Rules can be ignored, apparently

Rule:

• All images must have a title on border (See sample).

Question:

Must the "Title" must be on the border as specified in the rules or can it be in the picture?

Answer:

On the border is preferable, but sometimes on image itself lends to a better image...I dint mind as long as there is a border AND a title

It can't be right if some contestants get lower places because they have met the specification, while others produce 'better images' by ignoring it. Surely, the whole point of a 'challenge' is to produce an image that meets the specification.

This issue has been discussed, inconclusively, for a while now. I'm inclined to knock a star off the mark for trivial breaches like the one mentioned, keeping the 'half star' sanction for flagrant violations, which are common enough.

David

David Wrench said:

It can't be right if some contestants get lower places because they have met the specification, while others produce 'better images' by ignoring it. Surely, the whole point of a 'challenge' is to produce an image that meets the specification.

This issue has been discussed, inconclusively, for a while now. I'm inclined to knock a star off the mark for trivial breaches like the one mentioned, keeping the 'half star' sanction for flagrant violations, which are common enough.

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Various departures from the rules may make a difference or maybe are just arbitrary. To me the one and only un-breakable rule is this: the entry MUST ACTUALLY ADHERE TO THE CHALLENGE THEME!!

I can't agree with that. If breaking a rule does not make a difference, the rule should not be there in the first place. The 'theme' is just a short title; the rules constitute the challenge.

Surely, the answer is for hosts to make a clear distinction between rules and guidelines. Some do, informally.

David

David Wrench said:

I can't agree with that. If breaking a rule does not make a difference, the rule should not be there in the first place. The 'theme' is just a short title; the rules constitute the challenge.

Surely, the answer is for hosts to make a clear distinction between rules and guidelines. Some do, informally.

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I re-read my comment and I don't think I made myself clear. I am not saying people should break any of the rules. I do think that some of them are arbitrary and not so vital to a challenge as just making sure all the entries belong to the theme. However, the host can make any rules they wish and have every right to enforce them. (I always read and follow the rules, myself.)

Take a look at the recently ended "Wild Eyes" challenge. The rules clearly state the animals must be wild and in their natural habitat. The entries included dogs, cats, and at least one owl from a raptor center. The entrant included that info on his entry. Other photos were taken at ridiculously short focal lengths (20mm etc). Maybe those photographers are really good and can sneak up on a wild owl that's sitting at eye level or below and take a shot from 3 feet away with a point and shoot. Maybe, but I seriously doubt it. Some rule violations are open to interpretation, but a wild animal is a wild animal for crying out loud.

Jack Cat said:

Take a look at the recently ended "Wild Eyes" challenge. The rules clearly state the animals must be wild and in their natural habitat. The entries included dogs, cats, and at least one owl from a raptor center. The entrant included that info on his entry. Other photos were taken at ridiculously short focal lengths (20mm etc). Maybe those photographers are really good and can sneak up on a wild owl that's sitting at eye level or below and take a shot from 3 feet away with a point and shoot. Maybe, but I seriously doubt it. Some rule violations are open to interpretation, but a wild animal is a wild animal for crying out loud.

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You are as they say 'preaching to the choir' on that one. I have seen many entries that just do not belong and they are allowed to remain. For a while I completely gave up entering challenges when some of my very relevant (and dare I say pretty good) entries got beat by shots that should absolutely have been removed from the challenge for not meeting the theme. When I complained, the host said 'those photos were better than yours anyhow.' First I disagreed with that but secondly they did not belong in the challenge, period.

Recently I did very well in a challenge. Looking through the other entries, I felt mine was the most spot-on with regards to the theme yet I was not expecting to get closer than the top 10 or so given my results in the past. To my surprise I actually did win yet I got a couple of the lowest votes you can get. I never give a half star vote or seldom even one star to an entry that fits the challenge; I guess the sandbaggers are not so honorable.

This issue of 'sandbagging' is interesting; the specs for challenges are often subject to a wide range of interpretations, so it is difficult to be certain that it's happening. I've looked at your winning entry; I didn't vote on that challenge but I think it's a worthy winner. It's just possible, though, that some people (only two or three) wondered whether it really showed 'fun', especially if they were animal rights activists and looking at it from the bull's point of view(!) I really wonder whether anyone has any conclusive evidence that 'sandbagging' is anything but an urban myth. It seems to me that vaguely worded challenges and inconsistent enforcement are much more likely to be causing erratic marking.

