Critique only

<p>Are critique only request queued <a

href="http://www.photo.net/gallery/photocritique/?rating_type=photocritique&topic_id=1481&recent=4"><b>here</b></a>.

</p>

<p>I guess they aren't and it would be nice if they will. That would

increase the partecipation on that forum. What u think?</p>

No, because that is a interface for rating.

Why not then add an "Critique Recent" item on the menu?

Excellent idea, Michelle. A "critique recent" interface would be a great way to encourage c-o forum participation and comments.

Sorry, Michele, for the incorrect name spelling :)

Why not mix Critque Only and normal photo's in the same queue? As a Critique Only photo is displayed, the rating radio buttons simply aren't displayed. This way, Critique Only photo's get similar exposure.

a better suggestion would be a direct click-on link from the highly visible PN main page to the critique-only section

 

the critique queue would be ill-suited for photos uploaded primarily for comments only. for one thing it is a very short list judging by the slow change in photos from day to day at least from my observations

 

but from that page one only has to select a photo and you get to the photographers photo page interface where one can study the technical details and from there enter the comment dialog

Because people using that interface are using it to rate photos mainly, occasionally typing in a comment. Putting "critique only" photos into that queue would probably not get them comments. People would look at them and skip past them.

 

More importantly, the order of presentation of photos in that queue puts photos with a few ratings at the front and those with zero ratings just behind them. People go down the queue far enough to hit the ones with zero ratings and so those photos climb to the front. When they are at the front, they start getting many ratings, until they get pushed to the end of the queue, making way for new photos. A photo that never got any ratings would be stuck in the queue, just a little down from the front, which would break the system.

why not a direct click-on link from the highly visible PN main page beneath the POW to subscriber's requests for critique-only?

that would be great

While I'm glad to see that the option of comments only exists, it seems that nothing is really drawing attention to it. I initiated a thread on the subject of a comments only gallery over one year ago. Allow me to paste my introduction to the subject from that thread.

 

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Bob Hixon , sep 18, 2003; 08:23 a.m.

We've all seen the never ending threads posted about the rating system. I've participated in quite a few of them (to Brian's delight I'm sure :-)), concerning mate rating, revenge rating, yada-yada-yada. It's very clear that this is a problem (depending on your point of view) that has no easy answer.

 

In overly simplistic terms there are two groups of people on this site. The first group wants to be friendly and promote their friends work with high ratings. The second group of people wants to learn and have in-depth discussion about photographs. Why they succeed, why they fail, how they can be improved, and they recognize that ratings have very little value in terms of feedback. These two groups want very different things from photonet, and having these two groups coexisting in the same gallery is what's causing a great deal of the tension that exists on this site.

 

I stated in a recent thread that if a comments only gallery were made available I wasn't sure if I would take advantage of it because I found some amusement in the ratings. I have reconsidered this and am now completely in favor of a comments only gallery. Having a separate gallery where ratings were simply not allowed and in-depth critiques were preferred would allow these two groups of people to gravitate toward the gallery that they were most comfortable with. I've experienced a comments only gallery elsewhere and it appears to be quite popular, works nicely, and is very enjoyable.

 

The top rated pages for the comments only gallery could be determined simply by the number of comments. I know that I am able right now to search for images by the number of comments, but these numbers include the long lists of "WOW's" that accompany many of the "top rated" images. With two separate galleries I'm willing to bet that most of the WOW's will stay in the ratings gallery.

 

Ranking images by the number of comments would introduce a competitive element to the comments only gallery, but a less infuriating one. As things stand now it's not uncommon to see two similar landscapes each with 10 ratings, but one has an average of 4.5, while the others average is 6.5 solely as a result of mate rating. In a comments only gallery if these two images each had 10 comments they would simply exist side by side with 10 comments a piece. Period!

 

Allowing people to opt out of the ratings game by creating an entirely separate gallery may not be feasible given the amount of work piled on Brian, but I hope it could be considered.

