@AZMSGT Apologies for the late reply, was off the forum lately and missed this thread till now. maybe a tag would have helped me notice your post as your addressing me and as I'm the one running the POTM.
Hope below answers all your questions.
It’s not negativity, it’s called criticism and people expressing themselves. There are several people that are not happy with the photo competitions. Either you learn to accept other peoples point of view as a positive experience, or you don’t accept it and call it a negative experience. The choice is yours and how you spin it.
If you go back to my comment it goes "I'm seeing a lot of critiques of the topic". Critique=Criticism, I didn't mention negativity. I realize and understand constructive criticism when I see one and the way this was posted and multiple posts by different people did derail the POTM on its first page. yet we have a fair share of quality submissions and voting thread which will start shortly will show it.
First things first..
photo submission threads aren’t getting restored after the winner is announced. Three in particular are missing. I don’t remember the specific titles or month but the basic subject I do remember
1. Photo of your fish tank room.
2. Picture of your favorite fish up close.
3. Picture of blue coral
So we forgot to restore a couple threads, a simple PM and we would just copy them back. it is the rule that the threads have to be moved out during vote so its more anonymous. Don't see any conspiracy theory here.
The selection process is supposed to end up with 15 photos to be judged.
On many occasions this has not been adhered to. There have been several times that an excess of 15 where selected. Also there are times when less are selected. I understand it says “up to 15”. So less is purely based on votes by the staff.
I think in this case you need to be consistent always pick the same number never more or less.
Not always possible due to Ties in mods voting for the finalists. revotes would take days and delay the thread. most of the time we take more pics than less so no one is affected negatively. in the worse case scenario a few pics with less votes (less chance to win in public vote ) are included is that a big deal. Did you ever see a non deserving shot win?
Mods should not be able submit photos and then be in the vote for selection. This just asks for bias. Also, even if a Mod submits a photo and it makes the final selection it’s going to cause problems. There Mod friends could be playing favorites. These are the things that people see from the outside looking in.
Says who? this is only your opinion, it might be a suggestion but coming out with a statement that "MODS should not be able to submit photos" is kind of taking your opinion for the norm. Many photography forums, other reefing forums do allow mods to submit pics in competitions.
can you remind me when was the last time a Mod won???
wouldn't members be able to team up as well? should we not allow members to submit as well?
Reason we move the thread out of sight while vote is ongoing, and that we don't allow watermarks is to avoid that.
POTM is meant to be a fun contest and there are no conspiracies in the background.
It would feel awkward if I ever won a POTM as I run the POTM but trust me I'd give up the prize to the second runner up if it happened.
We saw a recent issue where a previous POTM winner, won again but then the award went to the second place. Which is the right thing to do. However it should never have come up. The previous winners photo should never have been selected into the final list.
So what? POTM is all about having great pics posted, discussed and seen. not allowing good pictures in the competition simply cause owner has won in the last 6 months takes a way from the quality of the submissions and decreases participation. a person wins a second time, he gets recognized for it, yet prize goes to runner up. Why is that such a big deal?
Photos should NOT be allowed from anything other than a persons tank. Allowing photos from the open ocean or divers isn’t fair to anyone. This forum is a reef keepers forum, not a diving forum. The pictures posted in a competition should always reflect that.
I might agree with this one, yet what is the percentage of ocean pictures that won? again more than happy to discuss with the team and change the rule if needed. again Encourage you to post your suggestions as suggestion and not as "Should NOT be allowed" as that is only your opinion.
a simple PM with those concerns would have led to a more constructive discussion than posting your opinions as rules.
No, but a subject should not be so exclussive that it narrows submissions to a handful of possible winners. This month for instance is to narrow. We all know people will vote and how they will vote. They pick big, pretty and full of coral.
Seriously? Full tank under blue light is an exclusive topic. FTS is by far the most topic everyone wants to win. yes it reflects nice tanks full of corals (not necessarily big but so what if big) isn't that what the majority wants? I see current months topic (blasto) As a more narrow topic as not all reefers have a blasto in their tank.
Competitions need to be fair, open and without bias. Right now, there isn’t any transparency in the photo selection process. What’s going on in the photo selection process is heavily clouded behind the scenes. The competitions need to be more inclusive to invite more photos not less. Bring back the submission threads on a steady basis let people see what photos didn’t make the final selection.
I do not accept your accusation of competition being not fair or biased or not transparent.
I'll challenge you to show me any months POTM where a deserving shot didn't make it to the 15 finalists submissions. what happens after is members vote and that is a public vote ie you can see who voted for each picture. I always return the threads after vote is done. I might have forgotten one ill check and restore it. Trust me if any member with a deserving shot doesn't make it in the finalists they would have been vocal around it. Ever saw that ? Go and check all the potm submissions and tell me what picture deserved to make it to the finalists and didn't and we can discuss it.
Here’s a few just off the top of my head.
Best shot of a frag SPS, Acro, Milly.. etc
Mini colonies, SPS and/or LPS
Best shot of the most generic LPS in your tank.
Clowning with clowns..
Foxy fox face
angelic angels, Pygmy and/or larger types
Gems of the sea.. Anthias
tangs, tangs, tangs
Zoas
Night shots, under black light
a simple PM with those suggestions would have helped, we welcome all those suggestions and try to accommodate. Remind me when did u pm or post those ideas and they weren't welcomed or accommodated?
Also the rules are not being followed on the vote times. The last several months the voting has been stopped early. In one case it was stopped days early. I had to complain last time in order to get the voting restarted.
Also the rules are not being followed on the vote times. The last several months the voting has been stopped early. In one case it was stopped days early. I had to complain last time in order to get the voting restarted.
My Bad, I live in a 9-11 hours different time zone and am on travel to different time zones all the time. Forum timing doesn't show it when I set the time limit on the poll to be automatically closed and there was one time where I made a mistake of choosing 30th instead of 31st of the month but that was quickly rectified and we even gave 4 more days for people to vote.
@AZMSGT
I'm always open for a constructive criticism, or for an honest discussion when you think it adds value. Yet coming out and stating your opinion as the rule and accusing the mods and me of running a non transparent competition without any proofs or examples is simply drama.
I challenge you again to find a single POTM where a deserving shot didn't make it through to the finalist votes (there its the members who do chose and you can see who voted for each pic again)
POTM is a competition meant to be fun, full of nice pictures and opening the room for photographic discussion. turning it into a conspiracy theory just because it has a prize behind it, is unacceptable. Forum owner, mods team and myself have years of exposure on forums and dragging us that low is simply not acceptable and very disappointing.
