September 2011 competition

[Pete Eeles]

I thing Gary's absolutely right; neither approach is perfect.

The only fair option would be an independent panel - as we do for the annual comp.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Ian Pratt]

I agree, probably the best solution.

[David M]

Why not judge it on an average rating but only for those photographs that receive, say, 15 or more appraisals?

After all, if a photograph is GENUINELY good, it is naturally more likely to attract such an appraisal, whereas the poorer ones will equally be more likely to be ignored.

[Pete Eeles]

Why not judge it on an average rating but only for those photographs that receive, say, 15 or more appraisals?

After all, if a photograph is GENUINELY good, it is naturally more likely to attract such an appraisal, whereas the poorer ones will equally be more likely to be ignored.

Which is exactly why the points system is used

Cheers,

- Pete

[Wurzel]

Why not judge it on an average rating but only for those photographs that receive, say, 15 or more appraisals?

whereas the poorer ones will equally be more likely to be ignored.

Ah, that's why I've never entered the photo comp's cheers for clearing that up for me Dave

Have a goodun

Wurzel

[Pete Eeles]

You'd be in good company because if that were the basis of voting, then all entries would have received 0 points and a rating of 0.0!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Susie]

I reckon it works just fine the way it is.

[David M]

You'd be in good company because if that were the basis of voting, then all entries would have received 0 points and a rating of 0.0!

My apologies. I didn't realise so few people actually voted.

[Pawpawsaurus]

I didn't realise so few people actually voted.

No image received more than 11 votes, yet there were 21 entries.

You'd hope that at least those people who'd submitted an entry would take the trouble to vote, wouldn't you?

Paul

[David M]

I didn't realise so few people actually voted.

No image received more than 11 votes, yet there were 21 entries.

You'd hope that at least those people who'd submitted an entry would take the trouble to vote, wouldn't you?

Paul

To be honest, yes.

I didn't vote this month, but in the past whenever I've entered an image myself I have felt obliged to rate everybody else's.

[andy brown]

Perhaps it should be a mandatory element of the entry is that you vote as well!

Andy

[David M]

Perhaps it should be a mandatory element of the entry is that you vote as well!

Andy

To be fair, there is a message encouraging you to do precisely that, though evidently half of all September's entrants did not do so.

[dilettante]

As someone who has entered once and voted a few times I can make some suggestions. Just my opinions, so feel free to ignore.

- I feel an obligation to rate every photo, or none. It doesn't feel right rating some, and by implication giving the others zero. So it's a daunting task, and often I can't be bothered (especially when it involves so many clicks and page loads). Another photo forum that I'm on has a system where you give 5 points to your favourite, 3 to your second, and one to your third. The winner is whoever has the most points. This sytem works well and is much less onerous on the voters, but may not be supported with the particular software used to run this site, and perhaps wouldn't work so well with relatively few voters.

- It's not that easy to find the galleries. It would help to encourage voters if there was direct link to the gallery in the post announcing the opening of voting. Similarly, it would be good if the winners' photos were included in the post announcing the results so we don't have to find the gallery, the scroll through trying to find the ones marked as Winner, Second and Third.

- Maybe some guidance on voting criteria would be good? I'm often not sure whether to rate an excellent picture of a common species higher or lower than an imperfect picture of a rare one. Should I be voting on aesthetic grounds, technical photographic skill, or rarity of the image?

[Gruditch]

Can you remember Pete, we actually changed to this format, so it would be less time consuming for us.


Regards Gruditch

[dilettante]

Can you remember Pete, we actually changed to this format, so it would be less time consuming for us.

Fair point! I think the voting on the forum I referred to is collated and analysed manually by the organiser, so is probably quite time-consuming for him. Votes on that forum are also public (people just post their votes in a forum topic), which means voters can be influenced by those who vote before them, and the winner is often obvious well before voting ends.

[Pete Eeles]

I feel an obligation to rate every photo, or none. It doesn't feel right rating some, and by implication giving the others zero. So it's a daunting task, and often I can't be bothered (especially when it involves so many clicks and page loads). Another photo forum that I'm on has a system where you give 5 points to your favourite, 3 to your second, and one to your third. The winner is whoever has the most points. This sytem works well and is much less onerous on the voters, but may not be supported with the particular software used to run this site, and perhaps wouldn't work so well with relatively few voters.

I think the voting being onorous is a good point. I'll look into this when I get a chance.

It's not that easy to find the galleries. It would help to encourage voters if there was direct link to the gallery in the post announcing the opening of voting. Similarly, it would be good if the winners' photos were included in the post announcing the results so we don't have to find the gallery, the scroll through trying to find the ones marked as Winner, Second and Third.

Agreed.

Maybe some guidance on voting criteria would be good? I'm often not sure whether to rate an excellent picture of a common species higher or lower than an imperfect picture of a rare one. Should I be voting on aesthetic grounds, technical photographic skill, or rarity of the image?

Whatever pleases you. That's the point - there is no single set of criteria!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Pawpawsaurus]

Similarly, it would be good if the winners' photos were included in the post announcing the results so we don't have to find the gallery, the scroll through trying to find the ones marked as Winner, Second and Third.

Just to add my 2p worth: could the default 'Sort by' criterion of gallery images be changed? If the ordering were by 'Points' rather than 'Time', then the winners' images would appear in their rightful places automatically, without the need for viewers to seek them out or reorder the page manually.

Paul

[Rosalyn]

If you click the link on recent tweets it goes straight to them.

[FISHiEE]

Congratulations to Nigel and Antonym who joined me on the podium this month. They were my top two. Nigel's technically the best perhaps, although Antonym's had a little more action and was perhaps a little more tricky to achieve. I tend to vote on the image I am presented with rather than perhaps what was involved in capturing it. The end result rather than the means.

Good to see Andy Brown made it to 5th with a photo from the same trip as my Small Heath. It was the first time he'd seen one and not what we expected when we visited the site. It turned out there were quite a few of them about but I could't get a shot of one. I was quite envious seeing it on the rear of his camera at the end of the day!

Ian - I hear you re the scoring, but it's been argued a hundred times... now that people have got more into the habit of voting for all or none of the images rather than a select few, the total points is now more reflecting the average, so we're almost there It's just a bit of fun and the way we have it works pretty well with minimal administration. It would be good to force voting, but suspect that requires manual involvement...

Pete - I do agree that it is a bit of a chore to vote for all, and if there is any way to make it a little slicker/quicker to scroll through and vote on all of the images it would perhaps encourage more voting.

Strange how nobody picked up on Hertsranger's image being taken outside september. It's a cracking shot of a stunning species, however as it wasn't taken in the qualifying period I didn't score it - Sorry if you're new here Hertsranger but the september competition images should be taken in september as stated. I know it's quite easy to get around the date issue however (don't set it correctly on the camera for example!) but if it's stated in the title it's a bit obvious.

If it's a rule it should be enforced, or at least highlight the issue to the photographer and give them the opportunity to upload something that qualifies?

[Gruditch]

Lighten up, he got 43 points

Hertsranger, over enthusiastically had originally entered 3 or 4 images. I contacted him/her by PM, pointing out you can only have one entry. As it was his/her first go in the monthly comps, and in IMHO, the image was never a real contender, I felt it a bit cruel to point out the date issue, and not to let them enter. My call.

Regards Gruditch