I SEE this post with great happiness, and I RAISE you'all 30 photos of animals I have been holding in abeyance.
5 months of waiting, I'm not sure I still remember how to run a poll or a contest. I am thrilled. For me DU is not complete without our photo contests, and also polls in general.

NOW for the rub.
I am unavailable in May. Or to re-phrase, for parts of May. It will depend on WHEN the polls show up and then I'll try hard to see if I can do it. If not, I'll be begging for volunteers.

I think the first contest of the new DU3 ought to be run with joy and care. I may not be able to supply that right now, based on when this is coming through for us.

I'm just running my mouth, I'm so excited...........
Thanks, administrators, and programmers.

But I am trusting that things will fall in place.

Maybe it can be a group effort.

Thanks for giving us this option

I'm really missing that feature, thanks for the update!

I was just checking in to see what was happening with this. Will be great to have contests again.

Ugh.

Star members only create polls? Ugh.

Does that mean only starred members could enter a photo in the contest, since they could win and have to be in charge? Not a problem before but with all the changes I expect there to be fewer starred members..................possibly including myself.

Thanks Ruby! Not sure how this will work out.

Problems I have:

1. User names.
2. You can change your vote.
3. Starred members.

What do others think?

On the plus side, I seem to be terminally unemployed and therefore available for hosting duties, if needed.

We can start a thread on this when we have polls for real.

Not sure how this is going to work. We might need to have those "blind" entries again. That would marginally help for the user names on the polls being able to be seen.

(Actually, my dream job just got posted this morning - except it's only a three month appointment. D'oh! Meh, might get my foot in the door...)

Back on topic - I'm not sure I'm following you, Celebration. The usernames are visible for the voting, but I don't see where anything changes in regard to the submissions. Anybody with the gumption to look up our submission threads could always identify the submitters, if they wished.

Please elaborate your concerns.

People who submit entries can see who is voting for whichever photo, right? We think that presents a problem. I mean, I don't want to know who votes for my entry!! But I would most likely be tempted to look. In any case, given that we will all have that capability, and we will all know who voted for us, or voted for someone else, knowing that is less problematic if we feel that the people voting don't know who submitted which entry. It would be a lot easier not to "personalize" this if the people voting don't know whose entry it is.

Does that make sense?

I have huge issues with this aspect of it. I think it could change voting patterns. I'm not sure exactly how. I just feel uncomfortable with this. I'm not really sure why they added this feature to the polling in general either. But most of the issues have to do with Photography voting.

And I agree with you as far as it relates to the photography polls. I wouldn't like the contest devolving into a "Survivor" contest with factions, etc...

(Although... )

One possible solution, as you suggest, is to make the submissions truly "blind" by no longer accepting them in a thread, but by PM instead. It would give the host of the contest greater power, as only they would control the process until the poll was launched. You would have to trust them, but I don't think that is a big deal. Maybe the previous host could also have them submitted just to verify the process or something. I always liked the openness and feedback from the submission threads myself, even if I didn't necessarily participate much for my own reasons. (I'm just brainstorming here.)

Should we start a separate thread for discussion of this, or do you think enough people will see it here?

I see two options

1. blind entries

2. outside polling services

The standard way of doing things just will not work well. However, we certainly need more input from everybody else.

If I can go see ---(and I know I could not help myself to do it)---
who voted for me, and if all my buddies would know who I voted for, I think problems we never had before would surface. I don't think any of them would be good.

I also think for similar reasons who entered which photo needs to be without a source name, totally blind.

Looks to me like in this new form we have been trivialized by our efforts at a contest being lumped into "polls" that are being called basically unimportant. Our concerns about how to run a successful contest with this new format were not addressed between yesterday (beta) and today (rollout).

Under the circumstances, as I see it, these types of polls and contests can no longer be combined.
I think outside sources for contest polling are a possible consideration now.
I doubt, but then I never say never, that I would enter a contest with these new rules.

I had resisted suggestions of using outside polling sources in the 5 month wait - not thinking the changes would be drastic like this and put the contests we were used to essentially into the trash bin without fanfare.

Maybe, for us, the first poll ought to be if people care about our photos, and if they think the polling/contest is a simple little game for the lounge, or a semi-serious presentation by the photographers.

Please.
Please, test drive this new system for us, I DO NOT want to do it.

Was this a serious offer? I remember the contest you ran for photos of Places of the Historical Register. You did such a great job, and no, I'm not sucking up.

I share your problems. The proposed system may work just fine for things that are basically irrelevant and for "internet fun" only. In our contests we compete with each other, or at least we did in the past, and though in fun we took them seriously.
Personalities and egos and our efforts and talents are involved.

Pulling the contests into something where votes can be changed, and where we are pitted against each other with our names public puts a face on it that reminds me of Kindergarten games where nobody really cares.

Actually, I doubt our contests will survive in this form.

I really don't have anything much to do right now. I do have Jury duty next week, but other than that, my schedule is depressingly clear.

As I noted, there are some concerns that will affect how the contests run with the new functions. Maybe we can work around them, or maybe we will be better served by an off site polling function, as some suggested previously. I hope we get a lot more input from our fellow group members on that.

One thing I am sure of, is that the photography contests are very popular here at DU, and that there is a lot of positive sentiment to continuing them. We'll just have to figure it out together.

I am grateful if you do, and available for help. I have - for instance - all the links to the photos ready to go, so effort is saved, I will pm them to you when the time comes. I'll be around, just can't be counted on for heading it up in May.

I'll be watching and hoping you will end up with the first contest on the new DU3 with the new rules as they develop, it would be in such good hands.
You are an