Not bad for comp - broke the mold I was expecting. But Exhibition was definitely a score for me on the perfect gorgeous postcard bet. ;)

Your very welcome Ron, yes it is Steve, slieb25 is a combination of my first and last name plus the # of one of my favorite baseball players when I grew up.

Thanks slieb25 or is it Steve? I am thrilled and surprised in equal measure at the result. Profound thanks to all who voted for my pic - there were so many great images to choose from.

Hey Dawg, it looks like the winning shot wasn't too "postcardy" afterall eh? ;)

First of all congrats Ron! You almost got yourself a win in exhibition as well I see! When you get a chance, please send me a note at [link] and provide me with 1) your first & last name, and 2) the Topaz product you'd like to get a license for. I'll forward that info to Topaz Labs and they'll then send the product registration info to you within a few days.

About the voting stuff, well, what can you do, everyone has their own vision of the perfect voting system. At first there weren't enough votes, now there are too many... how it works now is the max points are based on the number of images in each category (total imgs/2 rounded up, but always a min. of 20)... maybe that should be divided by 3 to be just right.

Stars and ratings type things were here at the beginning but it didn't get much action. I liked the idea of it in concept but in practice... I don't know, people just weren't using that feature, plus for a challenges platform I think it doesn't belong, that would be more something for image sharing galleries etc and I don't want to blur the line here between something like that and a purely challenges-based system.

About the points system... don't dwell too much on that, they're meaningless right now ;)

Congrats Ron and Konstantine on two wonderful entries. Ron enjoy your prize as our first reward winner and I look forward to your topic for our next challenge.

I can't help feeling we have too many votes. I appreciate there have been loads of really great shots and that we, as voters & entrants , like to get votes & also show our appreciation of our friend's efforts. Perhaps if we had fewer scoring votes and some other form of appreciation, stars or something to say Nice Shot! Of course this will affect the Points System but I am not sure what they are for anyway. Just a thought.

Daniel, one purpose is exactly what you and Steve just debated, I think most people would prefer to have the option to change their minds during the voting period... personally I think this is a more "leisurely" method. As you wrote, someone could play with their choices and bump their way up in the standings but that would take a bit of work... anyone who wants to do that has my sympathies, to want to go through so much trouble just to place higher in the voting.

Another reason for it is in the programming... there's a lot of on-the-fly calculating being done in the back end all the time and to put in a sort of lock just for this is waaaay too much code for what you get in return.

You can get yet another reason if you imagine someone locking in their votes and then writing or posting to ask for someone to unlock their choices because they changed their minds, made a mistake, etc etc... that then becomes one more thing that a host or admin would have as a chore.

I just don't think it's all that relevant, Daniel, and in many ways not even worth it to have a "finalize my choices" option. For the most part, if someone considers their choices "final", then they need not make any adjustments; but the ability is there anyway just in case... keeps this simple for all this way ;)

Yes Steve, as I said, this is a more versatile way. In the other way, I donŽt like thinks that change by the end of the votation period. I think because of this method one person could find the leader entry just changing his votation repeatedly. This is not very fair. Just a thought.

Daniel, one of the ways this comes in handy for me personally is voting in exhibition. Because of the # of overwhelming great shots, I assign 1 point to each one I like and then go back through the ones I picked and assign points 1-5. At that point, I may delete points all together based on how many points I have to work with.

Hey Martin, I have a doubt: what is the purpose to let the voters change their votes during the votation period?. I understand this a more "versatile" way, but it looks "rare" to me that (for example) one entry could start getting 4 voters in the beginning of the votation period, but finally end it having 2 voters. Just a thought.

Doesn't bother me too much Justin, if the winning shot is something as you describe, not that it's always the case but I would think that the vast majority of photos in a topic like this would be "postcard" style shots, which usually depict some nice wide open spaces. I know what you mean though, it doesn't take a lot of creative thinking to come up with those... every one of my entries was a no-brainer ;)

I get the nagging feeling this challenge will end up being "I live in a gorgeous place, therefore I win"...some folks without stunning scenery all around them are bound to be at the bottom. Not that it leaves me any excuse as I have some very nice scenery around me...I'm just too lazy to go out in the heat and capture it. ;) But I do feel for some who don't have access to gorgeous fantasy vistas, where all the talent in the world couldn't help them win against a chimpanzee with a P&S who lives in paradise! :)

About voting, if you guys hadn't noticed yet, when you click to give points, the result is stored "in the background", as is the updated display of your selection... this means that the process is much faster and you never have to wait for a page to load a 2nd time after you make a vote; if you think that nothing's happening, watch the voting widget and you'll notice that your votes are in fact being processed.

Daniel, got your email and replied to it a minute ago. Hope it helps unless Steve already clarified things ;)

OK thanks Steve. IŽll contact you.

CarolG and Zackiedawg......you both make this forum a better place with your comments.

Daniel - you can get me at sliebenauer@yahoo.com - Steve

Few other ones I've got *ahem* on file but haven't yet seen so ymmv: Water (2005 ), A Woman in Berlin (2008), The escapist (2008)

I never read any of the watchmen but I keep hearing how good those are and how the film doesn't quite measure up. Maybe I thought it was great as I had nothing to compare it to. The O.Horten film, it's not so much a killer ending (if you're thinking heavy action etc) but it makes you go 'ahhh, ok, I get it', while most fo the movie is slow and a bit quirky. Hehh, maybe I'm ahead of you on movies right now but I haven't been to selective either... just found a few gems in between ;)

Ahh, The Hurt Locker is a good one, Justin, forgot about that one. Oh, also, maybe you've watched this one already but it was a first for me: 'Pi', circa '96 or so... that one intrigued me a bit ;)

Carol...thanks. You can mean it, or suck up...either way! ;)

I saw 'The Hurt Locker'...great intensity, documentary-style grit and real-world believability, most authentic. Not a commentary film one way or the other about Iraq - just a situational story about a very tough job. Strong film.

Light and fluffy comedy but not too bad: "The Hangover" and "Outsourced"

Oh, watched a pair of Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" films... "The color of magic" is a good one

Yeah:

O.Horten: Norwegian film I think, slow-moving and you wonder what the heck the point to the whole thing is, but the ending is killer :)

Man on wire: haven't gotten through it yet but looks good!

Little Ashes: also only begun watching it but it looks like it's going to be good... based around the life of Dali

Big Man Japan: excellent! Japanese "monster" flick

So sue me but I also enjoyed The Watchmen.

Idi i Smotri (Come & See): I think I mentioend this one to you before... Russian film, takes place during WWII... best WWII I've seen but make sure you're sitting down for that one, it's very painful to watch the last third or so.

Zackiedog, your comments are so thoughtful and beautifully written. And no, this is not to suck up. :-) CarolG. [carolgilbert.biz/cards.html]

oops! Was supposed to delete that, not digest it ;)

dfgdfgd

Aw crap, that reminds me, let me check my email. I have a bad habit of avoiding the ol' inbox for several days at a time. So, no ban? Too bad, you could have become "notorious" ;)

I don't know, Justin, hutch sometimes reacts a bit too quickly, the bumping might have been a little too much as it served no useful purpose except to drag every recent thread right off the first page. Neil V made a good point, he just made a point of making the point too many times ;)

I got a feeling JP might have gotten banned, just because I suspect the mods there seem to want to stomp out anything that provokes this issue. Well, if anything, the drama can be entertaining ;)

I read the thread yesterday, Hutch got banned for 3 days because of bumping a bunch of Marion's posts. The message came from Bill Bourne if I remember, it does look like its been removed. Bill's message said Hutch will be banned permanently if he did this again.