Another big week - DPChallenge Forums

Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM

07/20/2002 11:06:20 AM · #1

It looks like we are headed for another challenge with a large number of photos this week...

Gene L.

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

07/20/2002 11:18:58 AM · #2

If the challenge continues to grow, then I think that we will need some way to divide the photos and voters. 175 photos is too many to vote on. I try to leave useful comments, but can't spend the time I would like for each photo.

Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f2.8D

07/20/2002 11:37:47 AM · #3

I got my first experience of playing with the DPC site on a 56k modem yesterday. I would have to admit that I probably could not do what I normally do here each week on a modem connection... ugh :(

MrsKro

07/20/2002 01:35:05 PM · #4

I have a 56K modem at home...and I have to admit that I hardly ever use it to vote with. Possibly 25 out of 174 were voted at my home this week. I use my T1 connection at work because the page just pops up...whereas if I bring up the voting thumbnails at home I have to get up and leave the computer for a while to wait for them to download. I'm not complaining...but if not for my connection at work...I would probably get extremely irritated at the amount of time it takes to sit and wait for each photo.

I'm not offering a solution or any suggestions to fix this....it is what it is. It does look as though we will have a record number of submissions possibly once again this week though. I'm considering switching to a cable modem...just as I'm considering buying a more expensive (better) camera at some point. But being a single parent ain't all it's cracked up to be sometimes. And money (much to my children's surprise) does NOT grow on trees. :)

Such is life...

Hope there is an easier solution for this at some point.

Karen

Agamemnon

Olympus C-700UZ

07/20/2002 02:21:10 PM · #5

It may not be ideal, but perhaps those with slow connections could vote and comment on twenty pictures rather than try and get through all of them. One possibilty when time constraints are a factor... that and of course two windows so one picture loads while you work on your comment for the other.

David Ey

Nikon D80

07/20/2002 03:02:19 PM · #6

Originally posted by Agamemnon:
It may not be ideal, but perhaps those with slow connections could vote and comment on twenty pictures rather than try and get through all of them. One possibilty when time constraints are a factor... that and of course two windows so one picture loads while you work on your comment for the other.

Do you recomend that it be the first 20 photos that pop up?
Oh, never mind. I just don''t see the need to REQUIRE voting or commenting in order to enter a photo. If you are only interested in quanity rather than quality----------. As unscientific as the voting is,how could an unequal number of votes on each photo Really effect the outcome. The results are much more affected by one''s political view.

* This message has been edited by the author on 7/20/2002 3:17:14 PM.

Agamemnon

Olympus C-700UZ

07/20/2002 03:13:51 PM · #7

I don't recommend anything... cause last time I said something about picking my favorites the thread went south. =)

07/20/2002 03:34:17 PM · #8

I think that we need to discuss what our alternatives are rather than continue simply arguing against the current rule. Even with a cable modem connection, I spent a lot of time voting and commenting on 175 photos this week. I have taken pride in having enough time to comment on all the photos every week, but I am definitely going to have to reconsider that if the challenges continue to receive this many photos.

My suggestion for everyone is to vote on all photos. Even if we has 200 photos in a challenge, that breaks down to voting on 30 per day. If you vote in the order that the images appear, without going back to the vote now page between each photo, the vote should move more quickly. The idea of having two browsers open simultaneously seems like a great idea to speed things along for sure. While you are loading a photo into one, vote on the image that is up in the other.

What are our alternatives?

1 - we could limit the number of submissions to each challenge. If we do this, the voting would not take as long, but you may not be able to get a photo submitted unless you get it done early in the week. I personally prefer to wait until the weekend before the deadline to work on my entries. There are already 100 submissions now and I have not submitted yet. What should the limit be?

2 - We could reduce the maximum file size from 150k to something less where the images don't take as long to load. If we do this, the quality of the image will not be as good. I personally try to get as close to 150k as I can to preserve the quality of my own submissions.

I think that anyone who submits a photo to the challenge should do whatever is required to at least vote on all the images. I definitely would NOT want my photo skipped over by a potential voter who would give me a good score... would you?

Please offer some alternative suggestions that would help with this issue and also stimulate participation in the vote AND in the comment process.

:)

Gracious

07/20/2002 03:48:55 PM · #9

I've been voting on every picture and trying to leave comments too. I am on a dial up connection, I get disconnected a lot, and it sometimes takes far too long for a pic to load. Limiting the size of each submission sure would help a little. I feel bad when I can't leave a comment. I know I look forward to them. After all I want to become better at what I do, and criticism helps.
I don't think limiting the amount of submissions is a good idea though. It takes me all week to work on the current challenge, and usually submit in the last 24 hours.
Oh boy! What a dilemma for all of us on slow connections.

