VB Forums Photography Contest #7

[gep13]

Not sure if this is "allowed", (Marty, let me know if it isn't and I will remove it), but I have added a link to the voting in my signature.

Gary

[MartinLiss]

No that's s fine. In fact I'm going to do the same thing (and make it bigger).

[akhileshbc]

What about sending a newsletter to all members ? You could note down the details of the contest as well as other details !

[MartinLiss]

What about sending a newsletter to all members ? You could note down the details of the contest as well as other details !

Thanks but many people would consider that unwanted spam.

[gep13]

No that's s fine. In fact I'm going to do the same thing (and make it bigger).

Ha ha

I like it!!

[gep13]

Marty, have the entries in the our signatures helped any? Was there an increase in the voting?

Not long now until the results!!

Gary

[akhileshbc]

Try adding a small animated banner in your signatures ! That would get more attention !

[EntityX]

Less than 6 hours left for voting. We'll soon know the results of the contest.

[gep13]

Try adding a small animated banner in your signatures ! That would get more attention !

If we get another contest next year, there will be a HUGE animated banner

[akhileshbc]

If we get another contest next year, there will be a HUGE animated banner

I think, adding a animated banner would get more attention. Because your signature contains many sentences. So, only some of the viewers would try to read all of them. Instead, if you used some attractive things (like animated banner or graphic rich still banner), then it would get more attention

[gep13]

I think, adding a animated banner would get more attention. Because your signature contains many sentences. So, only some of the viewers would try to read all of them. Instead, if you used some attractive things (like animated banner or graphic rich still banner), then it would get more attention

That is a good point!

[MartinLiss]

Despite my best efforts there have only been 18 votes which tells me that people are just not interested. So unless somthing amazing happens in the next 3 1/2 hours this will be the last contest.

[jakkjakk]

here's my photo

[gep13]

Congratulations Dean!!

Gary

[DeanMc]

Yay me boo lack of votes

[EntityX]

Both the votes that you got DeanMc you should be very proud of.

Just joking you might have actually got 3 or 4 or even more.

[DeanMc]

But in fairness I would have thought given the amount of photo enthusiasm here that we could have got a bigger voting turnout.

[gep13]

But in fairness I would have thought given the amount of photo enthusiasm here that we could have got a bigger voting turnout.

Agreed, it is a real shame! Really don't understand why people didn't vote!

Thanks for organising the contest Marty, much appreciated!!!

Gary

[Siddharth Rout]

Congratulations DeanMc , matneed , lone_REBEL & Jordan

Marty: Don't let that discourage you! Have you see the movie "I am Legend". I picked up one good thing from it. You remember what Will Smith said to Alice Braga regarding what Bob Marley said?

"The people that are trying to make the world worse never take a day off , why should I?"

So keep up the good work! Looking forward for the next competition!

Sid

[Jordan]

ah, cool! Placing in my first ever photo contest Thanks Martin for putting it all together, it was fun.

[Pradeep1210]

Enjoyed it a lot

Though I'm pathetic at shooting photos and so unfortunately didn't send any entries for the contest.

[EntityX]

Martin consider that even though not that many members voted this thread has collected almost 2,000 views in under a month as of right now. So you might still want to continue having the contests. I'm sort of out of photos to enter and my Samsung Digimax 530 croaked on me so I'm now cameraless. I'd still probably enjoy watching the contest even if I didn't enter any photos.

[akhileshbc]

Congratz guys

I thought, my name will be listed at the top of the listing:

0th place: akhileshbc #1,#2 & #3
1st place: DeanMc #1
2nd place: matneed #5
3rd place: lone_REBEL #1 & Jordan #4 (tie)

0 is given more preference. Isn't it ? Even in arrays, it is the starting index !

Just kidding

[EntityX]

That reminds me of Isaac Asimov. In one of his novels one of his robots that uses those basic laws that are for the preservation of human life, sites the zeroeth law of robotics. That law allows a robot to take human life if in so doing he saves a greater number of human lives.

I fear I'm getting off topic and that Martin will delete this post and if he does that's ok.

There's also the -1th place.

[MarMan]

Martin consider that even though not that many members voted this thread has collected almost 2,000 views in under a month as of right now.

That is good for getting / keeping people's interest or attention. Even if they do not vote, a hit is a hit which make advertisers happy.

I do not know if the rules can allow this, but maybe if you could offer a rep point for voting it would increase the turnout. 1 point would not make much difference in someone's rep, but it may increase turnout and I believe it would increase the 2000 views and would be good for business. You can justify it because participating in a social activity can be considered a positive attribute of someone's reputation.

Not the greatest idea, but the best I can come up with.

[Yas~Man]

I couldn't vote because I had recently joined..

[MartinLiss]

I couldn't vote because I had recently joined..

Oh, sorry. If I were to do this again I'd state that the recently-joined rule doesn't apply to people who entered photographs.

[akhileshbc]

Another idea: allot some prizes for the winners or participators. Even a T-shirt with vbforum's logo is enough.
Also, make a random winner out of the voters (those who haven't submitted photos but voted).

