WCCC '67 Cougar GT Giveaway - Official Thread

Cougar Community Classic Cougar Community Discussion
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So last time i checked, i had 78 votes ,i was like yeah , nice ,going steady with some other ‘contestants’
When i had these votes i also voted, but no one i know did then, and i am not gonna lie to you about the next ,
After that i did ask my friends, which is like 5 guys and my girlfriend to vote for me , and they did, so after that i had 6 extra votes
( i really think everyone asks their friends or family to vote for them )(not the social media friends )

I dont have a facebook or any other social media stuff, still got a cellphone from the stone age…

Now today i look back at the poll out of interest ,and i have gotten so many votes it doesn’t seem right to me at all
so after some searching my gf (who has facebook ) tells me those 5 friends i let vote for me shared the whole thing on facebook…so that probably explains all the votes at this time
if she did not tell me this i still would not know they did this. ( mailed them to remove it )

But i really did not ask anyone to post it on facebook or other stuff , because it really annoys me to that people do stuff like that
( i also read the comment about the previous contest and it was just the same and i found it really lame for some people to do that (let everyone they know vote and with social media that can be a huge amount )

I even feel sad for me because the essay i wrote was all from the heart and because of this voting thing that happened people are all gonna think different off me (i would probably do the same ) and worst off all , i got nothing to do with it ( besides asking 6 people to vote for me (probably should not have done that,because this led to them sharing on facebook)

Just started this reply because i don"t approve such voting and would like to apologise for this happening.

( i had 78 fair votes , so i was in the top 10 on a fair way , so i’m just wondering if its possible to remove this other votes people gave me )

if you people think i dont deserve this car anymore i would understand
plenty off other people in my opinion deserve this ride, some off them aren’t in the top 10 …
Others who in my opinion really dont deserve the car when reading their essays are in the top 10 so it makes you wonder to

Greets

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Yeah, that is a bummer. I hate to say it, but there are couple entries in the top 10 that I don’t really think deserve to be there (not gonna mention names). But at least this year we have a buffer zone (the judges) to make sure the car goes somewhere good. I’m hoping we’ll get a little better at this process every year, assuming we keep doing these giveaways.

Here’s one idea for next time… what if you need to have an account at WCCC and some kind of order history in order to vote (even if you’ve only spent $1 with us)? That would weed out all the non-Cougar people, and those who would just sign up in order to vote. I’m not sure if there’s a simple automated way to set that up though, or if it’s fair to say you can’t participate if you haven’t bought anything. Alternatively, maybe we should just forget about the popular vote and have a bigger panel of judges who argue amongst themselves for a while until a winner emerges. I dunno, open to suggestions.

Tom, thanks for the honesty about what happened. We can’t remove votes, and I don’t think we would want to do that anyway. In your case I don’t think it matters since you probably would have been in the top 10 anyway.

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I think next year y’all should have a popular vote that doesn’t count for anything specific, but it is there for the judges to reference to see what The People have in mind. Have the popular vote be a poll here, but not a poll, have it be a thread where people post and say which person they think should win. And only tabulate the votes for people who were already members of the forum before the giveaway was announced, have someone do it by hand (I’d volunteer for that job if nobody else wants to do it). That way you have judges making the final decision, but they can take into account the Will Of The People if they are the sort of person to care about that sort of thing. And the popular voting is based on members of this forum (and not just people who sign up to vote and not participate) so it actually does tell you something about the popular opinion of the community here, not just which people do the best job of bombing Facebook and twitter with calls for clicks.

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Fwiw I suggested something similar for the voting last year (having it be members here not just whoever signs up to cast a vote and disappear) and if I remember right that idea was shot down because part of the goal was to bring new folks into the hobby. I would argue that of the hundreds of people clicking a vote based on social media sites, probably zero or very near zero are going to become cougar people. But the argument can be made that if even one person does, then it’s worth those hundreds or thousands of nonsense votes.

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Maybe require a photo ID, poll tax, and literacy test before voting…

I don’t think it’s fair to assume that people are engaging in voting shenanigans. This contest was advertised through WCCC’s newsletter and mentioned in the CCOA newsletter too. I think WCCC’s email blast goes to thousands - far more than are members here. I’m not being deliberately naïve about it, but tainting the leaders based on assumptions seems unfair to me. I think it also bears reminding that the “winner” is getting a huge drain on their wallet, so it falls into the category of ‘be careful what you ask for - you might get it.’

