Hi All,
It has bothered me for a long long time as to why participants are asked to name themselves in lotteries. Naming oneself doesn’t seem to serve any purpose. It’s not like the host can’t send a personal message to the winner if they don’t tag themselves.
It has been a mystery for me as to where this tradition of naming started and why it still continues. I look forward to someone solving this puzzle for me.
Thanks !!
I’m not sure but it’s probably started since the old forum. In there, when we post something, our username was placed far away on the left side, while the message itself was on the right side. So maybe by placing the username together with the number, it will make the user’s name easier to see. Also, it’s easier to copy and paste them to make a list like this :
I guess many of us still have this habit. 
Yes, this is a holdover from the old forum.
But you express exactly what I feel @snailmailermk
Here, the naming has evolved:
Some users tag themselves with @name and also some hosts of lotteries want you to do that.
I always find that very irritating because I don’t know what the point is.
Why should I call myself @Bille ?
Does anyone have an explanation for this?
Old habits die hard, haha.
I don’t tag myself, even if the host asks and I still won some lotteries
Thanks for the explanation, it does make sense why it was done in the past.
Good to know this! As a newbie 
I just do what others do, but now I understand it better. No need to tag yourself, I get it. Thanks
thanks for asking! - I wondered abouth it too … 
I have been wondering the same thing 
I have never understood why people have been asking for it but I have still done it… So maybe we should just stop doing it?!? 
I see no point in tagging myself in my own comment…
Ah, yes. I was also confused when I first saw the tag. But I still follow it anyway. And even though I never asked it, people still tagged themselves in my lottery.
Maybe someone started it, to make it easier to access (because we can click on the name) or something, then the next person below them followed it, and so on. And soon it looks like the “correct format” or “complete format” to everyone? And thus, we feel “safer” to write like that. Especially considering we only open lottery topics for a short amount of time, write quickly, and never come back.
Maybe we have all been hit by the “Bandwagon Effect” without realizing it. 
Thanks for the great question, @snailmailermk
I have a lottery currently going on where I asked people to only number themselves, still everyone wrote their name. I believe at this stage, everyone is just doing it automatic mode
At least the participants tend to get that part of the lottery requirements correct 
.
Unlike the numbering requirement…which seems to be a bridge too far 
.
I think the numbering is useful…it always was for me (I don’t play much in there anymore). Yes, I heard the thread numbers comments…but it wasn’t simple for me and it doesn’t work if anyone has made an extraneous comment over and above their single ‘entry’…or if I wanted to answer someone’s question etc.
I know slow internet speed can be the cause of getting the numbering wrong…but then how hard is it to check that your numbering is correct immediately after you’ve posted your comment?
In the end I gave up on asking for numbering, it drove me crazy. I asked the kids to choose a winner instead…at which point the name was the only thing I was asking for…so it was simply a placeholder/your entry marker.
This is such a good question - I’ve wondered the same, though it’s never bothered me. I started reading the forum in January but didn’t take part in any lotteries until the end of March after I was sure I understood how things worked (and I’m pretty sure I hosted one before entering someone else’s). I just did as others did, figuring it was an expectation in the community that I’d come to understand and then it became a habit! Haha!
I agree that having people number themselves is helpful to me yet it can get crazy once someone makes a mistake! I state in the rules of any lotteries I host that if there are duplicate numbers, only the first is valid, but I do feel bad if that happens to people 
The built in numbering isn’t easy for me to use (yes, especially if people add extra comments or I reply to something) while the naming is not really necessary for things to run smoothly 
I agree @Tinkatutu and @SilverHare that numbering is helpful for the reasons stated by both of you. On the other hand, naming isn’t really necessary but seems to be one of those things that continues because that is what everyone does.
I am also grateful for your question, because I always wondered why it has to be like that - but also asked people to name themselves in my lotteries, because I simply thought it has to be like that without understanding why now after reading all this I think I should have trusted my brain more than I did - hopefully in future I will not ask for the name anymore 
How many of us here are relieved to know that we weren’t alone in wondering about this?
i think it’s hilarious that we are all thinking ‘why are we doing this’ but still doing it.
when i hosted my first lottery i was looking for some kind of ‘how to’ topic but there’s only an ‘about the lottery section’ topic. it doesn’t really explain anything though so i just did what everyone was doing. even though tagging yourself is kinda dumb. i figured there must be a great reason behind it.
At the beginning I thought it was so we be able to check if no one entered the lottery twice. But I was wrong so I also stopped asking for tagging yourself. In fact, it made more sense in the old forum.
But I don’t mind when people still do it 
. Perhaps some people do not want to write only a number in the comment 
or they create an entry the way most lottery hosts want it. I have noticed that some people do not read the descriptions carefully. Perhaps they do not always fully understand them as English is not their first language. And sometimes a host asks for more than a number and username… for example, to pick one of several cards (not “optionally”) and some people don’t do that. That is not a big problem, but it happens. Then I just ask the winner about it or take a random card .
I found a very relevant video which shows how all of us continue to follow redundant practices.
Even if asked for in certain RRs, I don’t tag myself. However, I do state my number, 'cause in a RR with 50 members, that makes sense. Tagging myself is useless imho. Or is there a valid reason for?
Once or twice, in lotteries with multiple winners, I have seen a host tag all the winners in a comment instead of sending individual PM’s to each of us. In that case, I think tagging ourselves saves them a little time and avoids mistakes. They can just copy&paste, instead of needing to remember how each username is spelled, or even type in the @ signs themselves. So I think in that rare situation it can make some sense, maybe?
As for why most lotteries are done that way 
Harder than you might think, actually. Sometimes I post a comment and then a few seconds later, while I’m still looking at the page, someone else’s comment “cuts in line” and appears above mine. Other times, a comment will at first appear below mine, then move to above only if I refresh the page. If someone doesn’t know to watch out for that, they might close the page a second too soon, or not bother to refresh it and re-check.
Or they do initially read it carefully, but then by the time they’re done reading other people’s comments, they forget the details of the host’s original post. I’ve probably done that myself on occasion 
