changes at PN site

I think that the new changes done in the site took the society

spirit out. IMO the new form is much less friendly not to say

cumbersome. At least the note about the critique, that was attached

to the photos and was realy not very nicely formulated was removed.

 

What do you photographers think? Pnina Evental<div></div>

I don't wish to offend, but many of us think that many of the friendly comments that you refer to come at the expense of thoughtful critique. I don't claim to be an expert portrait shooter, and maybe someone who is will jump in and tell me I'm wrong, but none of the numerous comments mentioned the very dark shadow cast by the nose. On an image that has 63 rates with a 5.9 average and far more 'critiques than most people get, why was that overlooked?

Carl, thanks for your answer. I think that the caption of that photo is BETWEEN LIGHT AND SAHDOW ! so the overall lights and shaodows are very strong in that image. It may be disturbing to your eye and not to others. another thing is that each of us get another impression of a photo, and that is blessed, because if not, all comments will look the same.......

My comment was about the changes in the site, what disturbes me is that rating and comments were separated why? what is the point?someone wrote about knowing who rated you, in order to evaluate this rating. I think he is right, you will give much more to a rate given when you think the one who rated you is a skilled photographer, than to a rating of someone that you can see that his knowledge of photography is poor.I'm an established artist in my country, butI don't think that all my work is "master pieces". and I pay attention to critique, and made changes when I find them right. I have learned a lot here. you did not reffer to the changes, do you like them? Pnina

Personally, I feel that any changes that make it more difficult to identify those who rate must make mate-rating more difficult, will cut down on revenge rating and will go some way to preventing the elevation of very indifferent photos.

 

Surely that must be an improvement?

Brian has explained his reasons in several posts over the last few days. (When important changes are made, I would like to see a summary posted on the front page for easy reference.) Basically, There is too much kissing and stabbing going on and not enough discussion of image content. Knowing who rated high or low encourages those responses.

I knew when I made this change that exchanging ratings had become an important part of the "community" of the site -- that the Gallery had become a kind of gift-exchanging economy where giving ratings was as important an element as giving comments. Some of this was kind of corrupt (mate-rating, etc), but most of it was just harmless and friendly.

 

The problem is that there is a significant group of people who reject this concept, and take the photo.net Gallery for what it avows itself to be: a "critique" site, with ratings being a utilitarian mechanism for selecting for display the photos with the greatest merit. Ratings-as-social-currency and ratings-as-statistical-ranking-mechanism are not very consistent, and the fact that they co-existed in the Gallery was leading to a lot of bickering, bad feeling, and confusion.

 

I've plumped down on the side of ratings-as-statistical-ranking-mechanism. This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, since that was my concept of the system all along, as anyone who has read my comments on this over the past two years will know. But I'm quite concerned that ratings-as-social-currency was the dominant motivation for participation in the Gallery -- photo.net as the Friendster of photography sites. And I'm worried that this change will cause traffic to seriously suffer. I don't know; I'm monitoring the traffic and activity carefully and hoping that this isn't so.

 

I could have gone the other way to resolve the contradictions and confusion. If photo.net is friendster, then lets make it even friendlier! That would have entailed making the ratings more clearly social, so that the people who think otherwise would stop giving "abusive" low ratings to photos that seem lacking in merit. For example, I could prohibit low ratings, or put so many constraints on giving them as to effectively prohibit them. I could change the scale so that it just has favorable ratings -- say, 1=Great, 2=Really Great, 3=Absolutely Great. I could require portfolios from people who give ratings, let people rate the raters/commenters, and disable, hide, or discount the ratings and comments of unpopular people. All of these reforms are things that people have been requesting for years. They would enhance photo.net as friendster. Maybe more people would subscribe in the warm glow of all this community. Of course, this would probably make the quality of the photos submitted to the site suffer, or at least the quality of the Top Photos pages. And the high quality of the photos that are prominently displayed is currently a hallmark of the site, so losing this would be unfortunate. So we would be getting fewer visits from people uninterested in the "community" of the participants, and more interested in looking at fine photos. But the site would be friendlier for the photographers uploading photos.

Carl, I think that when major changes are done we as partisipants deserve an explanation of the reasons, what the site wants to achieve doing those changes. It was landed one day without any preparation, so I agree with you about the summary. What do you say if abuse rating will be given to one or more of your photos, will you be able to identify who is the abuse? Pnina

Brian,<br><i>And I'm worried that this change will cause traffic to seriously suffer.</i><br>This then is the real choice - quality or quantity. Take a look at successful businesses and I think you'll find that the most successful generally tend to be those whose model places quality above quantity

Garry I have news for you. Site traffic is number one. Quality is important but quantity keeps the advertisers here and pays the bills.

