Fall Colors Contest - Feedback Requested

We'd like to hear your feedback regarding what you liked, and didn't like, about the recent Fall Colors Contest. And give us ideas about what you'd like to see in future contests.

The moderators and I have lots of ideas, but I'd like to just open it up to member's comments.

And don't worry about hurting anyone's (my) feelings. I'm very aware that the latest contest wasn't perfect, and I do this kind of stuff for a living, so bring it...

I thought the contest ran great, especially considering you came into it at the last minute. I had no problems paying or loading the images and it was nice not having to prepare a second thumbnail image as in previous years. It would be better to host it on the RMNP site in the future if possible, but I also understand there are technical and cost reasons where that might not be feasible. Overall a great effort by everyone involved.

I didn't upload all three of my images at the same time. Once I uploaded the first one, I could not seem to get back to the "Donate" button again for the other images and had to go into PayPal to send $ for the other two. Maybe I just missed something but perhaps you can check it out.

I would prefer, if we have to use a user name and password, that we be able to choose them both instead of using a computer-generated password that I couldn't possibly remember! I mean, this isn't your bank account!!

The way the thumbnails are displayed (all cock-eyed and with something [tape? reflection??] obscuring the photo) left a little to be desired. I would prefer clean, straight thumbs that we can readily see.

Once you are in the system and viewing the photos, I didn't see any "next" or "previous" arrows and had to back out of each photo to select the next one. It would be nice to easily flow through the photos--especially while trying to vote!

That's all I can think of for now. Overall I think it went well given the short notice and appreciate your efforts on making it all work!

I thought the contest went really well for a last-minute job. I agree about the thumbnails and also wish they were uncropped. The technical snafu with the huge vertical photos is another minor issue that I'm sure you're already aware of. And, finally, if you could rig it so that I win next time, that would be great!

Excellent! Thank you. These are exactly the kinds of things we're looking for. Keep the comments coming... What else??

Regarding the Fall contest:
1) Possibly make the image order random so those of the same artist are not together

2) (This is my main point to address) I found annoying the time needed for the thumbnails to reload for "view photos" after viewing a large image and wanting to click on another individual image in the thumbnail collection. Maybe the large image could open in another window instead of replacing the thumbnails window. This would also allow a couple of large images to be open for more direct comparison/evaluation.

3) With the previous and next buttons above the large images, I noticed the "next" took one to the same image and could not go further. So one had to use the previous arrow.

4) already noted by others were the cropped thumbnails and their lack of clarity.

The registration/password need did not bother me. The password was emailed promptly. PayPal worked smoothly for me.

I do not know if "winter" and or "summer" themed contests would be wanted. Perhaps the monthly cover shot themes/topics cover that venue???

Thanks again Scott for hosting the contest.

I thought things went just fine considering the short notice. Probably the biggest thing for me would be having thumbnails, as others have said. The "view photos" page took quite awhile to load for me, with a slower DSL connection. I suppose the thumbnail issue could possibly address this as well.

I don't know how others would feel about having a smaller percent of the total entry cache going to some place like The Nature Conservancy or the World Wildlife Fund?

You should try to get Canon or Nikon to sponsor the contest and offer up some top of the line digital SLRs for prizes!!

Thanks for everything, Scott, and I thought it was great on the short notice! The next and previous buttons worked for me, but it did seem a little slow and clunky. I agree about wishing the thumbnails were uncropped and unembellished. The giant verticals were problematic, and I wonder if vertical comps didn't get somewhat short shrift as a result. And I think having the photos in random order would be great; we get enough submissions, one gets a little tired by the time you get to the bottom of the pile.

Thanks for everything Scott! My only gripe was that on my laptop with a 3G connection the pages ran my system to the ground--so many scripts running in the background. Not a big deal but i think it has to be as quick as possible.

I really like the idea of multiple images posted by one person NOT showing up sequentially on the contest page...if possible.

Whatever template you make hopefully will carry on to future Mods and web persons. I think once we have it all worked out, it's gonna be awesome! Thanks again Scott!

All this is great feedback and very much in line with my thoughts. Thank you everyone!

What are your thoughts on the voting mechanism being at the thumbnail level vs. on each individual photo? In other words, you'd see a page of thumbnails with the voting/rating form (when active) below each thumbnail. You'd still be able to click on the thumbnail to see a larger version. But you'd be able to see a whole page of thumbnails when picking your favorites and voting.

Love that!

I don't know how feasible this is but some photographer's websites have a "lightbox" or a way for viewers to group their favorite images on a single page. For the contest, it would be handy to start on a page with all the entries and then click on the ones you like and create a special page with just those images. Then you could go through those again (an iterative process) and whittle the list down to your top 3-6 favorites for official voting.

Just an idea.

That's definitely a cool idea, Phil. Obviously, that would require more programming. But I like throwing around ideas for making things the very best they could be. Some we'll be able to do, others not. But we can those compromises due to resource limitations at a later date.

Hi Scott - for such a fast turnaround, it was very smooth indeed, and thanks again for your patience with those who couldn't follow simple instructions (er, me...)!

Two points: the sizing requirement could be simplified (the 800px width thing) and the plug-in for the view photos page was indeed rather heavyweight and sluggish.

I like the idea of voting on a thumbnail page, but would suggest we'd need slightly larger thumbnails to ensure there wasn't any confusion between similar compositions viewed at small size.

Thanks for all your help supporting this.

I did not enter the contest, but after trying several times, I gave up trying to see the large photos, and did not vote.
It would let me see the thumbnails, but that is all.
It would be nice if the thumbnails were clear and not cluttered with the diagonal shading.

Thanks for your efforts.

Would it be possible for the vote tallies to show under the images the day winners are announced? I, for one, would not be bothered if none of mine got votes but this may not be acceptable for all. In that case, could we have some sort of check box to tic when we enter saying whether or not we want our results to be shown publicly?

Sure, we could add the vote tallies to the display. But as you mentioned, many are uncomfortable with having the voting results displayed. We could make it a user option when they upload their images, but it might be weird to see vote tallies on some images and not on others. We can definitely think on that...