I hate to resurrect this thread, but it seems like we may need to improve our current contest method in some way. And it would be nice if you guys can voice your opinions. I am in no way responsible for past or future contests, but I'd like to improve the way they are done. Plus, for whatever reason (which I don't mind), I seem to hear a lot of bitching and moaning from some people here.
Let me start by saying that I've received some positive and negative feedback on how these contests are run. I'm glad some people are taking these contests somewhat seriously. One thing to keep in mind is that these contests are for fun, they have no prizes (except perhaps more work for the contest winners
), and are meant to improve our photographing skills.
That being said, I'm not sure that these contests are really helping me improve my skills. Maybe for others they are? Yeah, I'm trying to take better photos, but many times I'm recycling old ones, or re-editing ones from my archive. Also, we aren't getting any feedback (besides votes) how we can improve our photos. Yeah, I know... there's another thread for that. But still, I feel like that element is lacking.
The whole creating the voting thread is a giant pain in the ass (as many of you know). The forum doesn't allow us the flexibility in options that we might want, and once the thread is up, it's impossible to make changes.
I think we all agree that the votes should
not be anonymous. It'll help weed out the votes where people vote for their own photos (which I think should be against the rules at this point, besides just being frowned upon), plus the potential of random people just voting... which brings me to my next point. We all understand this is for fun, no one's really winning anything, etc. But, I feel like leaving the voting to the general public might be a bit... annoying (for lack of a better word). For example, voting for your friends is fine if the photo is good, but otherwise it's not cool. And, as usual, it comes with the caveat on what you define as being "good"... blah blah blah. I'm not sure how to mitigate that. Perhaps only have the people who submitted a photo be allowed to vote?
Anyways, I know a lot of other people have issues with the current method of voting... Voice them here so we can improve it!