Garry, when a significant portion of the site's revenue is ad hits and clicks, how do you

suggest that photo.net earn more from "quality" hits/clicks over quantity ones?

 

Brian is saying that if this experiment fails, it will be because it is lowering traffic, and

hence, revenue. You can assert that "quality" will increase memberships, but that's

debatable, (b) there's no evidence alternative revenue would make up for lost ad revenue,

© other large sites aren't demonstrating that your suggestion is profitable, and © it won't

pay the bills today.

 

Would you want to cough up the money to cover any losses if a diametrically opposite

model were imposed, including the costs of lost revenue if it failed and took time for

visitorship levels to readjust after people left?

Garry, I don't think it so clear. The real questions in any business are: who are the customers, and what do the customers want?

For the photo.net Gallery, this means deciding whether the primary customers are the people who come to look at photos or the photographers who upload photos. Today, we derive revenue from both groups, although it is pretty small revenue in both cases. We get subscriptions from some of the photographers, and we get ad revenue by attracting visitors to the site. The ad revenue is the more dominant at present.

 

If we design the Gallery for the viewers, then we should aim to give prominence to the photos that will attract the most viewers. This means high-quality photos in a variety of styles, genres, and subjects, displayed in a manner that emphasizes the photo.

 

If the main customers are the photograhers who upload photos, what do they want? Some of them want "critique"; some of them want "community"; and some want recognition and the ability to exhibit their best photos to a wide audience. Some want all of these. Of these, the desire for recognition and an audience are the most consistent with the interests of the viewers, with the other photographer aims being somewhat at odds with the interests of the viewers. (The viewers presumably don't care how much "community" the photographers are getting out of the whole exercise, as long as the photos are good. And most of the viewers are more interested in the good photos than in the ones the photographers wanted critiqued.)

 

From the reaction to the latest changes, it seems that "community" was a pretty big part of the motivation of photographers uploading photos, and the changes will mean they will be getting less of the things they were getting from the site before. They might upload fewer photos, and subscribe in fewer numbers. We'll see.

Leon,<br>I have news for you too.<br>I know that clickthroughs pay the bills. But I believe that if too much emphasis is placed on quantity then quality inevitably suffers as a result.<br>And if quality is allowed to diminish too far then the quantity will diminish too.<br>The problem is that if the quality base falls too low it can never recover.<p>A bit like the rabbit/fox cycle really - if there are plenty of rabbits for the foxes to eat then they will breed faster. If there are too many foxes there won't be enough rabbits for them to eat, so they stop breeding, the rabbit population increases again and balance is restored. But if the foxes eat ALL of the rabbits then the foxes are doomed.<p>Internet sites, like all other businesses, need to get the balance right. IMO the balance on PN has been heavily biased in favour of quantity over the last couple of years or so.<p> [. Z <br>I do not suggest a diametrically opposed model, I suggest only a fair and reasonable balance, which is what I believe PN to be aiming at right now.<br>I also feel that more can be done to persuade members to subscribe, so reducing the absolute dependance on advertising revenue.

You said... "If the main customers are the photograhers who upload photos, what do they want? Some of them want "critique"; some of them want "community""

 

Then why not give both? Might be a perfect time to get the 'comment only' thing rolling? Sounds like it should help both 'customers'. I think you will find (as other sites have) that the comment you made later in the paragraph is true. You said "From the reaction to the latest changes, it seems that "community" was a pretty big part of the motivation of photographers uploading photos". Most want community over critique. That doesn't negate the fact that many want critique, just that they are in the minority.

 

I have mentioned 'comment only' a few times and I know I probably sound like a broken record. This will be the last time. Unless of course someone else starts a conversation up... :-)

Garry, balance is in the eye of the beholder. Brian has a better grasp of the revenue

streams, and how to keep this site a popular generalist site: not just critiques, not just

discussions, not just photo hosting, not just photo rating. I don't know of any amateur

photo sites which are successful *and* popular while relying on a subscription model alone.

You might be willing to forgo numbers of visitors to improve "quality" (and presumably

increase paid memberships), but there's no evidence that this would necessarily pay the

bills, it would necessarily reduce the generalist bent of the site, and once done, if

unsuccessful it would take a while to get visitors back, thus costing the site even more.

From my perspective quality has been improved specifically because quantity has been made more accessible.

 

In most places that have been reformatted throughout photo.net download speed is now considerably faster over my rural dialup. That means I'm more likely to click on various things because of the time saving. It goes hand in hand.

