I'm sorry

pemmett

I would like to publicly apologize and ask for forgiveness for asking some of my friends to vote for my pictures.

The people I asked were close friends who have taken an interest in my photography over the past year and I did so only after reading the following line from Erik's post for the first round of voting

"As stated in the rules, you have the next 72 hours to decide! And tell your friends all around DGrin and the web in general, the more votes, the better!"

I am not trying to justify what I did in any way.
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I had followed earlier discussions in this forum about friends asking to vote, but after reading the above line I took it as an invitation to invite these friends.
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I counted that between the 17^th Feb (the day of the cut off for the second round of voting) to the 22^nd Feb there were just under 300 new registrants (not all mine by any means!) – which I do not know if this is abnormal or not?
<o:p> </o:p>
I am truly sorry for my actions and regret doing it because:

1. It was wrong.
2. It goes against everything that happened during the year in terms of helping each other to succeed and become better photographers.
3. My actions made me loose sight about why I joined this community in the first place, which was to learn and make friends.

<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> <!--[endif]-->Finally, I’m sorry because I acted against some of the kindest and most generous people I have ever met, who were willing to give me their time to improve myself. I would like to be able to call you my friends – I hope you will still let me.
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Thanks/Peter

Greensquared

Peter,

I certainly accept your apology and would like to continue to see you participate in this forum.

I read that statement by Erik as you did, and thought "Oh that's ridiculous! Surely he doesn't mean it the way it sounds." So, I can understand your confusion. The two people I invited to join during voting were long time active lurkers who plan to use dgrin and one will definitely be participating in the next LPS.

I appreciate your honesty and sincerity.

Emily

shatch

You have my respect and forgiveness. It takes a strong person to make a post like this. You are a good man. It shows the true nature of your heart. Glad to have you around.

pemmett

Emily/Steven,

Thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement and forgiveness

I still want to be involved for sure, but this time I intend to participate to learn and not to win.

Cheers/Peter

cbsnet

Wow... You have my deepest respect. Hope you continue in the LPS rounds.

-carl

anwmn1

Thank you- this shows a lot of character.


Wish you the best in future entries-

jwear

the desire to win --you are good with me ,took a lot to put up that post

The Curious Camel

To error is human, to forgive divine.

Your are a man of honor.

Peace to you, gail

richtersl

Awww....Peter, you are a kind and wonderful person. :sweet

I've stayed mostly on the sidelines the past several rounds and have enjoyed watching the different rounds. All the entries in the final rounds were fabulous. All I could do is shake my head in awe upon watching them go up. :eek1

However, I would not lose too much sleep over this. When I saw Andy's note, the impression I was left with was that groups of people were signing up for Dgrin under multiple ID's to put in votes. Evidently whatever he saw was significant enough for him to have had to put his foot down -- especially if multiple ID's were originating from the same IP address. In the end, we'll never know and that's OK by me. DGrin will have a handle on this next year, I'm sure.

To me that's a lot different that asking a small handful of friends to vote for your picture. Besides, your friends may even decide to stick around and give you a run for your money in LPS 2.

LPS 1 is behind us now. It's time to move on to LPS 2. Dgrin has a good thing going, which they will make even better the second time around.

DavidTO

pemmett wrote:

I intend to participate to learn and not to win.

Cheers/Peter

Sounds like you learned a ton.

ChrisKraftPhoto

Ditto to all the above responses. It takes a man to own up to any mistakes made, whether those made by accident or on purpose.

Good on ya and hope you continue to participate!

swintonphoto

"Come on dear brother, now that the war has passed. For friends at first are friends again at last." (Joseph Smith)

No hard feelings from me! Let's just have a good year with LPS2!

Awais Yaqub

dont worry

OsirisPhoto

Awais Yaqub wrote:

dont worry

.. be happy

Angelo

digitalpins

I forgive and I was not even in the contest or even if I was I would forgive you. Everyone makes a mistake and its awesome that you posted here apologizing and that a bunch of people here are so nice and forgived you and also wrote many nice things. I have seen this happen before in other photography forums and its gotten pretty ugly....this is another reason why I like dgrin's forum so much....lots of nice people here.

photogmomma

You know, many others did the same thing, I'm sure (judging by the number of voters and other people jumping in votes quickly).... And I think many others read that the same way. Please don't stress about it. But thanks for owning up. That's really cool.

See you in round 2!!

indiegirl

I thank you for your post and hold you in high esteem. Be well, friend.

Jesse

RogersDA

Peter,

Whether or not you got 1 vote or 1000 votes that shot is very, very nice and is most certainly LPS-winner quality.

Great work, Peter, on both the photography and the high-road position.

rddphotos

you have nothing to apoloigize too, what you read is exactly what I questioned during the voting session and it was considered fair game from the response I got back.

The dam thing was I had a year to get people to sign up before the grand finale and I was to busy worrying about finding the best shoot.

sorry but if my friends signed up they wouldn't of been voting for someone else, that's just the way life is, especially with cash on the line.

