Hi, I'm a newby here, hello to everyone.
This post in in 3 sections.
1. Firstly, has anyone ever entered a picture into a web-based competition, and been frustrated by unfair voting? I'm referring to the kind of contest where anyone can view the entries in the competition, and vote on them.
I've just entered one such competition, and noticed wide, wide discrepancies between different pictures.
For example, you see several mediocre pictures uploaded by the same person, which all have a ridiculously high number of votes ? Then you find other pictures which would grace the pages of National Geographic, yet only have a couple of votes, or none at all ? (PS. My pictures fall somewhere between these 2 extremes! )
Maybe entrants contact everyone they know, and ask them to only vote for their own pictures. I suppose this is understandable, but it's a shame if nobody actually looks at the other pictures ! This becomes a competition of how many email addresses/ Facebook/ web contacts you have, rather than a photography competition.
We should all have the courtesy to look at other photographer's work - it's a great hobby, and it's good to share compliments around, and get new ideas from other people's work.
Less understandable is when people deliberately 'vote down' other people's work. The competitive edge should push people to try harder in their work rather than sabotage other's. After all, we're talking creativity here, not war!
2. Secondly, does anyone have any ideas on how such competitions can be made fairer, without paying huge sums to web developers to create secure voting systems ? It's a nice idea having the public being able to vote, but it needs to be fair. The only answers I can think of are either making the website secure, with personal ID's, etc that only allow a limited vote to entrants, and preventing them voting for their own pictures (which would be expensive to pay for.) Or to just display the pictures, but completely remove the public voting element.
3. Finally, if anyone wants to add some fair voting to such a photo competition, I've included the URL below. I'm posting on here anonymously so there's no way I could be accused of unfair voting myself !
Note you can vote on several pictures from one screen if you look at the thumbnail screen. There are some great pictures in here, and more pictures keep being added, yet they either seem to attract 30+ votes at once (suspicious), or none at all !
http://photos.yearofhealthandwellbei...nail/top-rated
Either way, I'd be interested what other people think.