Future Monthly Competitions

Hi Everyone,

I am soliciting thoughts. I still find that we have a number of great people in the forum and when we have exchanges, I do tend to enjoy them very much. I am happy to keep the monthly competition going, but we are running into a numbers issue. About 2 years ago, we had ~20 people checking out the competition with 10-12 voting. Earlier this year, we had pretty consistently 12-15 members that would check out the competition thread, but then voting was about half that. Recently, we have 7-8 members checking out the competition thread, and fortunately, most or all are voting.

I am looking for thoughts on increasing participation in the competition, if we want to keep it going, specifically in number of voters. Its just a bit tough when you have more entries than voters.

Thoughts?

One I have had is that right now I limit it to 1 vote per person. I would be more tempted if I could set it at 2 or 3, but looking over the options, it looks like it is 1 vote per person or unlimited. Granted, we could simply have a gentleman's agreement of 2 or 3 votes per person.

Another thought, or request really, is that all of those that are checking the thread out make sure you come back around the first of the month to vote.

As there are a few of us that enter every month, I assume the interest is there to keep the competition going but let me know if that is not the case.

Thanks,
Brant

Well I for one like the competitions, but it seems that people overall are voting to let it go (by not voting). It used to be a weekly thing, so the decline is just continuing. Maybe part of the problem is that this forum is a bit hidden on the TDP page, since you have to dive into a sub-menu to find it. If Bryan made the link more prominent, then maybe we'd attract more interest.

Yeah, the forum is pretty bare these days, which doesn't entice the few who find it to sign up and participate. Note sure how to improve things.

I enjoy them as well. Back in the early days I think a number of people were adapting digital and looking for guidance and the forum was prominently displayed. I think asking to see if that could occur again is a good option.

My situation is been evolving rapidly and hope it will settle down after the holidays. Would like to figure out how to get more traffic to TDP. I

Sounds good. Enjoy the Holidays!

I would agree and I do enjoy the competitions. Work had me wrapped up for a long time due to a couple people leaving and I didn't shoot as much. Hoping to change that as we have a couple new coming on. I agree with Jonathan that when it got moved into that drop down, I saw a decline in visitors to the forum as well. Wish it would be moved back since there are many that visit the site and maybe gain some participants that way.

I have been mulling this over and let me know what you think of my plan.

I still enjoy the competition and would like to see it continue. I also remember a comment that went by that the weekly competition killed the other threads as everyone drops their best photos into the competition rather than "Best of" photo threads.

My thought is that we move the competition to be Quarterly. I open the thread in the last 2 weeks of the quarter and people can submit their best photo (we are limited to 10 spots, so I am worried about having too many). Then we vote. That way we can populate the "Best of" or other image threads as much as we like and at the end, we pick our favorite and enter it in the competition.

Thoughts? Would you prefer to stick with the existing format?



As Bryan owns TDP and incurs whatever expense it is to operate, I have tried to be respectful and not ask too much (anything at all, really). But I am also thinking of making the following requests to see if we can increase participation:

1. The Forum be moved back up to the front page.
2. An easier mechanism for photos >198 KB to be uploaded.

Any other requests?

I like the idea of moving it to quarterly.

Good plan, Brant. Thanks for keeping this going and managing the technicalities.

I'm on board with the quarterly version. Thanks for the work on this!

Great. Thanks Everyone.

The consensus is that the monthly competitions are not going away, but the thread will be posted in March.

Please post your photos away in regular threads until then.