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

Josh,

A new proposal.

Why not make the old critique page longer than the 100 photos it used to contain?

Make it all the photos of the past 24 hours. This will give everybody the benefit of seeing more photos than in the past and still not the annoying double/triple photo

Regards.

<i>"Why not make the old critique page longer than the 100 photos it used to contain?"</i>

<p>

Because, for the most part, people do not scroll and pay attention to the images further down. It has been proven over and over again that once an image is pushed down the page, it gets very little attention.

I hear you Josh. It means that I am then an exception. I always look thru the whole page. Sometimes the pages have felt a bit long but now the more passive categories tend to be far too short. I think an ideal number of presented photos is ... say 30... 35, definitely more than 20, definitely less than 50.<p>

What if at the bottom of the page there would be an array of even smaller thumbs .. say a 100 from the past days. Just an idea. I'd love to see the commercial banners go away, but I am dreaming :)

Right now, sat at 20:22 hrs in Finland (2 hrs east of Greenwich) there are two photos in the Events category gallery. Come on! You need to add a few if or case sentences to keep the lists at rational length.

Hi Josh, congratulations on shaking things up. But there seems to be problem with the <u>number</u> of pictures

shown in the categories eg in "News/Journalism" there are supposed to be 19 photos but I can only see one - and

it's the <u>same one</u> after I reload. How do I get to see the others?<p>Could you not just randomize the

order but still show all of the last <i>n</i> days' photos? - that way we could be confident we're not missing

shots in the category we're interested in.

Even after I wrote all that, which took several minutes, it's still the same one photo in the "News/Journalism" category when I reload!

I thought I would give the new system a go. So far, I cannot see any change in the number of critiques or the

number of ratings. It is too soon to arrive at any definitive conclusions so I guess I will clog up the

overloaded CF with a few more images to see if any patterns emerge.

 

 

I suppose that I am now getting 3/3s from people on the other side of the planet who were usually asleep when I

posted under the previous system, but since they are anon. I cannot even be sure of that.

"Because, for the most part, people do not scroll and pay attention to the images further down. It has been proven over and over again that once an image is pushed down the page, it gets very little attention."

 

That's my point all along. Again, I suggest, the new incoming pictures should be added at the bottom.

Dear All,

 

After wondering "too long" why the critique forum was behaving strangely I eventually found the explanation... ;-).

While I appreciate the reason for, it disturbs me a bit. I understand that there is a "rush" hour, but did not noticed it, I live

in Asia. I appreciate that some members were calculating when posting their creation for giving it the "best chance" and

that the new logic is to give more "exposure" to each photo.

It disturbs me because it takes me far more time to look at the same amount of picture that I could see before. I see

several times the same picture instead of seeing new one. But a lot of my colleagues here find it an improvement and I

fully appreciate the efforts spent for improving the forum.

So please, would you please tell me, I'm new to photo.net, how I can see all the pictures that have been posted for

critique for a certain period of time. I mean all not only the best rated. Is such a function available?

 

Thanks for your time. Best regards, Jean-Marc

Now that I know why things changed I see Josh's reasonings. I would add my two cents by saying with the old system, if I knew I was online on 9/14/08 and looked through the catagories that interest me, I would only look from the next time I was online back to 9/14 as I already saw and critiqued those. Now everything is a mish mash and I have to look through the entire list at that point in time and will see many I may have already commented or rated on, again.

If people don't pay attention to the photos further down, then what is the digfference with the new system, I find my images are just as liable to be further down most of the time.

I get the idea, but for me this is an interesting experiment, but not much more. When I look at the critique forum now it looks OK, but subsequent viewings minutes later show several of the same images, but placed elsewhere in a jumble. I think I'd rather have the option of using the new critique forum system or the previous one when I want to look at critique offerings.

Well, my two cents.

I'm not one who comments a lot of photos. But I look at them a lot.

I find myself quitting seeking new photos. I always have to go through the whole page to see something I could have missed. And every time I have to, because I never know what's being showing up next.

I STRONGLY prefer the old way. Especially as I always filter the photos by category.

I'd rather let people choose how they want the photos sorted. It'd be just a flag in the cookies :-)

This way, I'm quickly losing interest. Who cares, you sould say... and you'd be right. If this is what majority likes, this will be.

Again, just my two cents...

Davide

The critique forum should not be used to simply peruse new photos, nor should it be used to connect with your friends and see their images. That is what the search feature, portfolios, and the "Off-Topic" forums are for. (Or Flickr, for that matter.) The critique forum is supposed to be here for photographers who are seeking to learn from others through garnering comments on their photos. It is an educational tool, not a social tool and not a catalog of new images. The only reason to go into the critique forum at all is if you are looking to learn or looking to teach. If you are using it for anything else, you are using it for something other than its intended purpose and should not be surprised by feeling disappointed that it doesn't do what you want it to.

 

Josh: Thanks for all your hard work and dedication. It is very much appreciated.

Almost forgot...I mentioned this in a related thread, but since this appears to be the main thread on this topic I will mention it here as well. Suggestion for the future: It might be useful to know how long a particular photo has been in the critique forum. Please consider adding a timestamp to a photo when it is submitted, along with the date. Thanks again!

I agree completely with what Jeff H. said which was this: with the old system, if I knew I was online on 9/14/08 and looked through the catagories that interest me, I would only look from the next time I was online back to 9/14 as I already saw and critiqued those. Now everything is a mish mash and I have to look through the entire list at that point in time and will see many I may have already commented or rated on, again.

Nice to get a response from Josh to the points raised since 4th Sept...

Totally agree with Michael Latendresse. After I summit my photo, I hardly see my photo again; make me wonder if my photo ever shown or not. I prefer we can choose the new system or old system.

All I know, is that activity on my submitted photos has gone down, not so much rating wise but definitely critique wise, even from regular visitors. I know it might take a while to work the bugs out. Feedback like this though hopefully will help get it tweaked in the right direction. On a positive not my 3/3 ratings have increased, so apparently more people with poor taste in photography are seeing my submissions. So I got that going for me............Gunga galunga... gunga, gunga-galunga

The new way of running the critique queue is a great idea. I was surprised to see an image I submitted

yesterday morning on the list for critique today, now I understand why.I like the idea of being able to tag

images for review at a later date as well.

I suppose like any change in website behavior it's going to have it's fans and critics. Although I understand the reason

for the change for those of us who are use to navigating and contributing (critique-wise) to the site in a certain way it's

become a real pain in the rear.

 

One could argue the solution to this is to change the way we use the site, and I have already begun to do so, but I must

confess I would have much appreciated if a prominent notice had been put in the header of this screen immediately after

the change for those who didn't notice the text change in the sidebar, and furthermore that perhaps this behavior could

be changed with an additional drop-down or setting in my profile.

 

That said I recognise and thank Josh + people for continually looking to improve the site - good stuff! :)