I'm tempted to restart the competitions, discuss

[Phate]

Morning all,

Ok here are my thoughts on it.

The competitions run every month from the 1st to the last day of the month.

Each image is judged on 3 factors (yet to be decided)

The difference is that the images go down to the public vote, I'm happy to take ownership of this. Votes are only valid from people who enter, so in order to take part you must also contribute to the competition with a photo.

Images get posted in a designated thread with all associated EXIF and then that person must email me with their scores on other peoples images, you are not allowed to score your own image, funnily enough that would be a bit unfair

Any other feedback on other images is welcome, we are all here to learn.

In the first week of each month I collate the scores, opinions and comments and post a thread with the winner and the next months subject.

Thoughts? This is something I just came up with while walking to the train, its open to comments and opinions.

Jake

 

[PU7E]

Sounds like a good idea.

I can take pictures of stars/galaxies, but still learning when it comes to general stuff. Would be good to try and learn new things I've not thought of before even if I have no chance of winning, heh.

 

[chet84]

Sounds like a great idea Phate, willing to help anyway I can. Itching to get my camera out again - it's been way too long.

 

[Sonea Fifer]

Sounds like a good idea Phate - if you're prepared to put the time and effort into hosting this then I'll certainly make a contribution. Having said that, compared to some of the other fantastic shots posted on these forums mine are very amateur. However I'm happy to accept constructive critiscm and learn further and if your competition helps me and others on here than that can only be a good thing

 

[mattyg]

I'm also up for this, Bout time I stopped dreaming of new lenses and actually used my camera.

Need inspiration.

 

[LOAM]

Same as above, willing to help out if needed. Having bought a new camera and looking to progress, things like this will be invaluable.

 

[Razor-BladE]

Sounds good. I was actually thinking of entering in the TP one because I never really get out with the camera so wanted to change that, and also get experience shooting things I might not shoot otherwise.

 

[Phate]

Ok, good feedback thus far.

So, the 3 categories to judge on, we could use the existing ones from the previous competition, so:

• Impact
• Theme Relevance
• Technical

Suggestions to changes for this welcome.

Each one rated from 1-10.

Going on from this everyone would need to submit their scores to me within the first 5 days of the following month ready for the results to be posted by the end of the first week.

Sounding good?

 

[chet84]

Previous marking was such that if your theme mark was weak, then generally the other two marks were affected. Is this still to be the case, or are the categories totally independent of each other?

I would like to suggest maybe weighting theme points more than the other two and then keeping the categories completely detached? This would mean that people would be less likely to totally ignore theme and get a competitive score (this would kind of defeat the object of a theme!).

 

[Phate]

I agree, I'm happy to weight them all independantly of each other, makes more sense to me?

What do others think?

 

[Steeps]

Will all feedback be anon? My only concern with a public vote is others taking petty revenge if they don't agree with feedback received.

Might also be worth having a month in bank to allow for all emails/entries/judging to happen:

Month 1: shoot subject, enter before end of month.
Month 2: shoot next subject, judge previous round in first 2 weeks, submit all comments. Winner announced and has 1 week to chose subject for month 3.
Month 3: repeat month 2 using winner from month 1's subject
Month 4: repeat month 3 using winner from month 2's subject

Just gives time for entries to be made, judging to be done, and themes submitted so there's no rush/delay to get it all done.

I would also like to suggest a joker could be played once per season, where the entrant can submit an entry that was not shot that month if they either didn't have time to get a shot or think it fits the theme perfectly, just for fun of course.

 

[Phate]

Feedback can be anon yes, the only person that would know is me

Don't like the idea of the joker, it allows people to get lazy.

 

[Columbo]

Good idea Jake, I like the idea of score weighting and I like to idea of another comp so I'm deffo in!

We could always ask for a simple monthly poll vote if the scoring gets to complicated (AvForums operate something similar and it works quite well) but lets just get something moving and anything that could bring extra traffic in here is a good thing.

 

[Phate]

Good idea Jake, I like the idea of score weighting and I like to idea of another comp so I'm deffo in!

We could always ask for a simple monthly poll vote if the scoring gets to complicated (AvForums operate something similar and it works quite well) but lets just get something moving and anything that could bring extra traffic in here is a good thing.

Problem with the poll is that any Tom, Dick and Harry could click it making the scores worthless.

 

[2StepSteve]

I think the competitions should have it's own sub forum purely because they get lost easily in here.. Or maybe just latest entries and results sticky'ed?

 

[Hyburnate]

Problem with the poll is that any Tom, Dick and Harry could click it making the scores worthless.

Problem with the email is it might put people off voting, or make it so people forget. I think the poll would be better personally.

 

[Phate]

I think the competitions should have it's own sub forum purely because they get lost easily in here.. Or maybe just latest entries and results sticky'ed?

I can offer a passing Don favours of a specific nature to make them stickied

Problem with the email is it might put people off voting, or make it so people forget. I think the poll would be better personally.

People will enter knowing what is expected of them. I will email a reminder to them all when its due etc.

 

[Jase]

Sounds like a good idea to, something to keep my interest at least

 

[Columbo]

Problem with the poll is that any Tom, Dick and Harry could click it making the scores worthless.

I'm not against either method if I'm honest and would like to just get something going.

Weight categorized scoring will certainly achieve a more polished critique of the photo's and will probably result in the fairest result but it will take longer to turn around and will be difficult to admin without a lot of commitment from either you or another member.

A poll would certainly have a quicker turnaround, take less admin and be less hassle but could throw up 'interesting' results and not be particularly fair.

I suppose it depends on what the end goal needs to be. Are we looking at rounds through the year and adding the scores up like a league table or will it be a simple month to month affair where the winner chooses the next category?

Also if we get moving with this I might be able to offer a free print of the winning shot as a prize to the winner but we'll discuss that as we get nearer the start of the comp.

 

[Raymond Lin]

So you can only vote after the deadline. This creates a potential problem as the new competition would have started. Need a way to govern people to vote on time, this is the hardest part. I guess it makes no difference if the person enters and don't vote. You will still get an average in the end. I would be inclined to make the competition 3 weeks, 1 week voting and decision and start a new one. Keep things moving.

Entry email would be a list of photo (number would refer to post number on the thread) with relevant score. I propose just a final score of 1-10, single score, to keep things simple.