What Happened to Mommakoala’s Candy Stash?
Three new photo contests will launch July 10th 2010. They will be subject to a new voting ritual. A change is occurring whereby pictures are collected and displayed until the last two weeks of the contest, when votes are collected. This levels the playing field for photographers and professional contesters. Please read more about the new Lenzr voting mechanisms in the next post.
May June contests come to a conclusion, with one strange upset…
Another unusual chapter in the story of Lenzr has been written today. An unprecedented event occurred at 11:45pm on June 30th, 2010. Mommakoala’s image, My Candy Stash was eliminated from the competition. The correction was made by admin. The result of their decision makes her ineligible to win the Portable Luxury photo contest, and the Las Vegas vacation prize for which she has been campaigning in multiple social networks for a month.
Debbie is upset, Bill is furious, but Lenzr has to be fair to all members.
As everyone knows this blog is connected to a serial photo contest website that issues new challenges every sixty days. Its the only indy photo contest website of its kind, and as such it has developed a core following of veteran contesters that dominate each challenge and sub-divide the spoils. These individuals scour other social networks recruiting votes and promoting their work, and this activity is encouraged by admin. That’s right. We like it when that happens. When contesters put the message out on their own social platforms it compounds the quality and distribution of the marketing.
However, Lenzr website admin must also guard against proxy IP vote fraud and multiple domain registrations for / by which the only activity is voting perfect 10s for specific images from specific members (and voting 1 for everyone else) We can see when that happens.
Although Mommakoala’s My Candy Stash was the only photo removed in this session, almost all of the photos uploaded by just about every member have red flags attached to them in Lenzr reports; they are being flagged for some terms of service violation or another, by both humans and the filter. And that’s understandable because its just the way the votes are collected…
WHO’S TO BLAME? Because the abuse is so widespread across the entire database we have to believe that individual contesters themselves are not really responsible for the methods and passion of their friends, or strangers who might otherwise seek to disqualfy them.
Its a strange web we weave when we invent and launch a ‘democratic photo contest website’ made ‘by the people for the people’ wherein admin has ALMOST no control.
Remarkably, Seattledredge’s Portable City had no such red flags or suspicious activity. It appears to have collected 330 points in a most organic fashion. Admin had to act here, to be fair to Seattle and reward her for submitting some very pretty images in all three categories.
So a decision was made to reward Seattle’s image over Mommakoala’s submission, and as Admin has no power over the voting algorithm itself, our only option was to eliminate Debbie’s image entirely from competition.
Mommakoala is one of our favourite associations. As you will read in the next write-up, Debbie’s Elton Johnish photo is the winner of the 50 Going On 15 photo contest, and she will collect over 50 lbs of pure chocolate from Choclicks courtesy of TempoToronto.ca
Ve3bnw Bill Watson, Debbie’s husband will reap the Blackberry reward for having submitted the first place photo in the Crowded Places photo contest. I myself, Rob Campbell the Lenzr blogger have offered to host a banner promoting Bill’s aerial photography business in the sidebar of the Lenzr blog.
NOW WE ADAPT A SMARTER PROGRAM where VOTES ARE COLLECTED AT THE END
From July 1st 2010 forward, Lenzr has a new voting ritual. The new procedures will cure all the vote fraud malaise as we together evolve and perfect this social experiment and make it friendlier and fair for everyone that chooses to participate. Comments and queries are encouraged and will be answered directly.
I feel I have become a victim of poor judgment on Lenzr’s part, and by my supporters. I anticipate his new voting structure will help eliminate the events that transpired over the last 2 months.
Let me start at the beginning. Lenzr introduced two contests, one in which I entered with EltonJohnish, and my ability to ham it up. The other one being my husband’s area of expertise, which is aerial photography (rcperspective.com).
When Lenzr introduced the Vegas trip, of course my ambitions/focus changed. I solicited my friends, other forums, and facebook, twitter and co-workers trying to achieve what would be a wonderful escape from a life that has not been all too friendly. I suspect some of my supporters may have become a little over ambitious, and possibly tainted the voting ritual with their intent to help me on my mission.
Yes, we dominated the board, and again I had no control of this. May I add, there are patterns that have developed with each and every contest, resulting with the “usuals” winning.
While we were concentrating our efforts on Vegas, we witnessed the two other categories spiral out of control. I believe the membership was speaking. I wanted to remove EltonJohnish, to be fair, but was encouraged to continue. After seeing the outcome, this decision to continue obviously was a poor one.
What I blame Lenzr for is pulling my entry 15 minutes before the contest was over. That was very poor judgement on their part. Their concerns were not addressed until the contest was over.
Lenzr has explained their new voting system for the up and coming contests, and I agree this will eliminate the advantage for the early submissions, I truly hope the new platform does not create a different style of aggressiveness because the clock will be ticking.
Lenzr is encouraging my participation in future contests, but this will be determined at a later time.
Thank you for reading this, and allowing me to vent.