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people,
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so, after the voting period is half over, i have to announce the following:

- all images that where submitted to the b/w section and are not 100% b/w images are disqualified from the competition

due to the lack of moderators we had no chance to validate every entry when it was submitted, i personally never thought that creating a b/w image could induce so many problems

so, let me say a word about the harsh decision:

- a black and white submission that uses other tones in the image than just black and white are rated slightly higher because of a wider color range
- since that is a mean way to increase attractiveness it is totally unfair for the pure b/w images to compete with them
- we can NOT allow updating submissions during the voting period (because higher ratings would have already been collected -> cheating)
- moving them to the "wildstyle" section is not a good idea either, because this way users end up with more than 3 entries in that category which is not allowed as well

so, all non b/w images are disqualified from the competition :(

and a word about circumstances:

as stated above the control of every submission is way over my head, and this was obviously not thought to the end when i announced that competition.
its a fun competition and i organize everything in my spare time, and i even pay the competition prizes from my spare money.

and btw: a gallery moderator is needed!

You're not disqualifying shades of grey, right?  Just blue and red and other colors, I hope!

I know MB3D does have a default bluish light, but it is easily turned off so that really does count as user error and I guess in a strict sense can be disqualified - but as a pure black gradient on a pure white background in many entries still produces shades of grey I hope those are OK.

Yes, we need to take more care in next year's round!

If it's any consolation to any members effected by this, we are actively seeking ways to better distribute moderation duties and will have more oversight during the submission period in the future   :police:

PS - This is the 2015 Competition, not 2014   :tease:

the compo announcement reads:
"Create a fractal image utilizing only black and white colors. The full gradient from black to white may be used, but no colors other than Black, White, and Grey."

so, its clearly defined, gradients are ok, but no other color!

The rules on BW/color were very clear. I support the decision.  :yes:

Here here! I was wondering about this and made extra effort to eliminate colour, obvious to me B/W means B/W

I was also wondering about the text, website, category, competition, artist, will images lacking these be disqualified too? imho they should if the requirement was stated as one of the rules for entering, so only those who payed attention and followed the rules are actually in the contest.

The text was absolutely not required, just strongly encouraged.

From the Official Announcement:


That was clear as well.

The failure here was not in the rules, but falls entirely with us.

As one who tries to help out here, I really feel that it would be wrong of the staff to neither accept responsibility, nor fail to apologize, for allowing to get by us as soon after the entries were made as possible.

We missed this.

We apologize.

Good to see that my image is still there. Forgetting to turn off a colored light or accidentally leaving one notch of colored fog is the sort of thing I can see myself doing.

What's the ruling on color images that have been turned into black and white for the sake of the competition? I think I voted either 4 or 5 on Mandelwerk's submission (http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view;id=17685) then saw it again submitted in color on DeviantArt (http://mandelwerk.deviantart.com/art/Fractal-Architecture-the-Julia-Opera-536983011) a few days later. The black and white one has a bunch of compression artifacts so I'm guessing it started out as a color piece.

No problems there.  As you said, they "have been turned into black and white" and therefore are black and white - thus meeting the criteria set forth.  I know it was discussed someplace and we all agreed Greyscale was fine for those who want to go that route.

(http://i106.photobucket.com/albums/m278/sockratease/CastleGrayscale_zpsx6iap0fx.jpg) (http://s106.photobucket.com/user/sockratease/media/CastleGrayscale_zpsx6iap0fx.jpg.html)

I agree that this is a problem - maybe a much bigger.
It shows that the picture is neither Black and White, nor original- or at least made for that particular entry in the competition.

The disqualifying of pics that accidentally left a blue ambient light on by people who don't have photoshop installed seems harsh- they where trying to create something B&W artistically. For the record, I have subtracted one star as a penalty in my voting.
People who have photoshop can just take any fractal pic and run it through B&W.

Accidentally leaving a blue light on still creates an image that is not Black and White, which is a clear violation.  Nothing wrong with disqualifying that since the rule spelling that out was clear and unambiguous.  The only issue is the missing of it's presence by staff.  Still, when it got disqualified is not as important as the fact that it should be disqualified.

The rules also stated, quite clearly:


So there is nothing against the rules with doing that.  It is undesirable, but distinctly allowed!

Rules are clear. Leaving even light presence of color changes perception of the image. About Photoshop, there is a lot of another open source image editors, so this is not an argument.

This really sucks to me, should be disqualified, too, was no serious contribution then.

If an image is to be disqualified, it must first break one of the rules set forth at the start of the contest.

I think this quote from the rules makes it obvious that such an action is not at all wanted, but absolutely not forbidden either:


If you can find something in the rules to justify requesting an image be disqualified, please let us know.  As I see it, this one is what we may call "cheap" or "not the best way to go about it" - but I see no violation of the rules in that particular instance, so I see no reason to disqualify it!

If I missed something, please let me know.  You can contact any moderator or staff member by Private Message if you prefer to not make an accusation publicly.  It will get the same attention!  While moderating the gallery and contest is not my primary job here, the entire staff has a shared responsibility in the mistakes this year and if we missed anything else - please tell us  :police:

The images with color in them clearly violated a specific guideline, this one did not  (that I can see!).  

We can't disqualify things just because we don't like them.  Otherwise my entries would have been deleted on the first day   :nastyteeth:

Hey guys, I followed the rules. Making a B/W image from a color image is normal procedure for photographers - you get a lot more control over the result this way.
I should have mentioned my method in the comment, but I published the images in color, so I didn't try to hide the fact.

If you don't approve thats fine, but for me this is just whining. And I will gladly remove my contributions if the moderators think so - I am in this contest only because I like the forum and I would NEVER cheat.  :-*

No worries, KW!

You are correct on all counts.  You followed the rules and there will always be a little bit of "whining"  (though some would call it a request for clarification!) and there is no chance of your image being disqualified (unless, as I pointed out earlier, it can be showed to have violated any of the stated rules)  (which it obviously did not).

Many contests require images be exclusive to that particular contest, never seen before and not to be shown elsewhere until after the contest ends.  That was specifically stated as Not being required for this year's contest so I hope the complaints come from people used to that restriction on contest images.  We even used that requirement in the past, and may in the future, but each year our Annual Contest tries to vary things up a bit to keep it interesting.

So to be clear - there is nothing wrong with the image in question.  No rules were violated that anybody can demonstrate.

However; we will remember the complaints and will certainly consider making an "Exclusivity Clause" for next year.  All complaints about anything are taken seriously and we are sorry this upset some people - your voices have been heard and are appreciated.  We will remember when next year's contest rolls around   :police:

I'm not retracting my vote for Mandelwerk's entry or anything. It's still a great piece, I just missed the part of the rules clarifying whether something had to be specifically made for a certain category instead of it being more of a suggestion so it seemed like kind of a transgression. Probably has my vote for best entry in the b/w section this year even though it is a conversion.

No worries  :dink:

And thanks for understanding.

and people:

dont forget to vote:
http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?action=gallery;cat=108