If there's an LPS2, I would personally like to see the grand finale hit the road for a couple of weeks, where dGrin can work some cross promotion with a gallery/photography store at various locations, can display the photos and let people who walk in vote for their favorite.

Izzy Garavito

Hey Peter, great work and thanks for being honest

Izzy

imax

I deleted my first response to this 8 hours ago because I really thought that it would die down and people would realize that no apology was needed. As I logged on again tonight I see that this thread is still atop the listings and going strong so I'll put my own 2 cents in for what it's worth.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
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Peter, you have nothing to apologize for, you followed the rules clearly stated here:<o:p></o:p>
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<TABLE class=MsoNormalTable style="WIDTH: 100%; mso-cellspacing: 0in; mso-padding-alt: 3.0pt 3.0pt 3.0pt 3.0pt" cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR style="mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes"><TD style="BORDER-RIGHT: #ece9d8 1pt inset; PADDING-RIGHT: 3pt; BORDER-TOP: #ece9d8 1pt inset; PADDING-LEFT: 3pt; BACKGROUND: #404040; PADDING-BOTTOM: 3pt; BORDER-LEFT: #ece9d8 1pt inset; PADDING-TOP: 3pt; BORDER-BOTTOM: #ece9d8 1pt inset; mso-border-alt: inset windowtext .75pt">"As stated in the rules, you have the next 72 hours to decide! And tell your friends all around DGrin and the web in general, the more votes, the better!" <o:p></o:p>

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><o:p></o:p>
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Once the above statement was issued it was clear at least to me that the final vote was going to be a free for all based on who could get the most people to vote for them. I'm sure that there are those who don't believe that people asked others to join DGRIN just to help them win but in my opinion that's just being naive. For a lot less money people have done some really foolish things.<o:p></o:p>
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For almost 12 months I participated in the LPS and each time it came to a vote I voted for what I believed was the best in each round. Not always the popular vote but none the less I voted. For the first time, I chose not to vote in the LPS 2nd round finals even though Urbanaries photograph ended up in the top 10 which I did vote for in the first round of the finals. <o:p></o:p>
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It was my choice not to because I believe the winner had already been decided based on the mentioned free for all. Funny how there were over 460 voters in the first round and only 321 in the second round according to the voting numbers. I wonder what happened to the other 140 plus voters……………………<o:p></o:p>
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I enjoyed this contest up until the final round, not because I didn't win, not because I didn't make it into the top ten (mine did not belong) but because I don't believe that it was the best against the best imho, and that was something we were and are all entitled to.<o:p></o:p>
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I hope that the LPS2 comes about and I look forward to participating in it. I learned a lot from the last one both about pushing my own limits, and just about people in general. I'm still learning. It was interesting to watch it unfold. Hopefully it will be done right this time. Only Time will tell..................................


Joe

NeilL

I agree that you did nothing illegitimate, or even anything which was "not nice". Voting was open to any registered member of DGrin, who registered up to the date set by Andy, one person one vote. You and your friends seem to have complied with that, so no problem. HOW people vote is of course up to them, whether based on loyalty or some other criteria. Purely objective judging is what we expect, but might not actually always get, from "professional" judges.

A thought which occurred to me is to create another level of membership - "Voting Member", which is awarded after a certain number of posts to the forums, say 100, and which would have to be maintained by continued posting each year, so 2nd year of membership, a Voting Member would have to log another 100 posts to remain current. This would help to ensure that the people who are voting are actually participating in the life of DGrin day by day and cut out the opportunist member who joins only to vote.

All the best, Peter, and looking forward to a lot more great stuff from you in the future - for my own selfish reasons!!

Neil

puzzledpaul

<< create another level of membership ... >>

Presumably some consideration would have to be given to the situation where someone could join DG, enter all of the rounds of LPS2 (assuming similar format to 1) and still not be eligible to vote for themselves or anyone else ... because they're not a 'chatty' sort of person and haven't passed the necessary post threshold?

pp

DoctorIt

imax wrote:

It was my choice not to because I believe the winner had already been decided based on the mentioned free for all. Funny how there were over 460 voters in the first round and only 321 in the second round according to the voting numbers. I wonder what happened to the other 140 plus voters.

I enjoyed this contest up until the final round, not because I didn't win, not because I didn't make it into the top ten (mine did not belong) but because I don't believe that it was the best against the best imho, and that was something we were and are all entitled to.

I've tried to bite my tongue and just let it go, realizing the details are unimportant. However, I would be shocked if I'm the only one offended by comments like that above. So let me set the record straight, for one reason, and one reason only - because what Joe said basically takes away from the excellent batch of finalists, and Vandana's stunning winner, and that my LPS friends, is a really, really crappy thing to do!

