JMH, How quickly are you thinking you'd want to make a change?

I have many first thoughts about all of the ideas discussed but can't dedicate enough time to responding or really giving it some thought...(not that anyone is waiting for mine). I hope you give this thread some time to allow others to really think about it and provide their thoughts.

The contests and voting system on this site is the foundation (IMO) or all that is photoshopcontest.com...regardless of how much everyone pushes the "community" side. IMO Changing how these work will greatly change the face of psc.

Im interested to see how this all pans out...
bbl.

I think the current way is just fine.
Anonymus prize contests is good.
I dont think you should change it to a 1-10 scale, not a big fan of that.
And people would cheat if you did public voting.

Maybe a lowered vote amount before you post ten images or something like that.

Not right away, there is plenty of time to respond. I have to do some work for some new sponsors and finish another new addition to PSC before I will have the time to dedicate to this.

Also, thank you all for so much feedback already! Looking forward to more.

For the sake of explaining I am going to call the unregistered votes "fake" votes and the registered votes "real" votes.
What if all the fake votes were a seperate pool and only the image that recieved the most fake votes gets rewarded from that pool. The reward being 5 "real" votes that actually count towards winning a contest.
Or the entire pool of "fake" votes is worth 10 "real" votes which would be split between the top three images (as chosen by the public votes) .
5 "real" votes for #1
3 "real"votes for #3
2 "real" votes for #3.

I don't like the idea of taking away the 10-chops-before-voting. I like that people have to pay their dues before voting. Then they have a better appreciation for what it takes to do a chop.

I, like many others, found this site while trying to learn more about image manipulation. I saw so many good entries that I wanted to vote on but didn't have my ten chops. I enjoyed the challenge of getting my 10 in. (Heck you can do it in 5 days if you do 2 chops per contest).

I think that's a great way to weed out people who aren't serious about contributing to the site/community.

BUT I can also relate to a non-member wanting to give some form of feedback (other than comments). What about keeping the public "vote" completely separate from the member-vote?

Allow the public to register and get an immediate 3 votes per contest. BUT they can only vote on the last day of a contest. Then show the public's vote stats alongside the member vote stats and use it as the tie-breaker instead of the timestamp (akin to what Granulated alluded to in another thread). Allowing them only 3 per contest after a quick register should help lessen the impact of cheating as you can still use the IP/session information to catch as many cheats as possible.

I don't know if that made sense or not and I'll be happy to try to explain further if needed.

ok, too much messages to read all of them so excuse me for repeating something allready said


Not a good idea, easy to cheat the system and place multiple votes. Even ip, session, cookie or whatever possible check can easily circumvented, resulting in a total distortion of the voting.

if the total rating is a median of all ratings then this can be intresting.

But only use it on public votes and don't mix it up with the member votes (aka winner is not determined by public votes, only member votes).

Eventough it's fun to know what the world thinks of our entries, it's more important for me to know what my fellow choppers think (as they are supposed to be 'experts' in photoshopping, they can judge entries better.

The public system should also not be used for prize contests (well atleast not as a determinating* factor).
*sorry if I spelled this wrong, too lazy to search the right spelling.

A rating system should not be used for members. Voting is allready partially biased by popularity. Don't let it be more biase by using a popularity rating

(note: this is not a complaint, I probably have the benefits of it too, and saying it isn't is just naive. It's the nature of a voting system, nothing can be done to that)

you can't stop evolution, so you better join it

don't take away the '10 chops before voting', but if you do, replace it with some other kind of minimum thing
(eg 100 votes atleast or
no entry but registerd->1 vote,
1st entry->3 votes,
2nd entry->5votes,
3rd entry->7 votes, etc..
untill they've got the max of 25 votes)

Wow... tough subject and a LOT of good points back and forth!

I thought of a similar idea to ReyRey but didn't have time to finish replying earlier... I agree, but I would grant ONE real vote to the winner of the "People's Choice" voting pool. If that one vote results in a tie, the tie-breaker would be whichever entry was entered/last edited first, the same as it is now... After the contest, the complete results of the public voting could be included with the regular stats.

