Should we have a points system?
- Thread starter treefingers
- 57 comments
- 1,687 views
- 27,387
- Toronto
- NewAesthetic
- SlipZtrEm
While I'm still not too enthused about this whole idea, since I figure it's inevitable I might as well offer some suggestions.
Brock, your point system is alright, but I think that the point spread is a bit too much for the proposed length of "seasons". Basically if you're not consistently placing on the podium you're completely out of the running. Though, there's disadvantages to basing points strictly on the amount of votes, too.
Which brings me to a second point, which conveniently sidesteps the point spread somewhat: no seasons. But to make sure that everybody has a fair shot at the lead, base it on a points average. I'm not quite sure about how to treat people who enter occasionally, but this does mean that a new member doesn't have to wait 3 (or 6) months to even have a chance. Maybe only include people who have been in the comps for 2 of the last 4, or something? I'm no good with these things, but having such long seasons is dangerous with something that is still a videogame. Six months might give us what, three or four full seasons until the next game? Though, I'm sure PD would double that length with delays
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Brock, your point system is alright, but I think that the point spread is a bit too much for the proposed length of "seasons". Basically if you're not consistently placing on the podium you're completely out of the running. Though, there's disadvantages to basing points strictly on the amount of votes, too.
Which brings me to a second point, which conveniently sidesteps the point spread somewhat: no seasons. But to make sure that everybody has a fair shot at the lead, base it on a points average. I'm not quite sure about how to treat people who enter occasionally, but this does mean that a new member doesn't have to wait 3 (or 6) months to even have a chance. Maybe only include people who have been in the comps for 2 of the last 4, or something? I'm no good with these things, but having such long seasons is dangerous with something that is still a videogame. Six months might give us what, three or four full seasons until the next game? Though, I'm sure PD would double that length with delays
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- 2,110
I love this idea, let's give it a shot and see how it goes.
- 1,457
- United Kingdom
- Seven25
- Seven25
Seems ok, but it means more work for people, I guess there could be a sticky which can be updated every week, but with new people coming and going from competitions it could get messy, we could just have an option for people to opt in at the beginning of a season
I'm on bored with this, I think the Comp "hosts" should tally their own numbers, and then submit them to treefingers, I do think we should go back through all the past comps too, and I agree that PS/PM should have the highest points for first , that should also drum up some more entries for all the contest (maybe getting to 100 gets a free weeks of premium membership?)
, that should also drum up some more entries for all the contest (maybe getting to 100 gets a free weeks of premium membership?)
- 8,480
- P_Balance
I don't think we should go back and tally all the pionts. Some people havn't been around here for that long, and they are going to get buried behind all those people (Some of which don't even come on to GTP anymore.) I think we should just pick a week to start and start from scratch. Plus, I can't think of any volunteers that will be willing to go back and tally all those things. What about those competitions that arn't around anymore. Are you going to tally all those up too?
- 1,257
The reason I recommend equal points for all comps is that it is biased to those whose skill lies in a particular area, ie photoshop. Who is to say there is any less skill in a winning shot that has no tweaks?
Take the rallymode comp, which specifies no use of photoshop at all. One could argue that to come up with a great shot with such restrictions takes more skill thank to tweak one. Case in point my winning entry for week 34 - without substantial contrast it would be nothing. Likewise I won the photoshop competition with a simple black & white t-shirt against far more elaborate and time consuming efforts.
I can understand people wanting greater reward for putting in more time, but that is not necessariy fair, or even the case. To offer equal points for all does not discriminate against anyone and will provide a more valid comparasion in the long run.
Take the rallymode comp, which specifies no use of photoshop at all. One could argue that to come up with a great shot with such restrictions takes more skill thank to tweak one. Case in point my winning entry for week 34 - without substantial contrast it would be nothing. Likewise I won the photoshop competition with a simple black & white t-shirt against far more elaborate and time consuming efforts.
I can understand people wanting greater reward for putting in more time, but that is not necessariy fair, or even the case. To offer equal points for all does not discriminate against anyone and will provide a more valid comparasion in the long run.
- 8,480
- P_Balance
Leave it to Brock to explain it all. When something sounds that good, you just assume it's all true.
