>>> Challenge 12: Light - Voting Thread <<<

[iso3200]

The booth seems to have closed eligible category voting due to a bug three hours early. I have contacted Jack about this but on my side of the world I have to get some sleep now.

Hopefully, Jack will pick up his email and be able to rectify anything in time, but it does appear we have a clear leader, so the overall outcome shouldn't be jeopardised.

Jack has done a lot of hard work to make this booth happen for CSLR, so your patience and understanding would go a long way I'm sure.

If a fix can't be done in time, I reckon the current and clear leader should go ahead and set a new topic. Ultimately, Anders (FretNoMore) should have the last word as it's his challenge. But he'll probably be in the land of nod as well.

Will catch up tomorrow

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

---------
iso3200
----------
http://www.imageattic.net/gallery

 

[Patt53]

I was just noticing that too. Not only is it closed early, it is showing a divide by zero error and the pics are from some other challange about games I think.

I really appreciate all the trouble Jack has gone too, to help me vote, even though I have not been able to do it successfully yet. I have used this booth for CTF challanges without issues and it is a really nice way to vote!

Thanks, Patt.

The booth seems to have closed eligible category voting due to a
bug three hours early. I have contacted Jack about this but on my
side of the world I have to get some sleep now.

Hopefully, Jack will pick up his email and be able to rectify
anything in time, but it does appear we have a clear leader, so the
overall outcome shouldn't be jeopardised.

Jack has done a lot of hard work to make this booth happen for
CSLR, so your patience and understanding would go a long way I'm
sure.

If a fix can't be done in time, I reckon the current and clear
leader should go ahead and set a new topic. Ultimately, Anders
(FretNoMore) should have the last word as it's his challenge. But
he'll probably be in the land of nod as well.

Will catch up tomorrow

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

---------
iso3200
----------
http://www.imageattic.net/gallery

--
http://www.pbase.com/dptin

 

[FretNoMore]

If I have the power as host to decide then I will judge that the standings when the voting booth clock strikes midnight be the final score. If Jack manages to open the booth for the remaining two hours maybe a few more can get their votes in, but I don't think anyone else would want to do the the voting again.

It's of course a bit unfortunate that there has been some teething problems, my thanks goes to Jack for trying to resolve this. Despite the bugs I think it was worth the trial, and my vote is to try again as the voting booth is a major improvement over the old way. That's just my opinion of course.

-Anders

The booth seems to have closed eligible category voting due to a
bug three hours early. I have contacted Jack about this but on my
side of the world I have to get some sleep now.

Hopefully, Jack will pick up his email and be able to rectify
anything in time, but it does appear we have a clear leader, so the
overall outcome shouldn't be jeopardised.

Jack has done a lot of hard work to make this booth happen for
CSLR, so your patience and understanding would go a long way I'm
sure.

If a fix can't be done in time, I reckon the current and clear
leader should go ahead and set a new topic. Ultimately, Anders
(FretNoMore) should have the last word as it's his challenge. But
he'll probably be in the land of nod as well.

Will catch up tomorrow

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

---------
iso3200
----------
http://www.imageattic.net/gallery

 

[blulegend]

Apparently, the booth lost the date. But now things are good. I hope it does not happen again.

Patt, I am trying one last approach that does not do as much checking using javascript. Please try it one last time. If it still fails for you, I will remove the feature altogether.

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

 

[blulegend]

Thanks.

The reason many of you are having problems is because I have made many significant upgrades to the booth recently.

The reason I chose to make these large upgrades is because the challenges were getting too big to run under my quickly coded booth I made that worked well for the smaller ones.

The primary issues I needed to solve was script execution time and voting ease. With the larger challenges, the script took upwards of 4sec to parse the data. I was lazy in the beginning and didn't store too much information in the database since I didn't really know what data I wanted there and which direction the booth would take. So now I have made it pretty much all database driven which makes it MUCH faster. These updates didn't really have to many problems.

To make voting quicker, I started adding more features to make thumbnails view easier and have more error checking before the form actually submitted so you can go back to change things if they weren't right. This required more use of javascript which doesn't work well on all machines as Patt quickly proved. I will continue to iron out any issues the booth has.

-Jack

It's of course a bit unfortunate that there has been some teething
problems, my thanks goes to Jack for trying to resolve this.
Despite the bugs I think it was worth the trial, and my vote is to
try again as the voting booth is a major improvement over the old
way. That's just my opinion of course.

