A suggestion for the Comps

[Swissbear]

Sorry posted this in the wrong area. So I'll repost it here.


I've been viewing/reading the threads and posts in here for a week or so now and I think I have a suggestion that might make the competitions a little more interesting. Instead of posting the entries here, why not send the entries via PM to the person "officiating" the compeition or the one that picks the top 20 for voting. Afterwhich he can post the others here on the board. I think this might cutout some of the "Hey which one should I enter" posts that seem to be unwelcomed by some and, if there is any at all, some of the "Well, he's my buddy and I'll vote for his entry" that might be going on. And besides, most everyone likes surprises. And maybe even keep the Designer's Choice award under wraps until the voting is over as to perhaps not "influence" the voting.

Maybe someone else has similar ideas and/or suggestions.

My two cents worth

 

[franz]

not a bad idea ... but the person's inbox won't be large for 50+ entries
unless he/she got premium

 

[tqualizer]

You could use email instead of PM. You just have to write your nickname in the mail. And if you dont want to share your email, just create another account on gmail, hotmail, etc.

 

[Slick6]

That would be a little stressing during the week. I already am spending enough time running these competitions. Plus, I think it's interesting to let others know what they are up against. 👍

 

[dori-san]

I actually think this is an awesome idea! As nobody will get to see whats coming...

The situation, I'm sure, has happened before where one person will wait all week to see what kind of competition they're up against, and the go out and take a really awesome picture at the last minute.

This way would be great that way nobody can see what they're up against and try to gain an unfair advantage. The top 20 would be a total surprise, and nobody would EVER know who took which picture! That's the whole thing I don't like about this setup, is that after Slick decided not to put names next to pictures it didn't matter either way. I do it (if I have the time to kill) and I'm sure tons of others do it; when you see a pic and want to know who did it, just go back into the submission thread and skim through... it defeats the purpose. I think it would be great have just one thread per week instead of two. Start the thread and then at the end of the week put the poll up on that same thread, thereby reducing the threads that get started. 👍

I'm not sure if you can add a poll to a previously created thread though, but if there was a way then that would be perfect.

 

[Slick6]

I'm not sure if you can add a poll to a previously created thread though, but if there was a way then that would be perfect.

No, that wouldn't work unless a Super Moderator would edit the thread every week and that would be a bit of a hassle in my opinion. I don't know, I'll give these ideas some thought.

 

[Swissbear]

FINAL ENTRY

​

you got my vote ... 👍

Yeah, Mine too!

That's a FANTASTIC shot pixel! It would be even more fantastic if you got the entire car in the shot!

This is exactly one of the reasons why I made the suggestion of NOT posting the final entries in a thread. It's a great pic but, the whole voting public has now been influenced BEFORE the voting actually begins. Whether or not Franz or 440 vote for this pic is irrelevant, someone who might want to enter the comp sees postings like this and decides that his entry wouldn't be good enough to enter when in reality his might just be better. But niether he nor the rest of us will ever know.

 

[Brock5000]

On the whole this is a good idea, but there are a few things to consider.

Will it reduce the level of interest? Most people like to show their work off to others, so would this take some of the fun away? In this respect the mass of honourable mentions is a mixed blessing - it's fun to see what others are doing and to share you own pics, but at the same time it can deter people from submitting similar ideas, or even 'inspire' them to copy one they've seen.

Will people think more about their final entry, or will they continue to resubmit entries up until the deadline? Hopefully the former will prevail as people won't be wanting to change their entries based on what they've seen others submit.

Case in point, had I entered this week there would have been two yellow Honda Beats outside the Sony HQ, but having seen Mango's submission I will not consider entering something so similar. If I'd done so and were it to make the top 20 ahead of his, he would be well within reason to feel ripped off. however had we both enterd blind, it would have been a big surprise to us both should either make it.


Thinking aloud, another idea for entries could be to let everyone add a vote for each of their favourite shots as they are submitted and at the end of the week those with the most votes would go into a top 10. However this would probably be too hard to impliment and in any case would double the work that Slick6 & others have to do.

 

[Swissbear]

On the whole this is a good idea, but there are a few things to consider.