Even a small prize/gift will be a big appreciation for his work !

[Lord Orwell]

Another idea: allot some prizes for the winners or participators. Even a T-shirt with vbforum's logo is enough.
Also, make a random winner out of the voters (those who haven't submitted photos but voted).

Even a small prize/gift will be a big appreciation for his work !

that's right. there was a prize for the games contest.

[gep13]

Marty, I was actually speaking to Brad about the availability of VB Forums swag, and he was going to be looking into it. Might be a good idea to bring more people in.

Gary

[akhileshbc]

Marty, I was actually speaking to Brad about the availability of VB Forums swag, and he was going to be looking into it. Might be a good idea to bring more people in.

Gary

Swag ?

[gep13]

Ah, sorry, probably not a familiar word outwith Scotland

Basically, swag equates to merchandise, typically given away by a company in competitions, etc. Normally branded with the company logo etc.

Gary

[akhileshbc]

Got it.. Thanks for explaining..

I think, there are some online sites that offer this services like pringoo.com or something like that. Once, my brother used to design a T-shirt with John Cena's image on the t-shirt.

Something like that would be available at very low cost.

[gep13]

This:

http://www.cafepress.co.uk/Codeguru

Is what currently exists for CodeGuru. The "hope" is that something similar can be set up for VB Forums.

Gary

[MartinLiss]

Prizes would be appropriate for the contest winners but the problem isn't in getting people to enter, but rather in getting people to vote.

Just had a thought - what if one prize was given randomly to one of the voters? Hmmmmm.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I'd like to add that I really enjoy these photo contests, though I haven't ever entered any (I barely take pictures). I also didn't vote. That wasn't from a lack of interest, it was that there were too many pictures that I thought were equally excellent. Voting FOR one person would mean that I was saying that others were less good when I didn't actually feel that way. Frankly, I didn't feel competent to have a meaningful opinion on this.

However, if voting is what determines whether there will be another contest, rather than just entries, then I will vote the cemetary if there is another contest, if only to keep the contests coming. I do strongly support them.

[akhileshbc]

This:

http://www.cafepress.co.uk/Codeguru

Is what currently exists for CodeGuru. The "hope" is that something similar can be set up for VB Forums.

Gary

That's cool

Prizes would be appropriate for the contest winners but the problem isn't in getting people to enter, but rather in getting people to vote.

Just had a thought - what if one prize was given randomly to one of the voters? Hmmmmm.

I think, many people are not interested in this contest because of the manner in which this contest is carried out. It is a way difficult for the posting of photos and voting mechanism.

Why don't you try creating a special custom coded page for contests ?
This is a programmers community ! I think, there'll be several helping hands out there (from the members), if you want help coding the custom page.

The advantages of a custom page for the contest will be:

• Voting facility can be incorporated to it. So, it will be even more easy to vote by a few clicks. No need of the traditional "PM voting" system
• Members those who have/haven't voted can be easily tracked and can be reminded by sending automated PMs or emails
• No manual "managing" of photos is necessary (I mean, the pain of downloading the zip, extracting it and then uploading those photos one by one, will be completely minimized)
• You could incorporate the APIs of some photo sharing site to automate the process of uploading the photos to those servers
• and much more....

These are some of the ideas that popped out from my head.

[MarMan]

Why don't you try creating a special custom coded page for contests ?

Good idea.

[dee-u]

How long was the votation? Perhaps making it longer should give others a chance to vote as I was not able to vote also for 'time' constraints. =)

[MartinLiss]

Thanks for your ideas but...

That's cool


I think, many people are not interested in this contest because of the manner in which this contest is carried out. It is a way difficult for the posting of photos and voting mechanism. ==> In most cases people just upload their photos to this site and IMO that's not difficult. In any case I need to be able to approve the photos and it's a lot easier for me to do that here compared with, say, flickr.

Why don't you try creating a special custom coded page for contests ?
This is a programmers community ! I think, there'll be several helping hands out there (from the members), if you want help coding the custom page. ==> I don't have access to the underlying forum software and I assume that that would be necessary. I would therefor have to ask someone higher up than me to do it, and considering that there are some up there who don't think that this contest is appropriate, there's little chance of me getting the needed support.

The advantages of a custom page for the contest will be:

• Voting facility can be incorporated to it. So, it will be even more easy to vote by a few clicks. No need of the traditional "PM voting" system ==> What is hard about sending a PM?
• Members those who have/haven't voted can be easily tracked and can be reminded by sending automated PMs or emails==> = Spam
• No manual "managing" of photos is necessary (I mean, the pain of downloading the zip, extracting it and then uploading those photos one by one, will be completely minimized)==> I'm confused by this one but if you're talking about what I do to upload the photos to ImageEvent then that's my concern and I don't mind at all.
• You could incorporate the APIs of some photo sharing site to automate the process of uploading the photos to those servers==> I use ImageEvent directly
• and much more....

These are some of the ideas that popped out from my head.