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DPChallenge Forums >> Web Site Suggestions >> Time to Fix the Free Studies
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 04/08/2007 09:59:35 AM · #26
Exclusive Free Study each month.

You are only allowed to enter the free study if you have voted on "X" percentage of the total allowed votes from entries the month before. Failure to vote on the minimum required amount of entries will result in your ineligibility to particapte in the upcoming free study.


04/08/2007 10:10:45 AM · #27
Originally posted by swhiddon:
Exclusive Free Study each month.

You are only allowed to enter the free study if you have voted on "X" percentage of the total allowed votes from entries the month before. Failure to vote on the minimum required amount of entries will result in your ineligibility to particapte in the upcoming free study.


That puts a big time burden on those few of us who are unfortunate enough to only have dial-up internet access.
 04/08/2007 10:10:59 AM · #28
I came up with a similar idea to Scott's while voting on last month's challenge:

Two Free Studies a month. One for those with an average of 5.500 and above, the other for those with averages below 5.500. If you don't vote on at least 20% of the entries in the other Free Study, your image is DQ'd. May inspire some interesting and helpful comments going both ways. Could come up with some special free study ribbons, like they use in some of the speed challenges.

That said, I really like Artyste's original idea too. If four FS is thought to be too many, could tweak it by rotating the editing sets among 2 FSs a month.

04/08/2007 10:13:13 AM · #29
I make it easy on myself...when there is 150+ entries, I vote on them in 2-3 seperate sessions. That way, no big burn out.

Agree, time to fix the Free Studies.
04/08/2007 10:17:48 AM · #30
Originally posted by Simms:
Has my vote. I know this months free-study (april) is going to be an all-out advanced editing fest, far removed from a true photography challenge.


I don't think that will be the case. At least the more "photographic" entries will score better anyway.
 04/08/2007 10:19:24 AM · #31
(pretend I just used an advanced editing tool.)

G(e)NIOUs
 04/08/2007 10:21:35 AM · #32
Just like to point out that the Top 10 submission in the last free study averaged 167 votes each. The Bottom 10 averaged around 10% less at 150.3 votes each. Encouraging people to vote for just the minimum to satisfy requirements would likely result in larger discrepancies.

I like Glen's idea but if it's too unwieldy then just split it into just two groups much like what happened with the Exclusive Open challenges.

bazz.
 04/08/2007 10:39:58 AM · #33
How about changing it from a month long free study to week long free study. And then have a free study every week.
 04/08/2007 10:49:14 AM · #34
I don't know if the OP's solution is the best one, but I agree about the problem. As the number of participants increase, so should the number of challenges. I realize that DPC has been doing this, but here's a nudge to continue doing it. My preference would be just to have more special challenges utilizing the minimal and expert rulesets.

Message edited by author 2007-04-08 10:49:29.
 04/08/2007 11:00:35 AM · #35
Originally posted by L2:
Originally posted by Di:
...Too many times the minimal editing photos are last place as the flashier higher edited photos take the top spots.


Ahhh. This is probably the real concern, no?

This is a matter of voter preference. Under this logic, what is being proposed is akin to saying Minimal Editing shots can't be as good as Advanced or Expert shots.

Originally posted by Di:
I for one quit voting free study as it didn't seem fair to only vote for 20%


I'm not sure why anyone would feel that way. Statistically, it makes virtually no difference. People can be comfortable with this because they know that their score rarely changes by much after 100 votes, and even less after 150 votes.

It's important for everyone to realize that while voting on all the entries is a wonderful idea, it's not necessary for your votes to count and you shouldn't feel bad if you can't vote on more than 20%.


True, but then comes whether to provide the images only randomly or let the voters pick their 20% from the thumbnails.

We only get around 250-300 votes now with challenges of 500+.

Also, the open challenges were split due to the number of entries why not with the free studies? If the number of entries isn't a problem, put the open challenges back the way the were and tell people to just vote on the 20% minimum if they can't manage everything.
 04/08/2007 11:37:42 AM · #36
I don't think that there should be four challenges. Far too unwieldy. I do think it would be interesting if the ruleset just rotated every month.
 04/08/2007 11:47:11 AM · #37
You know Arty, sometimes your hairbrain ideas are actually pretty good. This one might just be one of them :-)
Free study under expert editing is going to be ugly at least in my mind. I like the free studies because I can take my best shot from the month and enter it. Sometimes I even do OK in them, even though 99% of my shots are basic editing. But when you throw in expert editing it just throws the curve way too much into digital art rather then photography and I thought this was a photography site. I remember it being said the reason the rules were so strict here for editing because D&L liked photography and not digital art. Wonder what changed about that?

Anyway enough rant. Lets get back to topic, 2 free studies a month, make them exclusive and maybe with 2 sets of rules, no rule about having to vote a certain % like some suggested, just make them more managable to vote in. Over 500 entries and less then 200 votes for all of the entries should tell us something. Lets see if we can get them fixed.

MattO
 04/08/2007 11:52:33 AM · #38
Originally posted by MattO:
You know Arty, sometimes your hairbrain ideas are actually pretty good. This one might just be one of them :-)
Free study under expert editing is going to be ugly at least in my mind. I like the free studies because I can take my best shot from the month and enter it. Sometimes I even do OK in them, even though 99% of my shots are basic editing. But when you throw in expert editing it just throws the curve way too much into digital art rather then photography and I thought this was a photography site. I remember it being said the reason the rules were so strict here for editing because D&L liked photography and not digital art. Wonder what changed about that?


