What's the point of posting?

First of all, there's no point in posting IMHO. This is just

a "venting" section. Nothing read here by site admins is actually

listened to again IMHO. So why bother?

 

We can yella nd debate each other until we're blue in the face and it

won't change squat on this site. They seem to do whatever the heck

they want.

 

All that said... I like a lot of the changes. There are, however,

some major flaws that aren't just my "opinion" about design layout

but genuinely FLAWS that were pointed out days ago. Have any changes

been made? No. Probably because so MANY changes were made at one

time that the screw ups are overwhelming to deal with.

 

So,... In the mean time... RATE YOUR PHOTOS. Yep. One major screw

up (I couldn't fathom it being intentional) is that you can rate your

own photos. Someone posted this several days ago. I checked it on a

photo I deleted afterwards. It still works.

 

So... don't post here if you hope for changes to be made. Just post

if you want to inform or be informed but as a means of causing

change, it's pointless.

Don't hold back Joe. Tell us how you REALLY feel. You keep all those emotions bottled up and the stress will kill ya.

How are you rating your own photos? I don't seem to be able to do that, and I have administrator powers.

If you were able to rate your own photo, would'nt your name still show up as a rater? That would look pretty stupid. Joe, chill out and take some photos.

Using IE 5.2 for Macintosh OS X, I found that if I am NOT logged in, the option for rating is visible for my photos. If I rate my own photo, I am prompted to log in, and after doing so, I find that my rating has been recorded. The option for rating photos IS NOT displayed if I am logged in.

 

And don't worry, I deleted the photo that I used for this little experiment.

I just tried the same experiment using Mozilla 1.7 for Mac. I was able to rate a test photo using the same approach described above.

 

The question is, what idiot would want to rate his/her own photo, given the fact that the self-rater's name would be included in the rating profile. Admittedly, it's a bug that should be fixed, but not one that I see as being a major problem for the site.

 

Overall, I give VERY HIGH MARKS to Brain! He's made some major improvements to the site this week and has been very responsive when problems are reported. I do still wish, though, that we could have back the system in which ratings were attached to names. (-;

Oh and by the way..... I run 1280x960 screen and none of my images are centered, It looks bad. It was ok to still have to deal with old programing code that was used for ancient 800x600 rez screens as long as the backround was white (or sometimes even black) but offset in grey looks BAD. .....J

When you say the images are not centered, are you talking about not centered within the photo.net page? Or are you saying the photo.net page is not centered in the window if you make it wider than 768 pixels?

 

If the latter, I'm not going to be able to do anything about that for a while. The photo.net header, in particular the pull down menus, have to be aligned on the left, and the pull-down menus have to be a fixed width, (although it need not be 768 pixels wide). This is because of legacy code that doesn't have anything to do with the new code. I'd like to change this too, but it is a fair bit of work to rewrite the pull-down menus, which are the main culprit. The page would look worse if the photo was centered in the full width of the screen but the page header, pull-down menus, etc were aligned on the left.

 

If you are saying the photo is not centered within the 768 pixels of the photo.net page, that would surprise me. Can you point to an example?

For my lack of clarity~ Pnet (NOT the photo) is set margain left. If it was not centered before then I didn't notice it because of the white background. Thank You....J

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Sheesh, Joe. And I thought I suffered from terminal ennui.

 

If it'll make you feel better, the endless, redundant threads about ratings are pointless. Apparently every relatively new photo.netter thinks that he/she is the first to think the ratings system is flawed and that they are the first to propose the perfect change.

 

OTOH, sometimes those threads are entertaining.

Sheesh II, I think the endless rants about ratings are boring. If people don't like the ratings, don't look at them. Go out and take some photos instead of constantly whining. Come to think of it, I will now quit whining about the whiners.

"Nothing read here by site admins is actually listened to again IMHO"

 

Far off the mark. From my experience - and I've been around for some time - discussions held here ARE listened to and the evolution of the site takes a great deal of feedback and ideas into account. Of course, this is not a democracy (it shouln't and it can't be one) and the site evolves according to whatever the administration chooses and thinks best, both for the user experience and for the financial feasibility of the whole thing. Sure, Brian can't please everyone, but whenever there was massive and founded support for some issue, sooner or later you would see some steps taken to deal with it. Maybe not the ones suggested by some user, but some action nonetheless, at least when it's possible.

 

I have been following this forum for quite a while, and very often, seeing a recent change in the site I have thought "yes, that's pretty much what this guy said a month ago - I thought it was a good idea" If you stick around you'll find yourself identifying some of the most interesting feedback into changes implemented. As far as I'm concerned, in the very few and rare occasions where I seriously protested about something, the complaint was listened to, replied and dealt with faster than I would have hoped.

