Competitions, competitions and more competitions!

Competitions, competitions and more competitions!

You may or may not be aware that a unique competition system is in development which will allow us to fully automate our competitions on the site providing exciting new features you will not see anywhere else.

I have provided a quick overview of what our new competition system will do for us in the next post for those who are interested in knowing a little more about it but for now I want to give you more information on what we have planned.

Two types of competitions are coming soon!
We are going to be running two types of competitions which will be monthly and quarterly.

From March, we will be starting our regular monthly competitions and in April you will see the announcement for our very first quarterly competition. Prizes, competition details, rules etc. will to be announced with each competition.

Added bonus
As a bonus special bonus, we will take the winners from all competitions during the year and have a member vote at the beginning of the next year to find an overall winner for the previous year. Do you fancy holding the title of "Photo of the year 2007"?


What about the assignments?
Due to members feedback and with our assignments being open ended with no closure dates, the monthly competitions will completely replace our assignments area which we feel is a good move overall.

Myself and Alistair are really looking forward to bringing you regular competitions on PhotoTopix and are looking forward to seeing the great entries we know we will get.

Please accept my sincerest apologies for the time it's taking with starting up the competitions, this new system has been a real headache to put together but I wanted to give you all the WOW factor and it's taken a little longer than first anticipated.

As always, please let us know if you have any questions or need any assistance on PhotoTopix and HUGE thank you for your continued support.

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Paul

What is our competition system?
A lot of time was needed to run our Xmas competition but due to the success with it's format and the positive comments received we wanted to deliver this high standard time and time again with great simplicity.

Our new competition system is something that I've been working on since the beginning of January and is approaching completion.

This new system will automate the following steps:

• Create a new competition gallery specifically for each competition.
• Create a competition announcement thread with all competition details including dates, rules etc. including a link to upload your entry.
• Close the competition for new entries ready for judging to start.
• The nominated judges will receive an automated PM to let them know judging is ready.
• Create a new private competition judge thread that not only includes the competition details but will list the thumbnails, member name and photo title for all entires linking back to the original image to make judging an easily manageable process (You may be asked one day ).
• Once judging has closed and the finalists have been chosen, a poll is auto added to the competition announcement post and member voting is then open. Judges will then receive another automated PM to tell them judging has closed.
• Voting will automatically be closed and the system will work out who the winners are and post and automated update to the competition thread with details of the winners publishing their names. (Yes we are keep everything completely anonymous as the Xmas competition to add to the excitement.)
• The winners will then receive an automated PM to tell them about the great news!

This is a quick overview, there are many more additional features of this system but I don't want this announcement to be information overload for you all, I just want to make you aware what is going on relating to the competitions.

As with AutoPost, our new competition system has been completely developed from the ground up for PhotoTopix and PhotoTopix only which gives me great pleasure to say that no other site will have a fully automated system with the same features. It will be unique to us!

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Paul

Sounds excellent, looking forward to our first challenge.

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Nikon User
Beacon Images - last updated 29th June

Really looking forward to it Paul. Top marks for all the hard work
Regards....Phil

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Regards....Phil

If it moves shoot it. If it doesn't move, still shoot it.

Hi paul, it sounds really exciting....I can't wait!!!

Thank you for all the hard work with this and everything else you do on this special site

Diane

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"Carpe Diem"........Life is too short to dance with ugly men

Fantastic news. I'm eagerly awaiting and excited about the arrival. A HUGE BIG THANK YOU to You and Alistair for all your time and effort, this is the bestest site ever

No need for apology...all great ideas take longer than expected. All this hard work is something you will eventually be able to put on your resume'. *smile*

After seeing Loopy put up an assignment photo for the letter C, I did an image yesterday. Maybe we could all still give this assignment thing a 'go' this month..kinda of a warm up for March.

Can't wait mate.

well, you're gonna have to..

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The summer is here and the time is right,
We're going racing in the street..

Canon Forever

1Dmk2,10D, 20mm,28-70mm,200mm, Elinchrom3000,1500,600's,500's, Multiblitz200,Bronica SQb, expensive Manfrotto tripod

Oh my that sounds FANTASTICI look forward to it. Thanks .You done good mate..
cheers eh.