# vpsBoard contest (1/3) Win a free CatalystHost VPS for a year!



## MannDude (May 9, 2013)

Hey everyone!

Long overdue, we've got one out of three contests ready. This one will last just under a month, the winner of which will receive one free VPS for one an entire year, thanks to our friends over at CatalystHost.

*The Prize:*
CatalystHost "Tall" VPS plan

CPU Cores: 2 CPU Cores
RAM: 256MB RAM
vSwap: 128MB vSwap
Storage: 30GB Storage
Bandwidth 600GB @ 1Gbps
Location: Dallas, TX
Value: $95.88

CatalystHost is a small but growing provider that specializes in no-nonsense hosting. Instead of cramming as many containers onto a node to provide a service that is sub-par, they seek to go above and beyond with a genuine passion for what they do. Both HalfEatenPie and Jarland are members here at vpsBoard, as well as have a strong presence on other industry forums such as LowEndTalk and WebHostingTalk where they remain helpful contributors to the communities in which they frequent. We're happy to have them here, and they were happy to donate a VPS for a contest.

*The Contest*

We're a small community, and we need more active members! The contest is simple, refer your friends! We've now have gotten a referrals system in place to allow you to be credited for each member you refer to vpsBoard!

When a new member registers, they will have the option to enter the username of the member who referred them. Knowing that this is often overlooked, you are also given a unique URL to track referrals which can be found by visiting the sidebar on the home page (http://vpsboard.com/index.php?app=referrals) as well as via your profile (http://vpsboard.com/index.php?app=core&module=usercp&tab=referrals).

It's quite simple really, and the top referrers will be tracked and listed on the homepage sidebar in order of who is leading. Now, it should be noted that the new members you refer can not just sign up and sit by idle. This contest is designed to encourage members to recruit those who will also be active in the community. You'll get credited for your new referrals after they've created *5* posts.

This contest will end on *Friday, May 30th at 5PM EST*



If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please let us know.


Stand by for more contests where you can win more hosting, domains, credits for other sites, and much more!


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## HalfEatenPie (May 9, 2013)

My name is HalfEatenPie and I approve this message!

Thanks MannDude!  Lets see this baby grow! 

And good luck to all!


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## Mun (May 9, 2013)

My name is Mun and I want that VPS.

Thanks MannDude!  Lets see this baby grow! 

And good luck to all!


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## D. Strout (May 9, 2013)

While I'm all in favor of contests, I strongly dislike referral contests because to succeed at them, you have to have friends. Which we all know computer/VPS geeks _don't_. Seriously, though, the only people I know who would be willing to sign up are folks from LET, and they would all want to be getting referrals for themselves rather than being referrals.


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## MannDude (May 9, 2013)

D. Strout said:


> While I'm all in favor of contests, I strongly dislike referral contests because to succeed at them, you have to have friends. Which we all know computer/VPS geeks _don't_. Seriously, though, the only people I know who would be willing to sign up are folks from LET, and they would all want to be getting referrals for themselves rather than being referrals.


Well, the good news is they can be both referred and also get referrals themselves. Unfortunately this particular contest may be a popularity contest, I guess that one may be a flaw. But let it be known that this is *not* the only VPS giveaway coming up, nor the only contest planned. Another contest will be announced either tonight or tomorrow morning.

You're free to use your referral link your LET signature, WHT signature, post it on Twitter, link a txt ad or anything else.

I do understand your concern, however I am designing these contests to encourage active recruitment to vpsBoard as well as to create content in an effort to get this community moving. I am open to any and all suggestions on the best ways to achieve this, however. =]


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## notFound (May 9, 2013)

Great stuff guys. 

I'm not sure WHT will be too keen on affiliate singatures, especially if if's that damn bear twonk.


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## MannDude (May 9, 2013)

notFound said:


> Great stuff guys.
> 
> I'm not sure WHT will be too keen on affiliate singatures, especially if if's that damn bear twonk.


Yeah, they're not too keen on it. I think at one point I got approval, years ago, for staff to have a masked affiliate URL like domain.com/some-page where ./some-page redirected to the affiliate URL so I could keep track of sales stemming from individual's signatures. I doubt they'll be keen on this. LET on the other hand... Much more lax. Have at it. =]


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## mikho (May 15, 2013)

Posted it on twitter and facebook, lets see how many REAL friends I have


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## jcaleb (May 15, 2013)

Itsn't it MannDude is from another company not from Catalyst?


