are you unhappy with the rateing system as it is?

THE RATING SYSTEM. This debate has been going on forever and a day. The interesting aspect of rating presents a example of a photo posted.I put it up on P.N. 3 inaugural times with it being slammed with 3's each and every time and not a comment made, pulled it for the third time and set it in a folder.Quiet awhile later reposted on a whelm again. What happens? it gets 50 comments and 328 ratings with a average of 5.76 and 5.90 - Same photo posted 3 time before with the P.N. community saying burn it. Then all of sudden it a good picture. Now it seems to me the waves of rating move with the tide,the sun,and moon. This is a fun place to post and share our images, weather slammed or approved doesn't really change my perspective in taking pictures, I always get a smile at what people project on P.N. with photo's posted and ratings given.

OH! I forgot to say just enjoy this sight and stop crying over ratings. Weather we get a high rating or a low rating, its not going to change our lives anyway :)<div></div>

thank you all for commenting. it was a very interesting response.

no winers no loosers ; just very interesting. keep takeing photos,that,s what your good at.

sincerly Joe B.

Joe thanks for the fun........LOL

As long as the ratings system throws out the 1s and 2s it's a joke. An absurd, insulting

joke. Babying us by removing the 1s and 2s shows that Photo.net's owners think of us as

children who need to be coddled. It also shows that the owners of this site have not the

first clue about usability, solid interface design or even the most glancing knowledge of

how to build a sturdy and useful user experience. I'm seriously considering letting my

subscription lapse next time it comes up for renewal. I don't see any reason to continue to

support a site who's owners view it's members as worthless idiots. Complain all you want,

Photo.net won't listen or do anything about it. For a site supposedly dedicated to artists

the lack of artistry shown in the interface is shocking to behold. It's as if a bunch of

software engineers built it, not people for whom aesthetics are important.

No need to be a great mind for being pretty sure that no rating system will make everybody neither fully happy nor fully unhappy with it.<i> At least the photo.net site feedback forum remains active...</i>

I have more fun commenting in here then on people pictures........:D

Yes --- bring back the 1's and 2's. There's a certain pleasue in being the victim of what one evokes. Plus, it motivates one to think about what it is with the image that merited disapproval. Technically and aesthetically it may be superb. But maybe there's a few folks out there who are bored with established excellence no matter how lucrative and satisfying (for a great number of people) it may be. Of course, the low raters could be "looney tunes" lost in their own sense of reality. Nonetheless, the 1's and 2's can give one pause --- to figure out what one needs to work on (to render their image more universally accessable) and/or just sit back, have a drink, and be pissed. (That could be fun, too!)

If we receive a low rating, we deserve to know why and the rater ought to explain him or herself. Is this not a site to improve our passion

I think that most people post their best photo thinking that it will get a good rating. Some

people post photos without understanding what makes a good photograph.

To those people that get consistently low ratings, or few ratings, perhaps the fault lies with

their pictures. I oftentimes see pictures not worth commenting. I only give comments on

pictures that I believe could be improved by adjusting something that the sender missed or

failed to consider. If your pictures got a lot of high rates and some 3's be glad the glass is

more that half full. Unless you want to beat everyone else. Yes I am satisfied, only because no

system of rating is perfect.

The rating system works! If you don't belive me take a minute and look at the lighest rated photos for the last 3 days to the higest rated photos of all time!

I don't post photos and I don't critique anyone esle's. However if I were to rate a photo and gave a low number it would be because I thought it deserved it. I don't see why I should write an essay to explain my action. If I liked it I would rate it high and if it didn't turn me on I would rate it low. Too many post photos with the notion that this is Lake Woebegone where "everyone is above average".

Narciso, yea...I get few ratings on every photo, and so I should think that there is something with my photography that turns off people from rating? Eh, maybe...the rating system would be sweet if more people participated. Back to the photo thinking board. Gotta figure out whats wrong with my photos.

Pep talk time:

 

Don't be so hard on yourself, Neli. Aesthetics are highly subjective. Just bacause some anonymous killjoy out of the tens of thousands that frequent this site gives you a crap rating, don't doubt yourself.

 

You have your own disctinct style and not everyone may like it. I think your stuff is pretty cool.

Pep talk eh.. is it gonna be delievered by a busty rosy nippled cheerleader? Good. I feel better now.

 

I don't really care whether one leaves me a 3 instead of a 6, so long as it isen't the only goddamn rating I recieve on that picture for who knows how long. But then again, Narciso pointed out to me that my style just doesn't appeal to many people for whatever reason, so no one rates, and few critique. Oh well. I won't change my style, unless of course my path crossed with that cheerleader. ;)

Please elaborate on what you mean by "rosy nippled"?

 

:P

Ok, I spelled it wrong, but you know what I mean. If you look at Sylvie's main photo on her page, you can view a sample of what I mean, heh.

linky?

http://www.photo.net/photo/4831381

Ok I'm with you now on busty rosy nippled cheerleaders...:)

<p>Some time ago I suggested a way to clarify the meaning of the 3/3 ratings (which

may, I've heard, actually be 1/1 ratings in disguise!) but nothing ever came of it.</p>

 

<p>I'd like to see a modification of the ratings display where one could click on a

particular rating, anonymous or not, and find out the average ratings given by the rater.

