Weekend Competition Rules:

[hevans]

Introduction:

The weekend competition runs over each weekend with the winner of the previous weekend setting the topic of the following weekend. All forum members are welcome to participate and vote on the entries and there are no rewards to winning other than a (cheesey) title Big Smile [], the fun you had participating and perhaps feedback to help you improve for the next time.

Previous winners are available here.

Organisation:

• At some point before 21:00 (UK local time) on the Friday night, the winner of the previous weekend competition will:

• start an entry thread in the "Post your best here" DCM forum entitled: Weekend Competition - The Best Photographer in the World (<insert weekend date here>) that includes the subject/topic for the weekend competition.


• start a chat thread in the "Post your best here" DCM forum entitled: CHAT for Weekend Competition (<insert weekend date here>).

• From 00:00 on the Saturday morning (photographer's local time) until 23:59:59 on the Sunday night, the participants are challenged to go out and take a photo that follows the subject chosen for the weekend.
  
• Only ONE photograph per forum member, please. With up to 30 or more participants, it becomes progressively more difficult to set up the poll and summary post with each additional photo - it's all volunteer work.
  
• The participants have until noon (UK local time) on the following Monday morning to submit their entries to the entry thread (as outlined in point 1 above). This gives time for those without easy access to the internet on the weekend to still submit their photos on the Monday (or edit them further).
  
• During the Monday morning (late Sunday night), a Polling thread will appear, entitled POLL: Weekend competition (<insert weekend date here>). In this thread, a summary of the entries and the poll listing all of the entries will be provided with the entries in the order in which they were submitted. While this thread might appear before the submission deadline, it will be updated with all of the submissions after the submission deadline has passed. It appears early for practical reasons (we have to work!) and it's easier to get as much pre-arranged as possible to avoid problems with the boss man. (BTW, if when creating the poll on a Monday, if you use "2" in the "Expires after" box on the poll tab it will stop the polling at the right time on the wednesday night).
  
• VOTING then runs from the Monday noon (or preferably after 13:00 UK local time - to give us a chance to ensure any late submissions are included) until Midnight on the Wednesday (UK local time).
  
• The winner then has until 21:00 UK time on the following Friday to post the new subject, and we return to step 1, above. They also have the onus to include the title "The Best Photographer in the World <insert weekend date>" in their Forum signature".
  

Additional Threads:

Additional threads in the "Post your best here" forum exist to support the competition:

   1. Weekend Competition - The Best Photographer in the World (<insert weekend date here>): This thread is only for the entries UNTIL AFTER the submission deadline passes. It is very very difficult to assemble the poll and summary post if the photos are interspersed with discussion posts. So, please refrain from posting anything other than your entry until AFTER the submission deadline.
   2. Weekend comp rejected shots: here you can submit the photos that you considered entering but didn't and generally whine about the poor light, lack of subjects in your area and how life is generally unfair Wink []. It's also used to get advice on which photo to submit.
   3. CHAT for Weekend Competition (<insert weekend date here>): This thread is intended to provide a forum where the relative merits, suggestions, comments and critiques of each photo are to be aired.
   4. Weekend Comp - Past winners: This thread is a gallery of the winners from the previous weekend competitions. It will be updated regularly (we hope). Chatting in this thread is seriously frowned upon.
   5. Rules and FAQ Discussion Thread: Here's where you go to talk about these rules and propose changes and amendments.


Additional Rules, Hints and Tips:

   1. If you change your mind as to your submission, then please use the EDIT feature on your original post to change the photo. This should keep the number of posts in the submission thread to a minimum (and keep the poll organiser from having to go through and select just which of your entries is the final submission, and swearing profusely).
   2. If you have ignored hint #1, above, then the LAST photo you submitted to the competition will be assumed to be your entry.
   3. The recommended size of photo to post to the competition is about 650 pixels WIDE. This ensures the whole photo can be seen without scrolling horizontally. Height doesn't matter as much.
   4. VOTING: the DCMag forum polling system only allows you to vote ONCE, and you can't change your vote once you've voted.
   5. Ultimately, the appropriateness of a photo to the subject is decided by the poll. No submissions (other than duplicate entries or poor taste as decided by DCM) will be excluded.
   6. In the case of a Draw/Tie in the voting, then the first to have submitted their entry wins.
   7. Of course, any posting restrictions placed on the forums by DCM will also limit the competition, e.g. appropriate or copyrighted content.
   8. Amendments and discussions to these rules should be carried out in this thread (http://community.dcmag.co.uk/forums/thread/277272.aspx). This will keep all of the various comments/arguments/history together in one place, making updates to these rules considerably easier.


Tips on Selecting a Subject

If you're lucky enough (or perhaps good enough) to have polled highest in the voting and selected by this community as the winner, then it's your arduous task to select the topic for the next competition. In the few times I've had to choose a subject I've learned the following about setting the subject but please treat these as things to consider and not rules to follow.

