The Name-Our-Chat-Room Contest: Phase Two
Notice: About is no longer hosting chat rooms for its guides.
The contest is long over; all links have been removed from the feature below.
Dateline: 11/22/99
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You can win a book or a Borders.com gift certificate just by voting for the best name! |
Chat
Schedule
Chat
Profiles
Make
it YOUR Chatroom!
Host
a Chat x The
results are in! Your Guide has chosen
three names she likes as possible names for our chat room.
Now you can decide which one's the best. We also have a winner
in our first random drawing: Alicia!
Thanks for participating, Alicia, and I hope you enjoy your
prize. I was very pleased
with the response, and I'd like to thank those of you who
dropped in to chat with me or suggested names or both. We
had some fun and interesting suggestions, and the choice
wasn't altogether easy. Honorable
Mentions go to... Cody,
who sent a few chuckles my way when he submitted The Knights
We Share, Children of the Knight, Daily and Knightly and
Talking Back to the Knight; Linda,
who suggested The
Malmsey Butt
because she finds medieval history so
"intoxicating"; Eleda,
who offered Chain Mail Chat because it's the medieval way to
"link up"; and
JohnHospitaller,
who thinks we're Babbling Jesters (and, as one of our
regular chatters, he should know!).
Even
when there are no scheduled chats, our chat room is
accessible, and everyone is
welcome!
Our regular schedule is posted on our main chat
page
Find other chatters and help them find you! Fill in a
profile, and the information you submit will be posted on
our profiles page
Make
the chat window easier to read, and turn on the "beep" to
let you know when new chatters join you. Get the how-to's at
our All About Chat page.
Would
you like to host a discussion in our chat room? Contact
me!
The Finalists
Below are the names I have chosen, who submitted them, their rationales and why I selected them to be finalists. After you've reviewed the finalists and had a look at the prizes, you can vote by clicking the Vote Now! link at the end of our contest rules.
The Round Table
submitted by Nancy FrankelNancy says: "Just like Arthur's concept, the Round Table is a venue where all ideas can be discussed rationally and among friends."
Why I chose it: I liked the idea of a touch of the Arthurian ideal being included as a regular component of our site. (For the record, Nancy was not the only one to suggest The Round Table as a chat room name, but hers was the most compelling rationale.)
The Solar
submitted by Teresa EckfordTeresa says: "Because the Solar was the centre of conversation in a medieval castle. "
Why I chose it: The notion of our website as a castle and our chat room as its solar, or conversation room, seemed very fitting.
Traveler's Rest
submitted by PossumPossum says: "Traveler's Rest sounds like a welcoming name. I think it would seem a comfort to those weary web travelers to find a nice place to chat. I think that in Medieval times there was lots of traveling by some and this reflects that traveling spirit."
Why I chose it: This was the loveliest and most colorful name, and I like the idea of our chat room being a medieval haven for modern web surfers.
The Prizes
The winner of our next random drawing and the two runner-up finalists will each receive their choice of one of the books listed below or a $15 Borders.com gift certificate.
Choose from:
- Fortune is a River by Roger Masters
- The Last Apocalypse by James Reston, Jr.
- Uppity Women of Medieval Times by Vicki León
All books are in paperback. Click the links above to go to a review of the book by your Guide. Borders.com Gift Certificates are redeemable online for any of the millions of books, videos and CDs they offer, and the winner is of course free to spend it any way he chooses (although I'd be tickled pink if he chose a medieval history book!).
The Grand Prize winner will receive any three books from our bookstore or a $50 Borders.com gift certificate. Instead of a Borders.com certificate, the winner may choose a gift certificate card for $50, to be used at his local Borders bookstore if he so desires.
Contest Rules
Below are the rules for the contest. Please be sure you are aware of them before casting your vote.
The rules as outlined in Phase One still apply. Whoever submitted the name that receives the most votes will win the Grand Prize. The two other finalists and the winner of the random drawing will each receive a book or gift certificate (see The Prizes, above). Voting will continue until Midnight Eastern Time (11:00 p.m. Central Time), Friday, December 3rd.
Each vote you submit counts as an entry for the random drawing. You may vote once each day. If by accident or design you should submit more than one vote in a 24-hour period, all but the first vote will be deleted.
A valid email address is required to vote and enter the random drawing. If you don't have your own email address, get a free online address now at About.com. If you're an About.com member, an email address is already reserved in your name. If you're not a member, join now for free!
Membership is not required to enter the contest. You may find other free online email services at About.com's Email site, hosted by Guide Heinz Tschabitscher.
The Name-Our-Chat Room Contest is void where prohibited by law. No purchase is necessary. Your Guide is the sole sponsor of this contest, and neither your Guide nor About.com can be held responsible for any misdirected or lost entries.
Odds of winning the random drawing depend on the number of entrants.
The winner of the random drawing will be contacted by email Saturday, December 4th, and must reply to the Guide for the win to be official. If I receive no response by Midnight Eastern time (11:00 p.m. Central Time) on Monday, December 6th, I will draw another name and the first random winner will lose out. Each subsequent winner will have 48 hours to respond, so keep an eye on your in-box.
All prizes are provided by your Guide. Once you are confirmed as a winner, you can provide your mailing address to your Guide so she may send you your prize. It is not necessary to provide an address in order to enter the contest; however, be prepared to provide it upon request if you do win. Your mailing address will only be used to tell Borders.com where to send your book or gift certificate.
The results of the vote (the new Chat Room Name and the person who submitted it) will be posted at our site as soon as the votes are tabulated and carefully checked, on or about Monday, December 6th. If at that time the random drawing winner has been confirmed, his name will also be announced. Otherwise, look for his name in succeeding issues of The Knightly Newsletter.
For those who are curious, our random drawing was handled as follows:
I saved all the entries to a word-processing document, and printed out all those that were not selected as finalists in a table format so I could cut them apart easily. Each entry appeared on its own slip of paper (of roughly equal size to all the other slips), which I folded once and deposited into a covered wicker container (far too closely woven for any entries to fall out). The container was shaken and presented to my Mom, who drew one slip out of the basket without being able to see what name was on it.
I hope this answers any concerns regarding the validity of our drawing. [back]
George, Duke of Clarence (brother to Kings Edward IV and Richard III of England) was killed by drowning in a butt of Malmsey Wine while he was imprisoned on charges of treason and awaiting execution. Just how and why this came about has never been made clear, and the deliberate obfuscation of events by Tudor historians that took place before and during Richard's reign makes it unlikely that we'll ever be able to answer the question definitively.
I appreciate Linda's reference and her humor; however, I have to admit I'd have some difficulty asking chatters to meet me in any kind of butt ;-) [back]
The URL for this contest announcement is:
http://historymedren.about.com/library/weekly/aa112299.htm
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