Weekly competition #117 - Street photography - Comments

I've set the next subject - 'Its a funny old world' - in the hope of encouraging a return of good humour.
david

OK I'll retry this post again due to user error(me):

Funny you ask Ken, because very recently I was told it was not advisable because it might scare away new members.

Regrettably.....but again the same answer as above seems policy, as I was told.

As you (the regulars) already know, I have ventilated my opinion regarding this issue several times on several occasions the last couple of weeks. This thread got me thinking about a possible explanation and/ or solution.

I really think, and this is strictly personal, the current weekly competition in its current form has lived its best days, and is heading towards a dead end street. The reason?? Quite simple....The forum has grown to big or.....in other words, a conflict of interest.
Let me explain, before the guns are drawn and the knifes are sharpened.

Since the forum implemented the new look, PUF as we knew it has now been firmly embedded in EPhotozine. and their website. See link at the bottom of that page.

Of course there is nothing wrong with that. They own it, manage it and want to make a profit. They should !! Obviously !
So basically the more members they get, the better.
Every regular who knows the old format will remember the promotion and persuasion to use the New Competition section for the weekly.
Well.......we did, and thereby killed the one thing that is the main foundation to that same competition. Forum participation and commitment!

A real Catch 22, right? People started to discover the "Weekly" and because it's so fun to get involved, they do. But.....regrettably,
far to often, they have no intention to participate on PUF itself.
Of course, there are a lot of new members who are involved and are a huge benefit for the forum as we know and love it, but the feeling as we knew it(still talking about the weekly Comp.) is gone. And now we are facing a possible situation were "entering the weekly" is measured and decided on, based on the judge who is presenting.

117 weeks ago, a member suggested a competition with nothing else to win as kudos afterwards and the honorable task to set and judge the next weeks theme. It was fun, everybody who felt strong/good enough participated and new members were most welcome. (I joined around round 20.) Because the competition was hidden inside PUF and was not promoted to the outside world, there was involvement and commitment from all who entered. Everybody knew what was expected, if you would be the lucky one winning. It even happened, that in case of absence or other not foreseen circumstances one of the old patrons would step in, and help out.

As a final thought:
With the current situation in mind, is there any viability to this format? And if so, what has to change?

or:

Should we forget about the weekly at that place (the gallery section) and re-introduce the idea on a weekly or perhaps two weekly basis on the regular forum. We than could skip the fortnightly and start of fresh, with reasonable certainty every member who decides on joining is committed to the cause and fully aware of the responsibility that comes with the winning/judging part.

And...For all the people who just stray arround and have no intention of participating on PUF actively, There is a nice competition found here, with real prices on no burden of judging whatsoever. So...nobody needs to feel excluded or left out.

Nuff said,

FWIW I'd vote for a change in the closing time too. 10pm London time is more practical for most of the people who have had the honour since I've been a member. Note not GMT - very partisan but we play with time like everybody else and we all work with the time our watch/PC tells us.....

A further 2p's worth - how about a 'sticky' containing the best hints and tips to help new judges - like one comment I've seen about making notes as the entries are made, and cutting and pasting it up when the competition is closed and winner decided upon? Not everyone is that well organised to have worked that out as a good idea.


Steve

It's probably true that moving the weekly to the forum would mean that only active forum members entered and that might well be a good thing.

Personally I'd be sorry to see the fortnightly go but if two competitions in the forum was confusing ...

Mike

Sorry if I'm being dense here but how can moving the weekly competition from the Gallery to the Forum solve the recent problems we've had? The difficulties we've just experienced have had little to do with the location of the competition

Ending time, is the time until you can submit a photo for the competition.
It's not the time a judge should start with judging, I believe many have done it on a Monday during the midday.
As long as we have a winner a Monday night so that he/she would have enough time to prepare his competition, I wouldn't mind waiting a bit longer for the judge to comment on every photo.

Well Mike....We are a long way from that, if ever.
It was only a suggestion to...indeed avoid confusion.
But think about the possible scenario.
One competition with a running period of two weeks.
No hard rule to shoot within the time frame of two weeks but encouraged to do so.(people have more time now, if they want to.)
Ending at 18:00 PM UK time mid week (Wednesday) giving the judge a fair time to cope with the comments.

@ David;
Your not being dense, but if you have read my previous post you would understand I am not referring to last weeks competition only. It is a process from several weeks that evidently is becoming a trend. At least.....IMO. Of course you don't have to agree. But I commented on a bigger problem that goes beyond last weeks experiences.
For me the link between this statement:
and the viability of the weekly competition format as we know and like it is paramount.

But again, its just my opinion and nothing more.

One problem with judging on a Monday is that it also reduces the time available for the next comp by a day.
I think that the 10.00pm cut off on Sunday night makes most judges work easier.

This the rule so judging should be done ASAP, cutting off 2 hours of the ending time shouldn't change a thing I believe.

Some here are forgetting the fact a bl**d* foreigner may actually win, and be in a different time zone at the same time.

The foreigner part spoken in the highest respect, obviously

Well said Martin, glad too see we scare them though.
They at least thought about us with the fortynight rules though.

It better be.... As the fortnightly was introduced and born out of a growing feeling of unhappiness (by some regulars) regarding the way the weekly was developing. How is that for a Dejavu?

So far as I know we never had problems with the fortynight, everyone was willing to pay their part for the competition.

Like you said, we are doing these competitions for us so if you're not willing to contribute some of your time for that you simply shouldn't enter.

I think our Dutch contingent are ganging up on us

Yeah...we are small in numbers, but have a great and powerful lobby.