DSLR Speed Challenge #365: Vertical

Congrats Voaky999.

Nice win, Voaky999 - that's definitely a lot of vertical! Good choice of subject this week and nice to see plenty of entries (BTW a couple past closing time. I think).

Kudos, Voaky. Nice shot. Love the gulls.

Well done Don, and to all of the other wonderful submissions.


Jason

Well done Voaky

Congrats Voaky!

Congrats Voaky and thanks lovemyram for the challenge.

Congrats to Voaky, and a lot of great posts on this challenge.

P.S.
I was one of the last two pushing the timeline.

I am new to these speed challenges, and a little surprised at how they are run. For instance, the vertical challenge ended a couple days ago, yet there is still no new challenge - challenge #366 does not yet exist.

Also, when a deadline is given, I thought that the member who proposed that challenge would be sitting right at their computer, so that within a minute or two of the deadline passing, a post would be made declaring that entries are no longer being accepted, and that the winner would be announced shortly. Then, I thought that 10 or 15 minutes later, the winner would be announced, and that within an hour or two the next challenge would be proposed and open for entries.

Things seem to lag and lag and lag.....not just for hours, but for days. That seems kind of odd to me, given the fact that these are called "Speed" challenges.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #17436031
Also, when a deadline is given, I thought that the member who proposed that challenge would be sitting right at their computer, so that within a minute or two of the deadline passing, a post would be made declaring that entries are no longer being accepted, and that the winner would be announced shortly. Then, I thought that 10 or 15 minutes later, the winner would be announced, and that within an hour or two the next challenge would be proposed and open for entries.

Things seem to lag and lag and lag.....not just for hours, but for days. That seems kind of odd to me, given the fact that these are called "Speed" challenges.

Tom, having won the G-series challenge a few times and the macro game more than a few, I can report. Some of what follows is relevant to the DSLR challenge.

People participate in POTN in their spare time. Most winners aren't able and willing to perform as promptly as you'd like, not because they're slackers but because paid work and taking care of things, animals, and people come first. Schedules aren't always favorable. The G-series deadline is set at noon Greenwich time--4 a.m. for me. I won't get up at 3:30 to post that the period for entering has ended. Entrants are responsible for watching the clock. The judge can use timestamps later to detect late entries. It also often takes longer than 15 minutes to choose three winners and write something fair and coherent about each photo. Had I got up at 3:30, you could have scratched "fair" and "coherent" off the list of desiderata. "Something" might remain.

I do sympathize with your complaints when the lag exceeds a day. Circumstances that keep a winner from responding within 24 hours should be rare, such as the current plight of members in the snowy Northeast who are trying to dig out.

Another problem is that there is no email notification from the forum yet. I believe it is coming in the next update of the software.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #17436031
I am new to these speed challenges, and a little surprised at how they are run. For instance, the vertical challenge ended a couple days ago, yet there is still no new challenge - challenge #366 does not yet exist.

Also, when a deadline is given, I thought that the member who proposed that challenge would be sitting right at their computer, so that within a minute or two of the deadline passing, a post would be made declaring that entries are no longer being accepted, and that the winner would be announced shortly. Then, I thought that 10 or 15 minutes later, the winner would be announced, and that within an hour or two the next challenge would be proposed and open for entries.

Things seem to lag and lag and lag.....not just for hours, but for days. That seems kind of odd to me, given the fact that these are called "Speed" challenges.

No worries, we are not uptight photographers here. If Don does not post a new challenge soon, then the runner-up to this challenge will begin a new challenge. That's what we've done it the past.

We do encourage those who participate be available to start a new challenge if they win a current challenge,then again life simply happens and pulls us into other directions.

Sit tight, a new challenge will become available...

Cheers.


Jason

Tom Reichner wrote in post #17436031
....Things seem to lag and lag and lag.....not just for hours, but for days. That seems kind of odd to me, given the fact that these are called "Speed" challenges.

Tom, As OhLook has explained so well, these challenges are by necessity run in an amateurish way. Although it can be frustrating when a judge doesn't close a challenge promptly, or a winner (voakky, where are you?) doesn't, or maybe can't, respond promptly with a new challenge, it's best to just relax and go with it. This and the G-series challenges have been running successfully for a long time and I don't think we need to run them in military fashion - at least not until someone puts up some big prize money each week!

Ok guys, I guess I need to ease up.

I think that I had assumed that each speed challenge would be one week in duration, with the new challenge starting as soon as the previous one ended. In this way, there would be a consistent deadline, same day, same time, every week. And this way there would be 52 speed challenges each year. I guess the way it is made me think that the week-to-week-to-week nature of this thing would be disrupted, and that would cause there to not be 52 challenges per year.

I have learned that my understanding of how these speed challenges are supposed to work was just a bad assumption on my part, and that it does not break down into precise one-week intervals. Thanks for explaining, I appreciate it.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #17436486
....I had assumed that each speed challenge would be one week in duration, with the new challenge starting as soon as the previous one ended. In this way, there would be a consistent deadline, same day, same time, every week. And this way there would be 52 speed challenges each year....

Actually, the G-series challenges have worked very successfully with a consistent end time (noon GMT on Mondays) for the past ten years, with as far as I know only one week missed mainly due to some confusion when AMASS was being introduced. The first challenge was in Feb 2005 and we're now up to #521! You might say the "speed" part comes in because sometimes judges are late closing off, or winners late posting the next one, sometimes resulting in only a few days for people to enter.

Maybe we could use similar fixed "close" times on these DSLR challenges, but I suspect part of the problem is that there there are more professionals with less time to spare here than on the G-series.