 

Other than a few browser-specifc bugs that have been mentioned over the past week (which presumably will be fixed as they're discovered) I can't see anything to dislike about the new format other than that it's new and requires a little effort on our part to adapt.

If you want to see a social photo community at work, go to www.photopoints.com. On a scale of 1-5 the average rating is something like 5. It's really an absurd joke.

Doug wrote: <i>If you want to see a social photo community at work, go to www.photopoints.com. On a scale of 1-5 the average rating is something like 5. It's really an absurd joke.</i><p>And the current average on photo.net's 1-7 scale is what?...

Lex<br>

 

<i> I can't see anything to dislike about the new format other than that it's new and requires a little effort on our part to adapt.</i><br>Now there I agree. Resistance to change is inevitable and protests about change are equally inevitable. I'm sure that it will all settle down, except of course that the people who view PN as a mutual back-slapping society, a mate-raters paradise and an opportunity to settle scores will continue to oppose the changes.<p>Some casualties will inevitably result from any change, but IMO opinion the people who behave in an anti-community and negative manner are not a great loss. Who knows, perhaps some of the people who have made a real contribution to this site over the years, and who have felt themselves to be driven away by the behaviour of a small minority, will come back on board. They may be small in number, but their value as community members is disproportionate to their numbers and their contributions will strengthen the site.<p>The one thing that PN has going for it above other sites is the quality of its members. Any changes that further increase that quality are likely to result in a long-term increase to traffic.

<em>And the current average on photo.net's 1-7 scale is what?...</em>

 

<p>THe average has held steady at around 5.4 for the past year, after about two years of inflation.

I think that the changes have been overwhelmingly positive, and I want to thank you, Brian, for all of the work and planning that went into them.

 

There will always be "fine-tunings" and modifications, and the site will no doubt keep evolving. I agree that we do NOT want it to become photo.sick, and I believe that community can flourish within the interstices of a site that focuses first and foremost on the photos and meaningful commentary.

 

I really don't see people leaving en masse as a result of these changes. People will take a while to adapt, and there will be some griping, some of it even constructive, but the site will go on and be better for having dared to change a few things, I think.

I think the changes lead the site in an interesting direction that will probably help reduce

certain ratings-related problems and make viewing/rating/commenting on photos more

pleasant in the long run. I do, however, miss the ability to find excellent but obscure

portfolios by clicking through to top-rated photos by people whose other ratings I can see

on other photos.

I haven't read all that comments above, but here are my complaints. I don't like the fact that you cannot make a picture large anymore. I know Brian says he <i>might</i> change that. Change it. The Options/Details/Critiques selections are buggy as heck. I have had to reload at least a dozen times in the last 24 hours to attain the option I wanted. I don't have time for this.

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Personally, I don't like it. If you notice my icon is gone. For the time being you have lost my revenue, so if that is what you are concerned with you have my vote [no]. I'm not saying to change it back, but there must be other options.

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Brain, do you actually think that you made these changes early enough to stop mate rating? Everyone on here has their cliques down pat. Two months from now subject A, B and C will still have images at the top of the heap that wouldn't even get 11 ratings for 92.375% of the other users on this site. You're a little late. I guess it's just a matter of how you manipulate the intelligence as to what can be done with it.

Contrary to the description above, if I've read it right, ordering images according to rates and facilitating community aspects are not opposed at all. The first condition has created the second. So the question that needs to be addressed is this. If you allow people to socialize to their hearts' content, but don't use their interaction - high rates, number of rates, number of comments, etc. - as a means of determining the 'best' images, ie those that get the most views, will you destroy that community feeling? This question can be answered fairly easily by changing the various ways images are sorted and displayed, temporarily or permanantly, so that high rating an image will retain it's value as a friendly gesture, but will not increase visibility and status.

 

Too many people are claiming this is about friendship, but I think it has a lot more do with the ego boost that comes from the high visibility granted by the site on a daily basis.

 

On a different issue, I'm not at all clear who 'viewers' are. They seem to be described as a group that is different from particpants, ie uploaders, raters, critics, etc.. Is there yet another group of people whose clickthroughs contribute meaningful numbers for advertisers?

Yes, Carl. The vast majority of people who visit the site and click through on the advertising are not logged in, and in all likelihood don't have accounts at all, subscribers or otherwise. That means, of course, they haven't uploaded photos, haven't written comments, haven't given ratings, etc. They are looking at the photos.

If they are the vast majority and their interaction is critical to site revenues, have we any way of knowing why they visit? What are they looking for? How do we know?