Tom,
You wrote:
I have not doubt that you as well as the other judges will take the judging very seriously and I may be overstating the desire the general membership has in participating through the voting process and I wholeheartedly appreciate and support the drive for improvement and excellence but you should always consider that there are many things in life that are inherently subjective, anything that is not measurable, quantifiable can be subjective, even excellence. It may all depend on a point of view, just as a profile is different from a frontal shot, point of view.
And, that is precisely why there are three judges, not one. Edo gave the revised rules and criteria a lot of thought, floated them by Rhett, and they make a lot of sense. To a great extent, the revised rules prevent the proverbial ballot box from being stuffed. This is not to state that it has happened, but that it is important to prevent this from happening, especially when the goal is to encourage forum members to make an effort to improve or further enhance their photography skills. The current voting method is easily abused.
Here is an idea with a couple of twists that could incorporate some general participation.
Judge the photos as descried but, run the voting poll as always with the results hidden from everyone, including the judges, until after the judges have scored the photos then do one of two things.
1. Let the winner of the voting poll equal some small percent of the winning photo. I don't know, 10%, 15%, you guys decide.You wouldn't even need to display the results of the general vote. With this, everyone still has a bit of a say but it wouldn't be enough of a say dramatically shift the results.
or
2. Judge and declare a winner as described. The results of the popular poll mean nothing but print the voting results, use it as a challenge to those who vote by encouraging them to vote based solely on the published criteria for voting. It could be harmless fun to see how the general vote turns out. Having a winner by a judging panel as well as a popular winner is very common in many types of contests.
I urge you to read Rule #6 carefully, and consider how it establishes a second tier:
6) The first Annual EDO Photo Contest will be judged by the same judges for the EDO Photo Contest that runs every two months, but forum members will vote for the winner of the subsequent Annual EDO Photo Contests.
This method is two-tiered, whereby three judges declare winners for the semi-monthly EDO Photo Contests, but that forum members, not the three judges, pick the winner of the Annual EDO Photo Contest from among the winners of the semi-monthly EDO Photo Contests for the year prior.
Given that the Annual EDO Photo Contest is run shortly before Blade, the first one will have its winner selected by the three judges, merely to ensure that all of the entries have been judged in the same way and using the same criteria, but that subsequent Annual EDO Photo Contests will have its winner selected by the forum members.
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