About the monthly challenge

rob91 · Nov 3, 2007

Sw1tchFX said:
The Sept challenge winner was won by someone with 1 post. Someone who's entire post history only includes two words: "Sounds Great".

I seriously think the challenges should have a minimum post requirement to keep people from joining, and just submitting an image w/o contributing to the community. At least something like 200 posts.

Am I the only one who noticed this? I just find it disturbing that anyone trolling around for things like this can just waltz in, drop off, and bounce.

I don't see the rationale in this, nor do I see you present any evidence to convince me otherwise, merely the flimsy argument that is just plain bothers you. Maybe you could expand on that a bit as to why it bothers you? I can see that you're a big-time regular here, thousands of posts, and you're probably interested in preserving this tight-knit community you're so familiar with? Sure, I understand the sentiment but still have to ask: what's the big deal? Wouldn't you rather have more photos to vote on than fewer, and don't you want to encourage participation in this contest and on these forums? The sort of restrictions you propose only serve to limit the persons who will spend time here, which I (though a newbie) completely disagree with and am at a complete loss as to why you feel it necessary (I truly hope you're not afraid of some competition?). Besides, this is still about the photo, right? Who cares who submitted it, lets just try and make the best photo win. Just my 2 cents.

To make it clear, I understand perfectly why there should be a post quota to vote in the contest and completely agree with it. However, I do not see the rationale in a post quota for submitting a photo to the contest.

Battou · Nov 4, 2007

rob91 said:
I don't see the rationale in this, nor do I see you present any evidence to convince me otherwise, merely the flimsy argument that is just plain bothers you. Maybe you could expand on that a bit as to why it bothers you? I can see that you're a big-time regular here, thousands of posts, and you're probably interested in preserving this tight-knit community you're so familiar with? Sure, I understand the sentiment but still have to ask: what's the big deal? Wouldn't you rather have more photos to vote on than fewer, and don't you want to encourage participation in this contest and on these forums? The sort of restrictions you propose only serve to limit the persons who will spend time here, which I (though a newbie) completely disagree with and am at a complete loss as to why you feel it necessary (I truly hope you're not afraid of some competition?). Besides, this is still about the photo, right? Who cares who submitted it, lets just try and make the best photo win. Just my 2 cents.

To make it clear, I understand perfectly why there should be a post quota to vote in the contest and completely agree with it. However, I do not see the rationale in a post quota for submitting a photo to the contest.

Though slim, the chances still remain that it is possible for fraudulent claims. I have to deal with these all the time, despite the fact there is little to nothing to gain by the people doing this, it happens. Quite frankly it would be bad for a site to display an image on it's main page only to find out the one who submitted it is not it's rightfull owner. I refer you to this thread to show you that it does infact happen, though not related to TPF some one tried submitting that as their own on another site. TPF is not immune to this.

rob91 · Nov 4, 2007

Battou said:
Though slim, the chances still remain that it is possible for fraudulent claims. I have to deal with these all the time, despite the fact there is little to nothing to gain by the people doing this, it happens. Quite frankly it would be bad for a site to display an image on it's main page only to find out the one who submitted it is not it's rightfull owner. I refer you to this thread to show you that it does infact happen, though not related to TPF some one tried submitting that as their own on another site. TPF is not immune to this.

You make a good point. I am in no position to say how severe this problem is, but yourself and "TwistmyArm" seem to present solid, opposing arguments; the question is, which to go with? I suppose if an actual prize were involved, some posting quota would be necessary for contest participants. If not, I think it may be best to leave it open for the reasons myself and Twist have stated. In my experience it's not the easiest thing to find good photography online, so I have to wonder if someone is really going to scour random blogs and photo sites and decide to use someone else's amateur photography over their own. I'm not saying it can't happen, but it doesn't entirely make sense. And if they choose to go with photos that are more known (famous work), well, I'll bet there's a good chance someone will pick up on it.

ilyfel · Nov 10, 2007

WOW I don't think that's fair at all. Us new people can tell if a picture is good or not. I may only have ~40 posts but I know good from bad. I think I have contributed. I have posted my own pics and commented on others. I think 200 is a little high. Maybe 50 would be better.

spiffybeth · Nov 12, 2007

ilyfel said:
WOW I don't think that's fair at all. Us new people can tell if a picture is good or not. I may only have ~40 posts but I know good from bad. I think I have contributed. I have posted my own pics and commented on others. I think 200 is a little high. Maybe 50 would be better.

i agree. since ive joined, ive been quite active, but i still cant vote and id like to voice my opinion.

maybe the restriction should not be set for allowing someone to vote but should be set for allowing new members to submit photographs for the challenge???

terri · Nov 12, 2007

spiffybeth said:
i agree. since ive joined, ive been quite active, but i still cant vote and id like to voice my opinion.

maybe the restriction should not be set for allowing someone to vote but should be set for allowing new members to submit photographs for the challenge???

spiffybeth: Here are the actual guidelines, from the FAQ's regarding the voting process for the TPF Challenge:

Is it possible for people to vote for photos more than once? Each registered member is only able to vote once. A member who has been registered with TPF for less than 10 days, and has fewer than 25 posts on TPF, is not eligible to vote in any poll, including The Photo Challenge. If it comes to our attention that a member may have employed methods to artificially inflate the number of votes for their photo (such as created multiple accounts), we will investigate. If we determine anything fraudulent has occurred, the photo in question will be disqualified, and the member will be banned.

As you can see, the reason the voting restrictions were placed was founded upon an effort to keep the voting process fair and authentic. We're happy to have you on board and, judging by your join date, you will be able to vote in December on this month's Challenge, so hang in there!

Hope you submit to the Challenge.

Folks: we have no plans to make any changes to the above guidelines regarding the Challenge voting process. I do appreciate why the question was raised and hopefully, after all this discussion, our approach will remain satisfactory to the majority of members, new and established alike.

Chiller · Nov 13, 2007

I think the voting process is fine the way it is. I have been on other forums where a first time member got all his friends from school to go home, and create an account. The admin was able to find out, cause all vote count was made by one post members. It is just a precaution to prevent this from happening here.
I think the contest needs more voters. As I write this there are 111 members and 771 guests online. The contest only got a total of 45 votes in total, with over 800 views to the thread. With a forum this size there should be way more voters. I quickly went over at random the people who were online, and out of the 15 or so I checked, all had more then 100 posts. If the forum expects to get better sponsers in the future to get better prizes, there needs to be more activity.
.........o.k.....Im going back to my crypt now.

Alex_B · Nov 13, 2007

Chiller said:
I think the voting process is fine the way it is. I have been on other forums where a first time member got all his friends from school to go home, and create an account.

You are right, this is the actual reason to get restrictions in place, such as we have here.