Photo Rating Suggestions

We'd like to hear about your suggestions for what to do with the photo

ratings systems. We'd like to use this thread to record what the

thoughts are as many of you have emailed us.

 

We can't promise that we'll implement everything.

 

Also just like with the bboard system we'd also like to clean things

up a bit through moderation. So for now if you feel like a particular

set of users are using bogus email addresses or are problematic please

email those users user_id or name to the feedback@photo.net alias

and we'll take a look and decide what to do.

Just to be clear this message is from rajeev, lisa, audrey and philg

1. Users can't create accounts unless they have a valid email address. If you need suggestions on how to implement this let me know. I can give you the logic but I'm not a Tkl programmer.

 

2. People seem to be complaining about "self ratings". If the consensus agress that this is wrong delete all the self ratings and prevent users from rating their own photos.

 

3. Consider getting rid of the top member rated photographers page. Maybe something else instead. Maybe something like photo of the week but instead there is more than one? The runners up? Or have a different scoring system.

 

4. A photocritique forum that has thumbnails at least for the first few photographs in the sub categories.

 

5. I have to run soon but I'm sure I'll have more.

Just drop the numeric rating system entirely!

 

1) The last few weeks have clearly shown it is infinitely prone to abuse, spoofing and hacking. And it has created large amounts of ill-will within the photo.net coummunity. It was a nice idea, you tried it, it blew up in your face.

 

2) Comments are a preferred way of giving feedback on peoples' artwork. There is an inherent silliness in assigning quantitative ratings to artistic expression.

 

Larry

wow, finally you guys brought it up, i was thinking of posting this myself--kudos for doing it first! here's my suggestion: if someone leaves anything lower than, say 3, make it mandatory to leave comments, not just a numerical rating. i've seen ppl go thru rating 1/1 just for the heck of it. used to be anonymous, couple weeks back it was made possible to see who rated how, and now the logical progression is make comments mandatory for very low ratings. the idea being the person rating should tell the photog why he's rating it so, how to possibly improve the image, etc. i suppose you can implement the same at the opposite end of the scale, for anyone rating higher than, say 8 or something, but not too many ppl rate up, they rate down :) just my suggestion, looking forward to hearing what others have to say. keep up the great work, and looking forward to seeing a better photo.net!

Is this community really that insecure that there must be some kind of bogus numerical rating system? The change I recommend is a Photo.net forum called Critique/Warm_&_Fuzzy where every picture is rated 11.5/10 and never a bad or critical thing is ever said. Then I think everyone would be happy. People who are just looking for reaffirmation of their goodness would know where to post, and people like me would know where to avoid.

 

All the Best,

 

Joe Oliva

 

www.Jetpix.com<div></div>

I think the rating system should be eliminated completely. It sucks up bandwidth on the discussion forums, creates bad feelings, results in bogus posts like the one recently removed from the unmodersated forum, and is subject to manipulation. <P>

 

Now granted, I don't use it myself - I neither submit images to be rated, nor do I rate others. But I see the colateral damage on the forums from it all the time. So I say terminate it.

I think Acer has good intentions but a bad idea. You'll see a lot of ratings like....

 

Aesthetics 1, Originality 1

 

asdf

 

Aesthetics 1, Originality 1

 

you suck.

 

Etc.

 

Can we possibly do something about people posting images that don't have anything to do with the topic? Like take away their right to do so if they abuse it? I think being able to post pictures that help the discussion are great! But not when people just use it to promote their work. Nothing personal Joe but this picture pretty much sums up my feelings on that issue.<div></div>

Currently all photos are given a rating of 1-10 in two categories -- "cleverness" and "aesthetics." I'm sure these two categories have meaning to the people at services photonet -- but I don't think they mean the same thing to every visitor who logs in here...I also think 1-10 is too big a spread --- a "7" might seem like an average/good score to me, but to someone else (especially a student enrolled in one of our grade inflated universities), a 7 might seem terribly low. The meaning of the numbers themselves is open to interpretation...and since we all obviously don't agree maybe a smaller spread (like poor-average-good) would be less subject to the whims of interpretation.<p>

