How to vote in a Photo Contest Guide

[RU42]

Greetings!

We hold photo contests here at VF every 4 weeks. For 2 weeks we take submissions for an announced theme and that is followed by 2 weeks of voting. This guide is designed to help you understand how to vote.

The voting system for our contests is a bit different. You do not vote on which one you like best. You view all of the submitted photos and rate all of them on a scale of 1 (low) to 5 (high). We found this to be much better then just 1 vote per person. This allows you to rate all the photos.

We do have some voting guidelines
1. You need to rate each photo based on how well it fits the theme and how good of a photo it is.
2. You can vote for your own photo just be honest. If you truely feel it is one of the best out there, give it a 5 - but if after looking at all the entries you fell your deserves less, then give it less.
3. Purposely voting down a picture to hinder their overall score will get you banned from all future contests. If I see a picture and it is getting a steady stream of 4 and 5's and a person pops in and gives it a 1, that is most likely done to lower the average, not because the picture is truely bad.
4. You are to vote for ALL pictures, rating all of them, not just a few. You can leaves comments as well during the voting period (not during the submission period.) If there is something you really like about the photo, share it. If you have an idea on how it could have been better, share it.
5. Above all things remember these contests are for fun. There are no prizes and no contracts waiting for the winner. So - enjoy yourself.

NOW ONTO TO GUIDE

Step 1 - Finding the Gallery where you vote.
A. In the Menu bar look for the word GALLERY
B. Once on the Gallery page look for the VF PHOTO CONTEST section




Step 2 - Finding the Current Contest
A. The top entry is always the current contest. Remember, during the first 2 weeks all that can be done in that contest is submit. Voting and Replies are not turned on until the second 2 weeks which is the voting period.





Step 3 - Voting
A. Once you click on the current contest you will see a page filled with thumbnail (small) images of all the entries into the contest.
B. Click on the first thumbnail. In this example, it is Buzz





C. Once you click on the thumbnail you will now see a larger size of the picture. Look at the picture - is it clear, is there good composition, does it relate to the theme, etc. Now you need to decide will it deserve a rating of 1 (low) to 5 (high)
D. On that page, in the upper right, you will see this...





E. Click on the RATING line and then choose from 1 Mickey head (lowest) to 5 Mickey heads (highest)

6. Once you have rated the picture look in the middle of the screen just above Buzz's head (see picture above.) You will see the words PREVIOUS IMAGE and NEXT IMAGE. Click on next image to vote on the next submission in the contest.

7. Continue rating each picture and clicking on Next Image until you have voted on all of them. You will know when you have voted on all of them when you click on next image and it take you back to the first image. You can only vote on each image once. Once you vote on an image, you cannot change your vote.


I hope this guide helps you navigate through the voting procedures. If you have any questions please post them in this thread I we will answer them the best we can.

Thanks for reading and I hope you join us for the fun!

RU