   1. exclude as few people as possible - this is absolutely essential.
   2. don't let it be localised, for example: "signs of autumn" was a bit tricky for those living in Australia and Barbados. Consider the geographically diverse distribution of the participants. (Mountains would be difficult for those living in Holland, Coastal shots would be difficult for those living in Alice Springs).
   3. Not require specialist equipment: for example: macro shots might exclude those without a macro lens.
   4. Generally, consider if the subject you've selected can be taken with a standard compact camera, if it can, then it's probably a good start.
   5. The topic should be as general as possible, while still reasonably focused: For example, don't pick a very narrow topic, such as "Fireworks". Local regulations can prohibit their use outside of particular times of the year, a better topic is "Fire/Fireworks/Bonfires".
   6. Don't set the subject based on an Event/Holiday - it's not always recognised everywhere (4th July, Bastille Day, Rememberance Sunday, Christmas, etc.)


Setting up the POLL

    After a bit of experimenting, I'm using Internet Explorer (IE) to make the summary. I open two windows, one with the new POLL post on it and the other with the entries thread on it.

       1. On the POLL post window I switch to "Options" and tick the "Do not allow replies".
       2. Then switch to the "Poll" tab and tick the box "Include a Poll in this post". This then brings up the Poll form.
       3. Put in the question, e.g. "Vote for your favourite...", etc.
       4. In the answers I usually add a temporary dummy answer "one".
       5. For the "Expires After (optional)" box I put in 2 days, this ensures it expires on Wednesday night.
       6. Then select the "Compose" tab at the top - takes you back to the normal composition window.
       7. I then paste the instructions (reformatting if required) from the first post in the entry thread. And links to the chat thread, and entry thread.
       8. Then put the editor into HTML mode and enter (you can copy and paste this to the poll thread you're setting up):
          <OL>
          <HR>
          <LI><BR>

          </OL>
          to get the entry numbers and horizontal rule. Select just the "<HR> to the <BR>" above and copy them (Ctrl-C) and then paste a whole load of them between the "<OL>  </OL>" tags (usually ~35-40).  The "<OL></OL>" tags set up the numbered list, the "<LI>"  define the individual entries in the list.
       9. Then go back to "Design" mode and under the first horizontal rule I type in the name of the entrant and under that I drag-n-drop from the entries thread window their entry. Repeat until they've all been done. I post them in the order in which they were submitted. [ SEE WARNING about drag-n-drop BELOW]
      10. After they're all entered, I select all the entries and change the text font to +5 and Bold (feel free to select your own preferred font).
      11. At the bottom, add the "[Poll]" tag, and this is where the poll will be added.
      12. At the top and bottom I usually add warnings about the poll not being finished, so don't vote yet.
      13. I then post it to the forum.
      14. I re-edit it and set the 2nd window to the poll thread (the one that had the entry thread in)- using this summary to type in all the entries in the poll form panel.
      15. Then repost it to the forum.
      16. Go back ~12:00 UK time, and remove the warnings about voting...adding message voting is open,  adding last minute entries and replacing changed entries (arrrggghhh!!!)

    [WARNING] if the picture in the entries thread is a clickable link, then COPY and PASTE it, do NOT drag'n drop it. Dragging and dropping it, I've found, causes IE to load the link, losing all your edits...A tad infuriating.

    It's a tad time consuming to put in the entries and there are the following caveats:

        * if the entry is just a straight picture type (no clickable links), then the drag-n-drop
          works the quickest.
        * some pictures are too large. In the case where they are from the DCM galleries, they can be resized by rewriting the URL that links to them. If they're from another site, then we have to limit the size with the HTML tags.

              o DCM Galleries: the DCM web site can size the images to any dimensions you want. So, just find the URL linking to the image on the HTML editing window, and change the filename of the URL to, e.g. "650x650.aspx". For example, if the image posted is linked with the url:
                http://community.dcmag.co.uk/photos/hevanss_gallery/images/452299/original.aspx
                then you can resize it by changing the original.aspx as follows:
                http://community.dcmag.co.uk/photos/hevanss_gallery/images/452299/650x650.aspx

              o Other sites: I usually "resize" these by clicking on the HTML tag, finding the reference to image and then adding a 'width="90%" height="90%"' to the "<img >" tag, just to shrink them down enough to fit on the display nicely without a horizontal scroll bar (most people are now providing a good size in the entry thread, though, so this is less of a problem).
        * Normally I use firefox for browsing, but I've found that the forum software just works better for this task with IE.
        * I've discovered that the DCM web site will resize photos to any minimum dimension (height or width) as I mentioned in the post in the forum (using your photo as an example). This can be very useful for people that have submitted the ORIGINAL photo and resized it using the "<img ... height=xxx width=xxx>" tags. This reduces the size of the downloaded photo and makes the scrolling in the browser smoother.

    That's about it... If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

History:

This competition was originally proposed by Cedar in the dark days of September 2006, and it's him that we have to thank for the whole activity. Original proposition by Cedar can be read here: weekend competition,

Hope this all makes sense.

hevans