option of logging in through Disqus (Free to create an account), Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Google, or OpenID. By using the Disqus program, you will be able to track your conversations and replies. Some people will not be happy because they feel the current system is more anonymous, but please remember you can sign up for a free email address many places online and use that email to register for a free Disqus account to comment with. If you do that, it’s really not much different than before.
- A NOTE ABOUT PRIVACY: If you’ve used the same email address to leave comments on other sites that also use Disqus software, your comments will be viewable if someone clicks the avatar next to your comment on Snazzywin – even if you posted that comment on a different website. If you prefer more anonymity, get a new email to use for commenting on different websites.
- Moderators will no longer respond to comments on this blog. If there is a technical difficulty with a link, etc., please use the contact form to notify us.
- One last thing: 50 comments will show per page, in order to view more comments, click this button on a given page:
Our goal with this new comment system is to give the regular users a better, more interactive experience (which has been requested by many different users) and this will help to achieve that.
Don’t Cheat Online Promotions
Thinking of cheating online promotions? Don’t do it!
There are many ways people try to cheat online promotions and it goes far beyond setting up multiple email accounts (that tactic is so 1990s and it amazes me that people think in 2012, they won’t get caught and disqualified for that.) If you ever receive a prize from a promotion you didn’t win in, it’s likely they disqualified others and drew your name for those prizes. When everyone else has received their prizes from a promotion and one or two people continue to say they never received theirs, it’s quite possible they were disqualified. Generally, they will only tell a person of a disqualification if that person contacts them looking for a prize.
Also, it’s very easy to track entries by IP address and many people who cheat don’t realize that a ton of entries coming from the same IP address looks very suspicious.
Some people have the technical skills to set up computer scripts to play on their behalf. CAPTCHA codes help curb that behavior, but not every promotion uses them. Computer scripts are against the rules. Never use automated scripts to enter any kind of promotion. Always enter for yourself. FYI: Many sweepstakes/games administrators have the technology to pick up on automated entry behavior and they will disqualify for it. I’ve heard of people being permanently banned by ePrize, but I have no way of knowing if that is true. Sounds good to me, though. They run at least 75 percent of all instant win promotions. If someone gets banned by them, it would be the end of instant win games for that person.
In the end, all cheating does is ruin it for everyone and causes the sponsors to quit running new promotions. They want real people looking at their brands and they want to give prizes to a multitude of people, not 20 fake people in the same household. Cheating is bad for everyone and the cheater will be caught and disqualified, no doubt about that. The bad part is that people who played by the rules will also be punished because there will not be as many promotions from that sponsor in the future if it causes such a headache for them to have a promotion.
Reminder to everyone: Be sure you thank the sponsors for your prizes when you receive them. With Facebook and Twitter, it’s very easy to send the sponsor a message thanking them for running the promotion. Let them know how much you enjoy their instant win promotions and encourage them to have another in the future. Positive feedback goes a long way.
How to Win a Prize
Most new visitors to Snazzywin are relatively unfamiliar with internet instant win games. New visitors usually just want to know how to win a prize. Let us educate you!
First, you need to know that promotions have been around forever and as long as there have been legitimate promotions, there have been fake (scam) promotions. Some websites earn money by posting “sketchy” sweepstakes (that require credit card information) right alongside legitimate promotions so you can’t tell the difference. We do not engage in that behavior. We do not accept compensation to list promotions in our instant win games list or sweepstakes in the daily five on SnazzySweepstakes.com (our sister site). There are no conflicts of interest in our sweepstakes and instant win game lists that would be a disservice to our visitors. When we list an instant win game or sweepstakes, it’s because it’s free to play/enter and appears to be legitimate.
Not all promotions that are submitted to us make the cut. We’re very picky for your benefit. There are plenty of websites out there full of scams and we do not wish to join that list. If you think Snazzywin is awesome, but there are more fish in the sea, feel free to visit other websites; we’re confident you’ll be back!
Now, you’re saying to yourself, “When are they going to tell me how to win a prize?” The truth is; it’s pretty easy to win a prize. Visit our instant win games list and click on the promotions you wish to enter. TIP: the more prizes, the shorter the entry period, the better your odds of winning. If you are just getting started, try entering as many promotions as you are eligible to enter. If the instant win game allows daily entries, be sure to play daily.
Some people find playing the games between Midnight and 6am to be “luckier” times, but the prizes in these promotions are generally randomly time-seeded, so there are just as many prizes during the day, as at night, but less total people are online late at night, so it can be an advantage to play during those times. Keep in mind; you can win at ANY time of the day or night.
Many people make the mistake of entering once and if they don’t win the first time, they quit. It’s a big mistake. Most people do not win the very first time they enter and most people who have won the big Grand Prizes did not win them on their very first entry. Success at instant win games takes persistence and the same is true for sweepstakes. If you keep entering, you will eventually win something and that “something” could be a large or small prize – who knows what it will be? As long as your hat is in the ring, you’ve got a chance.
Good luck to you! If you win something big, please send us an email.