Canon EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM

07/20/2002 03:53:14 PM · #10

I wonder if reducing the max file size from 150k to 125k would make much of a difference?

autool

Canon EOS-20D

07/20/2002 04:06:34 PM · #11

Please offer some alternative suggestions that would help with this issue and also stimulate participation in the vote AND in the comment process.

I think that if there was more than one challenge per week, and you could only enter the one of your choice it would split up the competition and the voting. If you didn't have anything better to do you could sit around voting on both or all challenges. I can't see where this would compromise the integrity of the site and it would free up time needed to contribute. Just a thought that I had a few days ago.

Autool

:)[/i]

David Ey

Nikon D80

Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f2.8D

07/20/2002 04:08:06 PM · #12

Originally posted by jmsetzler:
I think that we need to discuss what our alternatives are rather than continue simply arguing against the current rule.

My suggestion for everyone is to vote on all photos.

The idea of having two browsers open simultaneously seems like a great idea to speed things along for sure. While you are loading a photo into one, vote on the image that is up in the other.

What are our alternatives?

1 - we could limit the number of submissions to each challenge.

2 - We could reduce the maximum file size

I definitely would NOT want my photo skipped over by a potential voter who would give me a good score... would you?

Please offer some alternative suggestions that would help with this issue and also stimulate participation in the vote AND in the comment process.

:)
Hi John,
I tryed the two browser thing and couldn't get it to work. Must be me.
I would not limit the number of submissions or reduce the file size.
If my photo is not in the upper 20-25% it probably should not be clogging the system. There is very little diference in the scores of the lower 70% anyway and these votes are mostly subjective and in many cases they are voted low because of political views rather than quality.
I WONDER if you were able to vote ONLY on your TOP 20 or so favorites, and the votes were someway tallied ( I'll leave this to the math guys)and ALL of the photos results were shown,-----.How would this result look? I wonder if there would be less 1's----3's ?
BTY, I have always voted on 100% but I won't be able to keep it forever.
And, I do also love the comments, but I have learned much more from the other photos and comments than I have from mine.
(Neat cycle shot)

hokie

Nikon D2X

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED

07/20/2002 04:48:59 PM · #13

How about this..

Forget about the minimum voting and the minimum commenting.

Only take the top mean average..

Say the photo with the most votes gets 300 votes but the average number of votes on all photos is 247.

Only count the top 247 votes for every photo in the contest and drop the rest.

It would kill two birds with one stone. Getting rid of stinky votes AND allowing people to vote on as many as they want to vote on by their own choice.

I am just one of those guys that beleives you can't force people to do something they are doing for a pastime or they quit doing it.

Just an idea.

MrsKro

07/20/2002 04:59:11 PM · #14

I really didn't mean for my comment to turn into another discussion about the voting and commenting thing again (we've pretty much ran that into the ground)...but since it did, I just want to say that I don't mind the way it's set up now...I realize that there are a lot more photos but I still don't think it's that bad. I was just trying to relay the point of some people in here who may not be as fortunate to have cable modem access that others have in here. John pointed out that since he actually tried it on a 56 k modem, he now understands better what others go through in trying to vote.

And while I feel for anyone who has to vote with a 56k modem....I understand that we have to keep the file size to 150k and that there is really no other possibility. Meanwhile..there is the choice here to just comment on 25% and I think that's a great thing. I've personally have voted on all photos every week except for one week since I came here. I don't leave as many comments...basically because of the slowness of my connection. I can't comment on all like others do. And I don't really feel my comments could help that much anyway since I don't know much about photography to begin with. I usually just compliment.
Well..I'm rambling again..so I'll stop.

Just my feelings....

K

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED

07/20/2002 05:05:50 PM · #15

Originally posted by hokie:
How about this..

Forget about the minimum voting and the minimum commenting.

Only take the top mean average..

Say the photo with the most votes gets 300 votes but the average number of votes on all photos is 247.

Only count the top 247 votes for every photo in the contest and drop the rest.

It would kill two birds with one stone. Getting rid of stinky votes AND allowing people to vote on as many as they want to vote on by their own choice.

I am just one of those guys that beleives you can't force people to do something they are doing for a pastime or they quit doing it.

Just an idea.

