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Show HN: Conspiracy Santa: A Better Secret Santa for Teams

71 points by bryanh 12y ago

bryanh 12y ago
We open sourced the little app (Bottle.py and React.js) that powers this tool: https://github.com/zapier/conspiracysanta.com https://github.com/zapier/conspiracysanta.com We also wrote an accompanying blog post about it: https://zapier.com/blog/conspiracy-santa/ https://zapier.com/blog/conspiracy-santa/ It worked amazingly for our team last year. We are definitely doing it again and I think everyone is really looking forward to it. We considered doing a full on, invite-the-whole-team SaaS like app but email seemed like the easiest way to implement this. It worked well for us last year, but might break with more members. We'll see!
- rl3 12y ago
  The name is great. Conspiracy makes it sound a lot less innocent than secret.
- mankyd 12y ago
  Very cool idea! Maybe make it so that teams of people get assigned to giftees, but maybe not _everyone_? So that, if I want to play with 12 friends, there aren't 12 separate email threads I need to track. Instead, give me 4 (or an adjustable) number of giftees.
  - bryanh 12y ago
    Cool idea! That might make it way more manageable for large groups.
bengali3 12y ago
Great idea for friends! For my co-workers on the other hand... i'd hesitate to offer an O(n²) solution. I do believe the Feels per Participant™ ratio would be optimal for the group. However this ratio means little to aforementioned participant sample. Thanks for sharing!
ChuckMcM 12y ago
Nice. It is definitely a good variation. One that I don't like is the everyone randomly picks a gift from a table of 'equivalent' gifts, and has the option of either opening it or handing it to someone who has already opened their gift and taking the gift they had. Basically swapping them an unopened gift for a known gift. Known gifts could only be 'stolen' 3 times before the the were immune from being taken.
- Robadob 12y ago
  The only time I've come across a game of that variation was in an episode of The Office US and that was enough to convince me it was a bad idea.
- dminor 12y ago
  That sounds more like a white elephant gift exchange than secret santa.
- jameshart 12y ago
  I was introduced to that format once I moved to Massachusetts as the 'Yankee Swap'. It's fun so long as nobody takes it remotely seriously. I think it appeals to the New Englanders' intrinsic love of the possibility of screwing over their friends.
- fragmede 12y ago
  Yeah... that's not "Secret Santa". Here's Wikipedia's definition: "members of a group or community are randomly assigned a person to whom they anonymously give a gift." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Santa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Santa
- prawn 12y ago
  That's how my extended family does presents and it's always entertaining. A gift can only be stolen once per round. Order is by draw of number from a hat. Everyone gets into it, even if you risk going home with something you don't like and no one will want to steal.
JshWright 12y ago
Bah... this hit HN a week too late... Our extended family decided to use this exact model this year, and managing the email lists was indeed a major pain in the neck.
Robadob 12y ago
Without signing up for it to test, it's unclear whether each email thread is assigned a different 'host' so that in the end every person handles the actual purchase/ordering of 1 other persons gift (much like secret santa).
- bryanh 12y ago
  It isn't specified in our version since a founder buys all the gifts, but you could just say in the thread "who wants to order it?" or come up with a more specific method.
  - Robadob 12y ago
    Without the system automatically assigning buyers, I'd expect it's very possible oversight would allow for the final gift to not have anyone in on the conspiracy having already bought a gift. Being on GitHub it shouldn't be too hard to fork it/submit a pull request to make it an optional feature I guess. Will see If I can find the time.
seeingfurther 12y ago
Wouldn't it be easier to setup individual rooms for each employee within Slack and then just lock that employee out of the room deciding his gift?
- bryanh 12y ago
  That could also work too!
dugmartin 12y ago
You might want to resize the original Santa image on your server - 586K for a small image in the corner is a little large. http://conspiracysanta.com/img/santa.png http://conspiracysanta.com/img/santa.png

71 points by bryanh 12y ago

We open sourced the little app (Bottle.py and React.js) that powers this tool: https://github.com/zapier/conspiracysanta.com https://github.com/zapier/conspiracysanta.com We also wrote an accompanying blog post about it: https://zapier.com/blog/conspiracy-santa/ https://zapier.com/blog/conspiracy-santa/ It worked amazingly for our team last year. We are definitely doing it again and I think everyone is really looking forward to it. We considered doing a full on, invite-the-whole-team SaaS like app but email seemed like the easiest way to implement this. It worked well for us last year, but might break with more members. We'll see!

rl3 12y ago
The name is great. Conspiracy makes it sound a lot less innocent than secret.
mankyd 12y ago
Very cool idea! Maybe make it so that teams of people get assigned to giftees, but maybe not _everyone_? So that, if I want to play with 12 friends, there aren't 12 separate email threads I need to track. Instead, give me 4 (or an adjustable) number of giftees.
- bryanh 12y ago
  Cool idea! That might make it way more manageable for large groups.

bengali3 12y ago

Great idea for friends! For my co-workers on the other hand... i'd hesitate to offer an O(n²) solution. I do believe the Feels per Participant™ ratio would be optimal for the group. However this ratio means little to aforementioned participant sample. Thanks for sharing!

ChuckMcM 12y ago

Nice. It is definitely a good variation. One that I don't like is the everyone randomly picks a gift from a table of 'equivalent' gifts, and has the option of either opening it or handing it to someone who has already opened their gift and taking the gift they had. Basically swapping them an unopened gift for a known gift. Known gifts could only be 'stolen' 3 times before the the were immune from being taken.

Robadob 12y ago
The only time I've come across a game of that variation was in an episode of The Office US and that was enough to convince me it was a bad idea.
dminor 12y ago
That sounds more like a white elephant gift exchange than secret santa.
jameshart 12y ago
I was introduced to that format once I moved to Massachusetts as the 'Yankee Swap'. It's fun so long as nobody takes it remotely seriously. I think it appeals to the New Englanders' intrinsic love of the possibility of screwing over their friends.
fragmede 12y ago
Yeah... that's not "Secret Santa". Here's Wikipedia's definition: "members of a group or community are randomly assigned a person to whom they anonymously give a gift." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Santa http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Santa
prawn 12y ago
That's how my extended family does presents and it's always entertaining. A gift can only be stolen once per round. Order is by draw of number from a hat. Everyone gets into it, even if you risk going home with something you don't like and no one will want to steal.

JshWright 12y ago

Bah... this hit HN a week too late... Our extended family decided to use this exact model this year, and managing the email lists was indeed a major pain in the neck.

Robadob 12y ago

Without signing up for it to test, it's unclear whether each email thread is assigned a different 'host' so that in the end every person handles the actual purchase/ordering of 1 other persons gift (much like secret santa).

bryanh 12y ago
It isn't specified in our version since a founder buys all the gifts, but you could just say in the thread "who wants to order it?" or come up with a more specific method.
- Robadob 12y ago
  Without the system automatically assigning buyers, I'd expect it's very possible oversight would allow for the final gift to not have anyone in on the conspiracy having already bought a gift. Being on GitHub it shouldn't be too hard to fork it/submit a pull request to make it an optional feature I guess. Will see If I can find the time.

seeingfurther 12y ago

Wouldn't it be easier to setup individual rooms for each employee within Slack and then just lock that employee out of the room deciding his gift?

bryanh 12y ago
That could also work too!

dugmartin 12y ago

You might want to resize the original Santa image on your server - 586K for a small image in the corner is a little large. http://conspiracysanta.com/img/santa.png http://conspiracysanta.com/img/santa.png