Re: People's Choice, another option

["James Purchase" <jpurch@interlog.com>]

> <<<The only reason to run them concurrently would be
> if our goal was to give maximum time for voting and judging.  I have no
> idea how long it will take the judges to do their thing, but certainly we
> could reserve the last week or so for people's choice>>>
>
> Don't most judges at fishy conventions do their judging in just one day,
or
> perhaps the weekend?  I'm sure it will be nice for the judges to have a
> month to judge, but I hardly think that it is a necessity.  What is a
> necessity, however, is to take into account shipping the judging cd-rom
and
> stuff overseas and back.  The shipping may take a while....

First of all, please keep in mind that I have no idea of what is normal at
fish shows....... that is why I need the input of those of you who do. I
have very limited experience with the "organized" end of the hobby - I don't
belong to any local "fish club" and have never attended a convention or
other organized "fish show". So I'm totally flying by the seat of my pants
on this. But I do have a very good grasp on scheduling things....

Secondly, we have plenty of time to sort this out - over 2 months in fact.
But the sooner the issue is decided, the better, primarily because we will
be in a better position to answer people's questions, should any arise, over
how the mechanics of this process will work. We will also have time to react
to the unexpected.

It was acknowledged right from the start of this process that that we were
sort of breaking new ground, nothing this extensive (at least from a
potential entrant point of view) has been undertaken and that the first
itteration of it might encounter a few hitches. We've already seen that in
the error I made in "cutting and pasting" the mailing address.... But on the
whole, I think that we are sailing right along and in very good shape. I
anticipate that by bringing this issue forward now and discussing it we can
continue in that same way.

Once Erik is "back in the saddle" on Monday, we can proceed further in a
discussion of time frames needed for the various things which will need to
be done. I think that his input is needed on how much time he anticipates
that he will need in order to get the raw images ready both for the judges
and for display on the web. Once we know (or at least have a concrete idea)
how much time Erik feels it will take to do this, then I think we will have
to ask both Karen Randall and Neil Frank for input (as judges and as members
of the AGA with prior experience in judging aquascapes). It might very well
be that the judges won't require much time to review the entries but we can
never lose sight of the fact that we will be dealing with four (possibly
more) individuals who have lives of their own and who must fit this judging
thing into their own personal schedules. I don't want to rush them into a
hurried review of a mass of images. I want to find out how long they
anticipate it will take them to do what we have asked them to do properly
(both for their credit and ours).

If anything is going to be "squeezed", I would prefer that it is the time
allowed for the public to register and vote for "People's Choice". Our
initial idea of allowing almost 2 months (from Oct. 1st - Nov. 29th, the
same time frame allowed for the official judging) is probably not necessary.
If we can get this worked out and nailed down to a schedule we have plenty
of time to let the public know how and when they can give us their input
regarding their selection of "People's Choice".

In all of this, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. We have said that the official judging will be anonymous - the judges
will not know (or be able to find out) the identity of the entrants until
they have made their final decisions.
2. We have said that we will protect the entrant's ownership of their images
by placing proper copyright notices on each image that is displayed in any
venue that we use to display images.
3. We have said that the general public will have the opportunity to vote
for their selection of "People's Choice" from among the entries.
4. We have never said that the voting for "People's Choice" need be
anonymous.
5. From items #1-4, it would appear that it is only logical that we wait
until the judges have reviewed the images and made their comments and
selections of winners before we actually publicly post any images to the web
site (because any publicly posted images must have the copyright notice on
it).
6. Right now, I can see the images posted first of all without any judges
comments and/or scores - i.e. they will be up and viewable before the end of
November and the public will not know who the eventual winners are. It is
during this period that the general public can register and vote for their
choice of "People's Choice". This will have to conclude a few days prior to
the announcement date (November 30th) to give both Erik and I time to
finalize things and for David to get the various merchandise prizes ready
for shipping as quickly as possible after November 30th as possible (I'm
very concerned about things getting lost in the Xmas rush in the Post Office
if we delay mailing things too long). Erik will also need enough time to
place the judges scores and comments online and make any changes to the way
things are arranged on the web site before the November 30th announcement.
7. Should it turn out that we cannot accomplish all of these things
comfortably by the November 30th announcement date, I am not adverse to
pushing the unveiling to December 31st. I could imagine that people might
not be able to get much done during December but there should be enough time
to complete whatever tasks that need doing in a leisurely and proper manner
(if this extra time is necessary). We would also neatly sidestep the Xmas
mailing rush by moving the announcement date to December 31st.

James Purchase
Toronto


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