How Votes are Calculated on Contest Images

How do I vote on a contest?

You can see all contests on the contest page, and the most recent on the home page. The only time you can vote on a contest is while the Status indicator is yellow, and says "VOTE".

To vote on a image, or a contest image, hover your mouse over the 10 white dots below the image. Select 1-10 dots to indicate your Rating for the image. 1 means bad, 10 means good. The Rating on an image will continue to change during the life of the image on Artalyst. The Rating of the image is used to calculate the Score of a Contest Image.

What's the difference between "Rating" and "Score"?

As mentioned above, the Rating of an image will continue to change during the life of the image on Artalyst. When a contest is over and the voting is complete, the image is then listed in the General Gallery and on the users portfolios. From there the image will receive more votes and will be eligible for nomination into the Featured Gallery.

Only an image submitted to a contest will have a Score. The Score of an image is only referenced on the Contest page in which the image appears. The Score is calculated at the end of the voting period and recorded with the image at that time. At the end of the contest, the Score will never change, even though the Rating does.

How is the Score calculated?

Each User and Member on the site is allowed to vote on the contest images. Users and Members who have spent more time on Artalyst and made more posts will have increased power in their votes. Users and Members both gain more voting power based on the number of posts and comments on Artalyst. Members gain more voting power based on the number of Points that they have.

Why are the Scores calculated this way?

Because most contest have monetary or physical prizes, the potential for deception is greater. The more a User or Member is active on Artalyst, the greater amount of trust is built with the community. Trusted Users/Members have more voting power than those who aren't trusted in the community yet. This also insures that new accounts are not created specifically for the intent of voting on contest images.