Weekly competition #519 Wheels

Thousands of years ago, don't ask me how many, the wheel was invented and for human inhabitants of planet Earth it was the start of a technological revolution that gathered momentum and changed lives.
This week's competition is to celebrate wheels - any sort. Vehicle wheels, wheels inside machines, for instance clocks, wheels-within-wheels bits of wheels, colourful wheels, black and white wheels ........its up to you.
Usual rules apply, Pentax cameras, or closely related clones only, you must be prepared to set and judge next week's competition if you win.
Deadline midnight BST Sunday June 25.

Just five entries so far... and there was me thinking this would be an easy subject with plenty of opportunity for variety.
David.

I am working on it David. JaneM & I spent the day at the Amberley Museum in Sussex and perplexed several people because I kept photographing just the wheels!

Back home I now find I have 152 photos to review and possibly process but hopefully I will have something to put in the competition soon.

Glyn

Use some made up names on some of the 152 new pics. That would boost the entry and make my job much more difficult.
David

Well I have got it down to 119 by filtering out the rubbish and removing duplicates. Of these 31 are specifically wheels while many of the others have wheels in them. I have got a couple of favourites but I am going to leave it until tomorrow so I can make a final choice with fresh eyes.

It was a good fun day out though and I can recommend the Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre for anyone who has a spare day in the south east. I was very impressed by the volunteers manning the various exhibits who were more than willing to stop and talk about their areas of expertise. I was captivated by the guy manning the cycle repair workshop by both his enthusiasm and knowledge.

Glyn

And finally I'm in

Glyn

A few more have trickled in = keep 'em coming.
David

Very disappointing to see so few people thanking David for his efforts.

It takes a lot of time, effort and commitment to run one of these competitions to David's standards and I think all entrants should just spend a few seconds writing a few words of appreciation.

Glyn

(Also posted in the competition comments)

Thanks for the thanks and to Glyn for his kind comments. But my satisfaction when judging these competitions is to see how different people interpret the various set subjects.
Over the past year or so I've been disappointed at the drop in entry numbers for the weeklies. I've been on this forum for almost nine years and I've always enjoyed the competitions. In my early days it was quite common to get 30-40 entries every week. Now 20 seems to be about the best you can expect. This is despite the fact that membership of PUF is now considerably higher than a few years ago.
I wonder if its time for a change in the format. Setting a subject and picking a winner is quite easy, the hard part is writing comments on every entry. I know this puts some people off. Is there another way of doing it - perhaps a voting system where the winner is chosen by popular choice. All the entrants in a competition could comment on their favourites, leaving that week's winner to just select the next subject.
Just a thought, any other ideas?
David

I commend you David, for sticking with the current system. I gave up, disheartened by the lack of entries when I had the occasional honour to do the judging. You're correct something is needed to enliven the competitions.

I know the USA forum use a voting system were the vote is registered by commenting on the entry. Anything is worth a try, but it will depend on what can be done and allowed by the capabilities of this site.

I've looked back at some of the weekly comps circa 2010 and around 20 entries each week seemed to be the norm then too.
Anyone who gives up entering due to lack of entries is perpetuating the problem!
I suggested a reader vote system late last year but it wasn't commented on further:
https://www.pentaxuser.com/forum/topic/judging-57058/p-0#comm596336
I suppose it would need to be determined who could take part in the judging, just other entrants or anyone. I can visualise a sort of Eurovision clique going on, I'll vote for yours if you vote for mine!
Further to my 2016 comment, it seems one person can increment the like count by repeatedly clicking on it!

True, but in my case it was at the same time I was contemplating leaving the forum all together, in the end I stayed on part time.

I think traffic is down a lot on the forum anyway, so there will naturally be less entries. I'm not sure that changing the format of the competitions will help if the forum is slow anyway.

Like David I have been doing these competitions for a long while and they have definitely changed. The first one I had to judge was back in 2008 and I got 36 entries which was somewhat terrifying. Fortunately someone had already explained that the best way to manage this was to write up each entry as it appeared.

Doing a quick search suggests that I have had to write up around 27 more competitions since then and none have beaten the 36 entries of the first. I also think I have the accolade for the competition with the least number of entries, of 4, for monthly competition #82, Preparations, in December 2011.

I agree that writing the comments is the hardest part and I have to admit that more recently, when in the privileged position to be asked to do it, that I am now trying to keep my comments a bit shorter.

I agree with Gwyn, traffic seams to be down significantly from those early days. I think having an inspiring but open subject is also key to getting a reasonable number of entries (which I now consider to be anything over 10). However we have covered so many subjects that I find it quite difficult to come up with something new.

Again like David I also really enjoy these competitions and would like to see them continue. They have certainly boosted my skills and confidence and in recent years have encouraged me to volunteer to judge my local club's annual competition.

I am not sure what the best way forward is but it would be heart breaking to see these competitions end.

Glyn

It's interesting that you perceive traffic to be down, when in fact it's considerably up, and dramatically so. There are routinely 500 or more people online, whereas it used to be around 100 or so in the times you are thinking it was up.

As for the competition, a lively subject tends to result in a lively entry. The more obscure subjects do not do well. I would suggest something like "red" will get a much better response than, say, "The passion of life" which needs interpretation.

Everybody can join in with the competitions, and if we haven't done so recently then time to get JPEG to site and have a go.