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## Nick (May 15, 2013)

jcaleb said:


> Itsn't it MannDude is from another company not from Catalyst?


MannDude (aka Curtis) works for URPad.


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## MannDude (May 15, 2013)

jcaleb said:


> Itsn't it MannDude is from another company not from Catalyst?


Yeah, I work URPad at this particular moment. Didn't feel comfortable giving out free VPSes from them, as that'd look shady. Figured I'd support someone in the community, but instead they decided to donate it.

So, CatalystHost was kind enough to donate a VPS for this contest.


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## Dragoon0309 (May 15, 2013)

CatalystHost is awesome.


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## jcaleb (May 16, 2013)

lets have an offer section!


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## ryanarp (May 16, 2013)

Dragoon0309 said:


> CatalystHost is awesome.


Thanks buddy 



jcaleb said:


> lets have an offer section!


I am sure there will be one soon


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## Nick (May 16, 2013)

jcaleb said:


> lets have an offer section!


There's an offer section or are you meaning something like LEB? That'll be coming soon along with a portal/home page


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## blergh (May 16, 2013)

MannDude said:


> "specializes in no-nonsense hosting. Instead of cramming as many containers onto a node to provide a service that is sub-par, they seek to go above and beyond with a genuine passion for what they do"


Isn't that some nice marketing bullshit that they all say?

Also, this is a useless and boring contest. If this comunity and forums have anything good to offer it will sell itself, if not, bummer.


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## HalfEatenPie (May 16, 2013)

blergh said:


> Isn't that some nice marketing bullshit that they all say?   Also, this is a useless and boring contest. If this comunity and forums have anything good to offer it will sell itself, if not, bummer.


 

I mean it's all in the spirit of friendly competition/contest.  If you don't want to participate in it then by all means feel free not to.  No-one's breaking your arm to do it.


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## Reece-DM (May 16, 2013)

There is enough members here fora "New" site -- though getting content would be more important for those lurkers.


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## D. Strout (May 17, 2013)

Yay! I'm winning! (Hopefully Francisco will figure he's got enough VPSes )


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## jarland (May 17, 2013)

blergh said:


> Isn't that some nice marketing bullshit that they all say?


Win the contest and I won't need to answer that question for you 


I don't sleep. I live to empower others.


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## HalfEatenPie (May 17, 2013)

jarland said:


> I don't sleep. I live to empower others.


 

Definitely one of the truest statements I've ever heard Jarland say.  Seriously, this guy almost never sleeps.


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## Mun (May 17, 2013)

HalfEatenPie said:


> Definitely one of the truest statements I've ever heard Jarland say.  Seriously, this guy almost never sleeps.


/me hands Jarland a 5 hour energy. See you crashing in 6


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## blergh (May 18, 2013)

jarland said:


> Win the contest and I won't need to answer that question for you
> 
> 
> I don't sleep. I live to empower others.


How about lowendtalk.in-no


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## jarland (May 18, 2013)

blergh said:


> How about lowendtalk.in-no


If you have issues with me, please take them to a private message or the reviews forum.


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## peppr (May 18, 2013)

jarland said:


> If you have issues with me, please take them to a private message or the reviews forum.


The funny thing is you seem to grasp how things work, however fail when you do it to others. Printable advice though...


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## HostUS-Alexander (May 19, 2013)

Nice offer from @Jarland and @HalfEatenPie!


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## D. Strout (May 19, 2013)

HostUS-Alexander said:


> Nice offer from @Jarland and @HalfEatenPie!


You and I are tied!


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## D. Strout (May 19, 2013)

How am I winning? AFAIK, the only place I've posted my referral link is on LET, where I've stopped posting and none of my topics are anywhere near the front page. Yet for some reason every day, sometimes twice, I'm notified I have a new referral. And under the referral tab in my settings page, it seems to indicate I've invited a bunch of people. Are those people who have used my referral link but not signed up?


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## SeriesN (May 19, 2013)

I will get blamed for self promoting but since Jarland is giving away price to the first place winner, I won't mind throwing in 2 month free for 1 or 2 runner up. Admins, can I have your permission?