I don't think that this would get rid of the lower votes at all... I think the votes that got ditched would be completely random in score... what makes you think that the votes that would get thrown out in this method would be the lower votes?

hokie

Nikon D2X

07/20/2002 05:16:47 PM · #16

Becasue I said the TOP 247.

If you had 300 votes the worse 53 woulkd be dropped.

If you only had 247 votes then you would have all your votes count.

If you had only 100 votes then I guess none of this matters anyway.

But I did a quick look at the photos and rarely do the vote totals vary by more than 10% in total from one another.

You would be dropping a relatively low number of votes anyway.

I just don't think making people vote or comment, no matter what the total is in the end, is the the way to go.

I would choose just about any method other than making people participate.

I was just trying to come up with a method to even out the voting for people who might not get the total number of votes any given week is all.

karmat

Apple iPhone 7

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L USM

07/20/2002 05:17:48 PM · #17

Hokie: that sounds like a pretty good idea. of course, i'm still thinking about it, so . ..
would a person with 213 votes have all of theirs counted and none kicked out?

Another idea:
have one challenge per week, but separate it into groups of a set number. Maybe 75. If my picture was in the first 75, I voted for all of them in my set. I could vote for the other sets, if I wanted, but that would be optional. Instead of a first, second, third place picture, we would simply have top pictures of the week - the top picture from each set.

Having said that, I will go along with pretty much anything. I have a slow connection, but I will do the best I can with it. Until Drew and Langdon start asking ME for money, I will do whatever THEY decide is necessary.

hokie

Nikon D2X

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED

07/20/2002 05:23:25 PM · #18

Yeah karmat..I agree..this whole thing doesn't affect me at all so my suggestions are more to help others with slow connections or..GASP!..don't like hangin out here as much as me :-)

Tell you what...let me enter a photo..have only 1 person vote for it (my wife maybe) and give it a 10..Woohoo!! A perfect score!!

Course, knowing my wife, she would give me a 6 just to mess with me!!

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0L USM

07/20/2002 05:23:50 PM · #19

I wish we had some statistics available to see how many people are voting and how many photos they are voting on each week...

I think the size of the challenge needs to be reduced by some method. Unfortunately, if it's a first come first serve type limit, I would probably not get to participate at all. I don't mess with my photography much during the week.

Alternatively, I think that two challenges each week would be a better alternative... you can enter only one and vote in only one, but you could comment on anything you like...

Aaron

Fujifilm FinePix S602Z

07/20/2002 05:29:48 PM · #20

Originally posted by jmsetzler:

Alternatively, I think that two challenges each week would be a better alternative... you can enter only one and vote in only one, but you could comment on anything you like...

I agree.. It would decrease the amount of pictures to vote on while increasing the worth of each vote

karmat

Apple iPhone 7

07/20/2002 05:31:20 PM · #21

Originally posted by hokie:
Yeah karmat..I agree..this whole thing doesn't affect me at all so my suggestions are more to help others with slow connections or..GASP!..don't like hangin out here as much as me :-)

Tell you what...let me enter a photo..have only 1 person vote for it (my wife maybe) and give it a 10..Woohoo!! A perfect score!!

Course, knowing my wife, she would give me a 6 just to mess with me!!

Your wife, and my husband. Of course, it's honest. He is rarely more than a point off (except once, and we are not talking about that one). I'll get my mom to vote. She thinks I'm perfect anyway.

Off the topic, but just to make you chase some rabbits -- assign a black ribbon to the last place picture. Of course, I understand some people are embarassed by such a thing. But the embarrassment ends quickly. Ask me how I know. :-) [DISCLAIMOR: this is not a serious suggestion, just a breather from this heavy discussion we are having. If I had been serious, I would have went to suggestions. I promise.]

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G DX VR

07/20/2002 05:37:11 PM · #22

In my personal opinion, I truly believe that if anyone wants to ditch the low votes, limit voting to the photographers who have submitted to the challenge. Anyone can comment...

myqyl

Nikon D3100

07/20/2002 05:58:34 PM · #23

Just a thought here...

What if all the photos in a challenge could be downloaded as a zip file, then folks could look them over off line, decide what their votes will be, then they can vote from the thumbnail page or another page designed for quick online voting of photos already seen offline.

In fact if someone here is a decent java-type guru, perhaps they could write a small app that will allow off-line voting / commenting, then the votes could be uploaded to the site.

I understand that this would not be easy and that it could not happen overnight, but if the site continues to grow at the current rate, it may become worth the effort.

Again, this is just a thought...