 

In a web dominated by sites that interact with their communities through impersonal and imperiously-spoken press releases, photo.net is a refreshing exception. There's dozens of things I'd like to see fixed, but if there is one thing I'd consider unfair to criticize them for, that would be their attitude. 9 out of 10 times Brian pops in and posts a well-writen argument or explanation about what he does and how things work, it should not be neccessary for him to do it, or he could just be snapping at people with answers in the style of "it's not our policy - not going to tell you much more". But you don't get this kind of answer here. Even when you get the "this is the way we choose to do things" answer, you still get a good and honest reason for it. That's more than enough I think. Give the guy a break!

Don't ask me. I didn't do anything special. I just click on "Rate" and was able to rate it. Sooo... I tried it on a photo that I planned on deleting and it worked just fine. I then deleted it. My point wasn't so much that problem but that the problems aren't really addressed or paid much attention too and that this was JUST my opinion.

 

I also said that I liked some of the changes in look (wish we could have a "Large" image though as a number of people have commented) but that there were still problems that had been mentioned previously.

 

My POINT in this post wasn't to discuss problems as I honestly feel (Right or wrong) that the problems aren't addressed SOOOoooo... if you are posting to get something done, then don't bother. However, if you just want to vent, then have fun.

 

This is one of the things I hate about "Chat" or "Bulletin board" type conversations. You can't hear voice inflection or see facial expressions.

 

I enjoy this site. There are things that definitely hack me off but as a whole I like the site. I seem to have the same beefs as a lot of others do. I don't like the idea of ratings not being tied to names but then I'm not into "Revenge rating" or "Mate rating."

 

To be honest, I've taken on an attitude of who gives a flip lately about the whole thing. I post my shots and I have a circle of friends that I've made and we rate and comment honestly on each others photos. So... what I see as short comings of the site that could be done better or whatever, just don't bother me as much any more.

I think you added the "Large" view just to spite me Brian! :-p Thanks. It's good to have that back.

If people use this forum to report technical problems, bugs, etc, then we pay close attention. They don't necessarily get fixed immediately: we may not know how to fix it, or there may be other things that are higher priority. But such reports are always useful and appreciated. Even if I tell you to use another browser, or switch off your anti-virus program, or whatever, I keep it in the back of my mind that people are having trouble with this or that aspect of the site, and if I understand the problem and can fix it without excessive effort and without breaking something else, I will do so, although it might take a while.

 

Using the forum to make suggestions is worthwhile most of the time, We pay attention to suggestions. Even when we can't implement a suggestion, it is helpful to know what people would like.

 

There is one exception. I guess at this point, I would say that it is a waste of time to make suggestions about the rating system. Most of these have been made before, and discussed at length; they usually are based on a philosophy about the site and its systems that we don't agree with and aren't going to adopt. Start your own photo gallery site if you want one that conforms to your philosophy, assuming this one doesn't. A lot of the time, these suggestions are just someone venting about receiving a low rating or a rude comment, and even if you aren't venting, your comment may not be distinguishable from someone who is. Normally, my reaction to rating system suggestions is to type in, yet again, some variation of the standard answers that I could type in my sleep by now. It would save everyone a lot of time and frustration if people just refrained from rating system suggestions. (Wishful thinking.)

 

After I have made a change in the design of the site, I find bug reports, browser problems, and other technical issues, etc, very helpful. I find "this sucks", "go back now" comments to be exasperating and demotivating. I don't pay much attention to those, and they make me regret creating the Site Feedback forum. Griping because I chose black and you like white is pointless. If it is a matter of taste, I prefer my own taste over your taste, thank you very much, sir. So, unless there is some reason to believe that your tastes are more representative of the 100,000 people who visit the site daily than mine, complaining because I chose gray and you like white is basically a waste of time. If the site is going to crash and burn because I made a wrong decision, I'd sooner it be because I went with my gut feeling than with your gut feeling. So, if I have done something a certain way, I'm not generally going to undo it based on counting "this sucks" comments in the Site Feedback forum. I prefer not to base decisions on gut feelings at all; I prefer to pay attention to hard facts, such as the traffic, the behaviour of people on the site, etc, and base my decisions on that, not on how vehement and rude people are in the SF forum.

Brian,

 

Make no mistake, I greatly appreciate the work you do on this site and as I get "Older" here, I understand things better. The ratings system (by far the biggest headache to deal with for you and for us) is just somethign I'm learning to live with. The trade off of not knowing who rates FOR ME is not great enough. That's just me though and it's certainly your site to do witha s you please.

 

Recently I had a photo get 50 something ratings which for me is a record. I think it is the best photo I've taken so far. It has an average of 6.3 something with 50 ratings. I am proud of it. There are 2 people out of the 50 that rated it a 4/4. I'd love to be able to talk with them and get their perspective on what made the photo avergae. In the end, I may completely disagree with them, but it's something that I enjoyed about the site previously. It allowed me the chance to speak with my lowest raters and find out what it was about the photo that they didn't like and perhaps improve or be aware of those points in future shots. It has DEFINITELY improved me as a photographer in the past. That is a major benefit for me that was lost.

 

In the end, as i said, your doing a great job and the site as a whole has been improved in my opinion.