-Anders

The booth seems to have closed eligible category voting due to a
bug three hours early. I have contacted Jack about this but on my
side of the world I have to get some sleep now.

Hopefully, Jack will pick up his email and be able to rectify
anything in time, but it does appear we have a clear leader, so the
overall outcome shouldn't be jeopardised.

Jack has done a lot of hard work to make this booth happen for
CSLR, so your patience and understanding would go a long way I'm
sure.

If a fix can't be done in time, I reckon the current and clear
leader should go ahead and set a new topic. Ultimately, Anders
(FretNoMore) should have the last word as it's his challenge. But
he'll probably be in the land of nod as well.

Will catch up tomorrow

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

---------
iso3200
----------
http://www.imageattic.net/gallery

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

 

[Patt53]

Yipieeeeee!!!! I can vote and I have voted! Thanks so much Jack!!!!!

What ever you did worked!

Patt.

Apparently, the booth lost the date. But now things are good. I
hope it does not happen again.

Patt, I am trying one last approach that does not do as much
checking using javascript. Please try it one last time. If it
still fails for you, I will remove the feature altogether.

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

--
http://www.pbase.com/dptin

 

[blulegend]

Did it ask you to double check?

-Jack

What ever you did worked!

Patt.

Apparently, the booth lost the date. But now things are good. I
hope it does not happen again.

Patt, I am trying one last approach that does not do as much
checking using javascript. Please try it one last time. If it
still fails for you, I will remove the feature altogether.

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

--
http://www.pbase.com/dptin

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

 

[Patt53]

Yes, it asked me to check my weightings and then cast my vote. What does this mean?

Patt

-Jack

What ever you did worked!

Patt.

Apparently, the booth lost the date. But now things are good. I
hope it does not happen again.

Patt, I am trying one last approach that does not do as much
checking using javascript. Please try it one last time. If it
still fails for you, I will remove the feature altogether.

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

--
http://www.pbase.com/dptin

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

--
http://www.pbase.com/dptin

 

[blulegend]

Would making the thumbnails into medium sized ones by an option help?

The way I vote is to look for one that stands out then view it in full size. This is a little difficult to do using the thumbnails so I tend to just click them all. When you click a new one, the previous pop-up window will close automatically.

-Jack

Phil

It's still slower than navigating via pbase using next/previous.

Why not keep on doing that then? I find it's the best way also.

Just select images like you used to. Presumably you browsed the
galleries and selected your favourites, or put them on paper, or on
notepad and then keyed in your voting thread on DPreview.

I always browse the galleries in one window, and the voting thread
in another.

Now I have the galleries open in one window, and the booth in the
other. I don't vote on the booth thumbnails - just the PBase
originals.

In fact, in the CTF booth, the thumbnail option had been there for
about 12 months and I had never used it! Now I just find it makes
things easier to locate in the booth but it doesn't change the way
I vote.

--
iso3200
----------
http://www.imageattic.net/gallery

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

 

[blulegend]

That's good.

I have accidentally voted without changing the weights I wanted to give each picture so I wanted to keep people from accidentally voting incorrectly as if your votes pass verification by the script you cannot go back to change them.

I've changed the message to this: "REMINDER: Double check your points awarded for each vote. Then click OK to place your vote." Now you don't need to be worried.

-Jack

Patt

-Jack

What ever you did worked!

Patt.

Apparently, the booth lost the date. But now things are good. I
hope it does not happen again.

Patt, I am trying one last approach that does not do as much
checking using javascript. Please try it one last time. If it
still fails for you, I will remove the feature altogether.

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

--
http://www.pbase.com/dptin

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

--
http://www.pbase.com/dptin

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

 

[Patt53]

Thanks Jack for all your hard work.

Patt.

I have accidentally voted without changing the weights I wanted to
give each picture so I wanted to keep people from accidentally
voting incorrectly as if your votes pass verification by the script
you cannot go back to change them.

I've changed the message to this: "REMINDER: Double check your
points awarded for each vote. Then click OK to place your vote."
Now you don't need to be worried.

-Jack

Patt

-Jack

What ever you did worked!

Patt.

Apparently, the booth lost the date. But now things are good. I
hope it does not happen again.

