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06/17/2003 02:06:27 PM · #1 |
What could make DPChallenge a better place? I believe that some of these ideas for future revisions to the site could add some spiceâ€Â¦ And I’m sure that not everyone feels this wayâ€Â¦.
Smaller Challenges:
I don’t believe that the size of the challenges here are as productive as they could be. When dealing with 150-300 photos on the same topic line over a 7 day period, I don’t believe that the work of the photographer gets the time or attention that may be required to fully understand and absorb the image. Finding a way to make smaller challenges won’t necessarily ‘fix’ this problem. Smaller challenges won’t make the voter, on average, pay any more attention to each individual photo, but it could for some.
Solution Idea:
(This has been suggested in various forms by various people in the past, so I̢۪m not trying to take credit for the idea.) Leave the open challenge as is. Break the members challenges into three groups: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. Upon entering the member challenge at a certain level, the photographer may NOT revert back to a lower level. Any member photographer with less than three current ribbons may enter at the beginner level (or higher if desired). Any photographer with three or more ribbons may enter at the intermediate or advanced level of the challenges, but not at the beginner level. Any photographer who wins three ribbons at a given level must move to the next level in the ladder until the advance level is achieved.
The member challenge topic is set each week. All three challenges are on the same topic. Each photographer submits to his/her desired challenge level. The photographer may only vote at the level on which his/her photo is submitted. Any photographer may comment on any photo in any challenge. Limiting voting to the challenge in which the photographer is submitting could relieve any ‘pressure’ to vote in a hurry that stems from an extremely large number of entries to deal with during the week.
In the beginning, find out who wants to go immediately to the Advanced challenge group. Let those members form the editing rules that apply to the Advanced challenges. This would allow those who are interested in modified, but not completely open, editing rules some ground to play on. Maybe it could set an example of how it can work if given the chance.
Occasional LONG Challenges:
It would be nice to have a ‘montly’ challenge where a topic is announced, and the photographer has 4 weeks to produce the photo. I believe that, for those who are interested in better photography, this would produce a lot more higher quality images. The photographer would have plenty of time to evaluate subject and shooting options and produce the best possible image for the challenge. Let this long challenge be open to any site participants, member or not.
Superlative Voting:
This has been discussed before as wellâ€Â¦. Give the voter an option on each photograph to vote it ‘best’ of some categoryâ€Â¦
Best use of Black and White
Best use of Color
Best of Show
Et Ceteraâ€Â¦.
These would be optional and not required votes. The winners of these ‘best of category’ votes could receive something like a ribbon of some sort on their profile page for it.
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06/17/2003 02:14:46 PM · #2 |
In all honesty, this just all seems too complex (at least so far as splitting up the challenges goes). For those of us who do make a point of voting on every shot, this just adds more steps to do so... and frankly, I enjoy having a wide variety of qualities in one challenge.
I like the fact that one shot might suck, while the next one blows me away, while the next one might be in the middle. I like that variety -- that's what makes voting fun.
Message edited by author 2003-06-17 14:15:20. |
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06/17/2003 02:16:54 PM · #3 |
Hmmmmm... John..... food for though indeed!
I'm curious to know if the admins would be able to program all this in??
I realy like the idea of a monthly challenge. I keep on saying that I barely have time to come up with something original so monthly chalenges would be great!
As for your solution to smaller hcallenges by levels..... I think the idea should be looked into a bit. It does have potential.
- Could someone who qulifies as a beginner switch from either level at any challenge?
I applaud your pro-active spirit here!!! :o) We Wuv U!!!!
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06/17/2003 02:17:18 PM · #4 |
| I like the "best in category" idea, but the levels of challenge sounds to hierarchical and would probably, as alansfreed says, take a lot of the fun out of it. It would be cool, though, to have some radio buttons in the voting page to assign little awards like "best b&w", etc. |
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06/17/2003 02:22:52 PM · #5 |
I know that one of the reasons I'm getting better pretty quickly at the moment (from not having used a camera in over 10 years) is from looking closely at photographs at all skill levels for these challenges. Looking through 250+ photos, some excellent, some not so excellent is great for developing a discerning eye and an objective viewpoint. I can be inspired by the great pictures, and learn what not to do for some of the others! I believe that the above idea will take a lot of this away, to the detriment of the community. I can also see a horrendous amount of snobbery waiting to happen if this would go ahead. I'm very cautious about this idea!
Message edited by author 2003-06-17 14:23:20. |
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06/17/2003 02:25:20 PM · #6 |
i like the ideas presented in the first post. i think they would improve the site drastically. personally, i find it hard to bring myself to vote anymore - wading through so many pictures, i cant give them the attention they deserve. something needs to be done!
