Voting competition #1 - Cycles

OK, we're going for an anonymous competition this time. Stefan(Anvh) is going to act as overseer.
You send your photo to him, either by e-mail to [email protected]">[email protected],
or a link to it via PM.
He will then put all the entries on a specially made Photobucket account.
This means photos can be no longer than 800pixels on the longest size, and must be at least 80% compressed.

He will then link all the photos to a thread for voting.
Correct any of this is I have it wrong Stefan .

Do not submit your photo here - do it as I have just stated.

Hope that's all clear .

The subject is a broad one, inspired partly by Mowog .

Cycles - bicycles, motorcycles, life-cycles, hertz. Make of it what you will. Hopefully it will get you thinking and entering.

A new photo would be nice, but an old one is better than not entering at all .

You have until 15 August to enter. Stefan will then start a new thread, with the photos and you can then vote for your favourite from 16 -22 August.

Good Luck and have fun

Great theme, very broad so I hope for a lot of entries and no correction needed Gwyn
It does get seem a bit complicated this way though when reading it, I hope everyone understands what needs to be done if not just ask here or PM Gwyn or me if needed.

Gwyn, I've one question though, is there a limitation on the date off the photos or can be as old as we want them to be?

As Gwyn does actually say -

Good call Gwyn.

oops

Already got one entry btw

Where is the first entry?

It will be posted along with the others at the end of the three weeks. You then have a week to view and vote.
It's the easiest way to do it anonymously and to cut down on the number of threads needed.

I'll be honest with you, not keen on that idea. Who is going to send an internet competition entry into a black hole for three weeks without seeing something happening?

However, I guess we will see what happens.

Well you didn't like having so many threads for one competition, so this is the way to reduce it to two threads.
If you are happy with three threads again maybe Stefan can start a thread and link to the entries.

I actually quite like it this way - it will be interesting to see how many people come up with a similar idea independently of each for instance.

What do others think??

Actually, that's a good point, I hadn't thought of that - its quite easy with a lot of competitions to see an entry from someone else and think "wow, that's great, I can't match that" and give up - especially true for the weekly!

My concern is that there is a danger of creating a clique of members who, unintentionally, exclude quite a few people, especially new members. We have already been accused of this even when competitions are obvious and open to all. This one at the moment is closed and concealed and any newcomer to the forum could easily miss it altogether. What will they think when a mass of entries appears all at once, except that they weren't invited in?

I would suggest that the mechanism for this is clumsy at best, but we should see the entries as they appear so that we all know something is happening. This could be achieved in one thread at first. The voting thread could be the one with the poll and after voting the point at which discussion is taken. Two threads like the Fortnightly competition?

Later there may be a more automatic option if the idea proves to be a winner.

Not sure what "80% compressed" means. Even then this might be tricky for some folks using auto-everything software.

I wouldn't mind a monthly competition, on here, not anonymous, which is the Photo of the Month. There's no subject, just your best attempt. Runs from the 15th of each month to the next 15th, thus the competition for any day in July 2010 would run from 15 July to 15 August 2010. Voting is done after closure (thread is locked) by a website poll, so no judges need be appointed and no one need write out a massive judge's comments. Any comments, etc., which can be made by anyone, go into a separate thread. Just an idea.

You could just let people host their own images, and send the overseer the link. I know you could work out who's image it was if you were clever about it but would people really bother? Agree with John that revealing the images as they are sent, or in batches, would help create interest but it buggers up the poll!

As far as 80 percent compressed is concerned, not sure what that means or whether it's necessary. Why not just say max. 200mb.

I agree with John, why not post all the entries as they are sent in and only place the poll thread on here after the deadline for entries? I think it's more fun and open if we can see the entries as they come in. As for the size of entries, why specify compression? As Pentaxophile says, why not just specify 800 pixels and a maximum file size?

I like the idea of a voting competition - I don't think there can be any dispute over whether the winning entry deserves it or not. As to anonymity, I am ambivalent. The only reason I can see for it is to prevent votes for the photographer's reputation rather than the photograph. Does that happen here? However, it does therefore necessitate someone volunteering to host and post all the entries and I can see that becoming a problem.

I know I haven't taken part in the recent comps, but FWIW I agree with John too.

I also don't see why a separate PhotoBucket account is needed - surely just a link to a suitably hosted picture that's no bigger than 800 pixels on the longest side. People can then enter their own photos. Once a pic is reduced to the right size it's rarely bigger than a couple of hundred KB - is there any need for an additional file size limit?

Is it possible to add a poll, but only after the closing date, given suitable privileges? If so, the pics could accumulate visibly until then, and voting could then ensue. At the end of the voting the winner could be declared and discussion could commence.

It could all be on the one thread, then, couldn't it? Sorry if I've missed too much of the earlier discussion to be making much sense..