Announcing the First Three Winners of the New Orleans Style Family Recipe Series!

Congratulations to the winners!!!

Congratulations

Congrats:)

Congratulations to the winners!! :)

Congrats to the winners!

congrats to the winners I have copied the recipes and will love trying them out

congrats to winners

Congrats.

Congrats!

A 10 for the winners.

Congratulations to the winners!

Congratulations everyone! Those recipes sound really delicious.

Thanks and congratulations to the other winners!

I am greatly disappointed in the choices for two of the winners for the Zatarain recipe contest. IT does seem kinda of not in the spirit of making a recipe since the Zatarain contest began on Feb 3, 2009 and the recipe Cajun Barbeque Shrimp by Ariel Storm was not made within the time frame as she just updated a posting from a Oct 20, 2008 and added the tags had she posted an updated photo of her family eating this then MAybe; but she did not!!!!! Furthermore neither Ariel nor Phadra followed the Jazzy Rules!!!!!!

"All the jazzy details:

...
Make sure to tell us the name of your recipe, the ingredients and most importantly – why your family loves it!
....
Post a photo of your creation with the recipe
You can submit more than one recipe a week to better your chances"

Ariel Storm did not include a photo nor did Phadra and neither of them complied with the requirment to tell us why there family loved it.

The only winner that followed the rules was Karen R She did post her orig photo with her recipe and told us in great detail why her family loved it. I really think you should award 2 other winners that followed the rules, and there are several people not just myself who did just that.

IT is disheartening when gather posts Jazzy details/rules for a contest and then picks winners that did not follow the Jazzy Details /rules, when there clearly were several submissions that followed all the Jazzy details/Rules.

I have to agree with April on that. And when something like a cut and paste from a recipe website, with no personalization at all, wins, it's unfair to those who actually tried.

WOW Lune, Good eye. She did post that recipe word for word and nothing else! :(

Yikes! How embarrassing. I will check out all the recipes though as I am always looking for great things to try out in my own kitchen.

I find it very disturbing. The one recipe as Lune pointed out it a word for word recipe off the net. No photo, no personal information, nothing!

How sad. :(

Gather has had to make things right on previous contests after making announcements. I'm hoping they will do the same in this case as well.

Before it is mentioned, Yes I know the winners were chosen at random, but there was specific creteria to be included in the proverbial hat, post to a specific group, specific tag, photo, and MOST IMPORTANTLY why your family loved it. Only articles that met all the criteria should have been placed into the proverbial hat. It is like the book contests that asks us to make a specific comment to win something even though the winners will be chosen randomly from all those who made the requested comment .

And we have been told many times before that gather automatically excludes posts that are not within the contest time period. We have been told that an article that was time stampoed prior to the contest are eliminated.

Somehow I'm not suprised. Gather seems to have a nack for selecting unqualified entries as winners in many, many contests, random or otherwise.

I did read the rules carefully and tried to make sure I did everything they asked. Thanks for noticing.

I did not enter this contest, but I also think those that skipped steps should be disqualified. Not following the entry guidelines should void that entry.

Shawnee, I feel that since the winners were announced that gather should honor there win after all there are victims too. I just think it would be very nice if gather would choose two additional winners that met all the " JAzzy Details"

First of congratulations to the winners! I did not enter, and I was not aware of the issues, but I understand the frustration if the rules were not followed.

Congrats Karen!

This happened once with a photo contest where there weren't supposed to be people in the pictures and the one who won had a person in the picture - there are rules for a reason.
It seems like everyone should follow them but as I mentioned before, possibly these folks names were just pulled out of a hat...perhaps, we'll get an explanation soon. Salud

Oh, I'm sorry April H. I see you addressed this - yes, I agree...it was unfair to all who did comply with the rules especially for those who put in pictures which would have been the most important thing in my opinion. Anyone can cut and paste a recipe. Salud

hi all

I can see why the natives are restless. Two of the recipes didn't even meet some of the initial criteria:

"your own New Orleans-Style Family recipes or a version of ours" OR

"most importantly – why your family loves it!" OR HOW ABOUT

"Post a photo of your creation with the recipe"

congrats to the winners.

Congrats!!

I hope that Gather will address the valid concern of members regarding this contest.

No offense intended to the unqualified winners, however Gather should rectify the situation by designating additional winners for this round. All previously announced winners should be allowed to retain their designation and prize.

Sadly, Gather does not manage contests and promotions well. This reflects poorly on them, as well as the sponsor of the promotion. The recent Hallmark LOVE OUT LOUD promo being yet another in a long string of failures and disappointments.

Gather has a choice of being fair to all community members, or ignoring valid concerns and hoping their lack of attention is soon forgotten. Thus far it appears that the latter is the choice of record.

When Gather holds a contest that has RULES, it would only be fair that they screen the potential winning entries to make sure that those entries followed the RULES, and disqualify any entries not following the RULES.

Kevin,
I was hoping for at least an acknowledgement even if they voice there reasons that differ from mine. But I hope in there wisdom that they award two additional prizes and next time they hold a contest that they will be more diligent

Will the two remaining winners be announced at some point?

It appears that that two prize packages were never awarded...in addition to the two given in error to ineligible entries. For those members that took the time to post their recipes and follow the rules, the lack of follow-through in this contest would not reflect well on the sponsor.

Hi everyone,

The final winners have been announced and you can see them here.

The guidelines in this post were never meant as strict rules and therefore the winners stand with the exception of Ariel Storm. She contacted me previously and informed me that she never intended to enter her recipe and wanted to give her prize to someone else. You can see the 3rd winner on the article link above.

Thanks!

Congrats winners!

I applaud Ariel for letting you know that she never intended to enter this contest as her recipe was posted October 20, 2008 and only updated during the contest. IT is a shame that gather did not catch the time stamp thing before the winners were announced, as this would not have happened. I am very glad that Ariel magnonmously gave her prize back and it was awrded to another, as she stated herself she had not meant to enter the contest as her recipe was published months before this contest started.

Please please gather let us know when rules are rules and not guideines that do not have to be adhered to to win, it does cause myrid frustration when some of us follow the 'guideines' and others win when not following them. ANd I must ask why in the world would you even bother to say "publish a photo' and put the words in bold that say "most importantly – why your family loves it!" when you do not mean it!!!! Just state in simple terms next time submit a recipe for consideration in a contest to win, don't bother to add all the jazzy details if gather has no intentions on follow throgh and will award prizes to people who copy & paste a recipe directly from a web site with no original thought of there own. And the winning entry has now been taken down by the poster maybe because it was indeed copyrighted.