Patt, I am trying one last approach that does not do as much
checking using javascript. Please try it one last time. If it
still fails for you, I will remove the feature altogether.

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

--
http://www.pbase.com/dptin

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

--
http://www.pbase.com/dptin

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

--
http://www.pbase.com/dptin

 

[Joe Reilly129599]

Before we rush to judgment on voting process for future challenges, let's recognize growing pains and be receptive to another try at the booth. I am not sold on the idea, but I know this first experience has not been representative. God bless Jack, iso, Fret, and others for giving us this first taste; I kinda think we owe it to them to reserve judgment and try one more time. Perhaps, tho, we ought to avoid C13 ( sMiLe )...

Fessing up: Absent any technical glitches, I still got frustrated with my voting experience last night. Then I nosed around the booth again this morning and realized I had rushed and not used its features effectively (not even close). Again: Let's not rush to judgment.

I am not being an advocate for the booth, just asking for one more try at something respected members believe in. Reasonable?

Thanks,
Joe

Time to start voting, and as already mentioned this time we'll try
online automated voting in the new "CSLR Challenge Voting Booth" at

http://www.liteserv.com/cslrvotebooth/index.php

Please go on over there and start putting down your votes! (Note:
There seems to be a one hour time difference for some reason so the
voting booth may not be open for another hour). The booth will stay
open for two days, after its closing I'll update the galleries to
reflect the final standings.

This is new to me as well so I hope those of you who have used this
system before can help with any questions.

Please also use this thread to discuss if you like this system of
voting and if it should be used for future challenges.

Thanks!
Anders

--
http://www.pbase.com/misterpix

 

[blulegend]

I realize for some users, the booth is not very friendly.

Let me know what make it difficult for you to vote as a first-timer. It's difficult for me to judge since I know the booth backwards and forwards. So I encourage feedback and suggestions to help increase the ease of use.

Let me know which features you found that you didn't find the first time around. Maybe I can make them more visible.

Most experienced users of the booth find it very improved compared to the old style of voting.

I can't imagine the host trying to count over 100 votes total and each vote consisting of 5 separate point awards. Then verifying if the awards add up to the total allotted, etc, etc.

Improvements so far:

• I made the booth show the medium sized images to help users spot photos they want a closer look at more easily (difficult to do with the smaller thumbnails).

• Thumbnails are turned-on by default. If anyone wants to clear their cookies and try test this for me, please so do.

• Added rankings for images with points.

• lots of other stuff i forgot I did.

-Jack

Fessing up: Absent any technical glitches, I still got frustrated
with my voting experience last night. Then I nosed around the
booth again this morning and realized I had rushed and not used its
features effectively (not even close). Again: Let's not rush to
judgment.

I am not being an advocate for the booth, just asking for one more
try at something respected members believe in. Reasonable?

Thanks,
Joe

Time to start voting, and as already mentioned this time we'll try
online automated voting in the new "CSLR Challenge Voting Booth" at

http://www.liteserv.com/cslrvotebooth/index.php

Please go on over there and start putting down your votes! (Note:
There seems to be a one hour time difference for some reason so the
voting booth may not be open for another hour). The booth will stay
open for two days, after its closing I'll update the galleries to
reflect the final standings.

This is new to me as well so I hope those of you who have used this
system before can help with any questions.

Please also use this thread to discuss if you like this system of
voting and if it should be used for future challenges.

Thanks!
Anders

--
http://www.pbase.com/misterpix

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

 

[Joe Reilly129599]

First up: Monster thanks for your efforts. Communities like this tick when folks like you offer your talents/energy in generous ways.

I'm pressed for time tonight, but will follow-up with thoughts later this weekend. Generally, I think it works, but I do have some ideas that may optimize initial use(s). I'm coming off 4 months of intensive Web design work myself, and I am oh so familiar with the difficulty in serving a diverse audience. I hope I can help.

But to be clear: Change can be unsettling, and this voting iteration has seen its challenges, but you're a damned hero for your generosity and your responsiveness.

Thank you.

Joe

Let me know what make it difficult for you to vote as a
first-timer. It's difficult for me to judge since I know the booth
backwards and forwards. So I encourage feedback and suggestions to
help increase the ease of use.

Let me know which features you found that you didn't find the first
time around. Maybe I can make them more visible.

Most experienced users of the booth find it very improved compared
to the old style of voting.

