Why oh why

[Dean_Gretsch]

This forum provides the opportunity to improve ourselves if we participate. Your post is generating responses and hopefully causing people to give the contests a look, thus improving the whole process.

I chose wisely, but I still like the other better.

For whatever reason you like the other better, it must not have been that you thought it was better technically. Perhaps you had a personal connection with the subject. This is the reason, in my humble opinion, self nomination is not allowed. I assume @snowbear made the rules since he is maintaining the contest. I think he deserves praise for doing such a great job, btw. Perhaps he will give us the reason.

 

[D7K]

At the end of the day, despite the contest, this is a forum for photography, to share work, ideas and knowledge. The contests and POTM / POTY are great additions but they shouldn't be the singular reason for joining the forum.

I agree with a lot of what has been said here which is mainly that there seems to be a lack of engagement when it comes to the contests, People post a lot of work but often don't engage in others' work, feedback, critique etc, maybe that's a time issue, maybe they post because they want people to fluff their ego and tell them it's a great shot, I don't know.

Given the active users on the site I would certainly expect the number of votes in the contests to be higher, but I've also seen low engagement dips in regular posts, there are a few members who are often posting, replying and engaging and then there are those who drop in occasionally.

I was personally honoured to a winner of the POTM contest with the first shot I've had nominated, and no, I didn't vote for my shot in the POTY but I do still believe these contests should be a nomination based contest but as to how to draw a larger engagement in the overall voting I am not sure. People can be fickle, maybe some snub the contest because they're not nominated, maybe some simply don't care... Be interesting to see what ideas could be floated to improve engagement...

 

[Designer]

Why are we nominatinating others work every month instead of our own for the competition?

If I am proud of what I have done and would like to win I am sure there are others who would feel the same and have more turn out for all the competitions and have more people voting.

I found the competition un enthusiastic.

This is just my opinion, but if our submissions don't inspire others enough to cause them to nominate it, chances are it isn't as good as our biased thoughts tell us.

My thoughts on that is:
My biased thoughts are my photo is better than yours but your friend nominated yours and no one nominated mine for whatever reason and if mine was in nomination to be voted on, the best photo could be picked.
Or Bob's photo could be picked and no one nominated it.
This is a pretty big forum and the counts of inputs for the best should be 30..40..
Instead it's a couple.
If I put one in and only recieved one vote, I would take a look why and learn from it in reflection why and where I am at in skills.
Your skills should be determined by your work and not just one biased nomination.
I am not going to look at every post of the month to decide who's photo I want to nominate.

The POTM competition is for fun, as are most things on here. If a photograph receives a nomination, most consider it an honor, and as far as I know, nominations are not made just because so-and-so is a personal friend of ours. It is because we see something in the photo that merits recognition. We do not always agree about which one should win, but that is life.

If you would like to win, the first thing you need to do is post outstanding images. I don't mean just the ones YOU like, but photographs that exhibit skills that are truly exemplary in one or more areas of photographic achievement. Make photos that other people on here would want to nominate for POTM, and hopefully, go on to win POTY.

You're going to be disappointed when nobody likes your photo, but that means your photographs are not what you thought they were. Learn more, try again, put photos up for C&C, pay attention to those comments, and try again. We have seen people on here progress from rank beginner to actually winning POTM, so it can be done.

 

[Designer]

I’d agree Dean, we can often become attached to our own work and not see it the way others do. If everyone could submit their own I’m sure they would which would be crazy for voting...


Sent from my mobile device because I’m either outside or too lazy to get my MacBook..

Perfect. If you put yours in and get one vote, you soon look at it, get unattached and decide to further your learning.
If you are scorned, you learn nothing. If you do not have one nominated, you learn nothing.
I have put photos in and placed #2 and recieved hardly any responces in the OP during that month.

Speaking of learning (from critique), I noticed that your responses in your thread "Thoughts?", did not indicate much in the way of curiosity as to why we made the comments that we did. In fact, one poster thought you were rather antagonistic toward his comments.

That is one sure way to never learn anything. Receive comments; ignore same or argue with the commenter. Most photographers who actually progress not only accept C&C gracefully, but they take those comments to heart and actually try to improve. Those people eventually do get better. The ones who prefer to argue or ignore never seem to get any better.

