OK, I'm done. My entries are almost always last because people are too lazy to wait until a contest closes to vote. I don't understand why I should be penalized just because people don't vote on my entries. I was going to keep my mouth shut and go with the flow, but if I never win any photocoins I'm through.

Only people that are in the contest should vote because if they don't their score gets lowered, and you really can't force anyone to vote.

There are definitely voting issues here. The "Autumn" competition that wrapped up this morning is an example. It seems to me that LunaC might have won had he received eight votes, like I did. Instead, he received only five. He lost. I won. It was not a very satisfying victory. Of course, LunaC might have received more votes with unfairly low scores and still lost, but that is another voting problem. Intentionally casting a low vote to undermine a competitor's potential win is foul play, but withholding a vote knowing it may cause equal or greater damage is pretty nasty, too. In fairness, some voters fail to check in for late entries. I have done this myself, but without ill will.

Perhaps the answer is simplification. Eliminating the point system works for me. Thumbs up or thumbs down. If the point system is retained, abolish any penalty for the failure of others to vote. I would also eliminate the Honor and Experience elements that may factor into rankings.

Whenever I look at the #2 slot on the All Time Leader board my heartburn erupts.

This voting system is really stupid, the proof:
I just won the "Bird" contest when I didn't really deserve it. I waited for the vote of several people for my image and based on the score I had obtained, I deliberately voted very low (30) to all my competitors. Knowing your score when you haven't started to vote yourself falsifies the regularity of the competition. For the sake of accuracy, only anonymous contests should be made in which one's score is not known until the contest has ended.
Apologies for the 30 !

I came here because FN has apparently gone kaput. Mid contest at that. This voting scheme is absurd. You're penalized for not voting yet your vote doesn't count until you've entered 8 contests. I'll just give everyone 100 until then. I'm a bad judge anyway. It seems the chops I think are good, aren't. In any case, I'll submit til my wallet is gone and move on. Likely well before I ever hit 8.

So FN finally bit the dust??.

Most everything is different here than there.

FN is gone, ... I'm NOT sad.

It's hard to fix a voting system, but there was something on FN's FYI page that gave some guidance. Maybe this will be helpful. The thing I've noticed is that past submissions received far better scores, but then there were a lot of very good images. It was very common to see 70s and 80s. Don't see that anymore. Maybe this will help???
0-20 points Don't waste my time or yours. Poorly putting a monster on any picture
21-40 Simple cut and paste. Should have taken another hour to make the selection. Maybe a better monster, but a lazy entry.
41-60 Okay, this looks pretty good. Good idea and maybe you used a good action or a blending mode. Colors are sharp and selection is clean. You cared
about the resolution of sources you used. Shows that you been at it for a while and graduated from Fark. Might win a contest.
61-80 Damn good submission. Out of the box thinking. The masks are great and perspectives are flawless. Didn't have to be a weekend project because
you know what you're doing. The inspiration for these submissions are clever, even if they came from a tutorial, or an idea pic you saved. But you
did your way. These should win most contests because voters should appreciate the effort and skill.
81-100 You are probably a pro. Exceptional work. Brilliance at work and I have seen very few of these here. FN had some. Pirate Bay some. I haven't
submitted any of these, but I will.

Stop the voting shenanigans. If you submit then vote. If you keep loosing then pay up to keep the site going. Give better votes for B&W, they can be dramatic and under-appreciated. Oh, fix the too-big pop ups of previous submissions and contests. They are in the way.

wedoo: If you notice on each entry, to the right, is a guideline of areas of a chop. Fill those in first, then take a general average as your final score. The scoring has been low because SOMEONE got his minions to follow his lead, and always ALWAYS vote low on my entries. And get this, he's not in all the contests either. Voters are also not looking at the entries on each own. The trend has been they go for the guts and grunge even if its a bad chop. Just because you like an entry doesn't mean it's a good one. Quite a few entries don't even qualify, but there is no button to pass on the voting of it.
Sage

Whimpering, you get low votes because even after all the years you're doing this, you still SUCK at it.
The blame falls on you

Nobody is stupid enough to believe your nonsense.

836 wrote:OK, I'm done. My entries are almost always last because people are too lazy to wait until a contest closes to vote. I don't understand why I should be penalized just because people don't vote on my entries. I was going to keep my mouth shut and go with the flow, but if I never win any photocoins I'm through.

In this reply I'm referring back to the initial post of 836 and 836's reason for leaving this site. "A Damn Shame" every site like this needs imaginative and talented artist like 836.
And I'm also referencing in agreement with the comment of Tawiskaro's previous post reply above.

• "Intentionally casting a low vote to undermine a competitor's potential win is foul play, but withholding a vote knowing it may cause equal or greater damage is pretty nasty, too."

It's a competition within the competition, the battle of the votes. "Strategical Voting" I've heard it criticized time and time again. Sometimes it's blatant and sometimes it's very subtle. And more so than anything else, it's what drives the scoring average lower and lower.

