OK, ther are a couple of days to go before the votes are tallied. I would like to get your thoughts on how this is going.

1. Do you think the voting period is to long?
2. Why have over 300 members checked out the thread and most have not voted?
3. Well done to those who have voted, 2 or 3 couldn't resist a comment or two and that's understandable but they quickly removed them and complied with the rules, great stuff, thanks. It might seem like a daft rule but it will make counting a lot easier.
4. Any other thoughts/ideas?

I hope you have been planning your next entry, I am having great difficulty in deciding what to enter next month
Mal

Hi Mal. THANKS for putting this together and for your hard work here at Amorama. I think it's great. I really like the idea of picking your three favorites, it makes it alot more interesting. There are some nice builds from members here. Looking forward to seeing what will be coming up next. Good job everyone,Wingman out.

Hi Mal,

A couple of thoughts on the voting.

I do think the thread for Aircraft of the month voting should be a "sticky" thread so that it is always at the top of the page. It can "disappear" somewhat if a few new topics are posted.

If members are on dialup connections, depending on when they check out the thread to see the pics it can take an age for the pics to open, especially if there are a lot of entries with three pics each. Maybe people do not have the time or patience to sit and wait to view the entries?

To view the entries you have to open the thread to see them. Then to vote you have to search the aircraft forum to open a seperate thread. Maybe one thread showing the entries should be used with a link on that page to vote would be better?

Mal.

I think it is great. Thanks for all of the work you have put in and the occasional 'bumps' to bring it back to the top. It gives me something to be excited about every month. It is great to see some of the amazing builds that are being put up. Just out of curiosity, do you know if the numbers of people voting is about the same this month compared to last month when it was more of an annonymous thing?

Also, Martin's comment got me to thinking. What if we still did a thread where people posted their 3 photos, and then in the actual voting thread there could be a link to the original thread (like this month there was to the gallery), but in your kickoff message you could post one thumbnail of each person's build (about the size as shows up when you first go to the gallery this month). When the person posts their 3 photos in the original thread they could indicate what they think the best photo is. Just an idea that might allow people a quick and easy way to remember the builds right there in the voting thread.

Hope all is well and thanks again.
Leon

Hi Martin

The voting thread certainly should be... and I thought I'd done that - I guess it just didn't stick! (Sorry ) Anyway, it's sticky now...

All the best

Rowan

Thanks guys, some interesting points, I like the idea of the thumbnails in the voting thread, so I'll see about trying that next month.

Martin


Yep, the idea of putting the entries into the gallery was, a) to group them together so they could be compared and checked out, without the comments etc and b) so that members on dial up could have a look at all the entries, without having to wait for full size picks to load. The problem with that system is that, unless you have a look at the original thread, you don't get the info about the model. Maybe I can add that to the thumb nails in the voting thread? This would give a one stop for those hwo what it and with a link to the gallery as well all bases should be covered.
There was a problem with one of the MOM's, in that some of the pics were not jpegs and I couldn't open the file after copying them. It ended up the Rowan did it, which somewhat defeated the object of me doing this to release him. So I will, probably, have to make a rule that all pics are jpeg format and hosted in the KitMaker gallery. This will have the advantage of making this all the easier, I think.
Any more ideas? the voting will close at midnight GMT and I'll count the votes on Sunday morning.
Mal

Hi again

Martin raises some valid points - the time it takes to view the full-size images is always going to be a problem on dial-up, whether it's in a thread or the Gallery.

Leon's idea of a "thumbnails" thread is certainly an option; we could ask evryone entering to submit smaller pics for the thread. But, sooner or later, people will want to look at the full-size images - which will take longer on dial up.




re- the format thing... I never quite pinned this down with Staff_Jim, but I think this was a hangover from the change in the Gallery software...

I must admit since getting broadband I haven't considered the problems of opening a thread with loads of pics in it. So next time I'll try and cater for both dial up and broadband users. What I think I will try and do is:
a) Have thumbnails in the voting thread, with details about the model.
b) Group the 3 pics of the models in the gallery as before. This is where they can be compared as full size pics. The added bonus for entrants is that, as I have copied and re-downloaded these pics, they can delete them out of thier gallery, thus saving space. It is intended to keep these pics in the gallery, so there is a record of entrants through the year. One reason for this is for a special Model of the year MOY.


So hopefully we wont have this problem again. There wasn't the problem at all this time, so, fingers crossed, it is sorted.
Mal