suggestions for rule changes March onwards
 

I am wondering if there could be a qualification for entry, say 10 photos posted and 20 comments made to ensure that the competition is actually for active WPF members rather than, as occasionally, a professional/near professional/occasionally professional photgrapher, posting only competition entries to chalk up more wins. Personally I never vote without first looking at the photgraphers gallery to see if the entry satisfies some definition of an active member.

I am not sure if WPF actually has a definition of aims, but it has self-defined itself as being friendly and encouraging, especially to younger and less experienced photgraphers and I feel that the proposed rule change would give that group a fairer chance

I think there is some merit in your idea Chris as we do get the odd fly poster. One good thing about not having a prize otherwise we could be flooded.

I'm afraid I disagree.

Firstly, if we start going down the route suggested by Chris then the question of time frame come into it - ie how many posts does one need to see over what period to continue to be considered an active member? My posting can be sporadic. Looking back I see that I've posted 7 images this month, but for a 3 month period Sep - Nov last year I only posted 2 so then I perhaps might not be considered an active member

Secondly, to me a great image is a great image is a great image

Even among the active members we have a great range of skills & experience so it is difficult to see how creating an entry qualification would give younger or less experienced members a fairer chance.

The only way I can see of doing that would be to have some sort of category system as most club competitions do - eg beginners, intermediate & advanced. That in turn implies some sort of ratings and promotions panel and separate competitions. As one of the people involved in organising our clubs internal competitions I know the amount of work involved in goin down that route.

As far as I'm aware all entires in external competitions/exhibitions are judged equally against each other and I my view is that should continue to be the case here at WPF

In competitions where I've witnessed the judging, it is usual for the judge not to be aware of who the author of the image is. They have to judge each image on its own merits. This therefore raises an interesting point, if members are making judgements about a member's worthyness to receive their vote - positive or negative (eg "not considered active", or "they won last month" or "they are a friend") then I would suggest that enties in the competitions should be unattributed/anonymous until the result of the vote is known

Having said all that, now that the competition has been running over 12 months I do believe that there is merit is reviewing the rules. Maybe members should post any rule changes they would like to be considered and see which receive general support. For example in the February Vehicle thread I saw Sassan proposing increasing the number on entries permitted per member. Now that would have my support, subject to an upper limit :D

The competition is open to ALL members new, infrequent, active, beginner and professional. There is no prize and its just for fun.

There is no bias for beginners and each photo should stand on its own merits when it comes to voting which is done by members.

Are you saying that only you and admin have control over the rules and don't propose to change them in the forseeable future? Might as well scrub the thread if that is the case

But I am not the only that has made suggestions for minor changes and thought it better to do it as an item in its own right rather than in comments on a particular month's comp and I would have thought a canvas of opinion for the rest of Feb could be constructive.

Chris, while I can see where you are comming from on the thread starter, 10 pics and 20 comments would be 3 days effort for a professional/near professional/occasionally professional photgrapher based on 4 a day upload limit. 20 comments easily done in one day. I would welcome more photographers from those catagories joining WPF in the hope that they would post generally for the benefit of all. I have 2 members in mind who have been really great for imparting their knowledge and posting inspirational pics in the gallery and/or comps, and I would hope others would follow their example.

I have to admit to being a bit unhappy that our mods who do not fall into those catagories are the first to have their pics withdrawn in case of overwhelming entries. I run a constant top 3, as pics are entered into the comp, and I don't mind saying it, but my favourite was gone come the voting last time. NOT A HAPPY BUNNIE. :( :mad:

I agree with what Clive has posted re splitting beginners, intermediate & advanced as that also relies on folks being honest enough to catagorise themselves honestly in the first place.

As I'm now on my 3rd 5.4 ABV I ought to stop before I get carried away, so just a few thoughts for the pot. :D

Don

As a relatively new member I would urge....Please don't change the rules!

When I was about 14-15 I went along to a local photographic club. Their comp's were split into different 'ability' categories. with my Battered secondhand Praktica I bought b+W film and chemical with pocket money, so 'naturally' went into beginner level. I destinctly remember a pompus old fart, Leica around his neck advising me why I should be in in the category I was in. I didn't mind...until asking him about developer to use for a particular film, and his advice about composition improvements etc. What a Joke that was! To this day I think the Leica for guy in that club was the automatic 'pass' to enter your photos into the 'expert' level!
Last time I heard, I think that club no longer exists!

