Boosting criticism on photo.net (suggestion for a new forum)

-- Proposal to create a new forum which would serve as an "Appeal

board" or "Controversial Corner", which would stimulate torough

discussions about controversial images --

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Looking again at some of the long and short term top-rated images

today, I found many pictures, which had been acclaimed as excellent

by large crowds - see my recent comments if you are interested.

 

What crossed my mind was this: what does a beginner think when he

faces one of these pages where all or virtually all comments are of

the "Wow! Amazing! 7/7" type...? If he can't tell what's wrong, I

suppose he would probably join the crowd and add one more wow.

 

End of the day, too many pictures in the TRP are obvious technical

failures - and this, to me, is *not always* a subjective matter. So,

the question is: do we really want to let beginners get blinded by

some of the silly acclamations on the TRPs? Do we want new-comers

to "un-learn" photography ? Or do we want to give them a chance to

see hardcore discussions about such controversial images ?

 

1) Here is a suggestion to set-up some sort of counter-power to all

nonsensical acclamations and to add interest to the site, by

promoting torough analytical discussions of some photos:

 

Why not have an "APPEAL BOARD" or "CONTROVERSIAL CORNER", which would

each week present, say, 20 to 50 pictures selected by members for

torough discussions...?

 

2) Definition of this "Appeal Board" (we'd have to look for a better

name, perhaps): >>>>> A board where any member who would satisfy

certain criteria (number of comments posted on the site, quality of

comments, ratings that make sense) could propose to send any low-

rated picture (below 4) which he would find great, or any high-rated

picture (above 6), which he would find weak.

 

This appeal board would be a place to discuss some controversial

images - identified as such by votes and propositions from members.

 

3) The way it would work: >>> Some members would propose/nominate

pictures (maybe anonymously, maybe not) to be posted in this appeal

board. With, say, 1 such nomination for a given picture, this picture

would appear somewhere as "tentatively controversial" (for lack of a

better expression).

 

There, other members could add their vote to send this picture to

this final appeal board, and with say, 3, or 5 nominations, the

picture would then be posted in some prominent place on the site -

along with all other nominated images. All members would then be able

to discuss strengths and/or weaknesses of the image, and there would

be a great deal to learn from such discussions.

 

Opinions...?

Marc -

 

Though there is a good argument for this, I'm afraid that a lot of people would use this to be more of a witch-hunt than anything else. Further, it would often seem to be picking on the same group of photographers. Now, some of those folks may deserve to be picked on a little for the way they use photo.net, but I'd still be concerned that this feature would end up being just a way to institutionalize that.

 

So, bottom line, the response to this idea depends on what the real goal is. If your intent is to "correct" for undeserved ratings, you've made the right step to try to cover ratings on both ends of the scale. However, undeserved low ratings are generally considered either abuse (which has a mechanism to be dealt with) or just reasonable low ratings. High ratings repeatedly given to the same group of inconsistently deserving photographers get complained about much more often in the forums, and that's where the attention of this new feature would likely be focussed.

 

If your intent is just to foster further discussion of images, I would think that people's attention and especially learning photographers' attention would be far better served by having an opportunity to discuss interesting image rather than in trying to correct the excesses of some raters. Perhaps a more meaningful feature would be an Interesting Photo list, where discussion is encouraged of photos that might not otherwise be on the TRP pages. Such a feature would serve two purposes: provide more opportunities to discuss images with an interested crowd; and provide some visibility to interesting images that otherwise wouldn't break through the TRP.

 

Much would have to be considered in running such a feature (mainly, how images get chosen), but it seems more valuable than focusing any further energies on images many people believe are overrated.

 

Onward.

now this one is truly hysterical. not even our brothers and sisters down under would propose such a kangaroo court. maybe nominate this suggestion for "PN's off-the-deep-end city" award

 

seriously. why not keep it simple. why not propose something sensible, democratic, and culturally PN. and then see if it flies. here it is: all you need do is post the link to any image you feel is worth discussing for any reason. perhaps give the thread title a recognizable buzz-word or acronym (similar to "Picture This" or "W/NW") to identify it as a "controversial image link alert" or "CILA" or perhaps "Image This", or something to that effect. then all people need do is click on the link and pursue the discussion of that image where it belongs, on the image page itself

Happy u finally like this place Marc! <p> now let me read your suggestions!

An interesting idea, but with my usual pessimism I see only the problems!

 

This could be used to counter the insantity of mate rating - but only if a device could be found to prevent both mate rating and the use of multiple identities - and if these problems were dealt with would we really need a device to correct the problem?

Jacques, merci...

 

Je vois ce que vous voulez dire...:-) Un peu long - eh oui ! :-)

 

Dear Spaghetti,

 

Hysterical Bolognèse indeed... It is no surprise that such suggestions may sound hysterical in a place where criticism has almost disappeared. This being said, I like your suggestions too - unfortunately, I had made the same suggestions - in vain - a couple of years ago. And here we are...:-)

 

Marshall,

 

Thanks for this thoughtful post. I would just like to say that the purpose is not to hunt witches or correct ratings anymore - you may well turn off the ratings during the discussion for all I care. The purpose of this suggestion is to fill people's appetite for real discussions rather than serving them endless pages of empty praise, so that photo.net may serve as a better learning place.