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## HalfEatenPie (May 22, 2013)

Hey Guys and Gals!  

Just a reminder!  This contest ends in 8 days!


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## NodeDeals (May 22, 2013)

Posted on FB. Most of my friends aren't "geeks", so... fingers crossed!!  h34r:


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## 365Networks (May 24, 2013)

Better watch out as I'm rollin to the top! I don't want the VPS though.


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## MannDude (May 24, 2013)

Actually, the system is a little wonky. The people at the top of the list shown on the front page I believe is there due to the members that signed up manually typing in their name.

This is the fun part. I'm going to have to go through about 50 pages of referral logs to cross reference existing members to the IP that they referred (since it's not showing the username), seeing if a username exists for that IP, then manually adding it. It's going to be a PITA so don't expect referral based contests again in the future, haha.

Rest assured though, everyone will be accounted for. I did think about changing it to make it much easier on me by just sorting the list by who referred the most _traffic_ this way, as it does show that properly in the backend. That'd be much easier, but that's not what the original rules were so I'll do this manually.

I'm not sure what broke the system, may of been the move to lighttpd, not quite sure. Either way though, the members you referred, although it may not show their username in the backend, does show their IP. So I can figure it all out by that.


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## A Jump From Let (May 24, 2013)

I know how to refer, thus might win if I do, really, but I prefer different specs so maybe not enter heavily this time  :lol:


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## D. Strout (May 24, 2013)

I'm confused now. On the home page I see myself at the top of the list of "Top 5 Referrers". When I go in My Settings > Referrals > Manage Friends, I see a bunch of listings that say "no name" under "Member name", but among those are 5 who do have a name. I assume that the "no name" ones have come here through my referral link but have not signed up, while the ones who are named signed up with my referral link. However, of those five, only one has made five posts. So do these count? If not, what am I doing at the top of the home page list? And how can I see who _is_ winning?


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## MannDude (May 25, 2013)

D. Strout said:


> I see a bunch of listings that say "no name" under "Member name", but among those are 5 who do have a name. I assume that the "no name" ones have come here through my referral link but have not signed up, while the ones who are named signed up with my referral link. However, of those five, only one has made five posts. So do these count? If not, what am I doing at the top of the home page list? And how can I see who _is_ winning?


It's not just you, it's everyone. I'll have to cross reference all the 'no name' IP's to member IPs so everyone is accounted for. I've got 50+ pages of referral logs to process to do this. I believe the top listing is a result of members who physically typed your name in the box.

It's sort of a mess, I'll admit that. It wasn't supposed to work out this way but I'm thinking the switch to lighttpd may have broken the system a bit. Every IP anyone has ever referred here is in the log and is intact, and all I've got to do is search the member DB for that IP and tally the results manually. =/


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## D. Strout (May 25, 2013)

So right now there is no way of knowing who's winning?


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## walesmd (May 26, 2013)

Another heads-up, although not a serious problem: when I registered I chose the Twitter option which then follows on to asking for display name, email address and email address confirmation. I don't recall seeing a field requesting referrer (although I'm sure it's available in my profile somewhere). That field, when registering in this manner, is not as prominent or "pushed" as this topic suggests.


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## HalfEatenPie (May 26, 2013)

Huh well, I guess that is something we possibly might have overlooked.  Thanks for letting us know *@**walesmd*!  I'll send this up the chain and hopefully we'll get this solved soon!

Hey guys and gals!  We only have three and a quarter-ish more days left on this shenanigan!


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## ryanarp (May 29, 2013)

So does the contest end on Thursday the 30th, or Friday the 31st? Looks like the date and the day are a bit mixed up


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## MannDude (May 31, 2013)

ryanarp said:


> So does the contest end on Thursday the 30th, or Friday the 31st? Looks like the date and the day are a bit mixed up


Crap. I mean the last day of May, so the 31st.

A few more hours then I will disable the referral system.

I won't have the results immediately, please give me some time as I'm going to have to manually tally all this up as per my previous posting.


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## jarland (May 31, 2013)

I think I read that Ninja Hawk is going to give a free 8GB RAM VPS to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th place as well. So everyone wins!


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## SeriesN (May 31, 2013)

jarland said:


> I think I read that Ninja Hawk is going to give a free 8GB RAM VPS to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th place as well. So everyone wins!