In a perfect world, I would only want to see written commentary on the photos. Then again, if I ran the world, universities wouldn't give grades, either -- hopefully then people would be encoraged to learn rather than attempt to achieve high grades or good scores. That's probably unrealistic, though. Maybe scores of 1-3, 1 being low (or poor), 2 being average and three being good. And maybe more categories -- like "technical excellence," "interesting vantage point," "novel idea for a photograph," "good title," "good use of the frame," and so on -- I'm afraid I don't have very good ideas for categories --- but hopefully if more ways in which to rate a picture were introduced, we could get a better idea of why people did or did not like a photo. Right now I have one photo in critique which has been rated 5 or 6 times --- one person gave it a "10" for cleverness, another gave it a "1." All that means to me is one person liked it and one didn't --- but it doesn't help me by teaching me anything about the photo. If participants were invited to justify, whenever possible, the ratings they gave then maybe that might make us at least understand why we got the ratings we did. For example, if there was a rating for "technical excellence" and I gave it a low score, I might write: <i>I gave a low score because the picture looked underexposed to me.</i> Then whomever got the low score could decide A) Stephan is crazy -- the picture is fine, or B) Maybe I ought to work a little harder in the darkroom or really read the scanner manual...<p>I think we need more criteria in which the scores people give are justified or explained. I wouldn't submit pictures if I wasn't interested in opinions -- but when opinions are only a number, I get a little frustrated -- people are trying to send me a message when they give my photo a "3" or a "9" but I never really know why they gave it a low or high score.<p>Maybe there could also be a limit to how many photos a person could post...and a photo which did not get a certain number of ratings within a certain time period could be bumped from the critique --- right now there are far too many photos in the critique and the few which I might like to see get lost in the crowd; I think a lot of members should be discouraged from posting a picture every day just because they can...maybe post when you really feel that you have a photo that can spark interesting discussion or illustrate a point. After all, if people want to just see my photos, my web page is availible...

Let people indicate easily, on all pictures, whether they "hate it", "it's ok", "I love it", and leave it at that.

 

The goal of the rating system should be to allow pictures that lots of people like to be found and held as exemplars.

 

Maybe, just the simple options "I love it"/"It could be improved by..." should be allowed, plus a comment field.

 

KEEP IT SIMPLE AND SEAMLESS !! Ask Philg how to do this. He will know.

I have never submitted my dismal pictures to be rated but neither have I rated others (not neccessarily dismal). Instead of abandoning the rating system entirely (for there would be those who find it useful), could the good folks at photo.net perhaps leave it up to the person to decide whether he(epicene) would like the picture to be rated. If so, the rating bar appears; if not, the rating bar does not show.

 

In the tradition of Spinal Tap, an indication for '11' would be appropriate :p

My guess is the majority of people don't really care that much about ratings as they do getting their pictures seen and commented on. More people go to the top of the list to look at photos than the bottom. For the behaviour I've seen it's more about exposure than ego. Find a better way for people to get exposure and I think a lot of the problems will go away.

I disagree with abandoning the numerical rating. Nobody is forced to pay any attention to it, the bandwidth issue is IMHO not signifigant, If you don't like, lighten up and ignore it. It does give some, even if wildly imperfect, measure of what photos people like and dislike, and thru the other side of the window, of what critiquer's profiles are. ie if someone gives consistently skewed ratings. My 2c.

Remove the ratings altogether.

Glad to see this thread. Here's what I wrote just before it popped up in the the "not archived" forum:

<br><br>

<i>"In case you missed the deleted thread, someone has decided to go through the folders of certain people and systematically deposit scores of 1 on all the pictures. I am one of those targeted and suspect it's some kind of revenge related to my recent criticism of certain members who'd created false accounts to rate their own work.

<br><br>

Even before this most recent episode, I'd pretty much concluded that there really isn't any kind of numeric rating system that can work and now side firmly with those in favour of abolishing it. Its only usefulness was to highlight some interesting photographers, but I think there are other ways of doing that, like starting threads here to praise/discuss their work. It's probably better that way considering how someone like <a href="/photodb/top-rated-photographer-

photos?user_id=335793">Jo Voets</a> can find himself at number 703, with novice hacks like me hundreds of positions above him."</i>

<br><br>

That said, if we must have ratings, then at least consider allowing only those who have posted at least 10 photos of their own to give ratings. This is in addition to having proper e-mail verification of members, as suggested above. Not allowing membership creation with hotmail-type accounts would be another good step. Whatever is done, with all the fraud that's been exposed, all current ratings will have to be deleted in order to ensure a level playing field, so why not take that necessary first step immediately?

Ditch ratings; keep comments.

