First off, I would like to thank everyone who entered a photo in our B&H 'Man and Nature' photo contest! There was a total of 259 submissions, of which 197 met the competition rules. That's almost twice as many as our previous 'Panoramic' competition!

Without further ado, I'd like to explain how voting will work for this contest. Unlike in previous events, we will not be creating a separate voting thread in which users can vote for their favorite entries. Instead, voting will take place directly in the gallery itself, using our photo rating system on a 1-5 star scale. With this large number of entries, I believe that this approach will be the fairest.

You can choose to rate either only your favorites, or all the photos. Attached are screenshots on how this is done. Simply browse to the gallery, select the first photo, rate it, and then cycle through photos using the filmstrip. Alternatively, you can browse the contest submissions in the gallery listings, and only pick your favorite shots to vote for.

Ratings can either be given through the dropdown in the upper-right of each photo page, or directly when commenting on a photo (you have to click on the 'post reply' button if using this approach).

PROCEED TO VOTE

At the end of the month, the photo with the highest star rating will win. If there is a tie, the photo with the largest number of ratings will win.

After you have voted, you can check which photos are winning here.

Good luck to everyone!

WINNER ANNOUNCED: B&H Photo Contest Winner - PentaxForums.com

[Adam]

I've now personally finished voting for all the entries. There were many fantastic photos, so first let me congratulate everyone on their creative work!

I'd also like to share how I rated the photos:

1.5 points: composition, technical parameters, appeal
2.5 points: creativity, relation to the contest theme, portrayal of the contest theme
1 point: base

After assigning a point value to each category (in increments of 0.5), I took the floor of the sum and assigned a star rating. So, if the photo got 1.0 for appeal and 0.5 for creativity, the total score would be 2.5, and the photo would get 2 stars from me.

Once again, good luck to all participants, and thanks to everyone who has voted so far! Over 1,700 votes have already been logged

[Vlad_R]

This voting system is the most difficult that I met.
Sorry. I can not.

[Flickeroo]

This voting system is the most difficult that I met.
Sorry. I can not.

I think everyone's allowed to vote however they wish, as long as it's fair and consistent. You also don't need to vote on all the submissions, you can select the one or few pictures you think are exceptional.

Adam was simply giving his own personal voting system as a suggestion.

[mawsonii]

In reading the rules, I note that disqualified photos will be relegate to a separate thread. Where is that thread? How does one discover the reason for disqualification?

[Adam]

In reading the rules, I note that disqualified photos will be relegate to a separate thread. Where is that thread? How does one discover the reason for disqualification?

All the disqualified entries are in the category below the qualified entries.

Your shot was either disqualified because:
-it did not appear to match the contest theme and no clarification was posted
-it was not taken between 7/6 and 8/1 2010, inclusive
-it did not contain EXIF or date information, and no date was provided when requested from the poster

[Cucuc]

I have a question.
If a photo gets a few votes with a high averige will it win over one that has a slightly lower averige but in higher numbers?
Voting number should count because not many will take the time to vote all the photos and... well, you get what I'm saying. One 5 star vote is less than 10 4 stars votes.

[Adam]

I have a question.
If a photo gets a few votes with a high averige will it win over one that has a slightly lower averige but in higher numbers?
Voting number should count because not many will take the time to vote all the photos and... well, you get what I'm saying. One 5 star vote is less than 10 4 stars votes.

It would have won, yes.

At this point, however, every photo has at least 6 ratings, so we won't be seeing any lucky winners.

[Cucuc]

I think you should change the rule. Personaly I have only submited votes only for those photos that deserve 3 stars and above. Many will do the same or even more vote for the ones they really like because it is a huge effort to rate all of them.
By not including number of votes in the criteria you ignore the most important rule of statistics whici is the more the samples the closer you are to the corect value.
You should instate a point criteria where the number of points is given by multiplying star value with number of votes..

[m8o]

Funny there Adam.... After your 2nd post I wasn't going to fight my nature and was about to make a snide remark such as "let the complaining about the voting begin". But I thought "let me wait and see". Glad to see the populous hasn't let me down. Ok, ok, I admit it. A few years back near 2000 posts ago I recall being of similar opinionated-ness.

[Adam]

I think you should change the rule. Personaly I have only submited votes only for those photos that deserve 3 stars and above. Many will do the same or even more vote for the ones they really like because it is a huge effort to rate all of them.
By not including number of votes in the criteria you ignore the most important rule of statistics whici is the more the samples the closer you are to the corect value.
You should instate a point criteria where the number of points is given by multiplying star value with number of votes..

You should really leave it to the pros. I've been running these contests for years, and trust me, the results will be fair, since the numbers we'll be looking at will be close enough, statistically, to the true mean. If we start giving bonuses just for the presence of extra votes, you'd be introducing a confounding factor. Sometimes, people really tend to overthink things when in reality they 'just work'.

Hypothetical scenario here:

20 people give photo one a 5, and 5 people give it a 4.
10 people give photo two a 5, and 18 people give it a 4.

If we multiply the two numbers, photo one gets 120 points, while photo two gets 122. Fair if photo two won? Not one bit.

@m80- most people start complaining when they aren't winning Surprised? At least they're entertaining.

[calicojack]

Ahem.......
(20 X 5) + (5 X 4) = 120, not 140

[m8o]

I think it's worth saying there isn't a single type of voting scenario/method that I've come across in photo competitions across the interwebz that will guarantee a full sampling, so why harp on it?! Pending a person's ratings until all are selected would need to be stateful to accommodate people stopping in the middle and coming back later. The systems logic that needs to be in place is non-trivial. But aside from that, it still would not ensure that all photos are voted upon by a large sampling, because so many would reject the mandate to rate all.

Take Fotki for example. They have many competitions every week. Their voting mechanism is often to pick the better between the two, until all photos are cycled thru. It relies on a large sampling of voters to push the best to the top. But if I stop 1/2 way thru, I may never reach the photo that I and everyone else thought was the 'bestest', so my data point would never get added to the sampling. Minus putting all the photos in a stacked list (for usability's sake) w/a pull-down or stars or whatever next to each, and restrictively mandating every photo gets a value set, I don't see a way to achieve a 100% data fill. ...And then think about the folks on dial-up and how impossible it will be for them to load 200 photos on one page... There is no perfect answer!

[Cucuc]

@m80- most people start complaining when they aren't winning Surprised? At least they're entertaining.

Don't be rude. I am not participating and I am not complaining. I just wanted to point out something true . My solution was just a quick idea and as you pointed out far from perfect. Actually just as bad but in a different way.
The current solution is very vulnerable and as long as photos do not all have similar number of votes results will be statistically incompatible. I'm not saying it won't work I'm saying there is an easy way it can go wrong.
But no point in going on with this discussion now as it is not desired. Hope it will always turn out fair.

PS: Waving a "leave it to the pros" flag at the beginning of an argument doesn't set a good mood for the discussion. And also professionals are people who live by it but not necessarily do it exceptionally or even well.

[Adam]

Ahem.......
(20 X 5) + (5 X 4) = 120, not 140

Oops. Same deal though