- 3,626
- Sydney
- Gai-Gun
I don't know. Perhaps I feel that the points system is not a good idea. It seems there are a few people who consistently put in the effort and produce good shots. Even if they don't win the week they garner a lot of votes. I think this would be discouraging to a person who doesn't get picked for the top 10 or 20 every week. It also diminishes that one great week you may have. I have been lucky enough to win one week of the competition. That week, I was the happiest man alive. I had produced a shot that others also greatly appreciated. If there were a point system, even with that week I would have found myself in obscurity near the bottom of the points spreadsheet. Instead of having one week where everyone has an equal chance to be 'the top dog', we are going to see certain people gaining a big points lead and discouraging others from competing.
I believe this issue came up not so long ago in the Weekly Race Series.
I believe this issue came up not so long ago in the Weekly Race Series.
- 754
I've finally found enough time to sit down and post some tidbits about this.
I think that a points system wouldn't necessarily reward users with a "quality" entry week after week. We all know that many times a "quality" photo doesn't even make the polls or win them. So, in my very humble opinion a points system will only "reward" a user that has had the most popular entries week after week. I'm not saying it's a bad idea but, I don't think that it will reward users for the real reasons that a point system would reflect a "champion".
As the "host" of the Rally competition, I was glad to see the change of the single point awarded to making it into the poll only if there are more than 20 entries. So far in 24 weeks of the competition there has only been 1 week of more than 20 entries. I like Brock's idea of the same number of points awarded regardless of the competition. Just because the Rally competition doesn't allow modifications of any kind doesn't mean that it's easier to get a "quality" picture than one that has had hours of Photoshop work done to it. It just means that there haven't been as many hours spent modifying the photo. I'm sure there are some users that spend 3-4 hours choosing the "right" photo to enter in the Rally competition and/or in the "regular" Photomode competition that allows a few Photoshop tweaks.
Someone mentioned that the winner of competition wouldn't be able to enter the week following a win. Again, the Rally competition (and I think the Photoshop competition) is different in the fact that IF there are less than 20 entries the previous week's winner may enter the competition following his/her winning week. Therefore, in these competitions, in theory, a user could win several weeks in a row and pull out to an insurmountable lead over the users that enter only the "regular" Photomode competitions. So are we asking to alter the Rally competition rules so that the previous week's winner can't enter after winning? Not a problem for me but, the ones that enter the Rally competition would also have to agree to that. Maybe a point system will help generate more interest in the Rally competition.
IF a points system were to be introduced, I would suggest that each competition keep track of the points for that competition only. There are some users that enter only one of the competitions and there are others that enter every one of them. Again, if we're looking for "fairness" between the competitions it wouldn't be there. I don't think that an "overall" point system would reflect a true "champion" Photomode photographer. It seems that it would only reward those that enter several competitions a week. If a user wishes to only produce greatly modified Photoshop pictures and only wishes to enter the Photoshop competition and is always in the top 2 or 3 in that competition, he/she would be at an overall disadvantage to one that enters all 5 current competitions. But then again the user may not be interested in the points but, only in winning the respective competition that he/she enters.
So, there again it wouldn't reflect a true "champion" just reward the one (or ones) that have entered several times and/or had the most popular entries. A user may produce the most astounding Photoshopped pictures imaginable but, he/she would be mired in the lower half of the "standings" because he/she only enter one competiton a week. Or vise versa in the Rally competition. The best "stock" photographer wouldn't be in the "running" for the "overall" win because he/she doesn't want to (or can't) enter any of the other competitons. And what of the user that has less time to devote to taking pictures. Again, we'd be rewarding the one (or ones) that can devote more time to entering the competitions than others. Therefore, as I mentioned, a points tally for each competition unto itself seems to be an alternative to an "overall" tally.
In some respects a point system may increase the fun of entering the competitions but on the other hand it may take away from it too. As someone has already mentioned, sometimes these competitions are taken way too serious for what they are. I'd hate to see someone get all bent out of shape because they were only a couple of points behind the next one up and a photo that he/she thought would be picked into a poll and doesn't make it blame the one picking the poll for being predjudice about who gets into the poll. That's another factor that would play into the points....favoritism. There are many things that any one of us can say are good or bad about a point system but, in the long run, there's only one way to find out.
I think that a points system wouldn't necessarily reward users with a "quality" entry week after week. We all know that many times a "quality" photo doesn't even make the polls or win them. So, in my very humble opinion a points system will only "reward" a user that has had the most popular entries week after week. I'm not saying it's a bad idea but, I don't think that it will reward users for the real reasons that a point system would reflect a "champion".