Another one for ditch rating, keep comments.

 

Jeremy

1 - Require new users to be registered for a time period (1-3 months?) before they are allowed to rate anything.

 

2 - Have a team of pro's rate the photos.

 

3 - Use a simple 1-10 rating system: 1 = I really hate it; 10 = It's incredible!

 

4 - GET RID OF THE TOP RATED PHOTOGRAPHER thing.

<I>photo.net is an online learning community of people improving their photography expertise.

</I><p>

I don't understand how a number 1-10 will help anybody, anywhere, improve their

photography expertise. When I'm about to click the shutter should I stop and think, "Wait a

minute, I'm about to take a 5, maybe I should try for 7 this time." It is silly and useless from a

pedagogical point of view.<p>

 

It may not be useless, however, as a tool for sorting though the gazillions of snapshots here if

you want to see some fine work. It is really nice to see work that other people value. The

top-rated photographer's list does serve this purpose but it clearly introduces an unwelcome

competitive element to the entire enterprise. In fact (not that it matters) the day the top-rated

photographers list went up I removed all my pictures from photo.net. I was interested in sharing

pictures and reading comments but was not interested in participating in a

competition--especially one based upon these random numerical ratings.<p>

 

My suggestion would be to scrap the ratings and the top-rated list. In it's place incorporate a

system where people may pick others' photos that they particularly like. Maybe a link that says

"Add this photo to your favorites" when I am looking at another member's work. Then, when you

look at somebody's profile there will be a section that says "Pictures Mark Meyer thinks are

interesting" or "Photos Mark Meyer thinks are worth looking at" or whatever, with thumbnails that

direct you towards the other member's portfolio. So not only would my profile have a section

with my own portfolio, it would also show work of others that I liked. This would create a

synergism between the portfolios and the Q&A forums because when somebody took the

time to give a good answer to a question you might be tempted to click on his/her name. This

would in-turn point you to the kinds of photos that this person finds attractive and

interesting--probably a step or two above snapshots. Then you might be able to see what this

next person thought was interesting leading you down a path of interesting photos. A favorite

photo of a new member wouldn't get as much attention as a favorite photo of a long-time or

frequent contributor. Iif I wanted to see some interesting work that is a cut above the rest I would

find somebody who's opinion I valued in the Q&A and see what they liked. Also note that there

is no "least interesting photo" option so nobody needs to get their feelings hurt because

snapshot they took get a 1/1/ rating. The trick would be avoiding the temptation to publish an

aggregate list of the most favored photos because this would encourage people to try to make

the list by manipulating the system. Perhaps a private function that does this for moderators and

elves might nice to help them in sorting through photos for the POW and random picture

selection; just keep it private. <p>

If anybody thinks this has even a small element of usefulness, please feel free to elaborate or

suggest variations. It would be nice to see some brainstorming and ideas rather than a bunch of

complaints about the current system. <p>

To Services Photonet: thanks for asking.

1) Numeric ratings<p>

 

I agree that numeric ratings don't give much useful feedback to the photographer, and that the "top rated" page probably inspires all kinds of abuse. But the ratings also drive the <a href="http://www.photo.net/gallery/photocritique/filter">photo critique filter</a>, which I love, even if the picture which, as I write, <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/300988">comes up first</a> is apparently a fake.<p>

 

Asking it for all uploads scoring more than 6+6 off 5+ ratings in the last week has led me to more good photos and good photographers than everything else on this site put together. I came here as a total beginner for the tutorials and the forum archives, it's the filter that keeps me here and has persuaded me to rate 2000 odd pictures by way of thanks.<p>

 

You couldn't run the filter off textual feedback, it has to be numeric.<p>

 

<i>[On the matter of the filter, could we have some option to page throught he results? There might be 45 pictures meeting those criteria, or 200 beating 5+5, but it will never show me more than 30.]</i><p>

 

2) Ratings abuse.<p>

 

I think daylight is the best disinfectant here. I suspect that a few people who've been rating all their own uploads 10+10 will be embarrassed into stopping. [Hint, folks, you can delete them using the "manage your ratings" link on the "My Workspace" page.]<p>

 

Of course, you can't stop a really serious ratings abuser, but the likes of Tom Meganatos (who's running just now) or "photo.net conscience" (self-appointed <a href="http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=373934">judge</a>/<a href="http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=373931">jury</a>/<a href="http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=373931">executioner</a>) may at least find it harder to ply their trade with public ratings and some elven policing.<p>