 

Unfortunately, I know no easy way to let people know that a duck is a duck, except saying that it's a duck. I hope this is not unacceptable on PN. :-) There might be a more diplomatic way to set-up something like this, and we could try to find it of course: end of the day, as I see it, all this would do is to generate discussions which wouldn't be empty. And I thought that was what this site was about in the first place...

http://www.photo.net/photo/2901440

 

just giving this grass-roots method a test spin, so here goes:

 

given more than 900 images now on the 3-day TRP averaging better than 5/5, how in the world does an image like this one get rated less? i think it is a sumptuous street-cityscape-night-travel shot, not deep in meaning mind you, but photographically interesting with much to say and critique about it

okay, so the basic model would be to announce an image for discussion (like this)

 

"IMAGE THIS" (then provide the image link)

 

"http://www.photo.net/photo/29xxxxx"

 

(then give a brief intro as to why) - but this really optional

 

if members visit the image then youll see a discussion develop on the image photo page. if not, then not

 

anyone care to discuss and improve on this ad hoc method, please do

anyway, the basic idea would be to engender a way to announce "here ye, here ye, IMAGE THIS photo" to readers in this and other forums. well, actually if something like this would 'catch on' then maybe brian might allocate an IMAGE THIS forum akin to words/no words. seems worth a try

Is this discussion morphing into the development of a variation on "Picture This" (see http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member.tcl?user_id=617763 )? I find the Picture This experiment fascinating, and wish I had time to be a full participant. If we could do a variation of it that was more open ended and focused on controversial photos, however selected, I'd love to participate.

no sam, its a very basic idea more akin to the ad hoc democratic nature of "WORDS/NO WORDS" but instead of posting a photo, one would post a LINK to a photo already uploaded by another member. sort of a nominate an interesting photo by a committee of one, meaning YOU. the way it would work is simple. start a thread titled "IMAGE THIS", then in the thread dialog post the link to the photo, and optionally write a brief paragraph explaining why. if members go to that photo to discuss it, then you know that youve succeeded in bringing an interesting but perhaps obscure photo to others attention. if not, then no harm, no foul. if a forum gets allocated by PN for this purpose, all the better, because something like this would probably need to be moderated for one reason or another

well, i might as well actually do it and see what happens, so here goes

I have no issue with having a forum devoted towards controversial images. Heck, put the kids to bed and turn the channel to HBO. Give the forum an extra logon or something so there's at least an extra step for the casual browser to get into it.

 

Here's the problem though:

 

Rather than be a forum for artistically provocative images as it's intent, I get the bad feeling it will simply be used to promote political images, politcal/religious views, and all that mess. Basically move the focus away from the artistic to become a general/ off topic arguement forum.

 

I agree with Marc G in spirit though.

Marc,

 

Veuillez se rappeler que les personnes stupides comme moi ne comprennent pas votre langue

The problem with many of these ideas, including some of mine, is that they work best if you allow some sort of human judgement (a moderator) to decide if the participants are contributing what they're supposed to according to the description of the forum. That human intervention will be criticized by people who want the forum to be something else and will confuse an editor's role with censorship.

I guess I'm less concerned about people getting the wrong idea about images by seeing the TRP full of mediocrity and occasional good work. Anyone getting their fill of information about what constitutes good photography that way isn't going to be well-informed even if we go through and ID the ducks, as it were.

 

Not that we shouldn't keep thinking about ways to raise the level of debate and critique here, but I've kinda given up on thinking that high-rated pages on websites will be full of work that has more than passing interest.

well, there you have it. a PN moderator or administrative completely eliminated my IMAGE THIS idea thread without so much as allowing a discussion on the topic. this censorship was completely unnecessary and unwarranted. no abuse was done by posting it. well, forget about it. this site obviously doesnt want to promote any imaginatively simple, user-friendly alternative that might divert attention from its ratings based gallery

Why not just critique the images where they are already, without inventing another category. The basic problems is absence of critique due to absence of interest in critique. Starting another category won't change that situation.

SW: Not trying to speak for the site but using the feedback forum to post an idea is cool but it possibly was deleted because you happened to plug someone's photo in the process and that would not be the appropriate place. I realize you were using it as an example but I bet your thread would?ve had more shelf life without the plug. Maybe I am wrong but when I read your thread I thought it was short-lived.

"...Why not just critique the images where they are already, without inventing another category..."

 

precisely, john. the gist of my IMAGE THIS idea is a simple ad hoc signaling method for any PN member to call attention to other members that a photo that she/he thinks is worthy of discussion or critique should be worth a link-click just to check it out in the portfolio folder where it sits, without all the dubious rigamorole and organized folderol

It doesn't seem to occur to the snivellers that the resources of this site are probably taxed to capacity as they are currently managed. There are several other posters agitating for a market through which they could sell their output. I have yet to encounter any suggestion, however worthy, that wouldn't open another door for abuse, notwithstanding impose additional strain on its staff and resources.

thanks, anthony. but the moderator could well have easily purged just the specific link reference and not the entire though brief discussion that ensued about the idea

but its interesting that the very act of totally deleting my thread literally speaks volumes about this site's tacit policy about not permittting any alternative to calling members attention to interesting photos other than via 'proper channels' namely the popularity-driven gallery and a sickly POW chosen weekly by simpletonic 'elves'

I've had threads dumped...BFD. its digital air anyway..remember, nothing exists here, they're all 1's and 0's. Hell, for all we know, Brian M. might just be a digital device...Sorry Brian...:)

Its just TOO serious, please help, I am desperate for the pancake bunny......