David

David Wrench said:

This issue of 'sandbagging' is interesting; the specs for challenges are often subject to a wide range of interpretations, so it is difficult to be certain that it's happening. I've looked at your winning entry; I didn't vote on that challenge but I think it's a worthy winner. It's just possible, though, that some people (only two or three) wondered whether it really showed 'fun', especially if they were animal rights activists and looking at it from the bull's point of view(!) I really wonder whether anyone has any conclusive evidence that 'sandbagging' is anything but an urban myth. It seems to me that vaguely worded challenges and inconsistent enforcement are much more likely to be causing erratic marking.

David

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Unfortunately, sandbagging is alive and well in the challenges. A quick look at the voting scores in today's 'My Best Photo of the Week' shows that Member BBD6DDA5 voted 61 votes of .5, and 7 of 1.

I could give you many other examples but that is typical of the sandbag voters. No, I have no idea who the culprit is, and DPR won't do anything about my complaints.

Ruth

I certainly agree that this voting is wholly unjust and illogical. I didn't vote on this challenge, but there are no entries- not even the last- to which I would have given .5. One or two might be accused of excessive post-processing, but that's a value judgement.

I presume that you have access to information that I don't, as I can't find a member of that name, and he or she doesn't seem to have entered the challenge. There are only four possible beneficiaries (people who have no .5 votes) and they all have different names. Perhaps this is someone who has multiple accounts? If it isn't a 'sandbagger' it's someone who has some kind of grudge, or is applying a criterium (originality?) impossibly strictly.

Is it possible to challenge this person to explain a few of his or her judgements? If asked, I would always be willing to explain my own votes.

A possibly irrelevant observation; these forums have an unusually high incidence of people who are not using their own names. That strikes me as odd, especially for a website that is not political, or religious. My name is David Wrench, and I wouldn't dream of posting anything, anywhere, under any other name. I always wonder about the motives of people who do so.

David

David Wrench said:

I certainly agree that this voting is wholly unjust and illogical. I didn't vote on this challenge, but there are no entries- not even the last- to which I would have given .5. One or two might be accused of excessive post-processing, but that's a value judgement.

I presume that you have access to information that I don't, as I can't find a member of that name, and he or she doesn't seem to have entered the challenge. There are only four possible beneficiaries (people who have no .5 votes) and they all have different names. Perhaps this is someone who has multiple accounts? If it isn't a 'sandbagger' it's someone who has some kind of grudge, or is applying a criterium (originality?) impossibly strictly.

Is it possible to challenge this person to explain a few of his or her judgements? If asked, I would always be willing to explain my own votes.

A possibly irrelevant observation; these forums have an unusually high incidence of people who are not using their own names. That strikes me as odd, especially for a website that is not political, or religious. My name is David Wrench, and I wouldn't dream of posting anything, anywhere, under any other name. I always wonder about the motives of people who do so.

David

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Hi David,

You won't find this member's name, since it is a randomised anonymous number generated by DPR for all members when they vote. Everyone has one of these weird numbers. I think that these member numbers remain the same for a few weeks at least. Your own member number could be Q6F34XC7, and I might be 55F7VW90C or something equally odd. All I know as a host is that member ***** voted in my challenge giving 10 votes of 3, 2 of 4.5 and 2 of 5. I don't know who it is, and DPR certainly won't tell me.

In the above case of sandbagging, the member voted for everyone of the entries. If he/she had voted for all but one of them, then I could possibly figure out who the entrant was.

Quite a frustrating situation for all the hosts, or at least those hosts who care about the challenges' outcomes.

Ruth

Hi Ruth

Thanks for that clarification, which does help me to understand the problem. At the moment I can't think of any solution which would not take up too much time.

David

Ruth

Just a quick question: does the system permit an entrant to vote on his or her own picture, or do you rely on honesty to prevent them doing so? (I don't have any entries to experiment on at the moment.)

Thanks, David

Short answer, no you can't. If you try, a message comes up: 'Sorry, you can't vote on your own entry'.

Similarly, a host can't vote in his/her own challenges. We have no stars beneath each entry. Instead we have 'Votes so far' and a vertical bar chart showing the votes given by the anonymous members.

Clear as mud now?

Ruth

RuthC said:

In the above case of sandbagging, the member voted for everyone of the entries. If he/she had voted for all but one of them, then I could possibly figure out who the entrant was.

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If the person voted on all the entries with ratings between .5 and 1, s/he didn't really sandbag anyone. It's possible that the voter simply thought all the photos were lousy.