Will it reduce the level of interest? Most people like to show their work off to others, so would this take some of the fun away? In this respect the mass of honourable mentions is a mixed blessing - it's fun to see what others are doing and to share you own pics, but at the same time it can deter people from submitting similar ideas, or even 'inspire' them to copy one they've seen.

Will people think more about their final entry, or will they continue to resubmit entries up until the deadline? Hopefully the former will prevail as people won't be wanting to change their entries based on what they've seen others submit.

I thought that's what the threads other than the comp threads were for? Isn't posting ones pics in those threads "showing off" thier work? I'm sure that most people have learned more of what to do and what not to do to get a good looking pic from reading and interacting in the non-comp threads than by browsing the comp threads. Wouldn't seeing someone else's work getting a "I'll vote for you if you'll vote for me" post be more detrimental than not? If a person doesn't "make the cut" and he sees what did "make the cut" he might see what his "mistakes" were and try and better his picture taking. And as far as resubmitting pics as their "Final Entry", wouldn't the fact of NOT seeing the competition cut back on that as one would think that a FINAL entry is a FINAL entry and not "This is my final entry until I see what else is out there and maybe I'll change my mind" entry.

I don't know all the ins and outs of running a board like this but, I'm sure it takes a lot of work and effort. I think that there would be a way to implement a system by which somethng like this would work. Maybe have 1 or two user ID's that are strictly used for comp entries that way up to 100 people could enter the comp via PM. Maybe user names like Covercomp1 and Covercomp2 and then the other comp be photocomp1 and photocomp2. Seems to me that all it would take is one person having 4 different email addresses (which are easily attainable at Yahoo, Gmail, etc.) to register 4 different user ID's. I don't know on average how many entries there are per week but, even if the number of entries grew, then more user ID's could be attained. Having them password protected could even be implemented by changing the password every week and passing it on to the one that is picking the top 20 AFTER the comp deadline.

Just a few ideas that might get more people involved in the comps instead of the same group of (what seems like) say 10 -20 core people with the few first (and possibly only) timers each week.

 

[pixeljunkynz]

You need to see what you're up against, it heats up the competition. It also makes sure people have interpreted the rules properly.

I think previous winners were the best of the entire bunch, so I think the system is working the way it is.

 

[LandoAWD]

You need to see what you're up against, it heats up the competition. It also makes sure people have interpreted the rules properly.

👍


Granted I doubt I'll win one of these as there are some excellent photographers here, but if I had to be the "judge" I sure as anything don;t want 100s of PMs, having to tell 50 people why their entry is wrong, etc, etc. People DO work while posting on these boards, and the extra strain, not to mention what pixeljunkynz said, would take all the fun out.

 

[Swissbear]

👍


Granted I doubt I'll win one of these as there are some excellent photographers here, but if I had to be the "judge" I sure as anything don;t want 100s of PMs, having to tell 50 people why their entry is wrong, etc, etc. People DO work while posting on these boards, and the extra strain, not to mention what pixeljunkynz said, would take all the fun out.

Well then, if it works the way it is and all the fun would be gone out of it then these "Competitions" shouldn't be called competitions anymore they should be called "Photomode Popularity Contest" or "Who's your favorite Cover Designer". If you're gonna have a competition then have a competition and make it "fair" for all concerned. I seriously doubt that ANY comp has ever had 100 entries and all it takes is looking in on the comp user ID's a couple of times a day to let someone know whether thier entry is valid or not. If anyone has a question about thier entry, there's always an email address listed at the beginning of the thread anyway. The thing is that the comp user ID's would be used for entries ONLY with an understanding that if ANY other kind of PM's are sent to the comp ID's that they will be deleted. Sounds pretty simple to me.

 

[LandoAWD]

Well then, if it works the way it is and all the fun would be gone out of it then these "Competitions" shouldn't be called competitions anymore they should be called "Photomode Popularity Contest" or "Who's your favorite Cover Designer". If you're gonna have a competition then have a competition and make it "fair" for all concerned.

How is this not fair? Do, lets say, gymnastics competitions go on "behind the scenes" in front of only a select panel of judges then the top 20 come out and all do their routines at once?

