> From: John Sessoms <[email protected]> >>> >>> The gallery of contest entries is found here: >>> http://www.camera-enthusiast.com/forums/useralbums/fuji-x10-giveaway-submissions.7/view >>> (Mine is in the last row, Waaaaaay down there, as I type this). >>> >>> Darren Addy >>> Kearney, Nebraska >> I like the storm shot Darren. >> >> Photo contest rant follows. >> >> There seems to be no good way to run a contest. Subjectivity always >> enters into the picture. However this kind of contest seems to have >> more problems than the kind in which a select set of judges passes >> judgement. >> >> A big complaint from posters in this contest is that images near the >> top of the list seem to acquire more votes. That's entirely logical, >> those voting are not required to look at every image before voting. >> Hence as interest wanes or time slips by the images lower on the list >> tend to get fewer votes, regardless of their merit. >> >> A recent monthly photo contest run by an insurance company here in >> Idaho had a similar format, except that anyone that registered on the >> site was eligible to vote. So it was not really a photo contest, it >> was a popularity contest. Those that could encourage or ask the most >> number of friends to vote would garner the most votes, regardless of >> image merit. How is that remotely fair? I wrote the company regarding >> the issue, and their response was that they designed it to be a >> popularity contest. So much for that. >> >> Tom C. > > If I didn't lose count, there are 177 rows of 4 images, with the 178th > row having only one image at the time I counted. Page position does seem > to have a real effect on the number of views an image gets. > > Darren's image is the first image on the 172nd row. > > The only way to overcome the inherent page position bias would be to > randomize the images each time the page loads so that every entrant has > a chance to have their image appear near the top of the heap. > > Interestingly, when I refreshed the page, the last row now had 3 images, > with the image that had been alone there now the second image in the > row. The first image in the last row had previously been the last image > in the next to last row, so something got inserted between Darren's > image & the last image. >
Another issue, as I see it, is that the voting is open for the duration of the contest period. If Photographer #1 submits a photo on day 1, and Photographer #2 submits a photo on day 31, Photographer #1 has had 30 days of additional vote accumulation, simply for being aware of the contest and having an earlier submission. Tom C. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
