AlF Alien

Does anyone know who AlF alien is? He gave me a 1/2 rating on one of my photos

that was rated high by almost everyone else. When I emailed him to find out why, the

address stated as his- grackle@torg.com, came back as not being a real address. He

has no pictures posted but he seems to enjoy giving people bad ratings. His average

is 3.36/3.47.

On one of his critques he goes by the name Randy. This seems like kind of a nasty

thing to do, get an alias and then hand out bougus ratings to people. Anything we

can do about old Alfie?

Max, I understand your frustruation. Similar things have happened to anyone who has been posting pictures here for some time.

The thing is.. that this is a site feedback forum, and not a witch hunt. Specific suspicions of abuse should go to abuse@photo.net This place here should better be save for more general discussions of issues and suggestions for the site's development.

Don't get me wrong, I am not being pissed off by your post, or attacking you, or trying to be the forum kerberos. But I'm sure you'll agree yourself on second thought, that if every person who had received an ill-founded and suspicious rating posted a complaint here, the forum would be a heap of bickering, much more so than it is already.

The public doesn't need to know about this and can't do anything about it. The admin behind abuse@photo.net needs to know about this and CAN correct it if it's abuse indeed.

I got a 1/1 on a photo where I got primarily 5's and 6's. I know it's not a 1/1, and

obviously my client who paid me didn't think so. It makes no sense to me and his

other ratings seem fair, so what to do? It's not worth the energy worrying about it.

You guys are both right. Actually, I didn't know there was an abuse section but it's not

worth bothering further with, thanks.

Dick<p>

After your comment about the 1/1, I decided to take a quick look at your gallery. When I got there, I immediately saw three shots I felt were the weakest, opened them up to get a better look and yes, one of the these was your 1/1. While the client may have been happy, it seems a puzzle to photographers at times how a client could choose a 'worse' photo - a client isn't the best arbiter of taste!<p>The person who gave you 1/1, as you said, typically gave higher scores. I suspect that if one was to rate EVERY photo on photo.net, that sort of score sounds about right as an average! Because he typically gave higher scores, it looks as if his behaviour towards you wasn't typical meanness on his part, just a reflection of where he felt you stood in his overall estimation - at the bottom end. That's his view.<p>There is ambiguity in the ratings, and how they're used. At first, on ebay I assumed 'Neutral' was given for a transaction which went OK - not particularly quick payment or postage or emails, but not especially slow either. I quickly learned people take Neutral to be almost as bad as Negative! To me, 3.5 out of 7 should be barely OK - 4 is probably OK.

I don't think any of dick's photographs are worth a 1/1.

Maybe this person hates studio work? I dunno which was the 1/1, pNet seized up.

I have noticed that an aweful lot of people rate photos based on genre, personal taste, and sometimes even jealousy!

Max, ignore the ratings and hope for feedback. Even a "wow, i like it a lot" says a lot more than 7/7. And the extremely rare "I think it sucks, here is why, this is what I'd do" says the most.

Also, when i get an extremely low rating, in the 1/1 - 2/2 range and find that the average is higher, I often wonder if that person is a "i hate it/I love it" type, esp if a/o is the same value. If he gives 7/7 OR 1/1 then his average will be around 5-3 depending if he's an optimist or a pestimest. The average score really doesn't say anything.

I have said this before, people use the aesthetic and originality criteria as a way of saying "i really like it" If they really, really like it, they'll put 7/7. If they kinda sorta like it, they'll put 6/7. But they will not consider what Aesthetics or Originality means.

I've rating many photos as 2/7. Especially the millions of spiral staircase looking downward photos. They're nice to look at, they get good ratings... but there are atleast three of them posted for critique every single day!