BTW: There are better ways to post for critique, so look for the threads that discuss that.

 

[InFlight]

Ok, once again I post something and people go off subject for their opinion.
This was about a suggestion and nothing about me which shows biased opinions here and why the competitions fail.
When the mod sees this please, as I won't be back, delete my membership.

 

[Designer]

Ok, once again I post something and people go off subject for their opinion.
This was about a suggestion and nothing about me which shows biased opinions here and why the competitions fail.
When the mod sees this please, as I won't be back, delete my membership.

Whoa! Touchy much? Maybe it's the entire internet that is out to get you. Perhaps you should show your photos to only your mother and girlfriend, as I'm sure you will get all "likes".

FYI: Your account will remain in perpetuity. Or at least until armageddon, whichever comes first.

 

[terri]

Ok, once again I post something and people go off subject for their opinion.
This was about a suggestion and nothing about me which shows biased opinions here and why the competitions fail.
When the mod sees this please, as I won't be back, delete my membership.

As Designer states, we don't delete memberships. Here is the TPF guideline on that:

* We hope you will always enjoy The Photo Forum, but should you wish to leave, please do so quietly as lengthy departure threads are discouraged, and may be removed. In addition, we do not delete or hide member accounts, so please know your posts will remain indefinitely even if you are no longer active.

It sounds like you and TPF just aren't a good fit. You seem unhappy that your work is undervalued here, but you also say you appreciate furthering one's learning largely based on the feedback you receive on your work.

So, maybe you learned more here than you think you did?

 

[Designer]

So, maybe you learned more here than you think you did?

Nothing like a cold, hard slap of reality to dash one's dreams of becoming a professional photographer to smithereens. Gone are visions of 3-hour workdays with a 6-figure expense budget, surrounded by throngs of adoring fans.

 

[Overread]

InFlight - I'm sorry that you feel the forums are not best suited for you and that you're moving on. We do try to cater to all as best we can, but there are times when we simply cannot cater to all desires. The competitions have run the way they have for many years without issues; though there'd be no stopping you from putting in the energy and effort in starting your own (most of them are just run by regular members and started out life just like that - regular threads organised by someone willing to put the time in to making them work). If you wanted a nominate your own photo for the month type competition you could put in the time and make it work here if you wished - mods wouldn't stop you and if it was going well we'd likely be happy to promote it like the others.

FYI: Your account will remain in perpetuity. Or at least until armageddon, whichever comes first.

Terri no longer lets us play with the Armageddon button

 

[terri]

Terri no longer lets us play with the Armageddon button

You got caught taking it out for a drive one time too many!

 

[otherprof]

I agree the low participation by this forum in voting is troubling. It shows people are not interested in showing an appreciation for the work of others, but perhaps only here to promote themselves.

There are others?

 

[snowbear]

Welcome and in the same sentence, it's a shame to see you go. There are a number of contests in the cloud, in which you submit your own work; I hope you can find one you like.

As for the contest rules, they precede my becoming contest moderator. The only adjustment I have made to them has been adding the option to either cancel the Challenge or allowing the contest moderators (there are two, as I see it) to participate in the Challenge, if there are less than three entries for a given contest period.

 

[DanOstergren]

I think it's a little self serving to submit your own photos to a contest that is nomination based, however I think it should be considered that nominations have been happening less and less, and perhaps allowing self submissions could bring some life back to the contests. I'm not saying that I agree with the OP's attitude (although it pains me to know that I have behaved similarly in the past), I just want to see more submissions and hopefully some more life in these contests.

 

[willard3]

This forum has the same problem as other fora, it is run by a small familiar group. If you are not a member of this group, your work doesn't get much activity. It has nothing to do with the quality of your work.

Many people stop posting and participating because they are not encouraged to post, including inflight.

This exclusivity makes the forum smaller and smaller as the same group only interacts with each other until the forum ceases to exist; it is happening here as well.

 

[SCraig]

The way I see it is that we have a case of a person with a rather high opinion of his work and a fear that others might not be as appreciative of it as he is, so he would be more comfortable nominating it himself.