Would everyone be okay with me rerendering the images in 700x700 instead of 500x500 pixel resolution? While working on the judging tool, I realised that people working on laptops with high dpi will have to get rather close to their screen to be able to see the images well. It shouldn't alter the images greatly except by adding a little extra detail to some, but as I had said that I would keep them at 500x500, I thought I should check. If you're fine with it, you don't need to reply; if you have a concern, you can say so here or pm me.
Making great progress on the judging application! I'd like to share the app with you all when it's done, so you can see how it works. But I'm not sure if I should... because if I do share it ahead of time, you will know what images you're up against. But you won't yet know who made what image, nor will you know how the judges will grade them, of course. What do you think? Also, if anyone sees this now: you can still join! I can dynamically add new entries until I send out the program to judges, at which point I will certainly let you know here.
That sounds quite neat! I'm quite curious to see what you've come up with. 😀 I think it may be better to wait until the judging is complete; I believe it would be fairer. However, you make a good point: we won't know how the judges will be evaluating the images. Therefore, I won't be upset if you decide to share the program before the results are in. 😊 Regardless of the results, I would love to see the other entries once this is all wrapped up! I'm quite keen to see what other people found or sought out and considered beautiful or striking. 😄 like going to the art museum without having to deal with parking or suffering through a long metro ride! What a treat that'd be!!
Haha, thanks! I have decided that I will be writing a book about this contest. As I have sometimes taken a while to write such books, though, I'll probably sent out the other prizes before finishing that. It is not unlikely that I will be able to finish the judging program tomorrow or the day after tomorrow! I have decided to base the Club Points formula for this contest not on the place the picture got, but on the average grade. As such, I will wait until the results are in before I establish the formula, as I have little idea of how harshly or generously people will grade (although to be frank, I'm not expecting many 'fail marks' (grades < 5.5); both because most pictures are quite good-looking and because most people don't like giving low ratings ).
The judging application is now fully functioning, I think! It should show the images clearly on any monitor, regardless of DPI. I have decided that I won't share the submissions until the results are in; so I won't yet share the program either. Also because the program generates a file with the judge's ratings which includes an identifier for each image such as "Sazukemono_2"; this is so I can check that none of the images and ratings got mixed up. In all my tests the results were saved in the same order, but it seems like quite an arbitrary order, so I feel like it could have a different order on someone else's pc, or on a different build. If you still want to join or update any submissions, today is probably the last day you can do so. I'm planning to send the application out to some family members tomorrow, as the first judges. When I've heard how that went I will find others. It sounds like a fun challenge to get judges across a wide age range, and with different interests. So I won't ask only people from my Bachelor. And maybe some of the judges will be interested to check out the full program... actually, I should place a link in the program somewhere.
I watched this video and thought it was something we would enjoy. It's quite fascinating! https://youtu.be/FFftmWSzgmk
I think I have not watched that video! Added to Watch Later. Maybe it'll give me some inspiration for a new colouration. I am planning to translate the judging program to English today. I went to my grandparents', yesterday (my grandfather is one of the judges), and there were two things that weren't obvious to them that should've been, so I'll clarify those. (in case you'd like to know: 1, if you have finished judging you still need to send the results to me via e-mail or similar; the program does not connect to the internet, and 2, if you have gone through all pictures and it is stuck at "1 out of 35 left", you have forgotten to rate a picture somewhere or accidentally skipped it, and should backtrack until you find it).
I only need two more judges! I think I can already tell that my two favourite submissions are not going to get in the top 3. I might also reveal my own grades, from when I tested the program, but they will not count towards the scores, as I may be biased both because I know who submitted what and because I am the program's creator.
I'm sorry, several weeks have passed again. I have not been able to find a 10th judge that is not related to another judge or in the same demographic as another judge. Would you rather have 'only' 9 judges, or wait longer while I further consider my options?