RuthC said:

Short answer, no you can't. If you try, a message comes up: 'Sorry, you can't vote on your own entry'.

Similarly, a host can't vote in his/her own challenges. We have no stars beneath each entry. Instead we have 'Votes so far' and a vertical bar chart showing the votes given by the anonymous members.

Clear as mud now?

Ruth

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You run a tight ship with your challenges RuthC. I suspect I am not alone appreciating not only this but also coming into this forum to answer our questions. Many thanks...

I didn't vote on that challenge but I think it's a worthy winner. It's just possible, though, that some people (only two or three) wondered whether it really showed 'fun', especially if they were animal rights activists and looking at it from the bull's point of view(!) I really wonder whether anyone has any conclusive evidence that 'sandbagging' is anything but an urban myth.

Midwest said:

You are as they say 'preaching to the choir' on that one. I have seen many entries that just do not belong and they are allowed to remain. For a while I completely gave up entering challenges when some of my very relevant (and dare I say pretty good) entries got beat by shots that should absolutely have been removed from the challenge for not meeting the theme. When I complained, the host said 'those photos were better than yours anyhow.' First I disagreed with that but secondly they did not belong in the challenge, period.

Recently I did very well in a challenge. Looking through the other entries, I felt mine was the most spot-on with regards to the theme yet I was not expecting to get closer than the top 10 or so given my results in the past. To my surprise I actually did win yet I got a couple of the lowest votes you can get. I never give a half star vote or seldom even one star to an entry that fits the challenge; I guess the sandbaggers are not so honorable.

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Your admittedly very excellent & somewhat thematically appropriate photo was in fact not even remotely in compliance. That challenge, "The pause button;" was to capture a paused image of a funny expression from your TV, not in real life. Both the description & example photo demonstrated that clearly. The "pause button" is not the shutter button.

I was one of literally only 3-4 people to clearly meet the theme, and did not even reach the top twenty. Of course, once I realized that nobody was participating within the rules, I knew that in effect I was the fool and not the other way around. C'est la vie.

I didn't vote everything as a .5 in that challenge by the way, but I did dock them all across the board, save for the few appropriate entries. Given the near-universal misunderstanding of what seemed to me to be a very easy theme to grasp, you were a well-deserving winner.

Having read the challenge specs again, I think you must be right. I had read them carefully before, but assumed that the entrants (not including me) were supposed to reproduce the effect of a TV-style pause. It never occurred to me that anyone would set a challenge that involved photographing the television! I can't have been the only one. It does explain the .5 votes, I suppose.

David

David Wrench said:

A possibly irrelevant observation; these forums have an unusually high incidence of people who are not using their own names. That strikes me as odd, especially for a website that is not political, or religious. My name is David Wrench, and I wouldn't dream of posting anything, anywhere, under any other name. I always wonder about the motives of people who do so.

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I do find this to be an interesting observation, hopefully others won't mind that's it's not on topic.

I believe that wanting to share something of yourself beyond the luck of your genetic draw is among the most pure & noble motives. If you think about it, a descriptive nom-de-internet or any other chosen self-identifier may carry more pertinent information than a real name. Given the right contextual clues, you'll gain insight into someone's personality & interests outside of the obvious one conveyed by their presence on whatever forum(s) they happen to frequent.

For that matter, why should anyone feel the name on their ID carries some kind of meaning or implied accountability online? What can being David Wrench tell me, unless you are famous, from a long line of mechanics or toolmakers, or we live in the same small town? Even though I trust that it is your real name, it would be difficult to verify without the kind of additional information that no one gives freely to strangers. It would be different of course if your real name were Adippitoes Tiswishue or Coxnitige Faxulteez, but then you probably would be in a Key & Peele sketch...

On the other hand, anyone can look in my gallery & immediately tell that I'm a streakshooter, whether that means I like long exposures of moving lights (there's at least one of those), or that my performance tends to run to extremes (evidenced by my uneven challenge results & the fact that I commonly get one or more 5 star rating, but never a top ten finish). Considering the term's most common application (basketball), you can add another piece to the puzzle. Meanwhile, your real name still communicates nothing about your life outside of photography.

I also think we are all more anonymous than anyone may care to admit, even face-to-face. Not literally without name, but unknown to each other. A lifelong friend is just as likely to deceive you as a random stranger; exponentially more so in fact, given their greater opportunity. Sadly, I have firsthand experience with this, so it's not just my current gloomy disposition talking.