I can't imagine the host trying to count over 100 votes total and
each vote consisting of 5 separate point awards. Then verifying if
the awards add up to the total allotted, etc, etc.

Improvements so far:

• I made the booth show the medium sized images to help users spot

photos they want a closer look at more easily (difficult to do with
the smaller thumbnails).

• Thumbnails are turned-on by default. If anyone wants to clear

their cookies and try test this for me, please so do.

• Added rankings for images with points.

• lots of other stuff i forgot I did.

-Jack

Fessing up: Absent any technical glitches, I still got frustrated
with my voting experience last night. Then I nosed around the
booth again this morning and realized I had rushed and not used its
features effectively (not even close). Again: Let's not rush to
judgment.

I am not being an advocate for the booth, just asking for one more
try at something respected members believe in. Reasonable?

Thanks,
Joe

Time to start voting, and as already mentioned this time we'll try
online automated voting in the new "CSLR Challenge Voting Booth" at

http://www.liteserv.com/cslrvotebooth/index.php

Please go on over there and start putting down your votes! (Note:
There seems to be a one hour time difference for some reason so the
voting booth may not be open for another hour). The booth will stay
open for two days, after its closing I'll update the galleries to
reflect the final standings.

This is new to me as well so I hope those of you who have used this
system before can help with any questions.

Please also use this thread to discuss if you like this system of
voting and if it should be used for future challenges.

Thanks!
Anders

--
http://www.pbase.com/misterpix

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

--
http://www.pbase.com/misterpix

 

[Garrett Lau]

Thanks for maintaining the voting booth and already addressing some of the earlier problems. Here are my suggestions for future improvements:

1. Keep the pictures in the order that they appear in pbase. This has been the case in the CTF challenges that I voted in, so now I enter the voting booth with a list of my selections in that order. However, this time, the Exhibition gallery was out of order.

2. Don't send me to the top of the page every time I vote on an image. This might have been fixed for this challenge, as I don't recall being annoyed by it this time.

3. The weighting thing is not obvious. I don't know if you've added instructions for that, but the first time I used the voting booth, I did not know that I could use the radio buttons to change the weightings. I couldn't even figure out why the labels for the radio buttons went in the wrong order (3 for 1st, 2 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd). I kept trying to edit the points directly, to no avail. I would like the ability to edit the points directly, but I understand that it might be difficult to enforce constraints such as maximum points per image and maximum points total.

--Garrett

Let me know what make it difficult for you to vote as a
first-timer. It's difficult for me to judge since I know the booth
backwards and forwards. So I encourage feedback and suggestions to
help increase the ease of use.

Let me know which features you found that you didn't find the first
time around. Maybe I can make them more visible.

Most experienced users of the booth find it very improved compared
to the old style of voting.

I can't imagine the host trying to count over 100 votes total and
each vote consisting of 5 separate point awards. Then verifying if
the awards add up to the total allotted, etc, etc.

Improvements so far:

• I made the booth show the medium sized images to help users spot

photos they want a closer look at more easily (difficult to do with
the smaller thumbnails).

• Thumbnails are turned-on by default. If anyone wants to clear

their cookies and try test this for me, please so do.

• Added rankings for images with points.

• lots of other stuff i forgot I did.

-Jack

Fessing up: Absent any technical glitches, I still got frustrated
with my voting experience last night. Then I nosed around the
booth again this morning and realized I had rushed and not used its
features effectively (not even close). Again: Let's not rush to
judgment.

I am not being an advocate for the booth, just asking for one more
try at something respected members believe in. Reasonable?

Thanks,
Joe

Time to start voting, and as already mentioned this time we'll try
online automated voting in the new "CSLR Challenge Voting Booth" at

http://www.liteserv.com/cslrvotebooth/index.php

Please go on over there and start putting down your votes! (Note:
There seems to be a one hour time difference for some reason so the
voting booth may not be open for another hour). The booth will stay
open for two days, after its closing I'll update the galleries to
reflect the final standings.

This is new to me as well so I hope those of you who have used this
system before can help with any questions.

Please also use this thread to discuss if you like this system of
voting and if it should be used for future challenges.

Thanks!
Anders

--
http://www.pbase.com/misterpix

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

--
http://www.pbase.com/garrettlau

 

[mesmfirst]

since you asked......