Wait, what? How would a judge less lower the chance of a tie? But fine, I might publish the results this evening then! I have been looking forward to it. I'm not sure how much work writing the posts will be, though. Yes, posts in plural, as I want to show off all submissions, and there is a maximum of 20 images per post.
I think, the idea is, depending on the voting system, that the first five judges can rank entry1 as first place and entry2 as second place while the other five judges place entry2 as first place and entry1 as second place. Thus on average, we have a tie, which can be prevented by an uneven number of judges in this particular case.
Lol, I just realised that I do have 10 judges!! xD I was writing up the results, but then I walked upstairs to get 'toetje' (dessert but not so fancy-sounding) and saw one of my housemates sitting at his new desktop pc... and then I realised he had been a judge too!! I somehow forgot about his results. I wasn't going to finish writing up the results anyway today, but now I probably won't even be able to start it! I will post now, as I have already typed it up, how I will present the results, and what the judging panel consists of. I will present the results from last place to first place. I hosted the pictures on Discord instead of imgur so they wouldn't be stripped of their exif data; this means that if you still have the program (actually, redownload it, I released an update last week!) you can download any of the pictures to further investigate them. With each picture I will list who made it, its name if its creator gave it one, the average result from all judges, the variance in the grades given by the judges, and finally the grade I gave the image myself, when I was testing the judging panel. I can say already that the opinions of the judges for some images were wildly different from my own. I managed to get a reasonably varied panel, though: My grandfather, Mathematician, 76 (actually, 77 now ) One of my cousins, Student, 12 (just a few days when he did the judging ) My mother, Translator/Corrector, 46 Locutus76 from SST, Librarian, 43 One of my aunts, Teacher, 42 My fellow student Kombat Kitten, Student Artificial Intelligence, 20 Pez5069 from SST, Caregiver, 50 mrroblinx from the Re-Volt community, Game Designer, 23 My friend and former Latin teacher, teacher Latin and Ancient Greek, 31 One of my housemates, Work Preparator, 22 Every entry will award the creator with Club Points according to the following formula: (CEILING((α - 4) * 2)), where α is the average grade. This means that the amount of points is rounded upwards per entry. I don't have a good reason for that except it seeming easier to process that way.
Remember to set your pc's scaling settings to 100% in order to see the images sharply! With version 1.8 of Mandelbrot Explorer this is not necessary anymore, but when viewing the images in your browser it will be. (also have this page displayed at 100%, of course ) Note that at this point I think my My grades were a bit too generous sometimes, but I figured I should still give them. I did not think a lot for each entry in hopes of minimising bias (and because I was measuring how long the judging would take), but I also do think I certainly still was biased. That's the main reason why I would not include my My grades in the average grade. Here we go! 35. Cleo_The_Dog, "Duo". Average grade: 4.6. Variance: 3.7. My grade: 9.9. 34. MerRhyAndBright. Average grade: 5.3. Variance: 2.8. My grade: 8.1. 33. Jacob5089. Average grade: 5.7. Variance: 1.3. My grade: 6. 32. Lukas3226. Average grade: 5.7. Variance: 0.9. My grade: 5.3. 31. RunningRhino. Average grade: 5.9. Variance: 3.8. My grade: 8.2. 30. Cleo_The_Dog, "The Coral Trench". Average grade: 5.9. Variance: 3.7. My grade: 9.4. 29. wafflecoffee. Average grade: 6.0. Variance: 2.5. My grade: 7.8. 28. Sazukemono. Average grade: 6.1. Variance: 0.7. My grade: 6.4. 27. MerRhyAndBright. Average grade: 6.2. Variance: 2.5. My grade: 8.8. 25. BugsyWPfeiffer, "Cellular Adaptation". Average grade: 6.3. Variance: 2.3. My grade: 9.9. 25. Sazukemono. Average grade: 6.3. Variance: 3.2. My grade: 7.3. 24. Lukas3226. Average grade: 6.4. Variance: 1.2. My grade: 6.3. 23. Sazukemono. Average grade: 6.5. Variance: 3. My grade: 8. 22. wafflecoffee. Average grade: 6.5. Variance: 2.5. My grade: 6.8. 21. Egeau. Average grade: 6.6. Variance: 1.7. My grade: 7.4. 20. RunningRhino. Average grade: 6.6. Variance: 1.3. My grade: 5.8. 19. MerRhyAndBright. Average grade: 6.7. Variance: 0.5. My grade: 7.4. 18. TomvanWijnen. Average grade: 6.7. Variance: 1.9. My grade: 7.3. 17. Kiwi__Bird, "Lightning". Average grade: 6.7. Variance: 1.4. My grade: 9. 16. Lukas3226. Average grade: 6.7. Variance: 1.5. My grade: 6.8. Top 15 in the next post!
