In Theory Only: 50 State Pass around?

DaveH

DaveH

Joined
Dec 2, 1999
Messages
12,249
I had this weird idea, what if we did a "Tour of America, the 50 State Pass Around". There would be one person in each state.

Here's my questions:

Time, absolute best case would be probably 1 year to complete. Worst case would be 2 years, or never.

Would there be enough excitement to be able to substain a continued interest? How would we keep the interest up over 1 or 2 years?

Could we ask Spark to add a forum specifically for passarounds so they don't get lost in the "noise" of the general forums?

In reference to the above, it would be great to have a little database accesable over the web that lets you signup for passarounds, View who is next, etc. so that the "book keeping" of who is next wouldn't fall on one person.

I actually could rig something up using mysql and perl, but I don't know how to "deliver" the application, or even if perl and mysql would work for Spark and if there is a simpler way.

The problem in a nutshell is that a lengthly pass around just doesn't "scale" well in terms of time and substained interest.

Any ideas?
 
Originally posted by DaveH
How would we keep the interest up over 1 or 2 years?
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Pass around one of Ed Fowler's knives...:D:D
Originally posted by DaveH
Could we ask Spark to add a forum specifically for passarounds so they don't get lost in the "noise" of the general forums?
In reference to the above, it would be great to have a little database accesable over the web that lets you signup for passarounds, View who is next, etc. so that the "book keeping" of who is next wouldn't fall on one person.
Click to expand...
Sounds like a great idea. I'm sure it would really take off.
Originally posted by DaveH
The problem in a nutshell is that a lengthly pass around just doesn't "scale" well in terms of time and substained interest.
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How about a 5 person pass around? It would get quick interest (you'd fill up the list faster), come back quickly, and have a better turn-around to keep the interest high.

IMHO, a 50-state pass along would only be good if the interest (greed/lust/whatever:D) was very high - ie. a very nice custom knife. Then you would have to "qualify" people to avoid problems and each person would have to insure the shipment. Could be a mess.

I see where you're going with this idea, though. It's not too dissimilar to what happens in the trading forums - just much faster turn around.

my 0.02
 
One big problem with a 50 state pass around would be that it would take so long to finish that by the end no one would care about that knife anymore. It would most likely take a couple of years and peoples interest in that particular knife would have probably waned.
 
I think it's a great idea. Thinking even bigger perhaps you could include the ten Canadian provinces.

...the "book keeping" of who is next wouldn't fall on one person.
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Perhaps it is my years of military service kicking in but I belive that one person being the central authority for the database would be ideal. It wouldn't be a lot of work, since the knife would only embark on it's next "mission" once or twice a month. I like the idea of a webpage to track it's progress and post feedback from the participants but a dedicated forum on BladeForums would be even better.

It would take some time. Even with a strict "keeping period" of only one week it would still take almost two years factoring in shipping time. The value of the knife would have to be high enough that many people are not likely to go out a buy one "just to try" but low enough that, well, someone would be willing to write it off if something goes wrong.
 
although in theory it would we a good idea having the knife change hands 50 times is just too much. I mean keeping track would be difficult but not impossible, all participants could be part of a monthly email newsletter with all the info inside (of course someone would have to maintain this newsletter) i think maybe a regional pass around would be more viable, like a east coast, west coast, midwest, north, and south region
 
As for keeping interest up by passing a higher price knife and having fewer people in the passaround partly helps.

I did a sebenza passaround with 4 people, easier to keep track of, easier to keep interest up.

There may be no way to avoid around having a real person as manager though.
 
Holy Cow, I got so excited I just kept hitting submit :D

No really I think I have connection problems.:p
 
OK how bout this:

There is one continous list of pass around people.
That is the list is essentially static with new people being added to the end. The list is kept public in one place for everyone to see.

Then a new knife enters the "pipeline" and each person passes it on the next person.

Now if there is a reasonable number of knives entering the pipeline, say one every month, each person would get a continual stream of new knives, you always send it to the same next person. And to introduce a new passaround you merely sent it to the first person in the list.

That minimizes keeping a separate new list everytime a pass around starts, minimizes management of the list because new people just go one the end of the list.

Also if a knife is started when the pass around this master pass around list is fairly short, then the first knife will "follow" the end of the list very quickly so as people get added to the list they won't have to wait so long for their first knife.

Does this make sense? I really like this idea if I say so myself.

In fact, if we can get this set up I'd start the first knife.
 
that sounds like a pretty good idea, having a continous supply of knives would definitely keep peoples interest up. the problem is where is the supply of knives goign to come from. im thinking that maybe the knife manufactureres could donate knives to this project. that way the participants get new knives to handle and the knife companies get more exposure. in terms this group would be beta testers/reviewers
 
DaveH,

Don't feel bad about the dup. posts. I think it's bladeforums. I've had a couple today and I have never had that problem before.

Maybe it's just a system glitch.

Anyway, the pass-along-down-the-stream sounds like a great idea. But what if you don't want to get every knife that comes along? Personally, I don't care for Spyderco knives and wouldn't want to review one. I also, wouldn't want to have to pay the postage for something I didn't care to get.

Seems like we're getting closer to a real working model though...
 
what if you don't want it?
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What you could do then is organize each pipeline by type or brand.

So maybe there is a spyderco pipeline, and Benchmade pipeline, etc.

The trouble though is that makes it harder to reach the new knife a month continual pass along rate, because there would be overall fewer knives entering the pipeline.

OTOH, the investement of priority mail to the next person is pretty small even if you don't like the knife. It would probably be good if there was at least some variation in models in the pipeline.

Are you saying you dislike spyderco so much you don't even want to try or hold one for a couple of days? :p
 
yah priority mail is only 3.50 so it's not really that big of a deal even if you dislike the knife, you win some you lose some. a timeframe of around 6 months i think is good we can cut the carrying time to two weeks and get in around twelve people with six knives. the input of new knives will keep things fresh but i think there has to be a system where the last guy to get the first knife should be the first one to get the second knife, everyone should get a chance to be the first one to get a certain knife since if the same person is always the last one getting the knife he'll feel shafted, i mean 11 other people have already reviewed and talked about it while the last guy is still waiting for the knife
 
Originally posted by DaveH
Are you saying you dislike spyderco so much you don't even want to try or hold one for a couple of days?
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I'd sooner eat my own young...:p

Honestly, I have nothing against Spyderco the company or its many buyers - in fact, I was the one that made that cool rotating 3D sypderco logo that people are using for their avatars...

It would honestly just be a waste of my time and money. Or course, I won't ever buy an Emerson either, so better add that to my list too. ;)
 
So all we need now is 'n' knives where 'n' is the number of people participating. The coordinator would send one knife to each person. After two weeks each person forwards their knife to the next person on the list. Each participant gets a new knife to test every two weeks for n/2 weeks :D. If 'n' is at least 12 people it seems like anyone who got on the list could give up knife buying for the better part of a year. ;)
 
Pete,

I think you're on to something here...

That would be a blast. 12 people, 12 knives. Just pick one from your collection and pass it along!

I'd go for it.
 
In other words a circularly linked list. Knives get started anywhere within the list by you or someone picking a knife and sending it on to your "next" and when the knife makes it back to the originator, that is a complete circut, they can take it out of circulation.

You could even do that by region to if you wanted to keep the participant numbers down.

Cool idea,:D
 
A mailing list would be a way to keep all the information in one place. If Spark doesn't go for a forum, why not try Knifeforums, or simply run an Ezboard.

-Cliff
 
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