06-24-09 – Homeless Images, Free to a Good PS’er

I am loving the cross-over PS/Farktography contest, we should do that again in the future.
(Maybe not with a themeless Farktography contest, though.)

yeah, me too. Maybe collaborate on a theme next time too? Our theme > their theme kind of thing.

I was wondering too… Not sure if it’s a good idea, or even possible, but what about doing the greenlighting of our crossover contests so that their contest and our contest start a day apart and hit the main page on the same interval?

The problem with that sort of schedule is that the PS’ers don’t get the source material with enough time to pull their entries together. Some people would still manage, as evidenced by the fact that some entries were posted before the Farktography contest hit the main page. But it would seriously limit the number of people that could (or would) participate.

Just a few random thoughts and ideas that I’d like to toss out there for discussion:

It seems that the voting in the Farktography thread might be sub-par. There could be several reasons for this. From my perspective, it can’t be the lack of excellent entries. I’d like to think that it has more to do with voter confusion. As someone mentioned earlier, it might not be clear what they are actually voting on (more on this later)

I’m hoping for a second wave of voting once the average Farker sees the PS contest. I have no idea how much overlap there is between the people who vote in Farktography threads and those that vote in PS threads. I suspect that while there is an overlap, there are bound to be those who fit exclusively in one group or the other. One of the things that I had in mind when suggesting this collaboration is to drive PS voters to the Farktography threads and vice versa (and maybe get them interested enough to became regular voters) To that end, I’m thinking about placing a second announcement in PS thread just before it goes “live” so that when the thread hits the main page the voters are encouraged to follow the links and vote on whatever they like. I’m trying to work out the wording because (as we’ve already said) there might be some confusion about exactly what they are voting on. The best that I have come up with is along the lines of “Any photographs that you find appealing” Any feedback on this idea and possible wording would be greatly appreciated.

On the subject of a future contest ? I’d love to see this sort of thing become a regular Fark feature. We’ve already seen support in both communities for a regular collaboration. With that thought in mind, I believe that I have gleaned some lessons from this collaboration and previous threads in this forum which I’d like to bring up for discussion:

1. It seems that an open theme might not be such a great idea for a Farktography theme. In all fairness to the person that suggested, it really did sound like a great idea. I sincerely hope that the PS crossover didn?t have a negative impact in either Farktographer participation or voter turnout. It works for the PS contest but that makes it a bit too one-sided for my taste.
2. Some PS’ers found the restriction to submitted photographs overly restrictive. I might have argued the point at one time, but someone was kind enough to demonstrate exactly what he meant. He tied together several photographs with an outside source to make an outstanding entry. (HansensDisease http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4469116#c52285970 Thank you Sir, point well made)
3. Given all of this, I’d suggest that the any future contests be derived from one of the normal Farktography contests and the PS rules be further relaxed to something like “Using one or more images from the linked Farktography thread and any outside sources that you might need?? This would allow the Farktography contest to run normally as long as submitters are aware that their entries might be shopped. Which brings up the next subject?.
4. I?m extremely uncomfortable with the idea that a Farktographer would feel excluded from a contest because they didn?t want to see their work mangled. I?ve seen a couple of approaches suggested in these forums and would like to add my own suggestion to the mix; If we are going to do this sort of thing again, the thread would first be declared as a possible PS source ahead of time and anyone who wished to participate in the PS contest would need to ?opt in? each image that they are willing to see used, abused, or otherwise distorted. If an image is not marked as ?opt in?, it is off limits (I really don?t like opt out)

On The subject of coordinating the two threads ? There are actually two types of PS threads:

1. PS this ?O? ? TF?ers have the advantage. They see the O about a week before the Non-TF?er. Sorry Non-TF?er. We paid for the advantage.
2. Themes ? Anyone can see the theme, they just can?t see what has already been submitted or the rules posted in the ?O?. The current mash up falls in this category. The enterprising Non-TF?er knows the basic rules. (Combine two or more images from Farktography contest “Homeless images”) They should be ready to post their entry as soon as the contest goes live. They won?t know about the credits and links (meaning that they?ll have to scramble) and might also find out that their idea has already been implemented (Again, sorry Non-TF?er. We paid for the advantage of posting first)

I’m hoping for a second wave of voting once the average Farker sees the PS contest. I have no idea how much overlap there is between the people who vote in Farktography threads and those that vote in PS threads. I suspect that while there is an overlap, there are bound to be those who fit exclusively in one group or the other.

