Each challenge is governed by a moderator, who chooses the theme for the challenge. The selection of the moderator is explained near the end of this document, along with the duties
of the moderator.
Themes should be broad enough to allow almost anyone to participate. For example, "Seasons of the Year" would be a sufficiently broad theme, but "Winter" would be a poor theme because we have participants all over the world, many of whom are not experiencing winter at any given time. Similarly, 'Christmas' may not work for those who come from countries that don't 'do' Christmas.
Duration
In each challenge, there is a submission period followed by a voting period. The submission period customarily begins a few days after the end of the previous challenge and lasts long enough to include at least three weekends, ending on a Monday.
The voting period begins when the submission period ends and lasts for one week, ending on a Monday.
The precise dates and times are chosen by the moderator and announced, along with the theme, in a post at the Leica Talk Forum at Dpreview.
Galleries
For each challenge, there is a challenge gallery at Pbase. The challenge gallery should reiterate the dates and times of the submission and voting periods and should have links to the Dpreview thread.
The challenge gallery contains two subgalleries:
· The competition gallery:
o You may enter photos you took during the submission period using any camera, digital or analogue, made by Leica or on any camera with Leica lens. Please enter your name in the 'Artist' field of the image edit page but please don't add it to the title of the image.
o If you finished in the top three places in either gallery two times in any previous Leica challenges, you may enter photos in the competition gallery which you took during the submission period using any camera.
o Photos not taken during the submission period may not be entered in the competition gallery.
· The exhibition gallery:
o You may enter photos you took at any time with any camera: trawl your back-catalogue! Please enter your name in the 'Artist' field of the image edit page but please don't add it to the title of the image.
o Photos not taken during the submission period may now be entered in the exhibition gallery.
You may enter up to three photos in each gallery. All photos must conform with the theme chosen by the moderator. If there is any dispute whether a given photo conforms with theme, the moderator decides whether the photo is eligible. In borderline cases, it is customary to allow the photo to be entered and to remind people that their votes should take into account how well each photo expresses the theme.
There are no restrictions on post-processing photos in either gallery. You may enter images that are composed of multiple photos. In the competition gallery, if an image is composed of multiple photos, each component photo must satisfy the same requirements as non-composite photos.
Submitting Photos
To submit photos, log into Pbase with the User name and Password as contained in the challenge thread at DPReview. If you can't find these, email the moderator via that thread.
You may upload photos only during the submission period.
In each gallery, you may have no more than three photos at any one time. You may delete any of your photos and upload additional photos at any time during the submission period provided that you never exceed the limit of three photos at one time.
You may edit or retouch any photo that you have previously uploaded and replace the corresponding photo at any time during the submission period. You do this from the "edit image" page corresponding to that photo at Pbase, which does not change the position of the photo within the gallery.
Except for editing or retouching a previously uploaded photo, all photos must be uploaded at the end of the gallery.
Photos must not exceed 500 kilobytes in size and 1000 pixels on the longest side. For panoramic photos made up of more than one image a width of up to 1200 pixels is allowed, provided the file size does not exceed 500 kilobytes.
If possible, please include EXIF data in photos. You can do this in Photoshop by using "Save As", not "Save for Web". Usually, a JPEG quality level of 7 or 8 is about right. Please do not use a higher quality level than is necessary to preserve the visual appearance of the photo.
Voting
General guidelines:
· You are not required to have entered any photos in the challenge in order to vote.
· If you entered any photos in a gallery, you are morally obligated to vote in that gallery. Otherwise, your own photos have an unfair advantage.
· Please consider both the quality of the photos and their appropriateness to the theme while you are casting your votes.
Voting Method
This will be confirmed by the moderator at the end of the submission period.
In each gallery:
· You must cast a total of no fewer than four votes and no more than 16 votes.
· You must assign exactly four votes to the one and only photo you choose for first place.
· You may assign up to three votes to any number of other photos provided that your total number of votes does not exceed 16.
· You may not assign fractional or negative votes.
· You may not assign any votes to your own photos.
The moderator tallies the votes and ranks the top five photos within each gallery according to the total number of votes received.
Irregularities
In exceptional circumstances, the moderator may change the dates and times of the submission periods after the challenge has started. In such circumstances, the moderator should make every effort to avoid giving an unfair advantage to any particular individual or group. If someone requests a change in the submission or voting periods on grounds of hardship, positive evidence of the alleged hardship should be provided.
If the moderator announces the theme but neglects to specify the time that the submission period begins, the announcement will be taken to imply that the submission period begins at the moment the announcement was posted. If the Pbase galleries are not ready at that moment, please have patience with the moderator.
If there is a conflict between the times in the dpreview announcement and the challenge's pbase page, and neither is obviously in error, the earlier starting time and the later ending time shall be in effect, and the moderator should prominently post a correction to that effect in the dpreview thread when the inconsistency is pointed out.
The Moderator
The photographer who submitted the winning photo in the competition gallery becomes the moderator for the next challenge. If there is a tie for first place, the tie is broken in favor of the photo that received the most 4-point votes. If there is still a tie, the tie is broken in favor of the photo that received the most 3-point votes, and so on. If there is still a tie, the photo entered earliest wins.
If the winner abdicates his/her social responsibilities, the photographer who took the second-place photo becomes the moderator. If the second photographer also abdicates, anyone who entered the challenge may volunteer to be the next moderator. If there are two or more volunteers, the one with the photo receiving the most votes will be moderator.
The moderator:
· chooses a theme for the challenge
· creates galleries at Pbase for the challenge
· posts an announcement of the challenge in a new thread at the Leica Talk Forum at Dpreview (usually by copying the announcement for a previous challenge and making appropriate edits) describing the theme and specifying the precise dates and times the submission period begins and ends
· answers questions about the eligibility of photos
· resolves disputes regarding the challenge
· posts an announcement when the submission period ends and the voting period begins
· posts an announcement when the voting period ends
· tallies the votes and posts an announcement with the results.
· moves the top five photos to the beginning of each gallery
The moderator may make reasonable changes to the above rules for the duration of the challenge that (s)he moderates.