No. They each go one by one and if the person before you turns it up a notch, you'd darn well better do your best to beat them.

Edit: I have no idea why gymnastics came to mind. 💡

 

[Swissbear]

How is this not fair? Do, lets say, gymnastics competitions go on "behind the scenes" in front of only a select panel of judges then the top 20 come out and all do their routines at once?

No. They each go one by one and if the person before you turns it up a notch, you'd darn well better do your best to beat them.

Edit: I have no idea why gymnastics came to mind. 💡

Actually yes, they have to "qualify" for the competitions BEFORE they go out on the floor and do their routines. The same for figure skating if you want another example. Granted, these "qualifications" are seen by a public group and/or preliminary judges but the final judges (in our case the voters in the polls) DO NOT see the finalists until they are out on the floor or ice. At a State fair for example the photos are sent in to the judging panel and then the best ones are displayed. Now granted they are not voted on by the public but it's the same idea. You have to pass an officiated driving test before you can even think about getting behind the wheel of a race car. So, to answer your question, yes, in almost every competition there is some sort of "behind the scenes" qualification (for lack of a better word) BEFORE you can be considered for the "grand prize".

 

[LandoAWD]

I understand the premise of qualifying for an event, but the point remains that the contestants in these events go one at a time, and if the person before them has a perfect score/performance/whatever, the next person has the opportunity to see this and attempt to better it.

 

[Vic_ali]

I understand the premise of qualifying for an event, but the point remains that the contestants in these events go one at a time, and if the person before them has a perfect score/performance/whatever, the next person has the opportunity to see this and attempt to better it.

Interesting. If someone takes a pic that makes "honorable mention" and recreates it as their own and makes it a Final Entry does it matter? Only the finals really count in this. I will say that 4-6 honorable mentions is quite excessive. The drift photo competition has a 2 "extra" pic limit and that has been going quite well.

interesting indeed...
maybe the point of the photomode competitions should be cleared up then,

i would like to think that this a place to create interesting and creative pictures and compare them to others who have taken the same car on the same course and come up with completely different pictures.. I think showing a couple of runner-ups not only shows what you were trying to get at, but may even help someone else by showing what cars are possible in the theme and ideas of what the settings can do.. the idea that every single combination of settings on the camera will be all used up is interesting, considering the basic design of every camera has been the same since it was invented.. light and time..

but if the point of these photomode competitions is to beat all those other suckers to get the #1 spot for a week.. then maybe I'll be somewhere else..

I mean really, does dori go around posting 'remember week 2? I ROCK!'

again just a though,

mike

 

[LandoAWD]

but if the point of these photomode competitions is to beat all those other suckers to get the #1 spot for a week.. then maybe I'll be somewhere else..

I mean really, does dori go around posting 'remember week 2? I ROCK!'

I really hope nobody takes ANYTHING on a message board that seriously. If they do, they should call their ISP and disconnect.

 

[Swissbear]

I would also like to think that the comps on here aren't taken that seriously. I hope that I haven't conveyed that impression with any of my posts. The only points that I was trying to make was to streamline the entry proccess and cut out some of the "I'll vote for you if you vote for me" that would turn away prospective entrants because the same people win week in and week out. If they deserve it, of course they should win. But, if there happens to be someone out there that wants to enter and gets turned off by the voting public being "tainted" by seeing the entries before the voting starts then we may all be missing out on some awesome work.

As with any competition that is a judged competition, the judges don't see the final "entry" until it is time to judge whatever is being judged. It would be like your gymnast example that the judges would see each final routine and say "OK, you 20 stay and the rest are excused". They've already seen what the final enrty/performance is and they may have already made up their mind and not paid much attention to the ones that do their entry/routine after the one that they've already considered the best.

There's no reason for a person's "rejects" not to be posted for the rest of us to see. I just don't feel that the FINAL entries should be seen BEFORE being "officially" judged/voted on.

