Rules change for the monthly photo contests, please vote!

Last edited Fri Nov 24, 2023, 02:25 AM - Edit history (2)

A few months ago there were some discussions here concerning the requirement to resize photos for the monthly contests. Several of us feel that it’s unnecessary, and creates an extra burden for the person who is running the contest. At the time we took an informal poll, and the vote was overwhelming in favor of scrapping the requirement. (I think the vote was seven in favor of scrapping the rule, and one in favor of keeping it. I don’t know for sure because I can’t look back that far with the new interface).

Therefore we’re going to do another poll, and this time we can make the results official. Here are some salient points to consider.

1. The requirement to resize places a burden on the member who is running the contest. These contests are not easy to run. There is a lot of cutting and pasting, and double and triple checking to avoid mistakes. It’s very time consuming. There is usually a large percentage of the entries that are not correctly sized, and the person running the contest has to check all the sizes and contact all the people who entered over sized pics. It’s a lot of extra work.

2. There really is no advantage to entering larger photos, since the web browsers automatically resize the photos. In fact, a larger photo may actually be at a disadvantage, since the viewer might have to scroll up or down a little to see the entire image.

3. Many photographers strive to produce sharp, clear images, and it’s disheartening to see them lose sharpness due to the downsizing of files.

4. There are many members of DU here who would like to get involved in the contests, but they don’t have the skills or experience to properly resize the entries. There would probably be greater participation from the membership at large without the resizing requirements.

5. One argument for keeping the resizing requirements is that there are some members who still have slower internet connections, and it takes longer to load the pages. That is a valid point. However, is it fair to ask the contest runners to do all that extra work for the sake of just a few individuals? Yes, it might take longer for the pages to load, but if they’re patient those users may enjoy having much higher quality images to vote on.

We would like to get everyone’s input on this. Please add your two cents worth to the comments and vote in the poll.

Sincerely,

Grumpy Old Guy
CaliforniaPeggy
AndyS
Tom Kitten