The fact that someone can sign onto this site, submit a photograph to see what others think is fundamental, not just to this excellent site, but surely to the photographs and photographers involved in general.
whether or not someone has just uploaded the one photo here, or uploads 4 every 24hours, earns a living from photographs, is a new starter, uses gear costing £50 or £5000, is totally totally irrelevant!
In the same way that a cracking photo can be taken with the £50 camera and a poor one with £5000, whether or not a pure amateur or pro takes the photo shouldn't matter.
Yes, by pure percentage of 'cracking' shots is going to be higher for the pro who takes several thousand a week....but shouldn't that be a spur to others who perhaps don't take that many to take more photos....particularly those using digi gear...afterall, without film costs it is much cheaper. No one need spend a fortune on travel to far away lands to get those photos either. To quote something David Bailey once said, "if someone takes enough photos of a mushroom in their back garden, eventually they might end up with a cracking photograph of a mushroom"
I'm never going to be the best photographer in the world, I would hope I also never stop learning new things. Presumptions about who a member is, what they do it for, or what they do it with shouldn't be a factor....the photo uploaded here is.
As a photographer I love seeing other peoples photographs, and anything that might discourage the number of people submitting photos or the number of photos submitted is surely a bad thing for all here????
Freedom of too many constraints is one thing that makes this website so appealing. please keep it this way.

Being totally non-competetive as far as taking photos is concerned I must confess I've only entered a couple of the rounds so have'nt any particular comments to make. As a different way of praising/encouraging members perhaps we could have something on the lines of 'gallery of the week/month'. One of the mods could be in charge - members would send a pm with a nomination -top nominated gallery would be named in the forum and the member asked to choose 2-5 of their favourite pictures to add as thumbnails and to write a little about how they go about taking their pictures etc.
Just a thought .....I'll go away now....!

To reply to this and Clive's similar argument, I don't think it is quite irrelevent.

Someone who has posted 10 pics and made 20 comments has contributed something to the forum and it is that CONTRIBUTION TO that I am looking for before taking a win away.

I am also a bit unhappy about he idea that some images are 'winners' in an absolute way. I suspect some people of analysing other wins and adapting their style towards them. That leads to sterility. One of the strengths of this forum is the incredible variety of things members have thought worth shooting.

Chris whilst I take your point about people joining only to post in the competition and never to be seen again. I do believe you are wasting your breath in asking for admendments to competition rules. We have been here before many times and you will never get over the " Jobs Worth", "Rules are Rules" and "It does not fit this model or that model" culture.

To some extent I go along with Sue's (Greypoints) ideas. Competitions don't have to be overly competitive. What's wrong with running Sue's idea as well as the current format ?

I am afraid if mindsets are not prepared to be changed we just have to suffer in silence with what we disagree with.

I don't like the idea of splitting the entries by ability or experience but beyond that I don't much care. I would like to see something that would encourage people to vote and to look at all of the entries but I really don't know how you can do this. Perhaps a rule that we have to have voted in 2 or 3 comps before being able to enter one? The trouble is that could get really complicated and difficult to keep track of. Probably best to leave things alone.
I would, however, like to think that Admin at least considers suggestions from the members and I suspect that they do.

One would certainly hope so Dan. Photography is about the creative spirit but we see the same old rigid formats imposed on the forum. Whatever happened to a bit of flare ? Wheres the dynamics? Why can't we create new models, new experiences instead of the same old drudge ?

I would guess some of that flare, dynamics and creative spirit should be lead by the photographs entered, in order to avoid the drudge.
The images should lead the way.
I don't believe any ability or number of images rule should apply when entering these fun competitions. A prime example....Should my wife's (wisher) picture in last months comp be thought any lesser because she hasn't downloaded as many as me? I certainly thought her entry way better than mine.
Lets not get all bogged down in the politics, but instead enter the comps with images that are a bit different, and perhaps less obvious?

Personally I am in favour of keeping the entry requirements as liberal as possible. It is the nature of all forums that members come and go. Having scanned the winners to date the number of gallery postings by each winner varies from 2 to 110 - but I feel it would have been a shame if those great little terriers in "A Day at the Races" had been disallowed because it was the first of only 2.

If there were to be any changes to the rules I would like to see them trying to achieve 2 things:

- firstly to get more people to enter because I think it challenges you to think about and extend your photography.

- and secondly to get more people to vote. Everyone on here has an interest in photography and pictures and (IMO) those are the only qualifications you need to express a preference based on whatever criteria you deem important.

So changes I would suggest are:
- make it impossible to see the voting results until after you have voted (as is the case on BF).
- I am inclined to go along with the suggestion that postings should be anonymous until after you have voted.
- Make it impossible to vote for yourself.

