Scavenger Hunt Stupidity

[Kagato]

Seen this doing the rounds over the past day or so:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/d...538#f1e3ed9228

Basically it is known as "GISHWHES" or "Greatest Internationa Scavenger Hunt We Have Ever Seen", personally I don't know a heck of a lot about the general gist of it, was only made aware of it a day or 2 ago and not really interested in it as a whole, apparently there is a list of bizarre/difficult things people are expected to do and the team that checks off the most points gets to meet Misha Collins from Supernatural.

However in this years one, two entries were apparently suggested that were vetted incredibly poorly:

78.Get a previously published Sci-Fi author to write an original story (140 words max) about Misha, the Queen of England and an Elopus: 59 POINTS.

178. Get A NYT best-selling author or Tony-award winning actor or actress doing a dramatic reading of a section of this [the California Driver Handbook]: 112 POINTS.

Note that they did not put any kind of note about approaching people that had volunteered or acknowledged the hunt - ANY author/actor/actress that met the criteria in the two entries was fair game. So as a result, unsuspecting authors/actors/actresses have been getting their inboxes carpetbombed with hundreds, if not thousands of emails demanding short stories/video clips.

Naturally, since some authors had been unaware of the entire event and had not allocated time for it, they were forced to decline. CUE INTERNET RAGE! Apparently it got so bad that the "official site" had to append a new harassment rule stating that if someone declines, they are NOT to be verbally attacked.

Sometimes common sense is not so common.

[TheHuckster]

But they're public figures! So, they should do whatever the public wants!

I think the people who got John Scalzi to tweet what he did should get the points. And it's still a better story than Twilight. I enjoyed the story thoroughly.

[HYHYBT]

Creating a setup for large numbers of people to make those requests seems pretty close to harassment in itself.

[Kagato]

As I said to one of my friends, if I end up becoming a successful writer, what I will probably do is pre-emptively write something like 5 short stories, then to anyone that emails me with a request, do a bulk email saying "I have X short stories - at Y time I will draw Z random addresses and email their short stories to them. If you don't get one, sorry and better luck next year!"

[anakhouri]

I have been on a GISHWHES team the past two years and am helping my old team this year in an unofficial capacity. The listed items are usually bizarre, and more than once I was made uncomfortable by them (last year we were told to try to get astronauts on the ISS to take pictures holding signs promoting the hunt...no, our team did not do it and NASA was not happy about the flood of requests, since astronauts have real work to do). I think it's not malice but simply not thinking things through that lead to these unfortunate challenges.

Asking a public figure for a favor is one thing, but harassing them when they refuse is unacceptable. On the GISHWHES website they have actually warned teams about this and will disqualify any team who is reported to be harassing people. I would venture to guess it is a small percentage acting like this but when you have a venture involving thousands of people. a small percentage is still a lot of people.

Side note, every year one item includes using someone in a Stormtrooper costume. This year the 501st (Star Wars costuming group) began taking requests and fulfilling them in the order in which they were received, which seems like a good policy. I bet they got flooded every other year with requests.

For my part, I am a bookseller/writer, and asked some of my friends from Events and Marketing if they knew any NYT bestsellers who might be willing to do this item for us, and they are asking around (I assume most teams looked at the current list and emailed everyone they saw on the current list- we are asking former bestsellers, who probably aren't getting inundated). If we don't get the item done it's not the end of the world, there are over 100 other ways to get points. The entire point of GISHWHES is to be creative, have fun and connect with other people, but some teams are taking this too far and being too competitive.

Overall, I still think GISHWHES does more good than harm. A hefty chunk of the registration fee goes to charity, and many of the items involve service work or donations. Just this year items included giving a prized possession to a homeless person, volunteering at a food bank in a silly hat, sending a care package to a deployed soldier and delivering food/flowers to nursing home residents and hospitalized children.

[Seshat]

Just a note:

Getting even one request each from hundreds (if not thousands) of teams is still hundreds of emails (or phone calls, or tweets, etc) to respond to.

[anakhouri]

But a celebrity can draft a simple form letter and use it to reply to all of them, or pin a blog post. One member of my team did approach an author and received a form reply from her agent; most contact information- at least- for authors- goes to their agents. The real problem as I see it are the jerks who don't think they should take no for an answer even if it only involves a silly game. These people probably get lot of fan mail anyway, which is usually handled by their agents or staff. I don't think the asking is rude, just the response if they're refused.