Planning the voting system for the contest - feedback please

Hi, Wheres the link to view the photos?

All I'm seeing is a contest entry page. Thank You! :-)

We can't view them till entries are closed. You can only look at the ones from past contests...

Okay Thank You!

I just hope the pictures are chosen based on the picture and not a popularity contest by the photographer????????????? Do the pictures show who took them?????? I hope not!!!

If the person who uploaded it remembered to turn off their copyright watermark then it won't show who took it, otherwise their watermark will show. In previous years I think most people remembered to turn the watermark off, I don't remember noticing it on too many pictures. Honestly even if people do know who took a picture, for most people I don't think that would matter. I think most people would vote for the picture they thought was the nicest no matter who took it (unless maybe that person had done something really mean to them at some point). I don't think there are too many people who would just run around voting for pictures by the people who they were better friends with.

Thanks, ecrane3..............

That is rewarding to hear this photo contest isn't political in any way. I think it sounds like a fun event and look forward to seeing the pics.

I have a house full of photography of flowers and I love botanical prints which I also collect.

Maybe there will be a way that people would be willing to share or sell their photos so that members like me can hang so more botanical pictures.

How do you turn off your watermark??

1) Click on "My Info"
2) Click on "Manage your preferences"
3) Select "Copyrights" from the list of links
4) Click on the button for "no method"
5) Press "Submit"

All photos you submit anywhere on the site (PlantFiles, BugFiles, forums, etc.) will not have any watermark added by DG until you change your preferences again.

Dave or Terry, I have one question,for those of us that are on dial-up, Would we have to start all over if we leave the photo group? For instance if I get kicked off line or have to re-boot will I have to start all over at the beginging the set of photos I was veiwing,
I know from last year that there is alot of photos entered and was wondering if the
"skip to new" would be available....(Did I make that"Clear as mud".

No, you can stop at any time, and when you continue the process, the system will pick up where you left off.

Thank you, Dave.

Thank you Terry!

Sounds like an excellent voting system
Looking forward to viewing everyones photos and buying calendars for Christmas
Gifts!

Oh................I had forgotten they were making calendars............that is a great gift for gardeners.........or anyone for that matter!!!!!!!!!

i have a Q what if all my photos have date and time on them?

Dave, I doubt there is time to consider this for this year's calendar, (and maybe you already have this in hand) but would it be possible to have significant holidays for the various countries? For instance, here in england 26 Dec is a holiday, boxing day - and mother's day is in march, not may. We also have a couple of major holidays in may. I thought it might be interesting for people to know what their DG neighbours are doing, but also make the calendar appeal to other countries too.

Perhaps collecting significant holidays over the next 12 months might be worth doing for the 2009 calendar. Just a thought.

Look forward to the voting.

I think you have hit on a real winner, Lauie1. Since this site is really becoming quite quickly an international site, the education for each of us with a calendar as you describe would be a fun experience!

Dang!! forgot about that watermark thing.....duh. This the first time for me doing this so please forgive me, okay!! Can't wait to see all the photos!

I'm pretty sure Dave was planning to do the calendar on Zazzle--they let you put in your own pictures, but the rest of the calendar is automatically generated, the only option you have is whether to include US/Canadian holidays or not, it doesn't have options for any other countries.

May I please expose my ignorance and ask what zazzle is?

It's a website where you can personalize t-shirts, calendars, mugs, all sorts of things. There was a thread in this forum a while ago when Dave set up a "DG shop" on there where you can get t-shirts with the DG logo.

Gail: http://www.zazzle.com/

Gail: Here's the correct location to find DG logo T's and stuff:

http://www.zazzle.com/davesgarden*

I hadn't heard of Zazzle either - and there probably are limitations to what has been set up. However, it doesn't mean that DG couldn't influence a change - it might be that Zazzle just hasn't considered being more internationally oriented - could open up things for them too.

Worth thinking about.

I just read about getting rid of the watermark. I already submitted 2 photos with it on them. Is there a way of submitting them again without them or should I just leave them.

chris

I think that up until the photo submission deadline you can replace your pictures with different ones.

Yes, that worked. I replaced them.

o crud.
i guess i should change mine also - i think i've submitted at least 8.

Dave, hope it's not too late to give my 2 cents regarding your proposal of viewing the images one by one rather than thumbnails.

I'm thinking that if there are no thumbnails it would mean that those of us on dialup will not be able to participate in the full voting experience. As critterologist mentioned above, we can usually tell alot about a photo by the thumbnail and decide which photos to open, which made voting achievable in the past.

I just counted and there are 163 images in the Perennials category alone. (It looks like participation is double what it was last year!) It takes approx 30 seconds for a 800x600 image to load on my computer, and the larger ones seem to take forever! Anyway, that's at least 90 minutes .... and there are 14 categories!

I have really enjoyed past contests as there are some really creative and wonderful photos! I'd hate to miss out on this experience because if I had to go through each image one by one ... well the thought of it is pretty daunting.

Would you consider adding a choice of a thumbnail option for us folks on dialup, please Dave? Believe me, if I had a choice I'd go high-speed!

Sandy

Sandy,

I'll do what I can!

dave

Thanks, Dave. Hope you know we all appreciate your efforts!

Sandy

I'm pleased to say that I have added the thumbnail option back in, so now when you go to vote, it will give you the choice which voting method you want to use!

Dave

Yay! Thank you!

Dave, I don't think there's another Site Manager on the web who jumps through hoops for his people like you do.

Kudos!

I'm looking forward to voting this year for the first time. I entered quite a few 2 years ago, but couldn't view them successfully on my dial-up. So the option of having the thumbnails will indeed be helpful although I now have hi-speed lite. Thanks for mention of Copyright info. Never even thought of it. If I have time, I'll change my options and re-enter my photos. Don't know yet whether that will happen.

Can hardly wait for Nov. 1.

Ann

Dave
I asked this before
Does the date and time on the bottom of a photo, have any sufficient problem?
As to the water mark, all my pics have date and time on them, and I dont know how to get it off.
Help Tilly

Tilly, the only reason you'd need to worry about the date and time is if you win and your pic is going to be in the calendar. Anyone who wins will have to send Dave their original picture so he has the highest resolution picture for the calendar, so if you win I'm sure someone can help you take out your date/time from the version you send him. But otherwise it doesn't matter, so I wouldn't worry about it for now.

hey, wow!
when i go to view my entries, there is no watermark on the picture! there is one on pictures i have posted to forums, but not on the contest - did someone work some magic?
: )

amy
*

Someone just posted in one of the other threads that the copyright is automatically left off the contest entries, so I guess we don't have to do anything! I guess it's just Dave working his magic again!

Thank you
This is my frist year with DG, still working things out.