FILM Photographer of the Year 2018 - Thoughts and Ideas

We need photographic evidence that you're using your top hat, Carl. A carrier bag, washing up bowl or plain old bobble hat just won't cut the mustard!!
 
Maybe there should be a top hat month :D
 
Carl Hall said:
Hows about I create a poll with every suggestion on it, and then you can click to vote on as many as you want? If you're happy with them all except for 2 then vote for 38 out of 40 etc? That way we can weed out the REALLY weird themes with no votes that nobody wants, but then pick the random 12 from that list of pre-approved themes?
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Excellent plan [emoji207]
 
. nothing to see

Sorry - thought I'd found a suitable prize for 2018 among my Charity Shop aquisitions - but both are unservicable.
 
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Carl Hall said:
Hows about I create a poll with every suggestion on it, and then you can click to vote on as many as you want?
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*Puts on his best Blackadder voice* ...and would the first suggestion listed on this poll you're drawing up happen be a 5 letter word beginning with the letter G and ending in the letter S, and have the letters O, A and T in it by any chance? :thinking:
 
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Hey, we're at shoehorn central. Choose your weapons( sorry, topics) and we'll be there! (y) (my only local goat interest is a Jamaican restaurant, and I'm not sure their product would be recognisable!)
 
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Peter B said:
Hey, we're at shoehorn central. Choose your weapons( sorry, topics) and we'll be there! (y) (my only local goat interest is a Jamaican restaurant, and I'm not sure their product would be recognisable!)
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Unrecognisable goat is even more meta! :)
 
RaglanSurf said:
If were going to have points down to 12th why not have the option of picking you top 12?
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Not sure if anyone commented on this, but I suspect it would result in a large number of equal first places. I thought Carl's earlier suggestion:

Carl Hall said:
Votes
This year we all got three votes to use to pick the best photos for the month. Sometimes this worked fine, but other times we ended up with a lot of people on the same points which ended with a lot of tied places. If we’re going to give points down to 12th place then we definitely need to give more votes to define the top 12. I’m thinking that we should have 1/3 of the number of entries as votes, rounded down. So for example if there are 12 entries then we get 4 votes, if there are 17 entries then we get 5, and if there are 19 then we get 6.
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...is well worth trying.
 
ChrisR said:
Not sure if anyone commented on this, but I suspect it would result in a large number of equal first places.
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Im not sure why this would be Chris.
 
RaglanSurf said:
Im not sure why this would be Chris.
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Well, my reasoning was... suppose there are 12 entrants and 12 voters, everyone could get 12 votes and all would be equal first! I appreciate that some might not award all their votes, but I think the number of votes available should be << number of entrants to make it work well.
 
ChrisR said:
Well, my reasoning was... suppose there are 12 entrants and 12 voters, everyone could get 12 votes and all would be equal first! I appreciate that some might not award all their votes, but I think the number of votes available should be << number of entrants to make it work well.
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Of course you maybe right Chris that could cause chaos although it doesn't look like we've had only 12 entries so far this year.
I also think the likelihood of there being only 12 entries each month and those 12 entries each getting 12 identical votes is just a tad unlikely, even more unlikely would be this happening in all 12 months leaving us no choice but to settle the whole FPOTY by fisticuffs or pistols at dawn (a fabulous photography opportunity if ever there was one). I just think that if we're awarding points down to 12th then there's really no reason not to give people 12 votes.
 
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ChrisR said:
Well, my reasoning was... suppose there are 12 entrants and 12 voters, everyone could get 12 votes and all would be equal first! I appreciate that some might not award all their votes, but I think the number of votes available should be << number of entrants to make it work well.
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Folks write PhD theses on voting methods, it is a minefield of statistics, game theory and conjecture. @Carl Hall 's proposal in effect asks us each to pick our favourite third (approx) of the entries. This probably is enough to ask of the voters while still allowing for a greater spread of votes among entrants and not requiring the vote counter and calculator to do too much maths.
 
My only small qualm with the voting this year has been that points haven't been awarded for placement in cases where more than one person ties for a place.

e.g. if two people tie for second place and two people tie for third*, then the people in fourth and fifth places effectively lose their points.

I'd prefer that you get points for placement, so even in the unlikely event of five people tieing for first place, people in the 2nd to 5th placings would still get their own points (8,6,4 & 2 points respectively). In that case I'd be happy to just vote for three photos again (or maybe four in order to spread it a bit wider).

I've not done a detailed mathematical analysis of this though, so it could be a disastrous suggestion. :)

* And other variations on the theme
 
FishyFish said:
My only small qualm with the voting this year has been that points haven't been awarded for placement in cases where more than one person ties for a place.

e.g. if two people tie for second place and two people tie for third*, then the people in fourth and fifth places effectively lose their points.

I'd prefer that you get points for placement, so even in the unlikely event of five people tieing for first place, people in the 2nd to 5th placings would still get their own points (8,6,4 & 2 points respectively). In that case I'd be happy to just vote for three photos again (or maybe four in order to spread it a bit wider).

