Film Photographer of the Year 2017 - Discussion

Carl Hall said:
I have a spreadsheet and graphs with trendlines :D You don't get to have an "I love spreadsheets" mug sat on your desk for nothing you know :LOL:
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Why doesn't that surprise me?? :p:whistle:


We can definitely tie the number of votes to the number of entries, maybe something like <15 entries gives 3 votes, 16-20 gets 4 votes and 21+ gets 5 votes
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That looks good to me :)
 
The points system was also losing places if there were ties. If there were joint seconds you should still have points for 3rd, 4th, 5th etc rather than jumping down to 4th or even 5th if there more than two tied for a place. With more votes for popular months it would increase the possibility of one person being in the lead and having it snatched from their grasp which is always good for entertainment :D
 
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Carl Hall said:
Yeah definitely, now that we have a better understanding of the numbers of people that are likely to enter, it'll be easier to think up a points system that suits everyone.
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Great, ten points for me each time will suit me fine. Glad that's settled! :D
 
Agree that there needs to be a larger spread of points but can see a problem where those that win the earlier rounds will score more than those at the end of the year, so there may be a scenario where someone has won 4 rounds at the end of the year not scoring as highly as someone winning two rounds at the start of the year.
 
srichards said:
The points system was also losing places if there were ties. If there were joint seconds you should still have points for 3rd, 4th, 5th etc rather than jumping down to 4th or even 5th if there more than two tied for a place.
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It's usual to skip a place of two people tie for one of the places. I think this stems from the fact that you can't fit 4 people on a 3 person podium.

Ok, I'll put the cat amongst the pigeons now with a radical new way of voting:

Do away with the poll and use the total number of 'likes' for each entry to sort 1 to 5 (or whatever points threshold we have). This would serve several purposes, it's quick and easy; it might encourage the more sparing use of 'likes' rather than their 'diplomatic' use; it would encourage people to post their entry early so it receives the maximum exposure (if you excuse the pun) rather than people leaving it until the last day; and it saves the faff doing the poll button thing each month.

There you go, sorted. :)
 
Also, with regards to a falling number of votes over the year, it's really not a problem if a numerical score per entry is calculated whereby the number of votes is normalised against the number of voters.
 
To clarify, loosely speaking, it could be something like this:

For a single month, two peoples entries A1 and B1 coming first and second might get 10 votes and 7 votes from 20 voters. Normalisation would yield 10/20 and 7/20, giving 0.5 and 0.35. With a simple scaling factor, say 10, the score on the scoreboard might then be 5 and 3.5.

For a later month, the same two peoples entries A2 and B2 coming second and first may get 6 and 10 from 17 votes. Normalisation yields 6/17 and 10/17, giving 0.35 and 0.59. With the same scaling factor giving 3.5 and 5.9. Added together would be 8.5 and 9.4. The person entering shots B1 and B2 therefore wins because, despite the reduced number of voters in the second stage, the proportion of 10 to 17 is better than 10 to 20.

This is just an example of my point, and I'm not suggesting this is precisely the way it's done, but you see what I'm getting at :)
 
Woodsy said:
To clarify, loosely speaking, it could be something like this:

For a single month, two peoples entries A1 and B1 coming first and second might get 10 votes and 7 votes from 20 voters. Normalisation would yield 10/20 and 7/20, giving 0.5 and 0.35. With a simple scaling factor, say 10, the score on the scoreboard might then be 5 and 3.5.

For a later month, the same two peoples entries A2 and B2 coming second and first may get 6 and 10 from 17 votes. Normalisation yields 6/17 and 10/17, giving 0.35 and 0.59. With the same scaling factor giving 3.5 and 5.9. Added together would be 8.5 and 9.4. The person entering shots B1 and B2 therefore wins because, despite the reduced number of voters in the second stage, the proportion of 10 to 17 is better than 10 to 20.

This is just an example of my point, and I'm not suggesting this is precisely the way it's done, but you see what I'm getting at :)
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Weirdly I was just about to post asking you for an example as I couldn't make sense of it haha. Cheers pal (y)

Trouble is that I don't think you actually know how many voters there were, only how many votes? And given that people may choose not to use all of their votes, you'd never know how many people actually voted.

Would it not be easier and simpler to rank the entries (like we do now) and award points to the top 10 rather than top 5? If I redo the points this year based on this system as an example, then every person who has entered more than two entries so far has points. That way it's simple and we don't end up with half the group stuck together on zero points. Plus this has the advantage of you knowing exactly how well you need to do in the next month in order to move up the board
 
The issue with current method, regardless of how the points are split, is the following:

Say first place gets 10 votes, second place is tied 3 ways with 8 votes a piece, and the next score gets 7 votes, the person with 7 votes gets a low score despite only getting 1 vote less than second place. Even if you give 10 points to first, 9 to second, etc etc, in this case, the people who get 8 votes get 9 points, but someone with 7 votes gets 6 points. That's not fair in my opinion. Am I the only one?
 