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06/17/2003 02:27:55 PM · #7 |
I love the levels of challenges idea. It may be in part that I am currently a very little fish in a huge pond, but I'd like to be able to compete primarily with those on my level. If I move up to the next level, GREAT!!! There would still be a wide variety of quality among the entries, I think that there would still be quite a contrast, even among the "beginner" category. Also, all of the other entries (intermediate, advanced) can still be viewed and commented on, so we can still benefit from seeing the best of the best.
Basically, I love the idea altogether. I'd like to see it happen.
As for the "long" challenges, and the "best of..." voting, I don't have an opinion. |
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06/17/2003 02:30:04 PM · #8 |
| I should add that the long challenge and superlative voting ideas are interesting... although I honestly don't know whether I'd be more apt to devote more time to a month-long challenge than I am for a week-long one. |
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06/17/2003 02:32:33 PM · #9 |
If it's down to the number of other photos to vote on:
1: Only vote on 20% if you don't have the stamina to do the whole lot.
2: The members-only challenge isn't too hard to wade through...
I think that splitting challenges into different levels could demotivate those at the bottom. That top 3 spot is available to ANYBODY at the moment... I wonder how much of an incentive that might be, however unlikely, for many people.
Message edited by author 2003-06-17 14:33:05. |
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06/17/2003 02:35:38 PM · #10 |
With the tiered challenge system, that top 3 spot would finally be open to me. That's the point here. I would be wwwaaayyy more motivated knowing that I'm going to have a better showing. If I get a top 10 finish in the beginner pool, people are actually going to look at my shot after the challenge, where if I finish 80th or so overall, no one will ever see it again.
And I wouldn't be surprised to see the top beginner shots beat half of the intermediates, and some of the advanced as well.
Message edited by author 2003-06-17 14:37:55. |
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06/17/2003 02:36:38 PM · #11 |
I do like the idea of splitting the member challenges into the 3 divisions. This would give folks an opportunity to grow I think. The idea of mandatory moving to the next level works for me too.
As far as the longer challenges, I would like to see something maybe along the lines of some fun things also. Like maybe a photo scavenger hunt type of challenge.
Regarding the best of voting, how about taking the ribbon winners from each challenge and voting on the best of the month from the members and open challenges, then at the end of the year take those winners and vote on a best of for 2003, for example...
Just random musings......
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06/17/2003 02:41:22 PM · #12 |
I vote yes if we're taking a poll.
Like many I feel we have grown so large, that giving equal time is not possible.
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06/17/2003 02:42:02 PM · #13 |
Perhaps the top 3 from each tier could go into a 'vote-off' the following week, each person getting one vote for their favourite out of the 9 to pick the overall winner... Then everyone gets a chance at the top spot, the number of pictures to vote on is spread more evenly, more consideration gets given to each entry and the site gets a chance to grow further rather than stagnate with the current level of challenge entries.
Message edited by author 2003-06-17 14:43:01. |
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06/17/2003 02:50:36 PM · #14 |
I like the idea and think that gordons last idea of top 3 of each tier in a vote of is a great idea too. I would be fun to see a beginner entry take the top spot overall.
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06/17/2003 03:04:59 PM · #15 |
i do not see why people feel like it takes away from the rest of DPC to have another sector of dpc for 'advanced' people who may have maxed their development within the existing parameters.
do people think that it takes away from middle school to have high school?
do people think it takes away from college to have graduate school?
these are just natural progressions :) ..
for example, when you hanglide, there are skill levels. someone in 'hang 1' cant do 'hang 5'. but no one expects hang 5 people to be satisfied with hang 1 forever :). just because you move on, doesn't mean you're a snob or an elitist. you're just evolving.
i dont think it would take anything away from dpc to have advanced areas .. call it "DPC Xtreme" or something :). in fact, i think it would enhance the appeal of the site.
because as it is, when someone reaches a certain level, they either have to leave/fledge or stay here and just repeatedly hammer the newbies (which isnt that fair to the beginner and intermediates, now is it?) ..
it would be nice if we could offer them a transition point and destination, so they stick around, and benefit all.
Message edited by author 2003-06-17 15:06:23.
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06/17/2003 03:09:21 PM · #16 |
| I could be persuaded if as you go up the levels, you could do more post editing, eg dodging and burning, perspectives, spot editing. If none of these were allowed at the bottom level, it would make sure that basic camera techniques were developed before all the fancy Photoshoppery. |
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06/17/2003 03:11:04 PM · #17 |
If the intent is to reduce the amount of time it takes to vote,it is the open challenge where most of the entries are, sometimes almost 2 -1 open to member challenge. So, if we vote in two challenges, one being the open, and look and comment on all challenges, there are still a lot of photos to look at.