• Low-balling your opponent "Strategical Voting"
• Casting lower than your average score in the mid-night hour for your opponent "Strategical Voting"
• After seeing your low average score and not voting at all. "Strategical Non-Voting"
  (other indirect examples)
• Conceding after seeing your low average and casting high scores for your opponents. "Strategical Voting"
• Not entering a contest and scoring untypically higher. "Strategical Voting"

Note: IMO the penalty margarine for voting out of line in with others in a contest is far too lenient.

Am I completely innocent? "No". And likely neither are you. On-line competitions like these are tough and almost impossible to fairly conduct. Guess it's human nature. You see a $20 bill blowing freely down the walkway, how many of us would pick it up and then go in search of it's owner? My point is, if we see an opportunity there most of us will take it with out question. A couple of these formatted voting systems do a good job of helping regulate. But in the end it too is dependent on the "Honor System". I don't have the answer. The best thing I can suggest is to vote high and vote early. And if you like higher scores and must have them, become a student of the game and get better. So much better you make people look like fools for casting a low score toward your work. Until then... Chop and have some fun with it, this is only a tiny piece of the big picture. I will be happy when this virus scare is over I can't wait to get back on the racquetball courts.
Cheers!

wedoo2 wrote:It's hard to fix a voting system, but there was something on FN's FYI page that gave some guidance. Maybe this will be helpful. The thing I've noticed is that past submissions received far better scores, but then there were a lot of very good images. It was very common to see 70s and 80s. Don't see that anymore. Maybe this will help???
0-20 points Don't waste my time or yours. Poorly putting a monster on any picture
21-40 Simple cut and paste. Should have taken another hour to make the selection. Maybe a better monster, but a lazy entry.
41-60 Okay, this looks pretty good. Good idea and maybe you used a good action or a blending mode. Colors are sharp and selection is clean. You cared
about the resolution of sources you used. Shows that you been at it for a while and graduated from Fark. Might win a contest.
61-80 Damn good submission. Out of the box thinking. The masks are great and perspectives are flawless. Didn't have to be a weekend project because
you know what you're doing. The inspiration for these submissions are clever, even if they came from a tutorial, or an idea pic you saved. But you
did your way. These should win most contests because voters should appreciate the effort and skill.
81-100 You are probably a pro. Exceptional work. Brilliance at work and I have seen very few of these here. FN had some. Pirate Bay some. I haven't
submitted any of these, but I will.

Stop the voting shenanigans. If you submit then vote. If you keep loosing then pay up to keep the site going. Give better votes for B&W, they can be dramatic and under-appreciated. Oh, fix the too-big pop ups of previous submissions and contests. They are in the way.

I thought you said you didn't know how to vote? you just gave good guidelines.

The voting system is a joke. Scores are dinged for some unknown reasons. How is anyone going to win when despite posting a high voting score the final result represents only 85% of that score. How this works, I haven't a clue.

I suppose it doesn't really matter. I suspect this site will soon go the way of the departed as submissions decline while new users become discouraged.

If you submit an entry is a contest, you have to vote for all entries to receive your full score, otherwise there is a penalty.

TommyD wrote:The voting system is a joke. Scores are dinged for some unknown reasons. How is anyone going to win when despite posting a high voting score the final result represents only 85% of that score. How this works, I haven't a clue.

I suppose it doesn't really matter. I suspect this site will soon go the way of the departed as submissions decline while new users become discouraged.

Vic's right, you have to vote in the contest you are in to receive 100% of the score.
But also in your case you received a lot of Honour Penalties for voting out of line with everyone else.
I remember when this happened. When you first joined you were being generous and gave everyone a 100 score. (Thanks) Even though your votes didn't count toward the contest at the time it did affect your Honour Score being on average 50 points higher than everyone else. You have almost worked your way out of this, so keep voting because you receive .05 of a point for every fair vote you cast. Placing or Winning in a contest helps big time as well.

SplatShot wrote:

TommyD wrote:The voting system is a joke. Scores are dinged for some unknown reasons. How is anyone going to win when despite posting a high voting score the final result represents only 85% of that score. How this works, I haven't a clue.

I suppose it doesn't really matter. I suspect this site will soon go the way of the departed as submissions decline while new users become discouraged.

Vic's right, you have to vote in the contest you are in to receive 100% of the score.
But also in your case you received a lot of Honour Penalties for voting out of line with everyone else.
I remember when this happened. When you first joined you were being generous and gave everyone a 100 score. (Thanks) Even though your votes didn't count toward the contest at the time it did affect your Honour Score being on average 50 points higher than everyone else. You have almost worked your way out of this, so keep voting because you receive .05 of a point for every fair vote you cast. Placing or Winning in a contest helps big time as well.

Splatshot, I never looked at the "honor" thing, don't care for it, never have, never will. That goes for all the "stats". I only care about good photo shopping.
Which is now sadly lacking on this site. Used to be great once, then there was a viral infestation a couple of years ago that slowly spread, and has now infected everybody.

vicspa wrote:Splatshot, I never looked at the "honor" thing, don't care for it, never have, never will. That goes for all the "stats". I only care about good photo shopping.
Which is now sadly lacking on this site. Used to be great once, then there was a viral infestation a couple of years ago that slowly spread, and has now infected everybody.

