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Greetings, As most of us probably knew by now, the SPORRS Shot Of The Month feature is history. It unfortunately turned into a contest that gradually sucked the life out of the rest of the web site. Personally, it was a time consuming administrative computer maintenance headache that brought me little return or satisfaction for my efforts. Very little was said on the list about the shots that you were voting on here, and I had the opposite intention for the 'SOTM'. I could see from the personal E-mail that I was getting that the 'SOTM' was greatly disrupting the rest of the web site, and this list. Some final figures: For 02/98: 32 of 133 members voted on 19 of 86 site images. For 03/98: 32 of 131 members voted on 20 of 109 site images. For 04/98: 44 of 127 members voted on 24 of 98 site images. For 05/98: 29 of 126 members voted on 18 of 106 site images. For 06/98: 22 of 131 members voted on 17 of 98 site images. You have to look back at each month's results to see that what we got was mostly a monthly 'listing' of favorite shots with a single vote each: February: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/sotmframes0298.htm March: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/sotmframes0398.htm April: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/sotmframes0498.htm May: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/sotmframes0598.htm June: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/sotmframes.htm YOU'LL NEED THESE LINKS ABOVE because all except June are no longer on the web site anymore. (If you don't have a frames compatible browser, sorry, no one reported that my frames pages didn't work for the last five months). There were so few votes that there was usually several two, three and four way ties that nearly eliminated a single 'SOTM' image each month, like finally happened this month, and since usually only one last minute vote would decide the next month's shot, there was no general consensus that the image had been selected uniquely over anything else, other than being picked by one person more than the other two or three. Most images only got one vote each. Drawing an image out of a hat would be just as accurate. The 'SOTM' Vote was intended as a feature to stimulate conversation on this list, not as a serious contest. There were never any entries or winners. Just the 'Shot Of The Month'. 'Listing' so many images with one vote each is ridiculous from the Webmaster's viewpoint. You are better off posting your comments about the shot(s) that you like best, and why, on this list where you can get feedback. You can look at this month's results page as a SPORRS Member's Favorites Sampling, which sounds more accurate anyway. Hopefully we will have some informative conversations on this list about the shots selected this month. If a larger percentage of SPORRS members would have voted each month, we would have had more accurate vote results, but as we just proved to ourselves again, there simply just isn't enough of us - Serious Photographers Of Railroad Subjects - involved in this hobby that care to get involved, regardless of the cause or occasion. A sampling will have to do for this final month. And perhaps a sampling is all that we need. Dave Cohen SPORRS List Owner/Webmaster ======================================================= -> SPORRS: 'Serious Photographers Of Railroad Related Subjects' -> Web Site: http://www.anet-stl.com/acphotog/sporrs/ -> Message © 1998 SPORRS® - All Rights Reserved =======================================================