 

3) The ratings system, in normal use<p>

 

I do have a couple of minor nits to pick with the bulk rating system (which I think is pretty decent on the whole).<p>

 

Firstly, it shows roughly quarter sized images. It seemingly downloads the normal "medium" picture and then uses a browser feature to resize it at the client end, so no bandwidth is saved. But it militates against pictures which depend on fine detail -- a crowded bar with two pairs of eyes meeting across the room, the texture of stone in a building, etc etc. Many a photographer will tell you that every picture has its own right size and photo.netters get to choose it when they upload, but they're then rated at some other size.<p>

 

OK, once you've see the small version in the rating system you can then launch the original and it will load immediately from cache, but how many people will do this? They'll just give low ratings to pictures that depend on detail.<p>

 

Secondly, it would nice if the selection algorithm for people who are rating could somehow avoid showing them pictures they've skipped before. I used to skip over flower macros (I irrationally loathe the things, and feel a bit uncomfortable about rating them), but it just showed me them again the next day so I started rating them.<p>

 

Thanks for asking about this, by the way.

I agree with the posters saying ditch the numeric ratings.

 

The photo critique forum and photo.net in general to me is about getting advice from more experienced photographers and helping me continue to grow as a photographer. A numeric rating does not help me become a better photographer in any shape or form. Well thought out, honest, constructive and critical comments will.

 

Just my newbie $.000002 worth ;-)

IMO,

 

The ratings issue is a tempest in a teapot. Tweak it if you must, remove the ability to self-rate (a sensible tweaking I think), and leave it alone otherwise. Its just not that important.

 

I'm a recent member of this community although I have been part of many on-line communities. It seems that as the communications technology has improved so has the frequency and velocity of griping!

 

In my short time as a member I have rated several hundred images myself, yet I do not have any of my own uploaded. Frankly have been too busy with my business and not had the time to deal with scanning and posting images. Yet. Does this make me unqualified to rate?

 

I personally don't think so, I rate anyones images in the same way I cull my own. Have been a serious amateur and occasional paid photographer since the 70's.

 

What about the neophyte photographer just starting out? Should that person be banned from ranking? No. The process of looking and reviewing images (we all do it mentally whether there is a "rating button" or not!) is a useful learning process for all, especially the beginner.

 

It is impossible to implement a conscience using technology, and sure, some folks will abuse any system. Given the huge diversity of the community - even if only all serious, experienced amateurs and pros were allowed to rate - there would still be big variances in rating approaches. The perfect mouse trap doesn't exist yet already exists.

 

Live with it as is, more or less, is what I am suggesting. I believe that the benefits on balance outweigh the downside. People get to expose their work to a broad audience of mostly intersted observers. Terrific!

 

Whatever Photo.net's decision is, I hope they make a policy and any changes soon, stick to the decisions made, and find some way of putting closure on the issue so that the community can, hopefully, find something more productive to discuss! Cheers all - Mike

Here's another vote for dropping the ratings system, but still allowing people to post comments and put photos up for critique.

 

The whole ratings business has turned into a giant pissing contest, with numerous people abusing the system to (I can only assume) see their name in lights on the top rated photographers list and top-rated photos list until the next idiot comes along with a dozen mediocre snapshots which they and their friends all give "10/10" scores to. The only thing more ridiculous than this practice is the fact that so many people put credence in the ratings system and get upset when an anonymous fool gives their beautiful photo 1/10. Scrap numeric ratings, keep the comment system, and you will avoid wasted bandwidth, abuse and aggravation.

Wayne,

 

On what do you base your opinion the the bandwith isn't an issue? I don't mean on an individual basis. Sure if you don't go into the rating sections your personal bandwith won't be affected but I'm talking about at the server side. In addition to that there are other server resources, cpu, memory, hard drive space and don't forget the time it takes to maintain a system that gets beat on so much. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the majority of the systems resources go towards rating/critiquing related activities.

 

I'm sure the top member rated photographers page gets a lot of hits. It seems like there might be some caching involved and I don't know how often it's refreshed but I'm sure there's a significant amount of work down to process all the users and see which ones are going to be on that list. Now that the names of raters are being displayed that table probably gets joined with the user table to get the userid and name of the user. Time gets spent by developers working on ratings related pages instead of things like the forums or a better search engine.