 

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To continue, I think what we need (as mentioned above) is a comments only GALLERY! A gallery with a prominent link so people can find these images easily. Also, the recent "critique only" requests should be displayed by thumbnails as opposed to a simple list. We all need visibility in order to make posting images here worthwhile, so lets give "critique only" images some exposure.

bob - the gallery does have an alernate sortable menu where one can access photos via 'no ratings' and "all/categories' albeit that is fairly hidden

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/pc-thumbs

You're right Spaghetti, it is fairly hidden. And it doesn't appear to be solely for "critique only" requests. If you search "No Ratings" - "All" you will get some images that are available for rating (an active link is provided), they just haven't gotten any.

Let me add my humble opinion on this. A lot of months ago I usually uploaded my shots into a spanish nature photography forum (Fotonatura.org). Ratings weren't available there, so the "only critique gallery" was the main option. Far from specting valuable comments about technique or aesthetic issues, "top-commented gallery" became a kind of "Pride's Prize", where most commented shots were a sign of relevance among the rest of members. Mate-comment attitude was strongly spreaded, to the extent that admin had to eliminate the "top-commented gallery" and "top-visited gallery", evidencing that the more charming the photographer was... the more commented his/her shots became (often aside from technical or aesthetic skills). After that, admin decided to select by their own criteria the "outstanding shots gallery", but this haven't been enough for avoiding mate-commenting. And now, their subscribers are asking for a rating pattern similar to PN's pattern and complaining about worthless comments (interesting, ain't?)...

 

Here in PN, as in most places of the world, mate ratings and mate comments are inside deeper human behaviour, and can't be controlled in any effective way. I laughed out loud when I saw last week a post in this section by Christopher Appoldt where he mentioned "I refer to them as The Spanish Photo Mafia (language spoken, not necessarily origin)". I understood exactly what he meant, but it's obviuos that this MAFIAs exists at several levels (not only in nationalities). Please, let's call them "mate groups", "admirors circle", "friendly gangs" or "technique sharers", better than in a MAFIA's derogatory way.

 

Thus, there's not a simple solution for getting valuable comments, or at least I can't see it. By the other hand, giving valuable comments have usually deterrent feedbacks (pride's prize again). Hard to deal with this...

 

Best regards :)

hi, in southern italy the word mafia literally means "strawsberry can" and it was a unity of measure! People initiated to link the word Mafia to a private organization that had (initially) the unique claim to be a para-governative judgement method as at the beginning of 1800 southern italy was ruled by the Borbonic Dynasty and they weren't able to properly take care of the whole territory, expecially isolated areas of sicity! Ironically (and incidentally) the definition of mate-groups, or tecnique-sharing group, or whatever is a way to designate a measure unit... so mafia could be one possible describing word (and hope no offense for all).

 

I do believe that the last comment is intresting enough, we are partecipating to a forum that has its own human dynamics and we cannot ultimately create "the absolute perfect method" to give the proper evidence to all people who deserve it: whatever method we decide to use there is always something that could be done to manipulate it; there are guys who think that altering the normal forum dynamics to gain in prominence is correct and a sign of personal success, there are guys that think it is a way to distort fair competition (if there is any), and there are guys who would just to learn but find it difficult due this dynamics.

 

Incidentally this is exactly what happens in real life human dinamics, and also it has strong ties with the way the historical mafia born: initially to protect sheperds and poor people from people who owned all the land and power, then it became a state into state, with its rules, its representative power, its justice, and its fight for internal power, finally it became a society on its own dedicated to protect affiliates' interests against anyone (poors and sheperds included).

 

these are just a bunch of ideas i wanted to submit to your consideration. Ultimately i think PN is good as it is. I would like use Critique Only forum to help people that are learning to get commented without being low rated thus destined to disappear, but I also consider that there are technical issues in realizing that.

 

regards

giuseppe