FAQ

Q: Who can contest?

A: The contest is open for female employees of enterprises and organizations within the Rosatom’s system, contractors and cooperating companies, nuclear enterprises and organizations of the former Soviet Union, nuclear research and development institutes as well as students and post graduates of nuclear education establishments. There may be exclusions for girls who live in “closed” nuclear cities, nuclear power plant satellite-cities but not employed in nuclear industry.

Q: Why not group girls by age? Why married girls are contesting in the Miss Atom?

A: The contestants’ age limit is 18 to 35 years old has been selected as the most optimum option. A contestant’s marital status has not been a determining factor; since the Miss Atom, apart from the “classical” beauty contests, imposes no rigid selection criteria (like weigh-stature, spouse and children etc.) As to the age categories or the contest division into Miss Atom and Missis Atom, the rationale is as simple as the fact that this would make it more expensive and lengthy. However, if there are interesting, acceptable ways of the contest conduct, it is possible to accommodate these as certain changes in the Miss Atom format.

Q: What pictures are to be sent to the contest?

A: Requirements for pictures are set for each new contest. Since 2008 a number of studio-shot pictures have been limited. Certainly, pictures should be of good quality for you to get advantage in the contest. Slight retouching is acceptable, however, image processing with an extensive use of software is not allowed.

Q: How to place a questionnaire? How to attach pictures?

A: The questionnaire is to be filled in by the contestant, submitted to the System Administrator for review and then put on the website for free access. Any later changes in it (text or pictures) will re-submit the questionnaire to the System Administrator’s review. The Administrator can also change the picture size to make it more suitable for viewing. This takes certain time, so the renewed questionnaire may appear on the website with a delay. This is especially true for the period close to the end of questionnaire submittal deadline when several dozens of contestants register anew or amend their questionnaires. Another cause of the delay may be time difference between Moscow and other regions.

A contestant can amend her questionnaire also when voting is running but she has to bear in mind that the questionnaire won’t be open for voters’ access during this period and thus no votes can be given for it for some time. To amend her questionnaire, a contestant enters the system using LogIn and Password selected by her when getting registered. Please, be careful; if you amend the questionnaire using a commonly accessible PC (Internet-café or the like), LogOut after having amended your data to prevent any unauthorized amendments. Regretfully, we have already encountered such instances. The questionnaire can be attached with up to 5 pictures of not larger than 1 Mb in size each. If a picture appears on screen, it meets the requirements; otherwise, you have failed to attach it. Likely potential causes are a large picture size or poor Internet connection.

Q: How questionnaires are sorted out for display?

A: Questionnaires are sorted out by contestants’ names and displayed in direct (A to Z) or reverse (Z to A) order. Certainly, the system is not perfect, especially when there are many contestants. Maybe, we’ll come out with something more convenient in future.

Q: Why not select contestants by some other advantages, for example, outlook, IQ?

A: Miss Atom in the first place is a beauty contest that counts appearance, spiritual beauty, and personality which can be judged on by questionnaires in vast majority of cases. Knowledge tests are most appropriate for the Billionaires’ Shows. As to IQ, it’s quite obvious what an IQ a nuclear-employed person must have.

Q: How to vote? Why five girls are to be selected?

A: Any who wish may vote at the contest. The only thing to do is to register using personal e-mail address. On our part, we guarantee full confidentiality regarding these addresses. The binding condition of selecting 5 girls makes voting more objective. Under such system a voter has an opportunity of supporting not “his/her” contestant (that is quite natural, we believe) but also to select several more girls of his/her preference.

When voting, a voter selects 5 girls and rates them from the 1-st place through 5-th place. Each of selected contestants gains points from 1 to 5. The voter is free to change the personal rating at any point of time and replace previously selected contestants with new ones, so the number of points of the selected girls will change, respectively. To vote, one has to open the questionnaire and mark the rated place assigned to the contestant in the questionnaire bottom, them click “Save”. The procedure is repeated for other selected questionnaires.

We realize that not all nuclear enterprises have unlimited Internet access and not all those who wish to vote have a personal e-box. Still, Internet is developing so that we believe there are no difficulties of arranging for an e-box on a free web-server from home or Internet-café and vote. Let’s remember, Miss Atom is a web-based contest and it enjoys features typical of on-line projects.

Q: How points are counted in?

A: Points are counted in by summation of individual voters’ ratings. The first place under an individual rating gets 5 points; second – 4 points; third – 3 points; forth – 2 points and fifth – 1 point. When voters change their individual ratings, the cumulative points of contestants change respectively.

Q: Why does contestants’ number of points change?

A: All votes given to contestants are moderated. This is done with a certain frequency. For example, the Administrator may view gained points once in two hours. If violations are revealed (this is a common practice, regretfully), the forged points are cancelled. That is why the number of point may change significantly within a minute.

A revealed violation removes points of the entire set of five contestants voted for. Since violators, normally, support only one girl but mark other four just to observe formalities, the contestants sometimes do not understand why their points have been removed. The cause is plain: you suffer the loss because of someone’s improper actions. Therefore, we urge all contestants and their supporters to be honest-minded. Our main criterion is objectiveness.

Q: Why not arrange for presence of contestants in person at the final stage of the contest? Why not set up an adjudicators’ board?

A: The Miss Atom Beauty Contest was initially designed as a web-based project running on-line from the beginning to the end. Besides, we believe the selection of finalists and their presence in person at the final stage implies certain complexities. First, considering geographic remoteness of the industry’s facilities and the fact that all contestants are full-time employees at these facilities make it difficult, including financial consideration, to arrange for their coming to Moscow at a set date. Second, the personal judgments at the final stage are most subjective because this is a choice made by a commission of adjudicators’ board of several individuals rather than by voters.

Q: Why not make the contest much broader in an international context and allow participation of girls from non-CIS countries, as well?

A: Why not, indeed? Certainly, we will give it a thought and if Miss Atom Beauty Contest retains the vogue and support it enjoys now, we would go far beyond existing frontiers.