Being a first time user to the booth I was a little confused as to the weighting . Having only voted in writing with the points I typed in, I tried to play around with it a little and ended up just trying to get each of the five pictures(I read somewhere the magic number of pictures was 5) a point. I agree with whoever suggested that clearer directions on the point weighting would be helpful. I just thought the choice 1- choice 5 was just that and didn't realize there was a correlation to our favorite and so on. I wish I understood the system better so I could suggest how to clearly explain it to someone that didn't have a clue(like me) . I also didn't realize that the general comments section was a perfect place for HM. HM are so encouraging when you aren't one of the best, just to know someone noticed.

overall the voting booth worked very smoothly and it was interesting to vote without being swayed by other votes ahead of time.

Not being a computer person naturally, I am amazed at how the whole booth works. thanks for your time and constant improvements. I would think that the booth makes the host's job easier.

melissa

 

[blulegend]

Thanks for maintaining the voting booth and already addressing some
of the earlier problems. Here are my suggestions for future
improvements:

1. Keep the pictures in the order that they appear in pbase. This
has been the case in the CTF challenges that I voted in, so now I
enter the voting booth with a list of my selections in that order.
However, this time, the Exhibition gallery was out of order.

Hmm. I don't know why it was out of order. The way the booth does it is by the order of submission. If someone changes the order of the challenge after the booth grabs it, it will stay in the order that it was originally grabbed.

2. Don't send me to the top of the page every time I vote on an
image. This might have been fixed for this challenge, as I don't
recall being annoyed by it this time.

You can click "return to image" to return to where you were. The reason for going to the top of the screen each time is to review your votes each time and possibly enter a comment. I will change the text of the return link to something more intuitive.

3. The weighting thing is not obvious. I don't know if you've added
instructions for that, but the first time I used the voting booth,
I did not know that I could use the radio buttons to change the
weightings. I couldn't even figure out why the labels for the radio
buttons went in the wrong order (3 for 1st, 2 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd).
I kept trying to edit the points directly, to no avail. I would
like the ability to edit the points directly, but I understand that
it might be difficult to enforce constraints such as maximum points
per image and maximum points total.

The numbers were not supposed to indicate the placing of the image for the weighting scale. They were supposed to indicate the relative "weight" that image would get. I've changed it to make it more logical now.

Thanks for your comments. Feel free to add some more. You can go to the booth and click the bottom challenge to check the new system.

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

 

[Paul Sumi]

Don't have to be quite THAT large LOL.

I was wondering if we could possibly scan rows of thumbnails, like those in the Pbase galleries? The size/Pbase links would go underneath the image and you could put a "vote" button underneath that?

This might be easier than scrolling down.

Paul
--
Make photographs, not equipment lists!
Friends don't let friends measurebate
http://www.pbase.com/pauls/

 

[blulegend]

There was nothing in between the thumbnail size and the medium size.

Not sure how I like having rows of thumbnails personally, as I would still need to click each one of them.

-Jack

Don't have to be quite THAT large LOL.

I was wondering if we could possibly scan rows of thumbnails, like
those in the Pbase galleries? The size/Pbase links would go
underneath the image and you could put a "vote" button underneath
that?

This might be easier than scrolling down.

Paul
--
Make photographs, not equipment lists!
Friends don't let friends measurebate
http://www.pbase.com/pauls/

--
-Jack
==================
Weblog: http://jacksarse.com
CTF Challenge Vote Booth: http://www.liteserv.com/ctfvotebooth
GALLERY: http://lens.liteserv.com
Gear: see Profile

 

[Garrett Lau]

Hmm. I don't know why it was out of order. The way the booth does
it is by the order of submission. If someone changes the order of
the challenge after the booth grabs it, it will stay in the order
that it was originally grabbed.

The image that I noticed was out of order was "First Light", which was posted the first day and never moved around in pbase.

You can click "return to image" to return to where you were. The
reason for going to the top of the screen each time is to review
your votes each time and possibly enter a comment. I will change
the text of the return link to something more intuitive.

I must have used "return to image," which was a very welcome feature.

The numbers were not supposed to indicate the placing of the image
for the weighting scale. They were supposed to indicate the
relative "weight" that image would get. I've changed it to make it
more logical now.

Yes, I figured that out after someone told me about the radio buttons. I was just giving you my first impression. The added instructions and the change in labels are definite improvements.

--Garrett
http://www.pbase.com/garrettlau