I've not done a detailed mathematical analysis of this though, so it could be a disastrous suggestion. :)

* And other variations on the theme
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I see what you’re getting at but those people haven’t come 2nd 3rd or 4th etc there are 5 entries ahead of them so are not in a points winning position.
 
FishyFish said:
I’m just thinking about ways of spreading the points a bit without necessarily changing the number of votes that people get each month.
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That's easy, just get people to take better/more popular photographs! ;)

Says he, who's photograph didn't attract a single vote in the September round! :tumbleweed:
 
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I get what you're saying Nige, but I don't think it's right that the order of the people above you can determine whether or not you get any points. If you're in fifth place then you get two points, you shouldn't move up to fourth place and get more points if second place gets a tie.

FishyFish said:
e.g. if two people tie for second place and two people tie for third*, then the people in fourth and fifth places effectively lose their points.
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Fourth and fifth place don't lose their points though, as they were never fourth or fifth, they were sixth and seventh.

RaglanSurf said:
Im not sure why this would be Chris.
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I think the issue is because there are usually a few photos which get a lot more votes than the others, and are quite far out in front. Imagine the likely scenario where there are 15 entries, and 4 of them are very, very good. With 12 votes, it's likely that every single person is going to vote for those same five, as well as seven others. In this case, we'd end up with five people tied on first place that month.
 
Carl Hall said:
I think the issue is because there are usually a few photos which get a lot more votes than the others, and are quite far out in front. Imagine the likely scenario where there are 15 entries, and 4 of them are very, very good. With 12 votes, it's likely that every single person is going to vote for those same five, as well as seven others. In this case, we'd end up with five people tied on first place that month.
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But surely if 4 of them are very good then the likelihood of them getting voted for is not that different if we give people 12 votes or 10 votes.(Yes I know that statistically there is more chance but not enough to make that much of a difference.)

I just think that having a constant number of votes and a constant number of places that score is the best way and the more people that get to score points every month can only be a good thing.

For those that enter every month and just miss out month after month it must be very disheartening.
 
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RaglanSurf said:
But surely if 4 of them are very good then the likelihood of them getting voted for is not that different if we give people 12 votes or 10 votes.(Yes I know that statistically there is more chance but not enough to make that much of a difference.)
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I'm probably not explaining it very well, but imagine if you, Andy, Woodsy, Mrs Snap and Nige all took really good photos in a month (as does happen regularly). If we're all voting for our favorite 3/5/7 then all five photos are unlikely to receive a vote from every person, which is what pushes them apart in the standings and separates them into different points. If we're voting for 12 photos out of 15, or even 12 out of 20, then they're all going to get voted for by every person, as whilst your photo might not be in my top 3, it's more than likely to be in my top 12. When this happens, we'd have five way tie and five people all getting 12 points that month.

RaglanSurf said:
I just think that having a constant number of votes and a constant number of places that score is the best way and the more people that get to score points every month can only be a good thing.
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This is still something we can change, my 1/3rd suggestion was just a starting place. If we'd rather have a fixed 7 votes each month then that's an option too- I just think it needs to be significantly less than the number of entries, for the reason above.

RaglanSurf said:
For those that enter every month and just miss out month after month it must be very disheartening
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We're still going to award points for the top 12, so the number of people that don't get any points is going to be massively reduced, and the only ones that won't have any points over the year should be the ones that only enter 1 or 2 months. It's not the points and places we're talking about here, it's the number of votes.
 
RaglanSurf said:
For those that enter every month and just miss out month after month it must be very disheartening.
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Indeed and the hardest bit is thinking of\taking a shot..that members are likely to vote for.....anyway it's all a bit of "fun" and it wouldn't worry me coming bottom and it wouldn't ruin my hobby and will still take shots that I like erm even if no one else likes them :eek:
 
I saw what you put before you edited it :p:D

For 2018 I want to use what @Andysnap called a "simple Carl" method :D. If it doesn't work well or there are issues then I'm open to doing something different the next year, providing there's not a coup before then and you explain the maths to me :LOL:
 
Carl Hall said:
I saw what you put before you edited it :p:D

For 2018 I want to use what @Andysnap called a "simple Carl" method :D. If it doesn't work well or there are issues then I'm open to doing something different the next year, providing there's not a coup before then and you explain the maths to me :LOL:
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Good man, you know it makes sense. The simpler the system the better in my opinion and I'm as simple a system as you will find anywhere.
 
Carl Hall said:
Those are jokes? :LOL:
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Hush now! I'm trying to improve on my result in last month's round! :D

As for voting, I don't think there will never be a perfect system that suits everyone. Plus, after all, it's a 'just for fun' competition (another good reason not to get too ambitious with any prize/s there may be) and if we start to take things too seriously and over-analyse stuff then I think it could take the fun out of things. So let's give Carl's new system a try and see if it makes any difference to the scores next year. (y) And remember... Vote Badger! ;)
 
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