Reflections on 2 years of the Fortnightly Challenge
 

Two years ago I set myself the personal challenge of entering every fortnightly challenge that year, something I continued through 2014. As we are now in 2015 (just) I thought I would look back on how its gone.

As far as the competition itself goes

• Over the 2 years there have been 38 challenges attracting 290 entries & 481 votes.
• The highest number of entries on any particular challenge was 12 (twice) and the highest number of votes was 17
• The lowest number of entries was 4 and the lowest number of votes was 9
• In one challenge not even all the competitors voted :(

Anyone any thoughts on these numbers?

Personally

• I won the first challenge of 2013 & the last of 2014 - A good way to start & finish :)
• Overall I've won 11 outright & been joint 1st in 3 more
• My biggest win was with Waiting for Clients with nearly 75% of the vote
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• Probably the image I had most fun (and made most mess) creating was Strawberry Splash
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• Two of my entries went on to become POTWs

& I'm very pleased with how its gone.

As far as 2015 is concerned, I dont think I will undertake to enter every challenge, but I will still enter challenges where the subject inspires me.

An interesting collection of numbers, an observation (question would be more accurate) would be why do not more members take part in the fortnightly challenge.

WPF has 6,995 members, even assuming 90% do not post pictures that leaves 700 active members (Clive could probably tell us the actual figure).

I notice 22 members visited the site in the last 24hrs double the average numbers entering . I think the format is fairly good as is the subject matter generally.

I have just taken over as Comp manager on a Flikr site and found last month by increasing promotion we more than doubled the entries. Is there anyway of sending a message to all members fortnightly promoting the comp with maybe the to/from date and subject matter?

It may be some members have just forgotten about this site as we all get distracted by other sites, competitions etc.

I don't know if there is data available on members who've visited in, say, the last X months and if there is, is there's a way of sending a group message, but I'll try & find out - its probably a question for Andy or Ollie

When I've been in the chair I've tended to post an image in the gallery promoting the comp, although I've not got round to doing it for this one yet - note to self - job for tomorrow. It might help if we all did that, & then encouraged entrants to post a comment something like "my entry's in :)"

I think the other thing is the dissapointing number of people who vote - somethimes is barely any more that the participants. Any ideas how we get that up?

My thoughts on the topic, much debate in this area has been held since the site was set up in 2005. Some of the issues cannot be overcome because of the limitations of the forums software.

To be honest the site has become a picture viewing gallery and very little on the discussion and activity of photography. Some past members were very active on DIY projects and tutorials.

I would be highly surprised if more than 50-60 members could be considered as regular over the past year. The annual birthday e-mail may prompt a few old members to stick their nose for a short period.

During 2014 my photography has had to take a back seat due to my wife's health issues over the past 12 months. The local hospital has almost become my second home.

With regard to the Fortnightly Challenge I do keep an eye on it's activity and try to enter if the subject inspires or is possible in my rural location which does not lend itself certain subject matter.

With regard to voting ( I maybe wrong but I notice a pattern of many entries just getting 1 vote) I feel there is an element of some folk voting for themselves either to increase their chance of winning or just to see how the voting is going. Personally I feel you should not be allowed to vote for yourself. In recent times when I've entered I've never voted for myself and only voted for a image with merit and usually from a newcomer rather than one of the regular winners.

How you attract and keep new members has been an age old problem here. But I can't help feeling that a steady and constant flow of information, discussion and activities is part of the solution. To be honest if I want to keep up with the buzz on photography I pop over to birdforum or dpreview.

Those of us that have stuck through it thick and thin over the years have become good friends even though we have never met in many cases.