Fractured Axel

Okay, for the benefit of everyone who missed it, here's what the venerable Mr Welden had to say:

John Welden wrote:

Andy wrote:

Every single video had something good to offer, was worth the download and the watch.

I'm not quite sure I agree with that. It was supposed to be a freestyle flying contest. Novice flyers shouldn't waste bandwidth when they know they can't win. I don't enter weight lifting contests just because it might be fun. I don't want to waste everyones time. (I bench about 60lbs) ABW's video was the only good one in my opinion. I gave most of the flyers a zero on artistic merit. No style what-so-ever. I was so bored I wanted to put a gun to my head. Why can't anyone be creative now days? You don't have to be doing all the latest tricks inorder to do some good flying. I'd much rather watch some guys do basic tricks really well than sloppy technical crap. Do the basic tricks you do know in an interesting and artistic way.

John

It's probably worth discussing.

The point is this isn't just Novices wasting bandwidth... this was an open invitation for kite flyers to make videos for a fun competition. Noone asked you to download them, or watch them, or even vote, so why whine about it afterwards? You watch one, decide it's a waste of your precious time, delete it and move on... big deal.

Secondly, I don't believe that really is your opinion. I find it hard to believe you can't find anything good to say about most of those videos.

If you really don't want to waste everyone's time then log off, go out and get a life John. Your honest opinion is welcome here, pointless trolling isn't.

John Welden wrote:

I gave most of the flyers a zero on artistic merit. No style what-so-ever.

Ok big guy, wheres your effort

John Welden wrote:

I was so bored I wanted to put a gun to my head.

**fingers crossed**

So what did GWTW have to do to get him to leave them alone? Someone get in touch with Steve and find out will they?

I don't even think the comments are worth even acknowledging. Not even sure they are the real Welden some sad suck billy no mates.
And if it IS the real welden, then I personally look forward to meeting you sometime next year

Just to clarify - it was me who deleted Welden's post, not Andy. I do NOT represent the FA forum, I just happen to have moderator rights in the VF section, and I've seen enough shameless trolling in my time to differentiate it from "opinions".

So John, instead of attacking the forum itself, attack me by all means. But remember that it was also me who saved your immortal words of wisdom to be re-posted.

Juha

Congratulations to all the VF contestants! I didn't see all the videos, especially the bigger ones. I saw Andy S's video in real-time and was surprised to see him so far down, never mind mate, it's only a bit of fun eh?

What did strike me was how much fun you all had in doing it, and to me, that's what it's all about.

Jason wrote:

I saw Andy S's video in real-time and was surprised to see him so far down

Andy's effort easily had the potential to beat mine but you were never quite sure what you were seeing. People need to look out in the next round though, in case he gets in front of a proper camera.

Juha

Just to clearify one thiny detail. If you use a editing tool to speed up the video; isn't that cossidered editing? I don't see the big difference to make a cut in the film and bring two "clips" together and to speed up the film and get the same result! The result of the "speed up editing" is that you get to put more kite in frame in the 60 sec video, BUT you don't have a 60 sec take, its longer.
Is this ok in the future? Or was it a one time bend of rule?

IMHO no edits means no edits... period.

Odd! He won didn't he? Wonder if annyone else would have gotten away with it!?

PaulG wrote:

Odd! He won didn't he? Wonder if annyone else would have gotten away with it!?

Hmm, i wonder

PaulG wrote:

Odd! He won didn't he? Wonder if annyone else would have gotten away with it!?

See Davey's post at the start of this thread... he's stated several times that in the next round, editing will be dealt with more strictly. This was basically a test run, and there were all sorts of small problems/uncertainties (though not because of Davey's information policy) anyway.

Juha

Just for your information.
There will always be points to improve after the first (few) tries. When we pulled off the Nordic Kite Challenge competition, we needed four seasons and approx 10 comps before we had it all worked out.

Keep up the good work, have fun and I'll conscider throwing in a prize for the 2nd round

Juha wrote:

PaulG wrote:

Odd! He won didn't he? Wonder if annyone else would have gotten away with it!?

See Davey's post at the start of this thread... he's stated several times that in the next round, editing will be dealt with more strictly. This was basically a test run, and there were all sorts of small problems/uncertainties (though not because of Davey's information policy) anyway.

Juha

Well the "NO EDITING", was quit clear! And I think its stupid to set some rules and then first thing you do is to break theml. Test or no test, what you should have done was to excluded the entry that broke the rule! OR remove the stupid "NO EDITING" rule!
Not announce the only entry that broke the rule as the winner. What kind of message do that send? You had the golden opportunity to show that the set rules was in use from the first tryout. Now I sit and wonder !

And just to make it clear this is not a personal attack on mr. Wardley!

I'm just stating that I for one think the hole conncept lost its credabilaty by anouncing the edited entry as the winner!

But just to push it further, I also think that 60sec is 60 sec and not 76sec.
If the size is set to 10mb max then that must be honnored as well, but it would be nice to have a minimum size too so that its not just a blurry mess to look at.

Why I did not enter? I for one did not meet the set of rule that was stated for the conntest (which in my oppinion was quit clear!). So I dissmissed my selfe due to the what I will describe as stupid rewle of "NO EDITING". Had I known I could edit and get away with it, then my entry would have been up there with the rest.

PaulG wrote:

Odd! He won didn't he? Wonder if annyone else would have gotten away with it!?

No-one wins because of who they are, Paul... To be honest (no offence to anyone) I was about -> <- this far from DQ-ing the clip based on the editing. Given that the rules weren't (I feel) made absolutely clear at the outset and that this was a first run of the format I felt that it would be an overly draconian move to make. That's why I restated all the clarifications at the begining of this thread.

It's a young format, there will be some development at we discover what works, and what doesn't - and no-one will be given any special favours because of who they are, or how much they may say about a given subject.

I don't believe that the no-edit rule is a stupid one to be honest. What we're trying to do is capture the 'feel' of a competition format in that you submit a coherent clip - No-one in the competition field would really ask the judges to rate them on the backspin at the start, the JL in the middle and forget about the crashes etc. in between - I hope you do appreciate that I'm trying to juggle quite a few opinions in what I'm doing here and that while I can't appease everyone, I'm doing what I can to meet everyone half-way without this ending up as a poor competitive format.

On the up point, I'm looking forward to seeing all the entries flooding in for round #2.