MyArtSpace Revises Rules on “South of France” Art Retreat Competition

My Art Space (myartspace.com), the online community for artists and photographers, has revised the rules to its "South of France" Art Retreat competition.

New York, New York (PRWEB) July 12, 2006 -- Myartspace, the online community for artists and photographers, has been sponsoring a competition for an Art Retreat to the South of France. The management at myartspace has decided to revise the rules of the competition in response to various feedback from its online community.

The following revisions have been made:

1.   Two contestants will be selected from the myartspace community to attend the art retreat based on votes. One will be a photographer and one an artist. However, myartspace will no longer sponsor a friend of their choosing to travel. These two winners will be announced on July 17th.

2.   In addition to the two artists selected by the myartspace community, two additional artists will be selected based on a Jury panel rather than popular vote. The members of the jury panel will be announced next week and their selection for top 2 artists/photographers will be announced on July 31st.

3.   Contestant who have benefited from fraudulent votes cast on their behalf and detected as fraudulent by the myartspace management will be eliminated from the competition. 18 contestants have been disqualified from the competition due to fraudulent voting.

Catherine McCormack-Skiba, co-founder and creative director of myartspace notes “We wanted the myartspace community to have a say in the direction of art. We also wanted to see the myartspace community grow through interest and participation. We’ve accomplished this. However, we also want excellent art to be recognized even if it doesn’t prove to be the most popular. As such, we have revised the rules to try to attain both of these goals.”

“We have encouraged artists to help us broaden our community reach by bringing their friends and family into the voting process. Unfortunately, some people in the competition explicitly encouraged voter fraud and manipulation in order attain large votes and both the community at-large and the management at myartspace are disturbed by such actions. We have been tracking this behaviour and have acted on it. We will continue to monitor voter behaviour rigorously through the end of the competition,” Catherine states regarding vote manipulation.

Voting for the myartspace “South of France” Art Retreat competition will conclude on July 14th.

Website:    http://www.myartspace.com
Blog:      http://www.myartspace.com/blog
Suggestions:   http://www.myartspace.com/suggestions

myartspace is a fresh new community-based website for young aspiring artists and photographers; more established artists and members of the art world – teachers, collectors, museums, galleries, art buyers. Members will be able establish their presence in the community, build and display galleries of their works, promote their works and career, participate in dialog, competition and events, and build an online store to sell products.

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