A change in the way that the critique forum is presented - IMPORTANT

Hi Josh,

 

The new system looks very promising. It will certainly give more exposure to a given picture. Another advantage, which I experienced before a few minutes is, if one finds a particular critique queue uninteresting, all one has to do is to press the 'refresh' button!

 

One minor disadvantage: I generally mark in my mind several pictures to critique once I see the queue. Now with this new system I won't find that picture which I have decided to critique next so easily!

 

I had an idea about improving the critique system which I had shared in this forum several months ago. Instead of adding new incoming pictures at the top, the system should add them at the bottom. Most people critique the forum top down. Pictures coming in bottom up, will have more time and chance to be critiqued.

On the lighter side: How about offering stock options of PN stock to those who critique the maximum?

<i>"One minor disadvantage: I generally mark in my mind several pictures to critique once I see the queue. Now

with this new system I won't find that picture which I have decided to critique next so easily!"</i>

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Funny you should mention that problem, because we have a solution coming in the not too distant future. As part

of my effort to increase critiquing on the site, we are improving the interface in a couple ways. One of which is

that you will be able to create a "shopping cart" of images to critique later. You will click a checkbox or

button to "add to my critique list" and do that for as many images as you wish to critique. Then at your leisure,

you can run through the 5 or 10 or 100 images you have chosen.

<p>

DISCLAIMER: Jin is still programming this feature, so the final result may change a little bit. But the concept

will be the same. Please do not try and hold me to the letter of my words. I don't have time to argue with people

over silly things like that. We're busy improving the site.

Apurva: WIth browsers like IE7 or Mozilla you should be able to open an image from the queue in a new tab. Just right-click on the picture and select "Open Link in New Tab". This way the pictures you have marked mentally won't be gone as long as you don't hit the refresh button in the original tab. HTH

Perhaps We could add a Button that would enable travel on Pns Jet Plane .....

 

System seems to work as far as bringing new images to forefront ......Although Ive scene a Noticable lack of activaty at my site since activated ......

 

Nice to see you improving site , Keep up the good work ....I kind of like the idea of images loading at bottom .....Too bad its not possible to have a set of buttons perhaps 6 that would each have a 4 hour block of images from that time frame ....

then when reviewing you could go from set to set ....

I am glad you guys kept the "Success" message that indicates the image uploaded okay. Please keep that feature.

Thanks. J.

Josh,

 

I fully appreciate your efforts to improve the exposure and visibility of the pictures. I also realize how difficult the task is. This is not nit picking from my side, just sharing of my thoughts.

 

Andreas,

 

Thanks for the tip, I will follow this advice henceforth.

Great changes, with the random and future shopping cart.

I'm so new to this site. I'm game for any type of improvement. I did realize your picture could get lost very quickly down at the bottom of the page. I can't wait to check it out. Good Job, Josh

but i feel its not better than before.today, I post a pictire into forum,it got no viewers no comments no rates when I post it after almost 3hrs!

So a 3/3 rater will have several cracks at my images within that time span? LOL

 

Seriously though, nice idea - let's see how it goes ..... it did throw me off at first.

 

Thanks and keep up the great work.

As long as we are going to have the Rate Recent interface in the Critique Forum this change is absolutely

necessary. I have said time and again that the orderly manner in which the photographs were being presented was

too ripe for abuse. Brian was wrong in how he programmed the interface and should have changed it to a random

order during his tenure. It was <i>way</i> too easy for the few miscreants we had, and continue to have, on this

site to cheat the system and abuse the other members. Now, with a randomized selection being presented, a more

fair system should exist..at least I hope so. Regards.

I do command you on your effort to improve the critique forum. However in my humble opinion this new system is less friendly for people who want to critique or rate pictures because one never knows if he has seen all the photos that are for rating and has to go through several cycles of random changes to get to see most of the photos. Some photos seem to appear many times and other less often. If i see a photo i want to comment on but dont get to it immediately, i may have to go through serveral cycles before it appears again, and sometimes i just get tired and give up. On the long run if it is not friendly for the rater/commentator, it will result in less views and comments however often the picture appears on the forum.

totally agree with Michel :

I tried to submit 3 diferent pictures into forum after you changed it.I got less rates,views,comments...but more 3/3 issues!

Good!

Sounds like a step in the right direction....I just wish there was some way to convince PNers to rate and critique more images. It is stunning when you view the portfolios of many of the top photogs on PN and compare the number of critique requests vs. the number of ratings/critiques. Thanks Josh, et al, for the caring enough to keep improving the forum...I encourage everyone to take 15 minutes at the beginning of every PN session and critique a few images.

This is great, an excellent improvement! Way to go.

I think this is an improvement. Now I don't need to try to figure out if many people are on the site and what is a good time to submit, it's only a matter of the day of the week now!

Josh I have a question about the programming. Is it truly random or is there some mechanism to ensure that each photo actually does get displayed and further, that images are displayed a similar number of times? I have been going to the critique forum and have been seeing the same photos over and over and since random is, well, random there is the possibility that images will not be selected for display at all in a 24 hour period.

<i>"there is the possibility that images will not be selected for display at all in a 24 hour period."</i>

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I suppose in theory that is possible. But it is highly unlikely given the number of times that the view is calculated every day.

Sweet

Now, I have experience from the system and I've changed my mind somewhat. No comments in the first 24 hours although a very good photo. One problem is that e.g. in sports the visible list is too short. Right now the list was 16 photos long. I think it could be at least 25, may be max 30...36 long. .... may be there could be page 2, 3 and so forth in every category. ... I mean, if you'd like to study sports photos, say go thru a thousand photos, how can you actually do it ... there is a caption search method but it is not the same.

Ok, I found the way to browse thru a category.

Dear people,

 

I don’t know what the meaning is of the new of a sort of random, but I don’t like it.

Why?

Because you must surfing a lot more, cost you a lot more time to see what is going on.

And isn’t good to see a photo more than ones or not at all!

If a photo is interesting, you look further than the thumbnail.

It is impossible to see everything, but this system slows it down.

And now I spent my time more on the contacts I already have.

So it shut out a lot of photos and to meet new people or new good work.

I surf now on photonet at other way.

Because, I want to photograph and not sit hours at the internet.

If I want the updates as in the old system I must spent a lot more time!

For me it works the other way around.

I think when I refresh the forum several times: ooo not again this photo. All the photos, not only the ones I don’t like! Even to see my own photo more than once. No it doesn’t work.

Josh

I understand the reason for doing this, but I still disagree with you.

First:

It is impossible to see all photos every day, unless you spend the entire day on photo.net.

Trough photo.net I got some new friends and our photos are our way to stay in contact with each other, I know many members have this same experience.

For me and many others it is therefore important to have easy access to our friends photos.

The old critique forum page was ideal, because it simply turns out that almost all my friends live in the same time zone as I do and are online the same time as I am.

People on the other side of the world will recognize this, I am sure of that.

The new critique page gives one the opportunity to see many more photos than in the past, but it also makes it a lot more difficult to find the photos of friends.

Second:

You mention it yourself: “But your image WILL appear many many times over the next 24 hours”.

And you are right, every photo appears many times in the new critique forum.

For me about 80 percent of all photos are not interesting and I am not going to give it a comment, simply because it is on de screen again. On the contrary, it annoys me to see it again.

Of course, the new system makes it possible for me to see photos that I otherwise would have missed or (as in the past) discover weeks after posting, but the argument of easily finding photos of friends is more important to me.

 

Regards

Ed Heuvelink