Nothing has changed with that and this is a photographic site. I will bet my belly button lint that all top scores will actually look like a photograph... ;-)
 04/08/2007 11:55:13 AM · #39
Originally posted by Artyste:
What I propose is to separate the Free Studies into the four editing rulesets each month. One for Minimal, one for Basic, one for Advanced, and one for Expert.


This is a great idea.
 04/08/2007 12:02:27 PM · #40
I don't see the problem as based on the type of editing. I do pretty light editing to most of my photos and have done both good and bad in the Free Studies. And as far as I know Free Studies are run under Advanced Editing and not Expert Editing. If we really think the number of entries needs to be reduced then at the most I would think an Exclusive rule for two Free Studies a month set at Minimal or Basic and Advanced Editing would suffice.

The real concern is the amount of time voting takes on a 600 entry challenge. I know it is a burden for those with dial-up but we can't set the rules based on the lowest common denominator technology or the site would never improve. I used to vote for all entries in challenges but decided that it was not productive to finding the images that deserved a ribbon. Now I go through them all, every time, and only vote for those that catch my eye. Normally I end up voting for 30-40% each challenge. I do not use the thumbnails for this but actually click through all the images. I can normally get through a 500-600 image challenge in two evening sitting with my laptop in front of the TV at night. If I have time later in the week I go back to the top picks and re-rate them and leave some comments.

Message edited by author 2007-04-08 12:03:33.
 04/08/2007 12:04:05 PM · #41
The current free study is expert editing.
 04/08/2007 12:05:04 PM · #42
Originally posted by cpanaioti:
The current free study is expert editing.


Ahhh, so it is. My bad. Now that does suck.
 04/08/2007 12:06:28 PM · #43
I love this idea.
 04/08/2007 12:06:55 PM · #44
Originally posted by jbsmithana:
Originally posted by cpanaioti:
The current free study is expert editing.


Ahhh, so it is. My bad. Now that does suck.


I think it's great! Looking forward to the possibility of true HDR or multiple exposure stuff. Nothing wrong with that.
 04/08/2007 12:10:12 PM · #45
Originally posted by tooohip:
Originally posted by jbsmithana:
Originally posted by cpanaioti:
The current free study is expert editing.


Ahhh, so it is. My bad. Now that does suck.


I think it's great! Looking forward to the possibility of true HDR or multiple exposure stuff. Nothing wrong with that.


Have fun. It is just not my thing at the moment. I'd join a PS site if I was interested in image editing challenges. But anyway I really don't mind this site being inclusive so an Expert Editing Free Study now and then is fine as long as we don't slip over the edge to an editing site.
04/08/2007 12:13:17 PM · #46
Changing it up a little each month is a good thing. A free study with basic or minimal editing would also be interesting.
 04/08/2007 12:13:49 PM · #47
Originally posted by tooohip:
Originally posted by jbsmithana:
Originally posted by cpanaioti:
The current free study is expert editing.


Ahhh, so it is. My bad. Now that does suck.


I think it's great! Looking forward to the possibility of true HDR or multiple exposure stuff. Nothing wrong with that.


HDR is so yesterday :-)

BTW not too confident of your top 10 if your only willing to bet lint on it huh?

MattO
 04/08/2007 12:15:47 PM · #48
Originally posted by MattO:

HDR is so yesterday :-)


Yep, if it's overdone so it's obvious. Not if it's done well however.

Originally posted by MattO:

BTW not too confident of your top 10 if your only willing to bet lint on it huh?


Got me there. ;-)
 04/08/2007 04:32:25 PM · #49
Originally posted by L2:
It seems the basis for dividing Free Studies is that the number of entries is too unwieldy and time consuming to vote on? If you don't have time to vote on all the entries, that's fine, just vote on 20%....

20% of 600 entries is only 120 votes.


The problem is, the number of entries is overwhelming. It was a problem with the open challenges, and that was fixed. If the problem is the way the challenges are displayed on the front page being really long with 4 different areas to vote, perhaps that can be fixed by having the way they are displayed changed a little bit to alleviate that problem.

Telling people to just vote 20% of the challenge isn't helping the problem. It's a band-aid solution, and it means a lot of great entries still get passed on by, it means people still feel overwhelmed at the beginning, and it means that we're going to continue to deal with the Free Study growing and bulging until it bursts apart at the seams. I'd rather try and be a little pro-active in this regard.
 04/08/2007 04:49:54 PM · #50
With a growing membership we are faced with the problem of huge entries and either a long evening of voting or going for 20%, which I think is a cop-out, to choose th best entries.

I like Artyste idea, it levels the playing field and makes voting a lot easier. I normally vote 100%, this is the only fair way of voting as far as I am concerned. Anything less is like a Pick 'N' Mix...someone get short changed.

I am disappointed that L2 suggests 20% voting!! Who gets a vote and loses out?? Surely 100% voting is the fairest way?

But then, I am always at the bottom of votes, so what do I know?

Message edited by author 2007-04-08 16:51:08.
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