Photo Rating Suggestions

I like Mary's faceless committee idea a lot. The "chosen ones" would be anonymous but members would at least know that the selection committee was drawn from among the ranks of consistent and trusted contributors to the site -- and therefore less likely to moan about an elven conspiracy!

 

As already mentioned by others, I think the rating system has merits. In the main, the Top Member Rated photos are of a very high standard and the top 200 of the Top Rated Photographers contains some excellent stuff.

 

But it is clear that things really got crazy once the rankings page was introduced so I would suggest scrapping that and maybe tweaking the rating parameters to be a bit more intuitive than just "originality" and "aesthetics".

 

More than anything, though, the site should be about the pictures. Increase the number of random high-standard photos on the homepage from 1 to, say, 5, and categorize the POW selection to reduce the amount of in-fighting between the various factions (e.g. landscape, people etc).

 

The system ain't that broke, but the level of competition needs to be reduced and the focus of POW needs to be diluted.

It is a very great pleasure to see that, as of today, the top rated list of photograpers no longer provides competitive ratings, and that each photo posted to photo.net can now be judged on its own merits without considering the effect the rating will have on the photographer's ranking. I hope that this is the beginning of a return to confidence in the ratings system. Thank you elves.

Well I checked out P.net for the first time in eight months. Had a look at the POW and saw the same old juvenile antics by the same

people. Looks like nothing has changed. I'll keep watching this thread but I won't hold my breath. There are a lot of good ideas buried

and forgotten in this thread. See you all in another few months. DK.

There are many good answers to this question from so many dedicated people on photo.net....but what is lost is not only getting low ratings from people but high ratings from friends...and comments like " nice image" ...etc....honest comments that can lead to more creative and technically better photography is mostly forgotton...I joined photo.net and I thought highly of this forum...and still think so....but like all other forums...photo clubs...have ( few ) people who spoil a good thing...

I am rattling on....

make people comment on each image they want to rate and make them have at least 10 images posted...

this will not totally solve the problem ..but maybe I think (hope)

this will discourage the bad element for giving real low votes...

now ...what about the friendly game ( high rating ) between people?....I have no answer!

anyways...its Easter and I wish YOU ALL a HAPPY One!!!....detlef

I too, like Mary Ball's suggestion. How implementable is it? I don't know. The folks behind the photo.net site will have to decide.

 

I disagree with earlier comments I read asking to get rid of the "Top Rated" area. It is not perfect, but on a site with SO many images, (many, lets face it, not worth the download), it helps to have a place like "Top Rated". As for the ratings system itself. It too is far from perfrect, but it could be used by Mary's 15 member jury to select "guest" members (or say a 10 member jury to pick 5 guest members every month or so). The jury could look at ratings from photo.net users and decide on that if the people are being realistic, or childish, or whatever.

 

I would also like to see (forgive me if it exists and I haven't seen it) the ratings by folder. Even with a fair amount of gamesmanship in individual ratings, etc. I have to believe that a person with 20 pictures in a folder whose folder gets a high rating must have something worth looking at! I guess this is behind the "top rated", but I'd like to be able to see users by folder ranking.

"Aesthetics" to most people implies beauty. Now I have nothing

against beauty, but why should beauty be the measure of a good

photograph? I can remember several photojournalistic

masterpieces in Life magazine that were not aesthetically

pleasing, but they were outstanding photos. In the era of the

Vietnam war, one was of a close quarter execution by pistol shot

in a man's head. It was brutal and completely unaesthetic but it

is one of the outstanding pictures of the war. Some of the WWII

pictures of Nazi deathcamps also come to mind. We don't

evaluate movies by the criterion of aesthetics because we realize

that other ideas are more important. Think of Shindler's List.

Was it aesthetic? Can we open the discussion to what criteria

are worth rating in photographs?

Jerry, "aesthetics" has a variety of meanings. It's primary meaning is not beautiful or soothing, as your post implies. It is closer in meaning to "artistic value".

yeah, the way that i have interpreted "aesthetics" when making a critique is to just follow the elements and principles of design, following the rule of thirds, making sure someone or something isn't "falling" out of the picture.... and for gods sake please check your pictures for trash, dust, hairs when submitting them! i know half of you praise the wonders of photoshop, but even the simplest, and cheapest, photo editing programs provide ways to clean that up.

It is true that the plural word "aesthetics" as a philosophical

subject refers to more than the beautiful, especially as pertaining

to the fine arts. However the singular word "aesthetic" and the

word "aesthete" are both defined in my dictionary in terms of

beauty. I really believe that the majority of ratings are given by

viewers of photo.net as though aesthetics means beauty and

nothing else. I suggest that anyone who disagrees with this

position, try submitting a perfectly crafted, well exposed and

color balanced photo of a disagreeable subject and watch what

kind of ratings it gets.

I enjoy giving and receiving ratings - maybe we could just clarify the scale for people a little, or get rid of the numbers and rate them from "snapshot worthy of putting in family album but not much more" to "hey you should try to get that published!" I really appreciate the input I get - although I've had people get mad at me for giving their photos poor ratings and retaliate. There are lots of photo critique websites out there which aren't as popular as photonet, and I think the numeric ratings system and the top member-rated photographres section are what sets it apart.