I'm sure photo.net already has the necessary data, and the added calculation shouldn't be

hard to do. </p>

 

<p>One approach might be to let a click on the ratings summary take you to a "raters

detail" page on which each rater would be listed on a separate line. Here, those who are

interested could see each rating value along with the average of <i>all</i> ratings

submitted by that rater. In my example the numbers in parentheses indicate the "rater's

average" in each category. In this way we would understand whether or not the 3 (or the 7,

for that matter) reflected the person's atypical rating approach - a sort of "rating value

number" if you think about it.</p>

 

<p>I suppose that, as long as this was kept on a "raters' detail" sub-page, it would also be

interesting to include the number of images that each rater had evaluated.</p>

 

<p>There is interesting info here - for example, you can see here that the person

assigning a 3 seems to view 3 as an average rating but has hardly done any rating at all.

The person assigning the 5 has rated a fair number of photos but actually rates most

images higher than this one. I'd be less flattered by the 5 and less concerned about the 3.

But that 7 given by a person whose average ratings are in the 4+ range is significant,

especially since s/he apparently does a lot of rating at photo.net.</p>

 

<p>Some time ago I suggested a way to clarify the meaning of the 3/3 ratings (which

may, I've heard, actually be 1/1 ratings in disguise!) but nothing ever came of it.</p>

 

<p>I'd like to see a modification of the ratings display where one could click on a

particular rating, anonymous or not, and find out the average ratings given by the rater.

I'm sure photo.net already has the necessary data, and the added calculation shouldn't be

hard to do. </p>

 

<p>One approach might be to let a click on the ratings summary take you to a "raters

detail" page on which each rater would be listed on a separate line. Here, those who are

interested could see each rating value along with the average of <i>all</i> ratings

submitted by that rater. In my example the numbers in parentheses indicate the "rater's

average" in each category. In this way we would understand whether or not the 3 (or the 7,

for that matter) reflected the person's atypical rating approach - a sort of "rating value

number" if you think about it.</p>

 

<p>I suppose that, as long as this was kept on a "raters' detail" sub-page, it would also be

interesting to include the number of images that each rater had evaluated.</p>

 

<p>Example:

 

 

 

<p><table width="150" align="left" border="3">

<tr><th>Aesth</th><th>Orig</th><th>Ratings</th></tr>

<tr><td>3 (3.00)</td><td>3 (3.00)</td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td>5 (5.75)</td><td>5 (5.33)</td><td>759</td></tr>

<tr><td>7 (4.9)</td><td>6 (4.3)</td><td>1600</td></tr>

</table></p>

 

<p>There is interesting info here - for example, you can see here that the person

assigning a 3 seems to view 3 as an average rating but has hardly done any rating at all.

The person assigning the 5 has rated a fair number of photos but actually rates most

images higher than this one. I'd be less flattered by the 5 and less concerned about the 3.

But that 7 given by a person whose average ratings are in the 4+ range is significant,

especially since s/he apparently does a lot of rating at photo.net.</p>

 

<p>Those who think this is useless, obsessive, or statistically uninteresting could simply

chose to not click the link taking them to this display. The actual identities of those doing

the ratings would remain anonymous. The nature of the discussion about the anomolous

low ratings would possibly take a new direction.

 

<p>What's to lose?

 

<p>Dan

Apologies for the messed up formatting of my previous post. I made the proverbial "copy and

paste error" and there is now no way to edit it. The point of the post is probably still

discernable.

 

Thanks,

 

Dan

This idea that there are people or robots waiting to slam photos with "instant" 3/3 ratings is really a big myth, a great example of selective memory in operation, and, perhaps, hysteria. One or two people start saying this and pretty soon it is conventional wisdom and everybody is saying it.

 

There is just no basis for this idea. None. Nada. Zilch.

 

During the last week, the average rating given in the "Rate Recent" feature was 4.256 on Aesthetics and 4.196 on Originality. If you look only at the *FIRST* rating that was given to each photo in the "Rate Recent" feature, their averages were 4.245 on Aesthetics and 4.185 on Originality. A hundredth of a point difference between first ratings and all ratings.

 

I don't expect this data to change anybody's opinion, however. When it comes to the evaluation of their own photos, photographers are just not a reality-based community, on the whole -- which is really the basic flaw in the rating system.

The biggest flaw is photo.net's capitulation to thin-skinned people complaining about ratings, which has resulted in this site's hiding and ignoring all ratings under 3/3.

The basic flaw in the rating system is that most raters are beginning photographers who have little or no understanding of what "aesthetics" and "originality" mean (despite a well written explanation in the tutorial section). When most sunsets start getting below average ratings for originality and something other than a pretty subject scores high for aesthetics, then it may start to have some legitimacy.