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The fairness of a peer review with the integrity of an expert review.
DailyAwards.com is a place for photography, but it is not just another photography site. This is a place where you can meet, learn from and compete with your peers from around the world. It is a place where you can submit your images and get quick votes and comments from some of the best photographers you will encounter.
DailyAwards.com is not a place to store your whole portfolio or share images with friends and family.
There are many subtle elements that make DailyAwards.com the best photo contest you will ever find. It is difficult to quantify each and every one. This document will attempt to give you a view of the mechanical pieces of the photo contest that make DailyAwards.com (DA) unique.
You will find as you explore DA that it is fundamentally different (and better) than any other photo contest you have experienced. First, DA is strictly peer-review. This means no formal judging. Second, not all voices are equal. Some votes count (a lot) more than others. If you’re thinking this is not very democratic, you’re right, but you will see why this is better for you later in this document.
DA was started January 25, 2006. The site has gone through a number of evolutions that have added to its complexity and function. It is this complexity that this document will help you overcome so you can quickly leverage the power of this site to help you become a better photographer (or show everyone that you’re already the best, if this is the case).
Those who perform better have better insight. This is the essence of the DailyAwards.com experience and this is why not all voices are equal. Throughout the history of this site, it has encountered some harsh criticism of this idea; however it is the core, the essence of what makes DA.
If someone were to line up 10,000 samples of anything and attempt to rank them 1 to 10,000, some judgments must be made. There are a number of ways a person could go about this. Traditionally, with a photo contest, there have been two ways: 1) A judge says what the order is or 2) Individuals vote and each image gets a score. Now, DA introduces a third way that combines both concepts and adds a sort of 'burden of proof' for the judges. In simple terms, this idea says, those who perform well make better judges.
The remainder of this document details some of the features and functions of DA. This can get somewhat technical. Refer back to this document often to understand the various topics as you use the site.
The weighted voting mechanism is the foundation that allows the site philosophy that was detailed earlier to come to life. Every photographer at DailyAwards.com starts at a weight of 1. Each individual has an equal opportunity to earn more weight by winning awards. The weight those awards grant can be unlocked by participating in the community through voting.
It is very important to understand that your weight has no bearing on your performance! DA is a photo competition, not a weight competition! Your best strategy is to continue to improve your photography, submit your best images and your account weight will rise as you progress.
So, you may wonder, what is the point of the weight system? Simple, it rests the judgment of your image in the hands of those who have a history of winning. Therefore, you should not worry about your own weight (you cannot vote for yourself), but rather worry about submitting images that garner high votes from other members with a high weight. You also, by the way, need not worry about what some call ‘the troll voter.’ It is virtually impossible for a member to create a new account and affect the scores of everyone else.
Take the following example:
Member A, with a weight of 500 casts the first vote on your image, a vote of 8, making your score 8.0000. Member B is the second voter with a weight of 400 and a vote of 9. Now your score is 8.4444. Now, along comes Sally Lowvote with a weight of 5 and a score of 1. Oh no! Shouldn’t your score now be a 6? If the contest took just the average, it would be, but instead, the higher weights save the day and your score becomes 8.4033, a difference of 0.0407 points.
For a very precise understanding of how this formula works, you can do the math*.
| [(sum of votes) + (current vote * current weight)] / (total weights + current weight) | ||||
| Vote | Weight | Sum of Votes | Total Weights | Current Score |
| 8 | 500 | 0 | 0 | 8.0000 |
| 9 | 400 | 4000 | 500 | 8.4444 |
| 1 | 5 | 7600 | 900 | 8.4033 |
Voting is the lifeblood of the photo contest. If DA were an economy, votes would be the currency. Voting is very simple and the rules are few. You can launch the voting screen from any page on the site. You may then vote within any of the image categories or within the ‘All’ category. Images are always shown in random order and there is a buffer at the end of each category to prevent members from voting on images as soon as they are uploaded.
As for the rules, there is only one, vote what you feel is fair and be consistent. OK, maybe that makes for two rules. The point is to say, do not give in to pressure if people complain that your votes are too low and likewise if they complain they are too high. You may use your own voting scale. However, it is very important that you be consistent.
The site employs an automated (and very sophisticated) vote monitor. If you vote a 5 on an image that is averaging an 8, it does not mean you will be banned. However, if you, for example, average a score of 7.5 and you consistently vote a 5 for that member, you likely will. Or if you average a 5 and consistently vote a 7, you get the point.
Learning is the best reward anyone can capture from this site. If you improve your photography abilities even just a little while you participate here, the site has done its job whether you take home 100 awards or just one. Because learning is so fundamental, there are numerous ways to receive and leave feedback. One of those ways is through the comment system. Here are the types of comments you can receive on your images.
In addition to these comments, the site offers a forum with many very active participants who are a fantastic resource for feedback and critique. It is strongly encourage that you to participate there.
With all of these mechanisms, there are some rules. You can see these rules here.
There are a number of ways to win an award at DA. The site gets its name from the fact that there are some awards given out daily. As you can imagine, while these awards are an accomplishment, they do not carry the same value as winning an annual award. You may see the About page for an understanding of award values.
Awards are computed each day at the stroke of midnight (or at least pretty close). The system looks at all the award positions that are open (all category awards, each daily award position and possibly weekly, monthly and annual spots) and then looks at all the images that are eligible to fill those spots. The image with the highest score for each award type is given the award for that day.
There are two classes of awards for each award type, standard and signature. Signature awards are given based on the signature score (seen attached with each image). The signature score is computed strictly on votes from signature members.
What are signature awards, signature votes and signature members? Signature awards came about as an effort to further deploy the core site philosophy. Signature votes represent the rating as it is judged only by the top tier of the community. As such, these awards carry a heavier value and are designated with a trophy rather than a ribbon icon.
It is important to keep in mind that signature level voters do cast votes that count when computing the standard awards, however these votes are capped at the breakpoint between standard and signature. For example, if a weight of 20 represented the bottom of the top 10% of all weights, then the vote for the standard score computation would be capped at 20, whether the member’s weight is 21 or 210. The unrestricted weight is always used when computing signature ratings.
The current breakpoint is a weight of 21.
This can be a very confusing concept. The portion of the system that manages archiving is perhaps the most complex portion of the site, surpassed only by collusion monitoring. The fundamental idea is to keep the voting pool as lean as possible to keep you collecting as many votes as possible. Rather than diving into complex details over how this system works, it is best just to say that if the system decides the likelihood of any image winning any more awards beyond that which it is already qualified are too low, it will remove that image from the voting pool. That image is still eligible to collect any awards that it is eligible for, but it will never be able to collect any higher awards as it cannot obtain the votes necessary.
A subscription is not required to participate in the photo contest, but there is a great amount of value that you can get out of a subscription. The primary feature that is unlocked with a subscription is the advanced stats page. This page will provide historical data on the votes you have collected in graphical format. This helps you determine when might be the best time to archive, to see the votes you have received in the past and to request comments from those voters.
If you made it this far, you deserve to be commended! This document may seem excessive, but in reality it is far from complete. The mechanisms that operate this photo contest are very sophisticated. Just remember that you have a community of helpful peers who you can reach through the forum, and an attentive admin staff who you can reach through the contact form.
Best of luck!