 

I liked it when the "top member-rated photographers" page included more photographers and gave everybody a number - that way I could check my progress and see if I was getting any better. I new I'd never make the top 100 but at least I could guage whether or not I was improving.

Points is like money (destructive), comments is like reason (constructive)

I'm new on photo.net and posted just a few pictures but had noticed something very interesting. The lowest ratings I have I got from people without any record of taking a single picture.

 

For example

 

Baily Seals - 0 uploaded public photos, has rated 16855 photos on this site, with average ratings of 4.38 for originality and 4.64 for aesthetics. Great ratings Baily, but hello, do you know what are you talking about or you just know how to use your mouse?

 

Jack Roberts has rated 1046 photos on this site, with average ratings of 3.83 for originality and 3.85 for aesthetics. Jack has 0 pictures in his profile. Jack, thank you for rating my work, I'm sure you have lots of to share, can I see something?

 

Sandra Dhee - has rated 227 photos on this site, with average ratings of 4.43 for originality and 4.59 for aesthetics. Hello Sandra can I see a picture of yours?

 

I understand the human nature and I'm sure there are more people like that but I'm curios why this problem is not fixed by photo.net � it is so simple to avoid. Is there any kind of a link from photo.net to these individuals?

 

Just curios.

I started a new thread with suggestions for improving the utility of photo-critiquing. Here's what I wrote.

 

Two Modest Proposals.

 

I have two suggestions that I think would improve the feedback that people get on their photos.

 

First the very unlikely. Change the rating categories to Technique, Composition, Tonality, and Gestalt. Aesthetics is too broad a term. I factor in questions of technique, composition, tonality and my gestalt to a critique of a photograph. Originality is highly over-rated. There have been thousands of photos of Half Dome made. Few are original. Quite a few are very good photographs.

 

 

Second the possible. Eliminate all forms of criticism except the random critique and make sure the random system is biased in such a way to give every photo at least some minimum number of critiques. Also remove the option of "skip to the next photo". Remove all names from photos to be rated. Remove all names from comments made about photographs. In essence, remove all possibilities of retribution. Photosig, for example, from a critical point of view is dreadful, partly because of the tit-for-tat and retributive critiquing.

 

 

Just some food for thought.

OK, here's my two cents:

I realized the flaws in the rating system since day one I joined this site. I sent 4 E-mails to the administrator which were not responded to, I gave up.

I don't think we should ditch the rating system, this is what drives most users and increases participation and traffic flow. It's nice tohear someone say "terrific" but we all like to know how terrific.

Now, we all know that there are users who have no idea of how to rate an image and some just click-rate out of boredom, etc. None of us want our image to be rated by someone whom we think is not qualified to do so, but still users put out their images to be rated because not that many people would take their time to leave a substantial, constructive critique.

 

Here's what I think should be done:

1- PN should have a comprehensive guide on how to critique an image. This will provide a guide and educates users on what to look for when critiquing.

2- Eliminate the rate recent thing, IT IS NOT WORKING.

3- Make it mandatory to leave a comment of minimum legth and encourage them as to why the person likes, dislikes, gives a 7 or a 1 and the next step is the crucial one..

4- Have an anonymous rating system for people who leave critiques. Here, other users will decide, if they chose to do so, if the user who left the note is a good critique, on a scale of course. You may also want to, something like the balloon you have for paid membership, highlight their names as how good a critique they are judged to be. This will create a lot of incentive for good and responsible judgment and will encourage users to participate.

5- The new measure for stopping mate rating IS NOT WORKING. This measure dissuades users from rating and besides, no two good photographers can rate one another's images with a 7 unless they wait a month or something like that. You should allow people to rate as many times as they'd like to, rate as high as they want to, but the real value of their given numbers will be evident in the "Judicial Value" other users put on them. Let's say if I'm a bogus account and there is an average value of 0,1, or two has been given to me, my rating will automatically be eliminated, or something like that. Or maybe a 7 given by someone with a value of below let's say 3 or even 4, will automatically be adjusted for. These are simple algorithms and can easily be applied. Sure, this might not be the perfect solution but every single user can participate and do something about it to make it work better. I have my own details worked out and will be happy to share it.

6- Here is where the doors of possibilities open. You might want to have a page for CRITIQUES of the week, which is being decided by the participation of all users. Then, one could look and browse through the images they have critiqued. I think this will eventually serve a better purpose than "the picture of the week" thing. It will encourage users to understand photography and be better critiques. If you want to get nasty and vindictive, you may want to have a list of worst critiques of the week as well!!

7- You probably want to keep membership as high as possible and keep the traffic flow as much as possible. These measures, I think, will be self correcting, will keep the excitement level high and will eventually satisfy users as a whole. You may want to keep the records as they are but in the new chapter users may want to resubmit their images if they chose to do so.

Best wishes.