Just and Idea.
Making it possible for non members and visitors to pick one entry that they like. They would
not be able to make comments. They would just be able to check off one entry. At the end
of the three days the votes would be totaled and a winner would be chosen for a seperate
catagory. "the Visitors Choice Award"
Our normal voting would be like the "academy awards" where the proffesionals pick the
winners. This would be like "the peoples choice awards" where just the average visitor would
be able to pick his or her favorite. It would probably generate more traffic and get more
people to join. I could be wrong I was wrong once

isn't there enough rating already? i'm in favor of a professional's award

you've joined to vote?

i like your avatar

I vote for 'Anonymous Sundays' so the new guys can have a chance when the pros post crap Sunday is a slow day anyways...this would increase traffic on Sundays!

Well it would help if the members like me who have still to post 10 images to cast a vote someway. Holding down a full time job doesnt give me enough time to make my submissions fast enough to be able to vote. So i would say visitors and members with less than the required submissions could have a vote. At least its not a take, take, take situation for the new guys as it is now. I would have loved to cast my votes on some of the contests ive witnessed since I joined.

Idea is nice, but there are some major problems.

If you mean visitor as in unknown person who happens to viit the site and is not registered, then you've got a problem. It would be easy for a member to log out, start voting for his own image a couple of 100 times and claim the visitors award.

Possible counter measures:
* ip-voting: let a visitor with a certain ip only vote once,
drawback: not everyone has a static ip address, a simple disconecting and reconnection to the web can change your ip. Proxy surfing, (using a 'tunnel' with anohter ip) can also circumvent the ip-rule.
* place a cookie: once a visitor plces a vote, set a cookie wich restrict another vote;
drawback: clearing cookies or dissallowing cookies circumvents this
* only allow registered members to vote
drawback: why register if you don't want to compete?

sorry to be a pain in your or anyone elses non-frontal exit

btw I voted yes, just in case those problems can be solved

No. I think the two winners would be the same too often.

I don't see any way to do this without it being abused, plus visitors' views of posts aren't quite the same as those familiar with Photoshop & the amont of work involved or quality of work involved........

I suppose it really wouldn't matter though as long as the guest selections play no real role or have any effect on any rankings or standings.......

.....there could always be a visitor or non-posting type registration for doing some type of visitors choice, but I don't think any of it is really worth the trouble.

Volks wrote:
That is part of the reason for this award. It would be voted on by people that may not know Photoshop but know a good image when they see it. I think this might produce some wins for people who may not have the best PS skills but have great ideas and clean work. These people might not get as many votes from people who are looking for extreme PS skills.
It was just an idea

I voted for Kerry/Edwards and look where THAT got me...

I thought great ideas and clean work is what normally wins anyway?

I say normally loosely

I dunno, in theory it's a fine idea, regardless if its pointless or not. but don't you think there would be the people who would log out and vote for themselves and whoever else they wanted to?

and "tourists" are a little bit lazy to scroll down the page and vote for the top three anyway... or people would invite cousins or grandma to vote l for their chop evday.....pretty risky too......

O.K. Nevermind