www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

This thread is here to allow you to cast your votes for the August 2008 competition. See entries at http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/phpBB2/g ... album_id=9

You need to be registered and logged into the forums, where you'll be able to cast your votes for your three favourites. Once you've voted, that's it!

**** PLEASE NOTE ****
I've spent some time looking for voting patterns, people who vote for themselves, and "suspect" registrations who seem to only vote ... for the same person!!! On that note - anyone reading this should take note that we'll be clamping down on persistent offenders who vote for themselves ... you know who you are (and we do too!). So please take heed.

This poll will run until September 20th.

So ... vote away! and good luck everyone.

Oops - I've prematurely set the voting up and peterGat's entry isn't in the list Unfortunately, people have already started voting and,if I add the new entry, the voting will be reset.

So - Peter - please accept my humble apologies, and please enter the photo in the September comp!

Cheers,

- Pete

Pete Eeles wrote: I've spent some time looking for voting patterns, people who vote for themselves, and "suspect" registrations who seem to only vote ... for the same person!!! On that note - anyone reading this should take note that we'll be clamping down on persistent offenders who vote for themselves ... you know who you are (and we do too!). So please take heed.
.

well there is a silver lining to scoring "nul points"....at least people know you haven't cheated

charles

who cheateth not neither doth he win

Why not have all entries submitted anonymously so that nobody knows whose photo they are voting for with an automatic ban on voting for your own photo? I must admit being bemused by some voting this month as to those that people have rated as worth a vote and those that have been left with no votes. Hey ho- stick to the day job!

Ian Pratt wrote:Why not have all entries submitted anonymously so that nobody knows whose photo they are voting for with an automatic ban on voting for your own photo?

In a nutshell - because it's too much work. Unfortunately, it's easier to use the forum facilities as they stand, rather than create something else. The only alternative is for someone to receive all photos, and then post them at the end of the month. I'm not sure that would "fix" anything. 2 people have voted for themselves so far, presumably because they didn't read the warning.

Cheers,

- Pete

The only way I can think of that it could be done, is for the entry's to be sent to me or Pete, probably me as I will be running the comps from now on, I would have to post them up, and then change them all the bleeding time as people what to change their entry's.

Maybe we should run a poll on it.

I agree no self voting, maybe we should deduct the offending vote at the end.

Gruditch

Gruditch wrote:I agree no self voting, maybe we should deduct the offending vote at the end.

We definitely should if the entry is in, say, the top 5 - since this is generally what we confim at the end. Everyone else was a "runner up"

Cheers,

- Pete

I can, but maybe the people who have voted for themselves cannot read and if it turns out they can, maybe they would stand down for the next monthly competition. Just a thought.

Yes - you're probably right Shirley - just give them a polite and private ticking off for their first offence They can then defend themselves in private if they made a genuine mistake!

Cheers,

- Pete

To be fair, I don't think we actually decree anywhere, 'Thou shalt not vote for thyself'! Pete does refer to 'persistent offenders', which pretty strongly implies we disapprove of the practice, but I think we should remain gentle and anonymous, at least for August - and post an unambiguous rule in September.

And no - I didn't vote for myself!

Guy

Ian Pratt wrote:I must admit being bemused by some voting this month as to those that people have rated as worth a vote and those that have been left with no votes. Hey ho- stick to the day job!

Don't forget that a picture unanimously agreed to be the fourth best of the lot would score 0 points and come last! I've just had a look through all the pictures currently scoring 0 and several of them were on my shortlist. I usually find one or two pictures demand my vote and then there's an element of luck in who gets the other one or two votes - there are so many excellent photos.

Guy

I too admit to being bemused by the criteria that some people use for their voting! Like Guy, I find there are usually one or two stand-outs and the last vote could have gone to any one of several others.....

Just goes to show that, as in all visual arts, some people have strange tastes......... or vote for themselves!
N

i must say i like the idea of this competition but also the way it works is very difficult for me. what i think is - all photos should be sent to one person is size no bigger then 800x600, less then 300kb, no signature on it, all photos should be posted at the end of month and there should be like 5 days for voting. it should be anonymus. we should be eable to give only 3 votes with disqualify for voting for own photo. and photos and voting should be in one thread so it's easier to see what i'm choosing - each photo should have number so it's easy to remember that i like for example 2,9 and 12 and i vote for them.

i don't know if it's just me but i took me long time to find photo i like then find the name of author and then find the same name on the voting list.

i'm not complaining . it's just that i think it could be done better. but even without any changes i'll keep voting and posting photos for this monthly competition.

Whoops. I just added an entry and then came here to suss out how voting for this new system works and realise that it must be open fior entries until the start of the 5th rather than the end of the 5th.

Guess I should have got my act together sooner. I'll have to wait until the themed comps now to submit anything from my swiss trip which ended 30th August. Doh!

Placed my votes anyhow. Tough this month. Lots of great entries again. so hard to choose!

Hi Marcin - there's a lot of history to these competitions, so let me cover some of your comments.

marcinklysewicz wrote:All photos should be sent to one person.

So - immediately someone has the burden of organising the photos, which can be quite time-consuming. Which is why we've tried to use the forum facilities for this.

marcinklysewicz wrote: is size no bigger then 800x600, less then 300kb, no signature on it

The new mechanism enforces a resolution and file size. Relying on people to abide by this simply doesn't work (take a look at some of the older competitions!).

marcinklysewicz wrote:all photos should be posted at the end of month

Since the photos are for the month in question, then people taking photos on the last day of the month would find this a problem. Which is why the competitions close on the 5th (normally - although I got it wrong this month!).

marcinklysewicz wrote:it should be anonymus.

I agree. Unfortunately, the mechanisms in the forum won't allow for this currently.

marcinklysewicz wrote:photos and voting should be in one thread

Given the new mechanism, this isn't possible.

marcinklysewicz wrote:each photo should have number so it's easy to remember that i like for example 2,9 and 12 and i vote for them.

Given the mechanism we're using, the "unique identifier" for the photo is the photographer's name.

marcinklysewicz wrote:i don't know if it's just me but i took me long time to find photo i like then find the name of author and then find the same name on the voting list.

The voting list was supposed to be alphabetically sorted, but I now see that names starting with a lowercase letter come after those in uppercase. We can fix this for next month. So finding the name in the voting list should be straightforward.

Cheers,

- Pete

FISHiEE wrote:Whoops. I just added an entry and then came here to suss out how voting for this new system works and realise that it must be open fior entries until the start of the 5th rather than the end of the 5th.

That's my fault It should have been end of the day. So - please feel free to submit in the September competition.

Cheers,

- Pete

Ah... I wasn't sure TBH pete. I dodn't usually leave it until the last minute so only skimmed the rules quickly a couple of days back to see what the date was. I guess 'until the 5th' could be taken as the start or the end really...

I'll take the offer of re-entering it next month though if I don't get anything else good

John

On a different subject, with apologies if this issue has been raised in recent times. I find it rather odd to be able to see 'scores' when voting for entries - this may influence some people - for instance, if they felt someone on zero deserved a vote, they may not bother, or doubt their own judgement....it may be interesting to see results of a vote where one cannot see the result until the end.

Paul

Unless it's changed for this month, you are only able to see the scores once you have voted. I believe the values were blank this month before I voted also.

FISHiEE wrote:Unless it's changed for this month, you are only able to see the scores once you have voted. I believe the values were blank this month before I voted also.

That's correct - you only see the scores once you've voted.

Cheers,

- Pete