WHOAH!

Evil Jarland, trying to eliminate competition the most polite way possible.   Not that many! <3

How about 2 - 256MB vps, same spec as first but 250GB @100mbps. at dalals Tx for 2nd and 3rd place for a year?


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## MannDude (May 31, 2013)

System is now disabled. I'll start counting up the referrals later, visiting family now.


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## SeriesN (May 31, 2013)

MannDude said:


> System is now disabled. I'll start counting up the referrals later, visiting family now.


Don't your cat lives with you?


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## HalfEatenPie (May 31, 2013)

What if by disabling the plugin it also removes all of the database entries and therefore we lose the entire competition?

OH NOES!  *Insert Dramatic Music Here*


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## D. Strout (May 31, 2013)

If that happens, just put me down for one or two hundred referrals, I'm pretty sure I brought that many in. Right?

What, you don't believe me?


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## Mun (Jun 1, 2013)

I WANT TO WIN D:<


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## Ishaq (Jun 2, 2013)

Who won this?


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## SeriesN (Jun 2, 2013)

Curtis and don.


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## HalfEatenPie (Jun 2, 2013)

To my understanding we're still working on it.  Because our referral system didn't quite do it properly we now have to sort through 55 pages of logs of who invited who.

Safe to say.  It's not a fun time and it's going to take some time to get this taken care of.  Especially with Curtis switching jobs at the moment time is at a premium unfortunately.  Sorry about this guys, but we will get to the bottom of this!


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## Mun (Jun 2, 2013)

I think HEP should just give me a free VPS


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## HalfEatenPie (Jun 2, 2013)

Mun said:


> I think HEP should just give me a free VPS



I'll do that if you're willing to pay 30/month for it   It'll be like a gift exchange!


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## D. Strout (Jun 25, 2013)

Ishaq said:


> Who won this?





HalfEatenPie said:


> To my understanding we're still working on it.


Is this still true? Or is *@SeriesN* right?


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## bfj (Jun 25, 2013)

I won, contest over. Thanks.


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## D. Strout (Jun 25, 2013)

bfj said:


> I won, contest over. Thanks.


Yeah right. Apparently counting things up is still a (slow) WIP.


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## MannDude (Jun 25, 2013)

Sorry, took way too long to get this sorted. Got put on the back burner and then forgotten about. I was even reminded last week and then got caught up in other things.

I have a list of the members who referred the most visitors to the site, but in order to see who referred the most _members_ I've got to go through and check the IPs of visitors to any known IPs of members.

The people in the top 2 for referral of visitors have a difference of 2 visitors referred. So one may have referred more _members_ than the other.

Sorry for the delay guys, didn't mean for this to take so long.


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## MannDude (Jun 28, 2013)

Just about done.

Got all the tallies of the top referrers and what members they actually referred. Now just got to manually go through the list and see which of these members are active and have actually made at least five posts. Fun fun.

Will have the results soon(ish).

Thanks for your patience!


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## MannDude (Jun 28, 2013)

*CONGRATS* HostUS-Alexander, you're the winner! Out of the 55 members you referred, 14 of them had 5 or more posts in the time period of the contest.

The runner up was D. Strout who referred eleven members, though I did not count how many were active as the number of _active_ members HostUS-Alexander referred was greater than the total number of members D. Strout referred.

Thank you everyone who participated. I do apologize once again for the long delay in getting this sorted out. Had to manually tally things up from referral logs, cross reference IP address of referred visitors to check to see if they match that of members, and then check to see if these members were active or not.

I'll send you a PM with details.

Congrats!


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## HalfEatenPie (Jun 28, 2013)

The promotional VPS has been delivered!  Thanks to everyone who participated in this contest.  Stay tuned for more awesome contests!


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## jcaleb (Jun 28, 2013)

I thought it was me who won


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## HalfEatenPie (Jun 29, 2013)

jcaleb said:


> I thought it was me who won


 

You won!  Here's a complementary image of a pocket lamp!


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## D. Strout (Jun 30, 2013)

MannDude said:


> The runner up was D. Strout who referred eleven members, though I did not count how many were active as the number of active members HostUS-Alexander referred was greater than the total number of members D. Strout referred.


 Ahh well, at least I was in the running. Just glad to be able to help this place grow!


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