After the first round of voting, we checked out what this influx of new voters did to the tally. Answer: nothing! In the 48hr period we took before the second round opened with the new rule, we checked and double checked. Removing votes at that point did NOT change the top 10. We let it stand, learned, made an adjustment, and moved on.

In round 2, we only removed a total of approximately 40 votes from non-eligible (new) dgrinners, and except for pemmet's entry (which we thank him for admitting to), they were distributed evenly and sparsely - in other words: they were exactly what we were looking for when we made that "shocking" publicity statement - new people who came in, looked and voted and did nothing to statistically effect a bias on results .

Apology accepted, moving on.

thanks,

imax

because what Joe said basically takes away from the excellent batch of finalists, and Vandana's stunning winner, and that my LPS friends, is a really, really crappy thing to do!

Hey Erik, I did no such thing. I simply stated my opinion. You on the other hand took it upon yourself to make the following two statements

Actually, I'll be the first to say, that might not happen... if we're gonna do it again, we're gonna do it right.

By saying that you opened the door to all kinds of questions as to what was done wrong which questions the validity of the whole contest in general doesn't it?

And then you went and said this

"As stated in the rules, you have the next 72 hours to decide! And tell your friends all around DGrin and the web in general, the more votes, the better!"

Which once again raised all sorts of questions, so I'll quote you again.

I would be shocked if I'm the only one offended by comments like that above.

Those two statements by you opened the door to any and all comments in regards to this. When I'm wrong I apologize, not in this case. How about you? It wouldn't have mattered who won this contest. The questions are there by your statements and yours alone. So don't point a finger at me and state that I took something away from anyone, you did that all by yourself.

Joe

NeilL

puzzledpaul wrote:

<< create another level of membership ... >>

Presumably some consideration would have to be given to the situation where someone could join DG, enter all of the rounds of LPS2 (assuming similar format to 1) and still not be eligible to vote for themselves or anyone else ... because they're not a 'chatty' sort of person and haven't passed the necessary post threshold?

pp

Good point! Open for discussion. However, I think my suggestion is still good as it stands - people could enter the contests, but yes, perhaps could not vote, at least not until they became Voting Members. A check and an incentive.

@ Erik. Thanks for the behind-the-scenes. Always appreciated by people in this kind of situation. However, the rules as they exist make it possible (and legitimate) for skewing to occur for the reasons being discussed, even though as you point out that did not actually occur in the LPS final. Moreover, the sentiment has more than once been expressed wanting the results to have more credibility because they arise from the votes of members who actively participate in DGrin and are here not just to vote. People's preferences, especially when they go to the trouble of expressing them, are gems to be mined rather than threats to be argued with, IMHO. PS: WAS there an anomoly in Peter's case to cause you to acknowledge the necessity for his apology and so for you to then accept it?

Neil

achambers

NeilL wrote:

A thought which occurred to me is to create another level of membership - "Voting Member", which is awarded after a certain number of posts to the forums, say 100, and which would have to be maintained by continued posting each year, so 2nd year of membership, a Voting Member would have to log another 100 posts to remain current. This would help to ensure that the people who are voting are actually participating in the life of DGrin day by day and cut out the opportunist member who joins only to vote. Neil

So, this means that I can enter LPS but I can't vote. I entered the last 4 rounds (I started entering as soon as I found DG) but I would have been excluded from voting because I only have ~30 posts. I see we joined at about the same time (Oct) and you have over 300 posts. It might be that I'm just not as chatty, I don't think that I should have to post every 3rd day just to be able to vote.

DoctorIt

Joe, you're entitled to your opinion, but please stop taking me out of context, I'm getting rather tired of being scrutinized for my good intents... there's no job description for what we do here on dgrin.

"tell your friends about dgrin" - yup guilty, trying to get publicity, shame on me.

"we want to do things right" - guilty again, I'm working behind the scenes, trying to raise sponsorship for LPSII, revisit the rules, oh, and that small thing of finding a replacement for Shay so you can have a proper professional photographer leading the way.


NeilL, reread my previous post, I have disclosed all the details already.

NeilL

achambers wrote:

So, this means that I can enter LPS but I can't vote. I entered the last 4 rounds (I started entering as soon as I found DG) but I would have been excluded from voting because I only have ~30 posts. I see we joined at about the same time (Oct) and you have over 300 posts. It might be that I'm just not as chatty, I don't think that I should have to post every 3rd day just to be able to vote.

Yes, I understand what you are saying. Of course, initially there woud be no time limit to how fast you would have to get those 100 posts to become a Voting Member, and even to maintain your voting rights you would have a year to get to another 100. I think probably you would have no trouble meeting those requirements.

Good to discuss this with you!

Neil

NeilL

DoctorIt wrote:

NeilL, reread my previous post, I have disclosed all the details already.

Yes, that's exactly what I was thanking and praising you for!!!!!!!

Have you type cast me as your enemy????? :cry

You are not lacking in pop and intensity, Dear Moderator!!!!!!!!