I build model cars as a hobby and have a blast doing it. I consider myself pretty good at it. I've won hundreds of awards in the 13 years that I've been seriously showing my models and entering them in contests. I NEVER know what the competition is until I get there. Oh, I see the cars that are in the magazines. I see the cars that were at the last show. But, as I said, I NEVER see what I'll be "competing" against until I get there. And I've had my butt kicked a few times by someone that entered a contest for the first time. When asked how they got their car to look that good and it only be the first time they've entered, the usual response is something along the lines of "I looked at the pics in magazines, attended a few shows and saw what I needed to do....." . I learned the same way as those people...I've looked at, studied and tried to emulate what is the best examples out there. Granted there are those that take ANY competition TOO seriously but, for those folks there is no hope. Along with being a fun thing to do, I would think that most of the people that enter or are considering entering one of the photo competitions here would want to better their "skills" and not only wow the general populus but also wow themselves when they see that "kick butt" picture they just produced by seeing what wins and what goes home.

With not showing the FINAL entry until it's time to show, I think that the quality of the photos entered would improve as would the skills of those entering or wanting to enter. Not everyone on this board WANTS to enter the competitions but, if they see what is award winning it would only make them want to improve their skill and maybe even heighten the amount of fun they have with Photomode. There are MANY modelers out there that build museum quality models but the modeling community will never see them because the person that built them just doesn't have an interest in entering a contest. But, he knows that he has built the best model possible.

Seems to me the same would apply here.

 

[superbad]

For what it's worth, ie. not much, I don't think the format should be changed to the more complicated sounding system of pm'ing your entry.
I want to look at how the competition is shaping up over a week - maybe even get a bit of inspiration, I've never ripped - off anyone's ideas knowingly, I wouldn't care if my idea was used by someone else. I'm just entering for a bit of fun.
The excessive use of honourable mentions does annoy me a bit, but I don't consider it serious enough to change the format.
Maybe they should be limited to 2 or 3 extra pics or they get disqualified if they fail to remove them.

 

[Poseidon88]

If you wanted to get really complicated, we could do a completely blind judging, where the person who picks the top 20 has no idea who submitted what picture. But honestly, it's not worth the effort for such an informal competition. Too much work for the competition organizer.

If we want to do a blind final judgement, where we only get to see the top 20 without knowing who submitted them, It shouldn't be too hard. I would suggest that whoever is running the competition set up a Gmail or Yahoo account and give the login information to the person who picked the theme. At the end of the week, they go through all the valid entries and pick the top 20. Then, the organizer clears the inbox and changes the password before handing it off to the next person. Clean and simple. I'm very much in favor of this idea.

If you really want to see all the entries, they could be posted at the end of the competition for everyone to peruse.

 

[s2000lover]

This is exactly one of the reasons why I made the suggestion of NOT posting the final entries in a thread. It's a great pic but, the whole voting public has now been influenced BEFORE the voting actually begins. Whether or not Franz or 440 vote for this pic is irrelevant, someone who might want to enter the comp sees postings like this and decides that his entry wouldn't be good enough to enter when in reality his might just be better. But niether he nor the rest of us will ever know.

yea i agree, like on some other entires, some people would say, wow thats awesome! and then another guy would say the same, bt then when the guy chooses it,has to choose it (imo) otherwise the guys would complain about why he didnt make it etc etc...

 

[franz]

It's nice to say if someone's entry is really good
but I don't think it is necessary to pick whom you think it's good in the first place
it's okay to change your mind ...
its not like signing contract to love someone's work

 

[Swissbear]

That would be a little stressing during the week. I already am spending enough time running these competitions. Plus, I think it's interesting to let others know what they are up against. 👍

Slick, I'm not trying to belittle the wondeful job you're doing running these comps but, it seems to me that it would make it easier to "gather" up the "finalists" if they were all in one place. Whether that one place would be a generic email (Yahoo, Gmail, etc) than to weed through all the posts that end up in threads like this in a weeks time. The central place for entry would only need checking once a day to see if the entry is valid or not. Or just leave it until it's time to pick the Top 20 and let those "unfortunate" ones know that they weren't eligible because their entry didn't fit the theme or was enhanced too much by Photoshop, or whatever. I really don't see that it would be THAT much more (if any) work. Forgive me also if I make what you do seem trivial because it's NOT. Other than starting a thread for the new week of competition which includes the rules (copy and paste), the theme and the entry deadline there's not much more that happens in this thread until after the deadline. And correct me if I'm wrong but, the winner of week ?? selects the Top 20 and you create a poll with those pics in it. So the way I see it (and I may be WAY off base here) is that it would cut back on the amount of effort on your part and split it between you and the Top 20 chooser.