Just to review the debate on suggestions for change to date.

In a nutshell Chris (Daedal) would like to see some device which prevents Pros from dropping their prize winning shot into the competition purely to put another notch on their belt and then never to be seen again.

Clive (Gidders) supports Sassan on allowing more entries per member. He also feels there is some merit in reviewing. He made the point about entries being anonymous to prevent friends voting for each other.

Don Hoey I feel would like to see some sort of change but maybe that was just the beer talking. :D

Sue (Greypoint) has a more radical idea to start a picture of the week/month with nominations from the gallery.

Nigel G welcomes changes to improve competition involvement. He would like to see the following changes. Make it impossible to see the voting results until after you have voted (as is the case on BF). I am inclined to go along with the suggestion that postings should be anonymous until after you have voted. Make it impossible to vote for oneself.

At some point a red herring was introduced about introducing ability levels. I don’t recall anybody requesting that.

Stephen Fox’s contribution was to wave the rule book at us.

It would seem that only Joe and Dan (Snowyowl) are completely happy with the status quo and at least 7 members have voiced that they would like to see some adjustment to the rules.

Joe Quote “I don't believe any ability or number of images rule should apply when entering these fun competitions.”

Joe does this mean you are in favour of multiply entries per member?

To be honest since the forum started I have grown tired of the pointless requests and debate on the topic of competitions because its rules appear to be firmly set in stone.

Unless somebody is prepared to tell me otherwise.

To clarify, no I meant number of images submitted by a member in general, in view of a ability or number of images a member has on this forum 'tier' system mentioned, not that more than one picture as an option to be entered in each comp.
er,....i still haven't put that quite clearly, but i hope my view is clearer.

RULE : In the event of an overwhelming number of entries Moderators and Admin will decide on a final short list, in this event any Moderators or Admin who entered the competition shall remove their own entry.

Question : What is an overwhelming number of entries given that membership currently stands at ..... Members: 2,078 rising.

In the last comp Christine, as a mod, had her entry withdrawn without the mods needing to vote on overwhelming entries as the field was 31. I noticed it was missing as it was due my vote. With this image removed we then had a field of 30 pics. I was not a ' Happy Bunnie ' as Christine always shows boundless enthusiasm for the comps and her encouragement to get members to enter is well known. For example Christines post 2 weeks in with only 3 entries at the time was the only reason I went to Norwich to get an entry for the Architecture comp. So in this case Christine, as a mod, having to remove her entry just to get to 30 really annoyed me. Now with thoughts of more than a single entry that would be as good debaring the mods from entering.

RANT OVER ....

I would add a proposal, that as there are a number of members who do not normally enter the comp, as its not their thing, that we have a small panel drawn from those members to be called on in the case of ' overwhelming entries ', so freeing mods to enter if they desire. As the membership increases, and now that Foxy is posting a huge list of suggestions with the comp notice the ' overwhelming entries ' is most likely on the horizon anyway.

On Nigels suggested changes :
I have never been able to see the votes cast before I've voted. I may be the odd one out, and if so, I agree. Make it impossible to vote for yourself I also agree.

While agreeing that entries being anonymous would be ideal, I do not know how the system could handle that, as the pic would need to be attributable to the photographer at the end of the comp. A rule would then need to be added preventing someone with lots of positive gallery comments then deciding to add it to the comp. as anonymity would be lost.

A picture of the week is certainly an interesting idea. A thought though, I went walkabout ( workshop ) for 4 days to be faced with nearly 300 new pics on my return, and I have still not caught up. So if it was of the month I suggest that unless we had a specific gallery catagory then it could be very hard to make a nomination. On the up side some way of doing a pic of the week should encourage comp entries as any nervousness to enter should be diminished, pic of the week being from ALL gallery submissions on that week. One would also hope it would draw more into voting in the main comp too. Additional 52 winners per year.

Don

Thanks to Robert for summary and to everyone else for throwing ideas into the ring

Am not that bothered about anonymity; if a pic is interesting, so is the gallery etc of who took it (assuming it exists). Especially in the quite frequent case that there are 3 or 4 of such merit that it is difficult to choose. In that case I personally would veer to a younger and/or more adventurous entrant. But I can see that more experienced people may see subtelties that I don't.

Other featured pics or galleries seem a good additional idea, especially when postings are coming as thick and fast as at present and one can have missed 50 or 60 when out of action even for a couple of days

Before this goes any further, it would be nice to hear from Admin as to whether they are prepared to seriously look at the suggestions and possibly act on them.
Without knowing that, then this is just an exercise in futility.

