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O.K., it's late, and I'm probably not thinking all that clearly, but all this brou-ha-ha ("Brou-ha-ha? Ha ha ha!") about new rules for photo contests, and the intense debate, in thread after thread, over what should be allowed or not allowed, seems to have not exactly fostered a more-civil atmosphere for what had previously been a refuge for DUers when things went crazy elsewhere. So, what if we solved the problem by not having them?
I'm serious. What about if we were to declare a temporary moratorium, and have the "Crazy Heart" contest be the last for awhile? The winner would not be required to host a June contest, but would agree to run the next one, should we decide there will be a next one, sometime in the future. (I'd still be willing to keep up the seasonals, if there was any demand for me to do so, but even that is not necessary.) Let this group exist for a few months without a continuous cycle of topic-choice/submissions/preliminaries/finals/winner-thread, and see how we do without that as a motivating factor. At that point -- say, in September when people are getting back to the non-summer routine -- if people miss the monthly contests and want them back, maybe we can reach a determination about what the rules and processes should be.
In the years I've been a member of this group (since early 2005), it seems to me that there's always been a contest as a motivating force for people to get out and shoot. There have been times when it seemed that the contest(s) was/were the only thing going on in the group; at other times, they have merely been one thing among many. Sometimes, I think it might be interesting to see what happens if the contests are no longer there -- whether people would still start photo threads on this or that, or get in discussions about techniques, or just hold non-judged "assignments" with no voting and no winners? Maybe this would be the right time to find out. What do you think?
No Irish children were harmed in the making of this Modest Proposal.
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