As the "host" of the Rally competition, I was glad to see the change of the single point awarded to making it into the poll only if there are more than 20 entries. So far in 24 weeks of the competition there has only been 1 week of more than 20 entries. I like Brock's idea of the same number of points awarded regardless of the competition. Just because the Rally competition doesn't allow modifications of any kind doesn't mean that it's easier to get a "quality" picture than one that has had hours of Photoshop work done to it. It just means that there haven't been as many hours spent modifying the photo. I'm sure there are some users that spend 3-4 hours choosing the "right" photo to enter in the Rally competition and/or in the "regular" Photomode competition that allows a few Photoshop tweaks.
Someone mentioned that the winner of competition wouldn't be able to enter the week following a win. Again, the Rally competition (and I think the Photoshop competition) is different in the fact that IF there are less than 20 entries the previous week's winner may enter the competition following his/her winning week. Therefore, in these competitions, in theory, a user could win several weeks in a row and pull out to an insurmountable lead over the users that enter only the "regular" Photomode competitions. So are we asking to alter the Rally competition rules so that the previous week's winner can't enter after winning? Not a problem for me but, the ones that enter the Rally competition would also have to agree to that. Maybe a point system will help generate more interest in the Rally competition.
IF a points system were to be introduced, I would suggest that each competition keep track of the points for that competition only. There are some users that enter only one of the competitions and there are others that enter every one of them. Again, if we're looking for "fairness" between the competitions it wouldn't be there. I don't think that an "overall" point system would reflect a true "champion" Photomode photographer. It seems that it would only reward those that enter several competitions a week. If a user wishes to only produce greatly modified Photoshop pictures and only wishes to enter the Photoshop competition and is always in the top 2 or 3 in that competition, he/she would be at an overall disadvantage to one that enters all 5 current competitions. But then again the user may not be interested in the points but, only in winning the respective competition that he/she enters.
So, there again it wouldn't reflect a true "champion" just reward the one (or ones) that have entered several times and/or had the most popular entries. A user may produce the most astounding Photoshopped pictures imaginable but, he/she would be mired in the lower half of the "standings" because he/she only enter one competiton a week. Or vise versa in the Rally competition. The best "stock" photographer wouldn't be in the "running" for the "overall" win because he/she doesn't want to (or can't) enter any of the other competitons. And what of the user that has less time to devote to taking pictures. Again, we'd be rewarding the one (or ones) that can devote more time to entering the competitions than others. Therefore, as I mentioned, a points tally for each competition unto itself seems to be an alternative to an "overall" tally.
In some respects a point system may increase the fun of entering the competitions but on the other hand it may take away from it too. As someone has already mentioned, sometimes these competitions are taken way too serious for what they are. I'd hate to see someone get all bent out of shape because they were only a couple of points behind the next one up and a photo that he/she thought would be picked into a poll and doesn't make it blame the one picking the poll for being predjudice about who gets into the poll. That's another factor that would play into the points....favoritism. There are many things that any one of us can say are good or bad about a point system but, in the long run, there's only one way to find out.
- 724
Keeping the competitions seperate, and not having an overall score, seems like a reasonable idea. That way the points can be the same for all competitions, and theres no reason to argue about which competition should get the most points. We'll try it like that until the end of the year, to see how well it works. Then we'll start it over again at the beginning of next year, and make any adjustments(if any) that we feel is necessary. Points will most likely start with next weeks polls.
- 502
- California
- dangerorange
Just a way off hand thought... But, Ive been thinking about it for a while & I think it would be cool to have a photomode 3.0 comp, strickly winners... So have to have won one of the weekly comps to be able to enter... It would be the hardest comp & the type of theme would be chosen by the winner much like it is now, but it can include photoshop themes, rally, etc... The WINNERS CIRCLE... what do you guys think?
- 754
Been there....done that....follow this link......Danger Orange
http://gtplanet.net/forum/showthread.php?t=70081&highlight=masters
- 2,110
I see we have the points thread up.
- 1,720
- Helsinki
- atlop
I don't think they will be added. But I must say the timing of this sucks big time, I won two competitions the previous week.jacoja06Great, the points are up 👍
...It's just a pain that my previous wins were not counted.
Shouldnt they be added?
Ah, well... 
By the way, does this mean the HOF is discontinued? I noticed some of the competitions have not been updated?
JacoJa
Premium
- 2,327
- Australia
LOL... Bumber... I certainly agree with you on the timing.atlopI don't think they will be added. But I must say the timing of this sucks big time, I won two competitions the previous week.
