Year's Best theme?? (1 Viewer)

I was reviewing "My Favorites" tonight, and saw I have five absolutely stunning digiscoped shots in it (I need to look around and add some more, I'm sure). One Member accounted for three of them! It gave me the idea (you may have noticed that happens a lot), maybe we should have in Jan, or open until Feb. 20, 2004 (followed by voting): "Best Gallery Bird Photo of 2003" and the same for '04, '05, etc. I think 1st, 2nd, & 3rd. should be officially recognized after voting. You'd need to consider whether to make digiscoping and SLR separate categories, but my hunch is "not." Each has some advantage over the other, for example if you get nice and close in a blind or by luck, stealth, etc. the SLR may have the better detail, but then there's probably more scopers out getting great close-ups more times. Frankly I'm "blown away" with some of the shots, and it'd be so cool to have a year's worth of the best thrown into one gallery and the chance to vote AND comment, and to begin an archive of the 3 "winners" from each yr. One twist on the Rules might be: "may not have won any contests previously." It could even be called the "2003 Members Choice" awards or something, since after all, these are popularity-type contests. What thoughts do you Members and Mods have about this?

Steve,

If I understand you correctly, how would one have time to look through all the photos? With the five per day limit, and with all the members that are posting to the gallery, I know I certainly do not keep up with probably 95% of the postings, so I have missed many of the good shots.

But the idea is fine. It is figuring out how to do it that is hard.

Thanks Brian.. hey, just for dignifying my comments with a reply. I was getting ready to delete the thread today and save BF the dead space, as no interest was shown.. and that's fine too.

I agree with all your comments, which don't rule the idea positively "in" or "out." Quite a bit more thought would be needed, and I didn't want to flesh out dozens of ideas (perhaps), but rather wanted to throw the idea out and let others put in all the various twists. There are so many possibilities.. but then maybe we don't need another competitive-type element on BF.

After working on "My Favorites," I just realized how much wonderful material is here, that could still be brought to light and featured. You know if a visitor or prospective Member comes on board, it'd be really cool to see some of the all-time favorites of others, organized by year posted, I suppose. What I had in mind might be a nomination system. We have the Favorites-link Forum, but it's not in thumbnail or any concise well organized display. I have to add, that's how the other day I discovered POHSP's fabulous gallery, so thanks BF for that Forum. Then too, Richard commented on my contest entry: "I wish these could stay on the main gallery longer." So these are some of the things that spurred my prompting Members for their thoughts about another way to feature some of the really fine shots, and not have to spend hrs, just to get a small number of great shots.

Here- just a couple possible ideas: 1) Take nominations from Members limited to one nomination per month per Member, your own shot not allowed nominated by you; 2) The nominations must be from each Member's own "My Favorites" Gallery; 3) You have until the end of the third month after the shot's posting date to nominate it (i.e. Jan. 1-31 posted shot can be nominated until April 30th. This can all be honor system.. all you have to do is ask that Members strictly adhere to the Rules of the Members' Choice Gallery.

Now if in theory, that were to be done.. all we need now is to figure out HOW and IF we should limit the number of nominations for each photo-posting month; and decide if an annual voting for the top three or (they don't have to have place awards) from each month should be kept permanently as thumbnails by month and year; and whether to hold a Member vote for overall top three or ten (can be ranked or not) of the entire year. It could be a real nice feature for Members to get involved with.. or it could be an Administrative nightmare - I don't know which! But if there's not much additional interest in this, then just let it die, for what it was worth! This is such a great site that one naturally wants to be a part, and make it keep getting better.. we see this in so many Forums. (Hope that makes it a little better Charles.)

Paragraphing would help, Steve...

Hi Steve,

After you originally posted this thread I decided to hold off on replying waiting to see what other member's thought and then to be honest plain forgot about your thread as no replies were made.

I do wonder at the interest in such a venture. We used to have a forum 'Gallery Favourite Pictures' where members were invited to add their favourite photos, but held no comments. It held 25 photos on view per page and held some superb photos. It was very under used and was eventually dropped as it amounted to one or two members and the Mods moving photos into it and very little viewing.

Of course we still have the 'Your Favourite Pictures From The Gallery' forum, but comprises links to the Gallery photos - again under used. Overall I think that photos belong in the Gallery and Database and discussions belong in the forums.

I suppose it would be possible to add a similar forum in the Gallery itself, but would be reluctant to restrict it to just selecting even three entries per month as there are so many excellent shots from several members that should be on view more prominently. The Database in many respects acts as a show Gallery for each species as theoretically the best shot of each species is the one that should be on show with a link then to others of the same species in the Gallery. As we are already desperately short of staff to help populate the Database there seems little mileage at present at least, in generating another labour intensive project.

I'd be interested too in hearing opinions from the mebership on this as we are always open to discussion and suggestions.

There's little doubt about your analysis on this Ian. I guess there's a plethora of "wouldn't it be wonderful" things to do with a site.

Charles.. there's NO doubt that you're right on that one.. I'll go back & fix it up. I usually write in paragraphs, but got "cured" of it on BF because when I would 3-space indent, the software removed my spaces and it was globbed together. I now see how Ian does it. (and I can benefit from your example of concise writing as well!) -Steve B

Steve,

Well, I know you have fixed it up, but I do not have a problem with what you obviously consider your own non-concise writing. I am not necessarily an idea person like you, but do appreciate your ideas. Sometimes, actually many times, ideas need more explanation to help the reader catch the vision. Okay, enough of my editorial (kind of).

I like your idea a lot, so do not get me wrong. But looking at the psychology of the membership (and I would love to be wrong on this), it seems that while the BF membership is highly interested in posting photos, far less are interested in making comments. Just look at the number who post photos compared with the amount of comments they make on the forum or within the gallery itself. So while there are a few people who would appreciate this, unfortunately, I believe that most would not take the time. Now part of that might be helped if the number of photos to the gallery were reduced (per day) so that people who do like to look at many photos would not feel so overwhelmed with one more category.

Having said that, I am definitely FOR your idea.

Ian, what about doing a poll (but not in this forum)? At the very least that would draw attention to the subject matter, maybe open a healthy debate.

Hi Brian and Steve,

I'm afraid I don't think it warrants a Poll at present as evidenced by just the three of us talking here. If we had more input and discussion, then that would have shown some interest in something that would be worth putting to a vote.

I certainly haven't discounted the idea as I too like the general principle for haivng a display Gallery, but it needs some further thought and planning as to how such a thing would be presented. I tend to think a separate 'Display' forum in the Gallery would be the best solution, but as mentioned above the Database at present is still the priority for completion before looking at any other photo related projects.

I don't disagree with keeping this on the back burner for awhile. A special "Display" gallery is a worthwhile idea too, and could even be "privately managed" as opposed to publicly chosen or nominated by Members. It's getting somewhat away from the "year's best photos" idea, but not entirely.

I think it more important to give guests and new Members a place to see some especially good photos in a concise format to show off, the best Birdforum.net has to offer in archived photos. So really, favorites could be added at any time, and it could be built up. The moderators could build this and could always accept nominations or suggestions.. you simply post a notice that individual replies to suggestions through that forum can not be made.

Maybe you can find a volunteer AT SOME POINT, or several who want to be a committee for the BF Favorites gallery. (No, I'm not volunteering at this time, sorry!) I never really looked at this as a "Best photographer of the year" type idea.. though I think it did come out looking like that, with voting and all, suggested by me. It's still evolving in my own mind.. and these are my latest preferences. Appreciate your replies above.