That's why I was suggesting the places aren't lost when there are ties as it means whoever came after gets far fewer points.
 
You'll be wanting proportional representation next... perhaps we should put that to the vote?... oh, wait a minute! :whistle:
 
Woodsy said:
The forum tells you doesn't it? Look at the current votes thread, it says number of votes then a percentage. This percentage is of the total number of voters, isn't it?
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Well I'll be damned, I did not know that :LOL: If I use myself as an example I have 10 votes and 42%, meaning that 24 people have voted so far. Every day's a school day!
 
Well, I think that's what it is... perhaps a mod could confirm?

Anyway, I appreciate my points on here are probably unpopular more often than not, so go with the crowd.
 
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It makes sense, I can't see what else those percentages would represent? Also if you go through each month and do that quick calculation I posted, every month works out as a whole number.

Depressingly, that number has fallen every month since January though! 34 slowly down to 21
 
FishyFish said:
Can you vote for less than three entries? If so, then that potentially throws a spanner in the works.
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I think you can, yes. If you divide the number of votes by voters it averages out at about 2.4 to 2.8 votes per voter each month. I guess some people prefer to just pick their favourite photo rather than their three favourites (which is totally fine)
 
Can you do that? I thought the button was greyed out until you'd picked three?
 
Carl Hall said:
Depressingly, that number has fallen every month since January though! 34 slowly down to 21
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What's the betting the number rises again as the dark nights arrive and the weather deteriorates? "Nothing on TV... I know, I'll have a look at the TP forum again".
 
Mr Badger said:
What's the betting the number rises again as the dark nights arrive and the weather deteriorates? "Nothing on TV... I know, I'll have a look at the TP forum again".
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Mine will be the opposite - starting a new job soon with (hopefully) nowhere near as much downtime!
 
Carl Hall said:
Did you calculate points using Woodsy's method of normalising the votes against the number of voters then?
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no, i'd have got a nosebleed jsut thinking about it. All I was commenting on was the way it counted the number of people who voted... I used to check on it, to see the amount of people who were voting just for one entry (presumably either their own, or the one that ther mam, dad, brother, sister, uncle had entered... Yep, I got a wee bit disillusioned at one stage, and that's kind of when the anonymous entries began.)
 
TheBigYin said:
no, i'd have got a nosebleed jsut thinking about it. All I was commenting on was the way it counted the number of people who voted... I used to check on it, to see the amount of people who were voting just for one entry (presumably either their own, or the one that ther mam, dad, brother, sister, uncle had entered... Yep, I got a wee bit disillusioned at one stage, and that's kind of when the anonymous entries began.)
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Ahh yes, that makes sense. I guess there's no way to guarantee that people don't do that without making the votes public so you can see if there are any strange trends or repeat single voters each month.

You've also got people that might only vote for their own photo each month, but that's a whole different topic on individual morals which might be a can 'o worms!
 
Not long to go now, entries need to be in by Saturday night :)

I meant to post my film off this morning but left the house without it... :banghead: Going to post it tomorrow and hope Filmdev are as quick as they usually are!
 
I'm leaving it late this month, as I'd like to re-scan some older negatives, maybe there's something worthwhile in them...
 
As usual, I've got far too many possible entries and it's nigh on impossible to choose. Just to complicate it further, I've got another two films being sent to Filmdev today which also contain a number of additional bridge shots!! :rolleyes:
 
Mrs Snap said:
As usual, I've got far too many possible entries and it's nigh on impossible to choose. Just to complicate it further, I've got another two films being sent to Filmdev today which also contain a number of additional bridge shots!! :rolleyes:
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You could make it easier on yourself by not taking so many good photos :p If you only have one photo then it's an easy decision :LOL:
 
Carl Hall said:
Last day for entries all, this months theme closes at midnight :)
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Hoping to get something shot today at the f&c meet at the Black Country living museum, souped when I get in and scanned and posted at about 2359
 
This month's comp has got me excited as I going to try and do something that I have had no experience before and the Canon T90 is just the camera to use..well ok I could use a basic camera like my Pentax S3 but why make it more difficult. o_O
Hope it works as can't think of anything exciting for plan B other than a close up shot of a few dark veins in my ankle...a sign of old age :eek:
 
Only a few more hours to go until voting closes, if you haven't already voted then please do so!

Edit- ok it closes Sunday morning not Saturday... my bad! Still, not long left!
 
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Carl Hall said:
Only a few more hours to go until voting closes, if you haven't already voted then please do so!

Edit- ok it closes Sunday morning not Saturday... my bad! Still, not long left!
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Get a grip man....:D
 
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