I’m sorry, Chris, but I have to totally disagree with you. Not because I am one of those cases you are referring to, but because I believe it may encourage more useless commentary like: Lovely picture - or - Nice Picture – or – Cool – or - Great stuff. See, I would have already gained 4 points. Wouldn’t even have to look at the picture, just drop off my comments as new images get posted. Not sure why they do it, probably to collect points to be called ‘senior’ or something. But I think you know what I’m talking about.
At the same time I also believe that ‘A truly great picture’ or ‘Absolutely brilliant’ may be all that one can/need say about some images, because there is just nothing more to say about it.

I don’t get as much time as I would like to browse in the forums and the galleries, so my commenting will be quite scarce. So will my album submissions. I’ll be lucky to get an entry in every month, but I will try. Since I’ve only got a ‘real’ camera for the last 2 years, I don’t have a picture stock to suit every competition.
Maybe an age limit of the submitted picture would be good. That activates people’s creativity, rather than make them dig through their old pictures.

I would completely agree with the suggestion that the pictures should be posted anonymously until voting is over. That would cut out personal preferences and other politics and would have people vote for the pictures. Unless I got it all wrong, it is the picture that counts, is it not?
The votes are not visible until one voted, anyway, and that’s the way it should be.

BTW, is it not impossible to vote for oneself as things are?

Well, our moderator doesn’t seem to feel too enthusiastic about changes. Just as much as this thread was answered with little enthusiasm, so was what I posted in last months voting thread
Mr. Fox only had the following to say:
rather than joining in with a cheerful: “Come on everybody, get voting!”

My following post, suggesting some small change on the site to encourage more voters didn’t receive any reaction.
In fairness, Mr. Fox did act on:
Although I don’t think it was purely in response to my suggestion :)


Summery of changes I would like to see:
Anonymous competition entries
Entries should not be older than 12 months
More links pointing to the voting page
More communication and enthusiasm by our moderator
More of:

Dear All,

All members of staff are following this thread with interest. We are always happy to hear suggestions from the membership. If there is a clear groundswell of support from a broad range of members, we will endeavour to act upon what has been suggested.

There are limits on what can be done, due to both the software used to run the site, and also ultimately because moderators do not have the final say in all this. This is Andy's site and what he says goes. Quite right too, it's his money that pays for it.

Moderators have an input into the process, just like regular members, but baiting us to respond will not work.

Thank you for your patience.

Whoa :( Time Out

Could we please try and maintain our reputation as a friendly site - some of this is getting unnecessarily personal towards Stephen. For those who don't remember - or weren't here - when we first wanted to start competitions a year ago we had lots of ideas but no-one to run it for us. It was Stephen who stepped up and voluntered to what is clearly - from the tone of some posts here - a pretty thankless task. Since then he has provided some monthly amusement for several of us and I for one am grateful.

I have been a member of a variety of clubs over time and have ended up on the committee of most of them and as chairman of 2. Of one thing you can be certain is that for every 10 people who will tell you how something should be run there is only one who is actually prepared to help !

Unless I've got special powers :eek: it is entirely possible to see how the voting is going before you cast your own vote. When you first look at the pole at the bottom right of the list is a link titled "Pole results" - Simply click on it and it shows the pole to date. Having found it by accident in one of the early competitions it is difficult not to look and difficult not to be swayed over relative merits - weak willed I may be but now I've told you how I defy you never to do it :rolleyes:

Most certainly not. How do I know - I've done it. :o My excuse is that having helped me take it my kids wanted me to, plus I genuinely thought it was good as any others on that occasion- a singularly rare event. In the outcome it came 1st equal and I then lost on vote off so poetic justice was done.;)

We are always willing to listen to views on the competition, though it has to be said that it has been running pretty well since its inception. And I would like to stress that it is absolutely no fun to set up and run, and Stephens job is not an enviable one.

It also has to be remembered that there are always software limitations to what can be done.

What I will say is that there will not be a qualification for entrants to the competitions, that has always been one our principal rules... i.e. if you're a member, you can submit an entry.

Other aspects are open to change though, and disabling the ability for members who haven't voted to see the current results will be looked into... This may well have been set to this default with a software upgrade to the site.

Another idea we have used before is to not permit comments on any photos entered for the competition until voting has finished, as many comments could influence voting.