15. Kiwi__Bird, "When Sea Life Meet Land Life". Average grade: 6.7. Variance: 1.3. My grade: 9.5. 14. Egeau. Average grade: 6.9. Variance: 1.2. My grade: 8.9. 13. Carbonyx. Average grade: 7.0. Variance: 1.2. My grade: 7.4. 12. TomvanWijnen. Average grade: 7.0. Variance: 1.1. My grade: 7.3. 10. Egeau. Average grade: 7.1. Variance: 2.1. My grade: 9.2. 10. Jacob5089. Average grade: 7.1. Variance: 2.3. My grade: 8.3. 9. Cleo_The_Dog, "Zip". Average grade: 7.2. Variance: 1.7. My grade: 9.6. 8. Kiwi__Bird, "Tentacle Stalking Its Prey". Average grade: 7.2. Variance: 1.4. My grade: 9.4. 7. Jacob5089. Average grade: 7.4. Variance: 1.4. My grade: 6. 6. Carbonyx. Average grade: 7.5. Variance: 1.5. My grade: 9.5. 5. BugsyWPfeiffer, "Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea". Average grade: 7.5. Variance: 1.5. My grade: 8.4. 4. wafflecoffee. Average grade: 7.6. Variance: 1.2. My grade: 8.8. 3. BugsyWPfeiffer, "Blood Magic". Average grade: 7.6. Variance: 1.7. My grade: 8.4. 2. TomvanWijnen. Average grade: 7.7. Variance: 0.7. My grade: 9.8. 1. Carbonyx. Average grade: 7.8. Variance: 1.0. My grade: 9.0. Congrats to BugsyWPfeiffer, TomvanWijnen and Carbonyx for earning the podium! Special congrats to Carbonyx, not only because he got first place, but because all three of his entries are in the top 15! Also a shout-out to RunningRhino and Cleo_The_Dog for creating the three most controversial images. And on that note also MerRhyAndBright, for submitting an entry that got a variance of only 0.5 in grading, with an average grade of 6.66. The epitome of mediocrity? I have more to say (including owning up to a mistake I made earlier and discovered now that might have influenced the results), and of course the prizes and CP to give out, but I need a break from typing now. I hope you enjoyed looking at these amazing entries! I started by saying that I might've been a bit too generous, but I do think that there is good reason for almost all images having an average > 5.5: the contestants did well. And of course, my program is great. (and let's not forget the Mandelbrot set itself!! What a marvel!) Oh, one more thing that I'd like to point out now: Cleo_The_Dog's "Duo" was my favourite entry among all of them, probably. And it got last place. There's no accounting for tastes, I suppose!
"Blood Magic" by BugsyWPfeiffer is my personal favorite of the ones posted above. Needed a new background for my phone, hope the artist doesn't mind .
#19, #27, and #34, let's gooooooo Epitome of mediocrity? Sounds about right. Congrats to all the winners! There are too many favorites for me to share them all, but Lightning and Zip were especially creative. Looking forward to seeing more contests from you in the future.