1. It seems that an open theme might not be such a great idea for a Farktography theme. In all fairness to the person that suggested, it really did sound like a great idea. I sincerely hope that the PS crossover didn?t have a negative impact in either Farktographer participation or voter turnout. It works for the PS contest but that makes it a bit too one-sided for my taste.
2. Some PS’ers found the restriction to submitted photographs overly restrictive. I might have argued the point at one time, but someone was kind enough to demonstrate exactly what he meant. He tied together several photographs with an outside source to make an outstanding entry. (HansensDisease http://www.fark.com/cgi/comments.pl?IDLink=4469116#c52285970 Thank you Sir, point well made)
3. Given all of this, I’d suggest that the any future contests be derived from one of the normal Farktography contests and the PS rules be further relaxed to something like “Using one or more images from the linked Farktography thread and any outside sources that you might need?? This would allow the Farktography contest to run normally as long as submitters are aware that their entries might be shopped. Which brings up the next subject?.
4. I?m extremely uncomfortable with the idea that a Farktographer would feel excluded from a contest because they didn?t want to see their work mangled. I?ve seen a couple of approaches suggested in these forums and would like to add my own suggestion to the mix; If we are going to do this sort of thing again, the thread would first be declared as a possible PS source ahead of time and anyone who wished to participate in the PS contest would need to ?opt in? each image that they are willing to see used, abused, or otherwise distorted. If an image is not marked as ?opt in?, it is off limits (I really don?t like opt out)

Just my opinions here, but for what that’s worth…

on #1 (wide open Farktography contests)
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I’m up for trying anything. The reason I think a broad theme, as opposed to “cats”, “things smaller than 2 inches”, etc… will work better is that a strict theme makes the associated PS contest rather narrow as well. With a week’s worth of contest to choose from, PS’ers will just work on a different contest if we make it too restrictive. For instance, there’s 18 contests in the queue right now. The linked PS contest has to compete with that. But there’s definitely room for something in between “post anything” and a very narrow Farktograhy theme though. So if we can find the right middle ground I’m all for it.

on #2 (no outside sources)
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I didn’t think that was a part of the current linked contests and would definitely argue against it. From a PS perspective it’s way too restrictive and would make policing the PS contest a nightmare for the moderators as well.

on #3 (refinement of the description used next time)
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I’m all for it and frankly thought that’s what we were doing this time. 🙂

on #4 (Farktographer’s have to “opt in” for PS’er to use their photos)
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I think it’s way too complicated and bound to fail. I don’t think I would participate in either the Farktography or PS contests if the photos had to be marked “OK to use” and the PS’er had to only use the ones so designated. The potential for disputes and hurt feelings is too high for me. And again, it’s likely to be a real headache for the moderators as well. I think if people are aware that a contest is intended to be used as source images for a PS contest, they can submit entries or not. I think complicating the process is problematic.

PS – I went back and read the rules in the PS contest and checked Hansens Disease‘s entry and see what you meant now. I’m in complete agreement that rewording to make it clear that included non-trivial outside content is a good thing. I thought the phrase “the restriction to submitted photographs” meant no outside content at all. That was my bad…

I’ll have to digest a little bit on some of the crossover suggestions above. I thought this was fun as-is, but many good points were made.

And thanks on the kudos for the tie. Last I looked, I was still down by a vote and had no complaints about that atall. Someone must have hugged me at the end.

/I’ll get you next time, Gadget…. Errr… U-Man.

Hmmm, it would probably be too soon to try it with, say, a dragon.

A water dragon? You might be on to something…….

/Where’s mah fishtank?