 

PS. My wife on the other hand is pretty upset with you for having deleted all her ratings 2 times now. I guess you figure that since we share the same computer it's a fake account or something. She's e-mailed you about it and is still pretty upset.

Joe, unless Jeremy Stein was particularly noticing your wife (which I doubt), her ratings were probably deleted automatically. Ratings are deleted automatically if they are excessively concentrated on one photographer. This is done specifically to eliminate ratings from people's wives, etc, who are only involved in the site to rate one photographer. These ratings may be sincere, and while you could argue that all ratings are subjective, these ratings seem particularly so. It makes the ratings depend even more than they already do on how many friends and relatives a photographer can recruit in the real world to come on-line and rate the photos. So, it seems like probably the system was working in her case.

 

The other cases where we delete ratings automatically are (1) when someone has a very high percentage of low ratings; and (2) all the ratings of people who, 30 days after they start rating, have only rated a few photos. These tend, again, to be friends and people idly passing through, and we don't really want these ratings in the system.

My wife had rated over 400 photos the first time she was deleted. (I only had about 100 posted at the time.) She has went through and started rating my shots again. How many shots must a person rate other than one person to not be deleted? This is really interesting information.

 

I understand the concept, but I think it might be a bad idea for a couple reasons. I regularly send out links of my photos to friends for them to check out here on this site. A lot of them may pop in only to rate the photo I send a link to or maybe a couple others. Never the less, they are honest ratings and often they check out the "Critique Photos" link which I tell them about.

 

It gives a lot more exposure to your site and potential people who might become interested. Is it really fair to delete these peoples ratings? I know when I tell my wife about it she's probably just going to pull a .[. Z type reaction and just mass rate a bunch of other peoples photos which I can assure you won't be heart felt well thought over ratings like her first 400 were.

Additionally, I looked at my ratings on my most recent post (a shot I'm very proud of) and I have seen a lot of my friends who I sent the link to who have signed up to view that picture specifically. Can I count on all their ratings getting wiped out? If so... geez man... that's really lame. I will have to tell them to be certain to go through and just rate x number of other photos in the critique section so there honest ratings of my shots don't get whiped out. :-(

I'd rather not say what the criteria are exactly. For one thing, they change. I'm running the process to delete low ratings every day and so it is coded and defined. But the other robots are run less frequently and I think they have never used the same set of criteria twice, since I tune them each time, after running some reports. Now that we are discussing it, it has jogged my memory that a couple of months ago there were several people who rated your photos who had all their ratings deleted for excessive concentration on you. In a few of those cases, as I recall, 80% to 100% of the ratings were on your photos, but I'm not sure what the cutoff was. I don't remember the details, and I no longer have the ability to reconstruct what happened exactly.

 

It is fine, of course, to ask your friends and relatives to look at your photos; that is part of why you put the photos here, no doubt. But if people sign up as members of photo.net and start rating photos, the purpose of that is to help the site decide which photos are best, and not to be on your team. In this situation, as sincere as people might be, it is not possible to be honest or fair to other people, who are competing with you for visibility on the site -- perhaps without a host of real-world supporters to come online and rate their photos. If there is evidence that someone is a partisan for one particular photographer, the site isn't too interested in keeping those ratings and basing photo rankings on them. It would be better just to ask your friends and relatives to leave comments to let you know which ones they liked the best.

Well.. I do understand. It still kinda sux. I will be sure to now tell all my friends to spread some ratings around for each shot of mine they do. I can assure you the wife will be peeve. She says she doesn't understand (especially the first time) why her ratings were deleted. She had 400+ ratings (I still only have 170 photos posted) so she was rating like 3 to 1. Actually, the deleting of her ratings killed her interest in the site. She's only been rating mine ever since and she hasn't even rated all of mine. :-(

Joe, seriously. Please don't ask your friends to come online to rate your photos, then "spread some ratings around" to disguise the fact that their purpose was to rate your photos. It is impossible for those people to give fair ratings to your photos, as much as they might imagine that they are being fair to everyone. To the extent that sort of thing happens, it undermines the legitimacy of the whole system.

"It is impossible for those people to give fair ratings to your photos," But isn't that like saying that Joe's wife can't give a fair rating because she is his wife? Or that no one can give rating to anyone that they know personaly because somehow it is unfair? Forgive me but that makes as much sense as saying a person must be a photographer to rate photography....Jay

" It still kinda sux" --Joe Orsak

 

Joe, what sux even more is recruiting your friends to rate your pictures. That is really, really lame, as you would say. "Glory to Joe" is what it sounds like to me.

 

Why not compete like everyone else? Why do you need to invite friends and family to rate your work? Anyone with half a brain can see that these people will rate your work favorably, whether they like it, or not. This whole plan of yours is designed to pump up your averages, I'm convinced. Glory to Joe.

 

And all this talk about your wife and her 400 ratings. How come she's not here ranting about it? What's your wife's account? Let's go check it out.