The hall of fame will continue 👍 . At the end of each week It is my job to send a PM to Slick6 on the winner of each weeks Advanced comp (with the Winner name, thumbnail, and theme). I'm usually on track, but Slick has just taken a while to get updated in the past few weeks.atlop
- 39
- Invicta
- Kitalamano
I agree with gt4rallycomp in some points, but I must push the envelope a little bit further...
I think that a system of points is just dumb. It goes against all the spirit of the "competitions" in question. I don't consider these to be competitions, because we don't have a qualified jury to choose the final 20. All we have are a bunch of GT4 fans sharing each other some nice shots.
I've been following these competitions for some time now and I realised that some of the pictures hitting the final 20 are very poor, but this is from my point of view and taste. For the user that choose them, they are good.
To conclude I just say that if you want to start a point system, we must have some warranty that the final 20 pictures really have quality/beauty/reality. If that doesn't happens, I must assume that someone is thanking something to someone. And if that is true, we'll have a bad/fixed "championship".
Cheers
I think that a system of points is just dumb. It goes against all the spirit of the "competitions" in question. I don't consider these to be competitions, because we don't have a qualified jury to choose the final 20. All we have are a bunch of GT4 fans sharing each other some nice shots.
I've been following these competitions for some time now and I realised that some of the pictures hitting the final 20 are very poor, but this is from my point of view and taste. For the user that choose them, they are good.
To conclude I just say that if you want to start a point system, we must have some warranty that the final 20 pictures really have quality/beauty/reality. If that doesn't happens, I must assume that someone is thanking something to someone. And if that is true, we'll have a bad/fixed "championship".
Cheers
- 1,720
- Helsinki
- atlop
kitalamano
I think in order to have a truly fair competition as you suggest you would need to go even further than what you said. First, what kind of choices this qualified jury could make? Usually the themes are defined so broadly that people take very different approaches to their work, and choosing between the photos is often nothing more than comparing apples and oranges. To be able to make real comparisons you should at least make sure people are on the same 'mission'. But I'm sure most of us don't want strictly defined themes that would take away most of the artistic freedoms.
While this may be a common problem in any art competition, professional or not, there is a further problem, the voting system that we have. To be able to only vote a photo that you think is "best" sucks. In any real artistic competition the jury (in our case the whole community that votes) should be able to give points to each work individually. Try to imagine an olympic ice skating competition where the (nine ?) judges only would speak up once, each telling which performance he/she thought was best and saying absolutely nothing else, and nothing about the other performances. While they could get the winner right this would not make much sense to anyone else involved, including the audience. Because even if the audience would only care about the winner (which is not true), this system would take away the information how much better the winner was according to jury, and better than who exactly.
This is however the system we have here, and the votes affect the points at least as much as who is selected to top 20. But I would say for us this works better than you would think, and this is exactly because the voters are not professionals. If there was a qualified jury voting based on some strict criteria, as would be necessary if we really wanted a truly fair competition, this would lead to the votes concentrating to just a few photos because of the voting system. But now that us non professionals happily vote using whatever criteria each of us have the votes spread out much more and it makes sense to talk about second and third places etc.
So I would say the whole thing we have is based on the fact that all decisions are made by 'non qualified people' (meaning people voting out of their personal preferences instead of some structured manner). It's never 100% fair, but IMO it makes this also more fun and just enough unpredictable. Also there is nothing that can be done about it unless you change the voting system first. And even if it would be possible to vote for 2nd and 3th best photo etc (which I would very much like) I don't think it would be a good thing to make this more 'professional'. At least now the community can run it's own show here.
- 84
im sure i missed somthig but what do we get if we win?
- 39
- Invicta
- Kitalamano
I couldn't agree more with you atlop, and that's why we shouldn't change our voting system, introducing a new criteria of "championship points".
I believe that if this principle is changed we'll loose our competition inocence. People will start thinking that are better than others, just because they have more points...
If people want this sort of ranking, why don't they start a new Thread!!!
All I want to preserve is this healthy environment among all the Photomode Competition users!!!
Cheers...
I believe that if this principle is changed we'll loose our competition inocence. People will start thinking that are better than others, just because they have more points...
If people want this sort of ranking, why don't they start a new Thread!!!
All I want to preserve is this healthy environment among all the Photomode Competition users!!!
Cheers...