Also, I would think that the member challenge averages less than 120 pictures per week. Off center is 138 and Magazine cover is 232. I am not sure that splitting up the member challenge will significanly reduce the number of pictures to look at.
I would classify my self as a beginner, and John would probably classify himself as advanced. So what this means is that I would not get a vote and probably not a comment from John or anybody else that is not in the beginner category. Part of the learning experience for me is to get those comments from the more experienced people.
If the intent, as mag states is to give a harder challenge to some people, or to use a different set of rules, that is not necessiarrily a bad idea, but it could lead to some elitism.
Why not just have an occassional challenge, such as black on black, with a different set or no rules.
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06/17/2003 03:20:07 PM · #18 |
Maybe they could have the Critique club make it a priority to critique beginner levels first. That way beginners would at least get an in-depth and valuable comment/critique.
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06/17/2003 03:23:44 PM · #19 |
On the tiered system:
While I think this wouldn't be the best solution as a permanent all-the-time application, I do think you've probably got the pulse of the more advanced users on this site. My suggestion (as I mentioned in chat) would be to compromise: Make a month-long challenge open to those people with a prerequisite of two ribbons. People can graduate into being able to participate in that challenge. Then, as the base of people who are eligible for this contest widens (maybe because all the people who might've been winning still more ribbons are busy working on the perfect photo for the ultra-competitive month-long challenge), we might consider expanding the system to a biweekly super-challenge, and maybe even finally arrive at something close to this system.
I think that immediate adoption of the entire scope, however, of this system would be a mistake.
Martin |
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06/17/2003 03:42:26 PM · #20 |
I love the idea - it would give those who currently have less shot at a "top spot" a chance at that, while motivating those who are "advanced" to do something other than beat my brains in weekly. :)
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06/17/2003 03:49:57 PM · #21 |
I did like the idea of having different levels for entering challenges. However, as I'm sitting here thinking of it, I'm wondering if there were 3 levels...Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. Who is going to even bother looking at the beginner shots. That's like taking them and seperating them into "crappy, decent, and great". (NOT saying that ALL beginners shots are crappy, just exaggerating for a point here). Why in the world would anyone bother to sift through the 'crappy' shots when they know that there are much better ones waiting in the 'upper tiers'. I think that the beginners would suffer from lack of comments.
As for the longer challenges, sure. i'm up for that in addition to our normal weekly challenges. but with a month to prepare, don't expect those entries (there would be LOTS) to get much voting and comments.
The extra ribbons would be nice too, but I think we should have to pick like 5 or 10 "best of show in specific category" because if we only picked one, then everyone could pick a different shot and we could have lots of ties. We'd end up with 20 ties for first place. That would have to be figured out, as i'm not even sure picking 5 or 10 would even solve anything. Anyway, if it could be worked out, I think it's a nice idea. Would give 'non placers' a chance to feel important too.
Message edited by author 2003-06-17 15:50:54. |
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06/17/2003 03:57:36 PM · #22 |
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
The photographer may only vote at the level on which his/her photo is submitted. |
Advanced would HAVE to vote on advanced, but both groups could comment, much like non-members may only vote on open challenges, but may comment on anything. I like the idea of CC's going to beginners first, perhaps automatically checking the box for them, and making intermed/advanced users check the box for a CC themselves?
I think with some good topics (color the first time) we have gone over 300 pics and routinely are 250s. Many people have begun to feel the strain of member challenge PLUS open challenge and while we don't have to compete in everything, this is a way to let the site grow beyond 400 or 500 people who submit 80% of the time into 1000 people who submit 70-90% of the time. It's a great way to expand what this site CAN do. I think it's good to get things like this moving NOW so that if we continue to add newbies all the time and people don't drop off so much, there isn't 600 open challenge shots to vote on.
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06/17/2003 04:04:47 PM · #23 |
This may also be a dis-incentive for people who do not consider themselves advanced enough to become a member. I became a member to support the site, not because of my photographic skills, but i do get the oppourtunity to compare my somewhat feeble work, to the masters. if i thought there was going to be a class system here, i might reconsider my membership and only submit in the open challenge.
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06/17/2003 04:13:49 PM · #24 |
thats odd STEINR.. if i had to choose right now to join .. i'd be inclined to join for the fact that i might not be totally wooped upon entering the member challenges by all those advanced photographers.. i'd have a chance in the beginner section, and i for one would have been encourged by that. right now i'd probably consider myself intermediate.. and i'd certainly love to try this tiered system out..
as for the longer challenges, i'd love to do that.. my current schedule is rather busy, and these days i only enter a photo in a challenge if it happens that i took a photo for some unrelated thing, that also applies to the challenge..
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06/17/2003 04:25:33 PM · #25 |
| INteresting ideas that I could go for. But right now, there are just too many challenges. Two a week is almost too many already (for me anyway). |
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