I understand Vic, it's not your bag and that's fine. But I do enjoy the stats. And I know I'm over-dramatizing things a bit. In Tommy's case he was just being complimentary to others and it cost him his voting ratio and could likely run him out of coin before he gains his honour back. That has to be pretty discouraging.
Yes, I've noticed the virus here and at most other sites too. But here at PSN it seems virus². Probably due to the number of contest run. What ever happened to the "quality over quantity" concept? I believe better quality attracts better artist. It would be great to see members like Lux and Tubby come back to chop. Speaking of better, Tubby commented the other day on the processed images we've been having to work with. A lot of these images seem uninspiring and really tough to work with. (i wonder where they come from) So I've been searching copyright free images and uploading between 3 and 6 per week to the PSN image pool. I figure Untexp will appreciate the help. With a little support from a couple other knowledgeable members we could dramatically improve the image pool and thus our work.
Contributing to the image pool may deserve it's own forum post. What are your thoughts?

I agree with you Splatshot about the source images. Not too inspiring. And the repeating contests, i.e. clown, robots, hybrids needs changing. There are tons of themes to replace them with.. The submissions are pretty poor and if you need proof just glance through the current mountain contest. Jeez. Probably one really good entry, The Swimmer. The rest, even mine, oh my.

As for the stats, I don't understand them and I don't have the intellectual curiosity to figure them out. Don't even know mine. All I know is that from time to time I have to pony up a few bucks to continue to participate. As I have stopped voting I'll probably never win a contest but I do it for fun and don't like the war that goes on here. I do notice though that the my favorite entries are either first or second. I've had a couple of entries that scored poorly even though I felt them to be quite good. Oh well.

Splatshot, we are gonna agree to disagree on "stats". You ask "what ever happened to quality over quantity" , it just disappeared. Contests are being won with score of less than 50. (sad). People disregard even basic good principles of photo manipulations. That's one of the reasons why I don't enter much, and from now on if I get the urge to work on an entry, I'm either gonna serve myself a double bourbon, or drive a nail through my head first, so the urge leaves. But I will keep voting, ...a 50 for a run of the mill, plain Jane, neither good or bad entry, and less or more depending where it goes from there, and a plain, thoughtless, simple cut and paste between 20 and 40, depending on how good the cut out is.
The air, ambiance, demeanor of the site has reached new lows, and it's going to be a long come back as it stands now, if it even does comes back, only the owners of the site can do something about it.

Just a PS (post script) not photoshop. I've always said that, if you don't know how to photoshop well, you don't know how to vote well, and that's because you do not understand the process of what it takes to put together a well integrated chop.

wedoo2 wrote:I agree with you Splatshot about the source images. Not too inspiring. And the repeating contests, i.e. clown, robots, hybrids needs changing. There are tons of themes to replace them with.. The submissions are pretty poor and if you need proof just glance through the current mountain contest. Jeez. Probably one really good entry, The Swimmer. The rest, even mine, oh my.

On this I disagree with you guys. It ain't the source, it's the chopper. You have to come up with your own inspiration, not expect it to come from every source image given. The more difficult it is the harder you have to work to make it good, otherwise you're just playing around like a 9 year old with a coloring book.

wedoo2 wrote:I agree with you Splatshot about the source images. Not too inspiring. And the repeating contests, i.e. clown, robots, hybrids needs changing. There are tons of themes to replace them with.. The submissions are pretty poor and if you need proof just glance through the current mountain contest. Jeez. Probably one really good entry, The Swimmer. The rest, even mine, oh my.

Wedoo2, I happen to like the Clownification Contest. (: My thought is that the Theme contest are what you make of them because the possibilities are endless. Same for the Regular image provided contest. The ability to express the imagination and skill level go hand in hand. I would go so far as to say one's imagination increases along with the expansion of his/her skill set. I believe some of the images here are way over processed. Half the principle subject being blurred out or like you guys the other day were working one that had a previously added lens flare. That said if we want to have a say in what is being used here, the means have been provided for us. We can upload images to the image pool, vote for the images we like, as well as contest Themes (voted on once a week). By doing this you will see the results, "guaranteed". Upload and Image ►http://www.photoshopnation.com/sources/upload/, Vote on the Daily Source Image ►http://www.photoshopnation.com/sources/, Vote Contest Theme ► http://www.photoshopnation.com/themes/
IMO... You actually do a good job of voting Wedoo2. And I normally enjoy most of your comments. Hell... the site needs those things to survive. What is the point of holding a contest if we stop voting and commenting?

Have a good day!

I may reconsider the idea of not voting. I really do this for me. It's an exercise in structure, art and technology. It's a great hobby. The voting is just so convoluted right now and I'm not a fan of the back and forth crap. Maybe all the 30s and 40s are actually fair. Sure haven't seen an 80 lately. Using a scale is a lot more interesting because a simple thumbs up, thumbs down is just not fair. Especially for the novice. Nor does it reflect how much work went into the submission. Even if it is poor.

I read earlier about the source suggestion area and I'm glad for the link.