I just wanted to acknowledge the contribution of a Mystery Reviewer. Today I found my way into a new area of the site for me and I was delighted to find one of my images was selected by the MR in Best of 2019 competition. I would like to have been notified at the time as the comments justified for me why I chose to submit the image and to read the critique back then would seem more purposeful (probably adds more work for someone). Perhaps an auto generated email to the link would also introduce members who entered to that important area of the site. I spent a bit of time there reading the comments for each submission trying to put myself behind the lens of each one and I feel I have learned a few tips. It is a great tool for those looking for feedback or inspiration and I am grateful to have found it.

I agree that the mystery reviewers critiques are very instructive and useful, in that they give reasons why they have selected a particular image. I think this aspect is very useful to new members and I've learnt a lot from studying their comments. They often also comment on how some images might be improved. In an ideal world the mystery reviewers critique would be available at the same time as the members voting is announced. I do understand this is not always feasible for a number of reasons. It's always interesting to be able to compare the mystery reviewers critique with the members voting as well as ýour own voting shortly after the end of the voting period while the competition images are fresh in the mind.
Perhaps a note could be put on the home page when a particular critique is available.

Responding to points raised in both previous posts on this topic:

We're pleased that the Mystery Reviewer Critique articles are useful; not just to the photographer of each particular image, but as a more general learning resource - that was our main intention when we introduced them.

We're not able to provide a personal email notification to every photographer who is mentioned in a Mystery Reviewer Critique article; we cannot automate this process, and it would be too time-consuming for our volunteers to process manually.

Mystery Reviewer Critiques used to appear in our newsletters as they became available, and we assume that interested members - particularly those who enter our competitions - would read these as they became available. When we ceased publication of our newsletter early this year, we instead chose to tell our members about these articles when they became available via an e-News announcement; there was one for the critiques from the "Best of 2019" competition in March (if I remember correctly); there will be another in the next few days for the "Finches and Chats" competition.

Until this year, we've often had quite long delays between a competition and all MR reviews for that competition; this year, we are aiming to provide the MR reviews shortly after each competition ends. This happened for the "Best of 2019" competition, and will happen for the "Finches and Chats" competition within the next day or so. We're also going to put a summary of the MR ratings in an item on the Home page - the first of these will also appear in the next day or so. The complete articles will only be accessible to members within the first two years of their publication (as was the case when they were published in our Newsletters); you'll need to be logged in to the website to see those articles.

For the benefit of those who aren't aware of these critiques, they are available on the Resources - Mystery Reviewer Critiques page.

Rob

It would be nice to know the credentials of the Mystery Reviewers? What is it that makes them suitable to provide the review?

See the following page on our website:
https://birdlifephotography.org.au/index.php/resources/mystery-reviewer

Thank you. I read this page before asking my question and all it says is "...but we can assure you that he/she has extensive expertise in photographic techniques, wildlife/nature photography and judging photographic competitions". Not sure that really answers the question, but as I say, thank you.