wrryn
Message boards, such as ours, gets tons of visitors on a regular basis. Like President Camacho explained, we cannot allow the opinions/votes of these people to influence the direction of our community. From experience most visitors never come back. This is not unique to BookTalk, but is how most humans surf the Internet. They find a site, look around briefly, and then surf on to the next site.
Our 10 post minimum is an attempt to get people to get involved on our forums. By the time you have made 10 posts you should understand how to create relpies to other threads, reply to comments people give to you, and generally navigate the forums. If you don't know how to do all of the above what are the chances that your vote will have any real meaning? You'll influence the book we read and then probably never make another post.
As far as the "Explore BookTalk!" contest goes, that contest serves a purpose of bettering BookTalk. It is not just about giving away random books to members. If that were the case I would flip a coin and start shipping books here and there. No, the goal of that contest is to get our existing members to tap into the available resources and features of the community. I don't think you realize how few 25 posts really is. If getting to 25 posts is a challenge you probably won't be around very much. Some members make 25 posts in a day or two...not that this level of activity is expected.
We have a pile of free books that is continuously growing. That pile is growing because authors and publishers are willing to send those books to us for free, to be given away as awards, based on the fact that we're a large and active book forum. They are not giving the books to us randomly. They give them because they want exposure for their books and feedback. Those authors and publishers would not be happy if we were giving the books away randomly or to people just passing through the community. (I know this. They have told me this repeatedly)
I hope this all makes sense.
