Originally posted by Nick Plante: I'm actually one of the authors, so I don't need to win a copy. But thanks!
Nick: You found a bug in my process. I manually check each winning post is eligible. One of those steps is to check for the authors of the week. I do this by checking if the winner has author status and if so checking if they are the author for the promo or an author of a different book. Since you've been happily participating all week as a greenhorn (and not an author), I didn't catch it. I did catch David when his posts came up because he had author status. Clearly I need to add a failsafe to the process like reading the winner post where it clearly states you are the author.
So I've taken three actions as a result of this: 1) Update my mental process so this doesn't happen in the future. Process improvement is always a good thing! 2) Grant Nick author status 3) Pick a new winner - this is Ulf Dittmer
Originally posted by Muhammad Saifuddin: I think this is the first time happen in javaranch promotion... when the same book author is selected as winner by random..
For what it's worth, the program selects the authors as winners frequently. Authors post a ton which means they have a greater chance of being selected randomly. It's just that normally Dave and I exclude them manually.
I did pick the author as a winner once in the past by mistake. That one was completely my fault. Here I diligently followed a process that contained a logic hole. I blame the process . Seriously though, it is good to know the process has a flaw so I can use a better one.
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