I would add that the public voting could be limited to one day, so only one contest was open to public voting at a time. Another thought is to choose just one day a week as a sort of "open house" where the public could join in without registering. Prize contests would continue to be members-only. Especially if "open house" days were random and not announced ahead of time, this might help cut down on being able to coordinate friends and family from voting for one entry.

Another possible Idea, working along the same lines as the "open house" train of thought: Maybe... and here comes the lynch mob after me... For unregistered guests: 25 votes per IP address (per open-voting session/contest) would allow "guest" to make one or two comments in the forums and/or spend one hour in Chat... A teaser taste of the PSC community.

Other statistics and/or features could be hidden or locked until an IP address cast a certain number of votes for a given contest... like how the ongoing results for a poll are hidden until your own choice has been logged--could such rewards encourage more voting in general? *ducks under desk, waiting for firestorm*

I'm like Showcase, there's so many things to say about these options; it hurts my head to think about them. Essentially, the 10 entry minimum causes a user to prove they can at least manipulate an image in some way and along the way, whether they are just starting or not, they learn or increase their understanding of what it takes to do a chop and this allows them to evaluate the quality of the efforts and chops of other entrants in a much more informed manner, which is why the best photoshopping usually wins (rather than a funny image with poor quality workmanship) but if you open the voting to the public, you run the risk and/or certainty that the "poor quality chop that is funny" will win, which is not what a "photoshop" contest should be about. I don't think any system utilizing these public votes to affect any part of the outcome or stats of the contest is going to be a good thing for the site. As a compromise, perhaps you could make it where a user gets a half vote after 5 entries, something like that?
If the public are to do any kind of voting, I would hope it would have no sway at all on the contest and only be a cosmetic stat like page views are now, although maybe sortable.

Ditto what Billtv said.

"" (ditto here, too)

Very well put, Stephen. You're right--and I hadn't thought about all that before replying...

And I keep agreeing with ReyRey--that's not a bad thing, is it?

I like the idea of protecting the integrity of the photoshop craftsmanship involved in creating an image. If "free" votes are given to people who do not understand the skill, techniques etc. required to create a really good image, then there is a danger that the best images will suffer a loss of prestige as measured by voter response. Jmh's initial remarks stated that he wanted to "grow the site and community" without subtracting from the integrity of the site and site stats. And one of his suggestions raised the possibility that 9 out of 10 guests who visit the site are scared away. My question is: Are people really being scared away by some uncomfortable site expectations(for them)? If so What is it that is scaring them away? And if we know what that variable is, then we might have a more direct way of addressing the significant issue. The assumed issue (by me and others) appears to be "voting protocol". However, is there something else we are missing? Or is the status quo really Ok, so that people who are sincerely interested in involving themselves in this site will choose that option because current site expectations are fair and site activities engaging and fun. In short, would the community really grow as a community either in number and/or involvement by making any of the recommended changes?

Those are all very different choices, and would take PSC on completely different paths. This is definately a huge decision to be made here. They could all technically turn out very well, and very different. What is your own personal favorite, JMH?

I am glad that I put all of these options out there for people to think on. I am leaning towards doing something like option 2:

the public can rate an image (1-10), these ratings would be a new sorting option, and used to break a tie.

but, I will read over this topic many times before taking any actions.

after reading everyone's comments and thinking about it, I think "Alternate public voting system 2: the public can rate an image (1-10), these ratings would be a new sorting option, and used to break a tie. " would be the best thing for this site.

I can see how members might not want a rating system, it takes even more thinking and time to consider each image, and most rather just vote if they like it, or not vote if they don't.

I also agree that allowing the public to vote directly without becoming members and submitting images first would sort of dilute the essence of the PSC. APVS2 would allow for them to vote, but not have a huge portion of control over the contests. The indirect method of letting them rate images and then let those stats help determine minor things like ties and things would be more affective.

If some would rather let the public vote instead of rate the images, I think perhaps a 1/8 - 1/10 vote would be more realistic.

leave the ten image requirement. I didn't find it a deterrent to getting involved. I was more excited about the idea of getting feedback on my own work that I submitted early on. The sweetest votes are probably those first few votes a person GETS on their own image when they arrive, rather than any votes they cast. I loved the warm welcome.