The competition is just a bit of fun, that is why we have it... please don't take it too seriously or fall out over it.

cheers
Andy

When starting the thread I was only floating ideas and certainly had no intention of creating a..vehicle (?!)...for criticising Stephen or moderators in any way.

It looks as if for every opinion there is an equal and opposite opinion, which suggests that it is probably pretty well right as it is. Have also learnt a tiny bit about the decision making behind the scenes.

Thank you Andy and Duncan for clarifying the latter and of course Stephen for bearing with us past the sticky bits as well as doing the actual running work :) :) :)

My 10 penneth (for what it's worth!)
I don't care if the winning entry is taken by a first time novice or a seasoned pro - I just want see good images and be stimulated, ideally by a winning picture that is so good I would doubt my own ability to match it.
Secondly I think anonymous entries would be a good idea so nobody could ever be accused of favouritism (and I'm not pointing fingers).
Thirdly a gallery competition would be good as it proves someone can regularly come up with goods as opposed to getting lucky!

I hope thatyou aren't suggesting that I was baiting anyone. It certainly wasn't my intention. It just seemed foolish to continue the debate unless we knew that someone in authority was considering whatr we were saying.
I agree that the post commenting on Stephen was inappropriate. This forum and its sister forums wouldn't exist without his and other people's efforts.

I think that entries should be taken only during the month of the competition. It would make photographers think about and plan their shots. We may also get a few more innovative images (e.g. Mrs Y's entry for 'Blue').

This was put forward originally and I tend to agree as it challenges you to think about a specific concept. The idea could perhaps be made a little more flexible by giving advanced notice - say 3 or 6 months - of monthly themes, to allow a little bit longer for people in vastly different circumstance around the world ample time to find a shot they wanted to enter.

I don't think that this idea is very fair to those of us scattered around the World. There are great differences in what is available to many of us and while I recognise that the comp. catagories are broad enough to include all of us most of the time, why risk excluding some of us for no real point. This month, for example, the catagory is "Vehicles" and I would love to take a shot of our ferry. The problem is that it won't be free from the ice until May so unless I want a shot of an ice bound ferry, I'd better come come up with something else. Thinking about that, maybe it's not such a bad idea for an entry.
I think that the one year window is fair.

Hi been reading this thread with interest. Personally i have never had any problems with the rules for submitting etc.

For what its worth my opinion is "if it aint broke, don't fix it!"

Nogbad

Why not take a picture of the frozen river? The geography is a vehicle for the ice. Just trying to get you to think a bit differently, that's all. ;)

I think the competition as it stands seems to be quite successful.Look at the number of enties that were submitted last month.I myself would be against changing the rule to exclude older photograph.I find it convenient to use
something I took sometime ago with the view "that might be useful for a future competition topic".
Horace

My thoughts exactly, after all we are not playing for the Crown Jewells.

Ian

Aren't we. Oh!

and i thought it was only a bit of fun :confused:

Thanks Birdsnapper for the compliment about my "blue" entry. I didn't get any votes for this entry, but thoroughly enjoyed the experience of taking the photo, and learning new techniques.

I thought the idea of the comp was to have fun, or have I just missed the point completely??

Debbi

No doubt, the competition should be fun. But the fairer the voting system is, the more fun it is going to be. And in the end it should be about the best picture, not about the nicest lad or lassie.

I agree 100%

I am sorry if anybodies ego got bruised. My intention was purely to add support to those who would like to see some fine tuning to the system.

Stephen has done a splendid job in trying to promote the competition and at times it must of felt like he was flogging a dead horse.

We all have to remember that good communication is a two way process. Although in the past such suggestions may of been debated by admin from our side of the fence they appear to have fallen on infertile ground.

I am a member of a software development team. Among my many tasks of testing, bug finding and reporting, supporting engineers and project investigations I also have to act as a portal between the programmers and the real world. Over the years I have become a good judge on what software changes are achievable. But one fact of life is unless you ASK you stand next to no chance of getting what you want. The programmers response will be one of the following. YES OK the change is trivial or that change is non-trivial and needs Thinking about. On the otherhand it maybe NO because it will effectively wreck the code and we would have to re-start from sqaure one again. Which could be 10 years of work down the toilet.

A classic case is that it is easier to design an aeroplane to take 4 engines and only fit 2 than design it with 2 and come along later and ask for 4 engines.

A possible non-software option to achieving anonimity would be for entrants to e-mail their entry (together with title and any desired technical details or comments) to the Competition mod who could then upload them to the competition gallery using a unique login kept for the purpose.

Bit more work of course and I appreciate the burden that would impose but just a thought.