I thought we had discussed asking people not to comment on the photos..

[Princess Turandot]

in the poll posts themselves, so as not to wind up with 'me too' replies? Was the general concensus to not do that?

Also, I haven't been posting in this group long but I had the impression that the photos would be posted for voting in the order in which they were originally submitted, which was the case the last time. They were re-arranged this time.

[Blue_In_AK]

1. I may be wrong, but it seems that the answer to your first question

was that we weren't going to have comments about the photos HERE on the same thread as the submissions so it would be easier for the contest host (GOP Fighter) to prepare them for the lounge. I think he also decided to mix them up just for the sake of randomness.

Am I right, Mr. Fighter?

[Princess Turandot]

2. My recollection was that there was another discussion abt

influencing the voting in the Lounge, when person A would say 'isn't photo 8 the best', and 7 other people would then agree. It was a different discussion than the one concerning speeding up the submission thread. F. Gordon had originally suggested it, I think.

In the prior contest, the photos were simply posted as entered. I assumed that was the agreed upon format but I guess that I was wrong.

[Blue_In_AK]

3. #95 on this thread talks about random order...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=280x4985#5241

You could be right about the no comments in the lounge, but, you know, they're all so chatty, I don't know how we could stop them.

[RagingInMiami]

6. I personally like hearing what the lounge has to say about our photos

I think it would be pretty arrogant of us if we did tell the lounge to vote, but to refrain from commenting.

The whole point of the contest is show our work and let others be exposed to our photography.

Discussion is good as long as they don't openly trash certain photos -- as they do on real photo websites. Positive comments should be encouraged.

[GOPFighter]

9. Yup!

I mixed them up because I suspected that the initial entries are often from serious photographers who put a lot of effort into their entries. Not that that necessarily translates into better photos, but I wanted to try assigning the photos more randomly. As it turns out, in this month's finals, five of the nine (the 10th being First Lupen) finalists were among the first ten submissions.

[ConsAreLiars]

4. I think it's pretty much up to whoever hosts to figure out.

Still a in pretty experimental stage, where I hope it stays, since one of the benefits of winning the contest-hosting privilege is to be able to try new approaches. My own view is there are no limits on how a contest is run, but so far what I have seen is a steady attempt to improve things using past experience as a guide.

I welcome innovation and don't see any need to have all contests structured the same way, but that is just my personal view. We needed to get copyright stuff clarified, after the last one, and worked that through to a consensus and "established practice" status, but there seem to be a range of ideas about most other things.

[Ms. Toad]

5. GOPFighter is pretty much the ruler over all things contest

this month. (And doing a great job, I might add.) It's all in fun - so enjoy however it is run, expect it to be slightly different next month, and if it really bugs you - get all your friends in the lounge to vote for your picture so you can be the ruler over all things contest next month and make it run the way you want!

:grouphug:

[Princess Turandot]

7. I'm not looking to rule anything..

I just had thought there was a fair amount of interest in asking for comments to be made in separate threads rather than the voting threads. And I admit that in things like this, I prefer consistency because I think it makes things simpler.

[GOPFighter]

8. I think you're refering to my request that...

...we wouldn't comment on photos in the contest submission thread. I set up a second thread here in the Photography Group for comments about the photos. Mixing comments with the submissions make it harder to know how many entries have been submitted.