So, this is how I see what could happen for a weekly comp:

1. A "dummy" account is set up for final entry submissions This should be a one time thing as the same account could be used week after week. If the entries need to be saved for future reference, different folders can be set up to hold those entries. Most email services have WAY more storage space for free than will ever be needed for weekly picture storage.

2. Final entries are sent to that dummy account with the final entry picture as an attachment. This should be an attachment containing the link to the Imageshack thumbnail (as is done now) and the picture attached to the email so the person chosing the Top 20 can view the picture without having to open another link.

3. The user ID and password should be provided to the Top 20 chooser after the competition deadline. The user ID could stay the same (ie: GT4comps) but the password would be changed by the "organizer" a few days AFTER the Top 20 have been chosen.

4. The person who chooses the Top 20 makes his choices and informs the "organizer" of his choices. The "organizer" then creates the poll with the thumbnail links provided in the entry emails. And changes the password to the dummy account. Informs the ones that submitted an invalid entry (if not already handled during the week) why they didn't make the cut. Others that didn't make the cut, just didn't make the cut. There aren't any reasons given now as to why someone's picture didn't make the Top 20 so I don't see that changing. If someone didn't make the cut, then they can always ask what the reason was (which I'm sure is what happens now, if not, it should).

5. People view the poll, vote if they want and carry on as is already being done.

6. Winner anounced and is asked to pick the theme for whichever week he will be "responsible for".

I don't see much extra effort involved here except maybe on the participants part to get the thumbnail link into an email and to READ the rulles and READ the theme.

These are the only "competitions" (fun or serious) that I've ever encounterd that the participants see "what they're up against". So it seems to me that if this is how these will be now and in the future, then it will remain more of a popularity contest than a picture taking contest.

Doesn't mean I won't still send in my entries.

 

[Slick6]

I may give it a go in one of the oncoming weeks. 👍

 

[dori-san]

Damn, he has really thought this out... I think this is a fantastic idea!

And to add a bit more, since we can't add polls to threads already started I was thinking perhaps we could do it a little different so we don't have to start a new thread right away. For example, the poll is begun for one week, everyone gets to vote and post comments and stuff, and at the end of the week, the very last post will contain the rules and the theme for the following week. Then the thread is not even created until it's time to put the poll up.

I dunno, I just thought of this off the top of my head. What do you think?

 

[Slick6]

Does it really matter if we start more than one thread? I think start one with the rules and that stuff. I can close it right away and just leave the poll threads open at the end of the week.

I do see one downside to this way though, when a person is going through all those e-mails, it's not as easy to compare them, and second, there would be a ton of links and for someone on dialup, that would be a nightmare. That's just how I don't see this working the best for everyone.

 

[Brock5000]

I don't see much extra effort involved here except maybe on the participants part to get the thumbnail link into an email and to READ the rulles and READ the theme.

people have enough trouble following the simple directions already in place, this will just cause more confusion and discourage new entrants, not to mention the additional work that certain people will have to put into administering the comps each week.

don't get me wrong because I do think it's a good idea, but the current format works reasonably well and to change it would be rather disruptive for limited gain.

tbh I think a 'serious' comp like this would be better saved for special one-off comps, mabye even on an invite only basis like many real art competitions.

 

[dori-san]

...and second, there would be a ton of links and for someone on dialup, that would be a nightmare.

as if a 200+ post thread with hundreds of pictures isn't already hell on 56kers...

 

[Slick6]

I know, that's what I'm trying to say, here at lease all of the entries are on these pages and it's much faster than trying to view each image individually.

 

[//. /. '/]

but Dorisan how will you find hall of shame winners if you don't see the entries?