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New idea…

Remember the show (dang can’t remember the name) w/ Chip Foose & crew. Where they restore a car for the unknowing owner.

If Don still wants to deal w/ a giveaway, we could get a car, have people donate parts & labor and have a location to “rebuild/restore” the Cat.

Then vote on a charity to donate it to, or sell it and donate the money to the winning charity.

Everyone can be a winner by helping!

Just a thought…

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FWIW… When Don and I talked about this I mentioned that I was thrilled to have the essays here as it is real Cougar content and it would bring people who cared about Cougars to the site and introduce then to the regulars here. But I didn’t want the voting here, because we would get so many drive by sign ups.

So I am happy that his server is taking the abuse! LOL!

One idea, if there is a next time, maybe we set it up so you have to donate $1 for every vote. Half the money would go tot the charity of Don’s choice, and the other half to the rebuild the Cougar fund. This would minimize the “spam” votes, and maybe make it more possible for the car to be rebuilt by some one without deep pockets.

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I like those last two ideas…:thumbup:

(But it’s not my give away, so, what I like don’t matter!)

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That’s kinda what we were going for with this “top 10” thing… making it so the public vote only matters to some extent but doesn’t actually decide a winner… just making the judges take into account the public opinion. I think if it was just a discussion, it could get kinda argumentative and/or convoluted. I like your overall concept though, having people defend their “vote” with words.

That’s a good idea! I still think it should be limited to one vote per person though. And I’m sure people would still get their close friends and family to donate a buck to vote, but it would be to a much lesser extent. Starting a resto fund / charitable donation is a win / win as well.

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This is a really good idea. I like it. With the charity you can touch people that are not “Cougar people”. That’s really neat, giving back to community.
Steven

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Not that I want to start to guess what “FWIW” is an acronym for, but I certainly like the idea of the giving back. Maybe the $1 per vote would go 1/2 to the new owner to restore the project and the remainder distributed among the top 3 runner ups in WCCC gift certificates with a 5 or 10 year expiration date. We are all seeking to keep Cougars on the road and we could help interested Cougar Enthusiests ie.runner ups start to build their own Cougar restoration funds.

Also we should work with the various clubs around the country and to get the top 5 free membership to the local club in their area for a year which would offer support as well as help with the work. I would also like to see the CCOA offer a free annual membership to top 5 contestants. Which certainly could be discussed for next year.

As a community working together we can gain recognition for the Cougar, and also support for the Enthusiests seeking to carry on the hobby.

A WCCC customer number plus the customers first name would be a great way to keep hacker software from adding votes or people outside of the Cougar Community sparking up the numbers.

I only hope the enthusiests who took the time to add thoughtful valid submissions (written or videos) remain in the top 10 for the judges to select.

It is great to see all of the interest and excitement surrounding the preservation of such an amazing car.

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FWIW= “for what it’s worth”…

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can anyone tell me were everyone is voting at

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http://polls.cougparts.com/

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thank you

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It’d be a good idea to make it to where only accounts created before the voting start date could vote.

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Voting is over! We have our Top 10. Now the rest is up to the judges (just sent them an email… judges, check your inbox!).

The judges will now squabble amongst themselves until a winner emerges. For those coming to our Open House next weekend, we’ll be announcing the winner on Saturday, Aug. 10. The rest of you will have to wait until after the weekend to find out. Thanks again to everyone who participated and made this such a fun & interesting contest, and also a big thanks to the judges for stepping up and making the hard decisions for us!

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We are very excited to hear good news about the cougar. We wish all the finalist good luck and my three boys and I look forward to hearing the final decision. If we win the decision, when we come down to pick it up we will be getting some parts while we are there. It will be a little trip for us from Utah with my oldest boy on oxygen, but we have accomplished much longer trips to Florida. I have looked over the video so many times, I have it pretty well memorized. My three boys and I have been tearing into a 5.0 H.O. fuel injected motor waiting for the time we could put it into the cougar. Thank you WCCC for the opportunity and helping spark a new generation of kids to be involved in rebuilding and finding the love for these classic icons.

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Who won the 67 giveaway?

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We are very interested in knowing the winner of the contest. If they have been notified then it wasn’t us. Thanks again WCCC for putting this contest together.