I'm going to do an informal poll here.....so feel free to throw your two sense in.... I have had a few people over the last couple of months ask about voting or choosing favorites at the end of the challenges. Now anyone who has been here for a bit of time knows the history behind how the challenges came to be back in the forum and why the changes took place. The challenges these last 3 months have gone extremely well IMHO....we've had lots of great entries, lots of participation and it's just been a lot of fun. I'm just wondering how many people feel the need for the voting to come back. Does voting or choosing for a favorite at the end intimidate people who might otherwise participate from doing so? Which is what my concern is...... Or does it add to the fun? For the moment, I'm just thinking..... not really sure if we will change anything, because it really does seem to be going well.... We could always do an informal thing at the end of the month.....sort of like a name your favorite thread and tell us why sort of thing.... What do you guys think?

I like the favorite thread idea. Seems a good thing to put in the hot links to check out when uhm... you know... (I will shut up for now...) Eeps. Well, I was meaning to say, maybe we can have a hot threads link if we have a voting system. But I guess that can be confusing. I'm going with what the majority says. Hehehe... (* the fence-sitter mod (this issue only, mind you LOL)

Of course any night picture I could have taken this month was at work by the glow of the CRT... I'm not sure if the good participation is due to the lack of competitive pressure, or due to the opportunity to learn and discuss in the Forum. [Or maybe just lack of embarassment with never getting any votes... ;-( My vote is to keep it as it is, but really could deal with it either way.

The way I think is the forum flooded with challenge photos and not much else. I like the way we submitted things to a separate page for a challenge. To my way of thinking it sort of waters down, the mission statement that is at the top of this page.

I'm with Misha.
To me the feel that we have now is one of less pressure and more community feedback...and to me the less pressure the better, even though I am a test taking competitive junkie I like the way we have it now.

I like the non-competition aspect of it. The reason is that I come here to learn and share. If I post an image, even during a "contest" I'd hope that people would give me an honest critique of it. I think if we're in a real competition, I wouldn't feel right about pointing out something I didn't like or thought might look better with a different crop or whatever. Especially if I also uploaded an image for it (it would almost seem like trying to sabotage the competion even though it wouldn't be meant that way). I also know that I pay way more attention to the entries now than when it was a seperate page (there were whole months I didn't see any images other than the ones people posted to the forum first; I just never got around to clicking through to the contest page). My $0.02 and I'll throw in this Wet Nap too! -=>Donald

Learning and sharing, that's the reward in itself...and that way we're all winners!! (truly spoken like someone who is afraid of getting very few votes...lol) :-)>

I really like how it is fun and non competitive. I feel more secure participating in it, especially being a beginner. If it was about voting and winning I'd probably feel too intimidated to enter :) Shannon

vieuw, learn and be inspired. Its fun to take part in this challences. Be creative and share your ideas, I am happy the way it goes, thanks all for sharing your creativity. RS

Nah, I don't we should bring back voting, but I do have to say I'm a little bit on Azy's branch of the tree here - there's days when the challenge pics are a little too overpowering in quantity.... and I'll be totally frank and honest, being on a dial-up it would take me too long to go through them all. Can I make a suggestion? How about we have a seperate page for the challenge pics, but that we can post a thread here with a thumbnail, sorta like in the gallery.... the only stipulation being that the thumbnail must be a reduced image of the entire picture instead of a selected portion. My two PENCE worth. That's Great British Pence, with the Queens Head on it, okay?!? (",)

Great hearing from all of you on this..... I can see how some would feel all the images are too much, if you're on a dial up. Let me think about some alternative ways of doing the uploading.... At the moment people can upload to the forum or the gallery. Some do it one way and some do it another. I have a bit of work to do converting images from full size to thumbs and then coding them up to an individual page for the month. Not to mention the space being taken up on my HD. There might be a way to make it easier for me and for those on dial-up. I agree about the voting..... I have my reservations about it too. But I wanted to get a general idea of how the members here felt... Again appreciate the input. Would still like to hear from more people if they want to add their 2 to this!

Well, I'm late :( ... I like the actual system I think is more funny, this is my second month participating in the challenge, as I said to 'Chelle, I took some shots that I would never have taken without the challenge. It's funny and I like very much without votes.(IMHO).