 

A lot more complaints about "Server not responding" and slow page loads are being reported much more frequently.

 

If you don't like the numberical rating system you can go to http://www.photocritique.net/ It's a great site without ratings, just comments. A lot of the same people from here are on. But there crappy photo's usually get ignored, you can only post 3 photos a week. Though the babies that complain about bad comments here may have the same problems there. Your photos don't get any better on a different website.

 

Granted the added traffic is probably a good think since more traffic can increase money gotten from sponsors. But is it working?

 

Tom

Here's my response to the comment Vuk made above and in the other posting

 

I agree with you completely.

 

Especially the second paragraph. That was the reason I did what I did with my three buts photograph. Partly to help raise awareness. Not that I consider you a hack by any means but neither you or I are Jo Voets. I don't think the rating system was causing too many problems until the Top Member Rated Photographers page showed up.

 

-- Tom Menegatos, August 02, 2001; 05:33 P.M. Eastern

 

 

And here's the message I posted with the associated responses. Can we delete those two other messages so that all the ratings related comments are in one place?

 

 

 

Awe... I missed it. Another new coward.

 

I went to look at the community page for them and by the time I got back the message was gone :(

 

those threads are fun time wasters. People get all riled up.

 

 

So we have photonet observers, photonet conscience, this new one and based on what's been happening on my portfolio recently the Evil family. The pappa Black Evil, momma, Green Evil, junior Grey Evil and the stupid should-have-been-still-birth You Evil that didn't pick a color.

 

 

At least the person that attacked laundauer with the fake names was amusing.

 

 

Oh and just to clarify. That "trick" I did a few days ago was aimed at these types of stupid people that think they're trying to make things better but are actually making things worse. I had posted numerous times and even stated it in the photo that is was an experiment and that I was going to get rid of it when I was done. After I was done I was also going to email everyone but thanks to mr Vuk^2 that was taken care of already making it seem like it was meant to trick people to boost my ratings. Also let's not forget Ian MacWhatever with whom I've been having an email conversation regarding his ratings views, of which we disagreed. He took our conversation public on the first day we started talking and I did the same yesterday. It's also a strange coincidence that a lot of the ones that rated me 1/1 (the Evils) appeared after he stopped responding to my emails :) That must be a coincidence because Ian, who preaches to everyone about ethics and morality couldn't do something like that?!?!?

 

 

In the end what do a lot of these people bring to photo.net? A large number don't seem to do anything but post photos and rate photos. Some people don't even bother looking at other photos. Some people probably haven't read any of the pages, may not even know there's more to photo.net then the top member rated page.

 

 

Does all this bandwith, processor utilization, used diskspace, etc. result in anything that benefits photo.net? Are these people even contributing at all for all the resources they are consuming? Are they subscribing? Buying through photo.net links with merchants? Providing useful information to other photographers or are they responsible for the lazy and stupid questions that are driving away some of the long timers?

 

-- Tom Menegatos, August 02, 2001; 05:29 P.M. Eastern

 

Answers

I think the whole rating program here should be eliminated. Now granted, I don't use it; I don't post images to be rated, not do I rate others. But I do see how it consumes bandwidth on this forum (including this thread, and Vuk's below) and creates bad feelings. Photo.net is great as a forum for excanging information and opinions on various topics. And having galleries where people can display their work is fine too. I really do look at other photographers' work quite often. But I think we should lose the whole ratings thing.

 

-- peter nelson, August 02, 2001; 05:38 P.M. Eastern

 

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Oh come on Peter - be reasonable. If we didn't have the ra(n)ting system then people like Tom might have to spend their valuable time on trivial stuff like taking photographs and helping newbies, rather than moaning and finding ways to cheat the system.

 

ps Tom, I'M KIDDING - personally I've never uploaded anything for comment (Don't have the time or the ego) and I never look at the ratings system, only the unarchived posts, where I help where I can and annoy where I think fit.

 

-- stuart whatling, August 02, 2001; 06:45 P.M. Eastern

 

 

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Stuart good one. You were about to get the flame of your life...

 

I've spent more time in the forums and have answered plenty of newbie and not so newbie questions than I have in the rating part.

 

 

I have tried to take the time to comment and rate as many photos as I could because people have been nice enough to do the same for me. The comments especially help.

 

-- Tom Menegatos, August 02, 2001; 07:00 P.M. Eastern