shadow-island Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 I have only been a member of photonet for about 6 months. I am by no means an advanced photographer and by my own standards do less than above average work. Yet, in this 6 months I have learned so much from some really great photographers who took the time to visit my photo's, rate them and leave comments. I have gained far more respect of many patrons than I have improved my skills. However, at my age of 58, learning how to use a new advanced digtial camera (may never)it helps me first, to be rated and or commented by photographers whose images speak for themselves. Secondly, it helps me better understand what is or is not appealing to the masses. Yes, it makes my blood curl to have a drive by 1/1 rating or comments like "dont shoot anymore flowers, we've seen them all pinhead. If thats the case, even Carl Root might as well put his camera on the self and take up nitting. I joined this group because of what I read, and what I thought would be the potential to help me learn quicker. I was so sure, that I paid for that right to be part of this organization. I am disappointed somewhat, but I have gained alot of insight and made many new honest friends who sincerely care to tell me through comment or email the good or bad of my images. Many times I am surprized, for what I think is good, others dont, and some I think are not so good, get good ratings. Tough business... bottom line, overall it works. Maybe we need to follow ebay's rating system...it works, and maybe I could make some money selling too. :) Follow the KISS system! "keep it simple stupid". I for one (and it dont count for much) enjoy this site and am learning from some really great photographer who care enough to show me the time of day. To bad we're letting a few ruin that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevemarcus Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 including this newly implemented one. I imagine that the use of bogus accounts will increase now, both for the purpose of giving inflated ratings and for the malicious downrating of photos. Mate rating may be reduced initially, but workarounds will be discovered in very short order. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thomas_collins1 Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 Well, now that I have actually taken the time to read many of the responses, I feel that I may have been too tunnel-visioned myself in my previous posting. I can agree with many of the comments for keeping the rating system "as is". Primarily the argument that sways me is that of knowing the value of a given rating by the skill of the rater. Yes, this does have a lot of value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevemarcus Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 because I'm not. The new system is as viable as any other. The only point I'm making is that those who seek to abuse a rating system will find a way to do it, regardless of the nature of the system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
photobyas Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 First of all, I can only say that I understand both sides. Sometimes I really wonder how some pictures can get that many that high rating. But will this mate rating really stop? Some people already leave their rating as subject for their comment. What do you need email for if you could exchange information that easy? But there is something else that is more important for me. If you rate and everybody can see that it is your rating, you are responsible for it. I am afraid that turning the link off will lead to loads of quick and thoughtless rating. Who cares if I make a mistake rating if nobody knows that it was me. Of course, most people will still think about their rating before submitting it but the risk of another type of abuse is present. Anyway, Brian thank you for spending so much time keeping this site running in a smooth way. I really appreciate that you are always thinking about how to improve photo.net. Best regards, Anthony Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhawks Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 The so called "mate raters" and "drive bys" won't be deterred by a change in the way ratings, comments or whatever are labeled or displayed. So the the real question is what have the "honest" folks won or lost. I agree with Thomas' comment. I am thrilled to get a comment or rating by someone really talented and I want to know it. Give me all the low ratings you want, but one kind word from a person I respect will take all of the sting away. With this new anonymous approach, I now get all of the sting and none of the salve. I guess I can consider myself one of the losers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mondiani Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 What was the ratings misbehavior that causes people to leave? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bgelfand Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 Brian, I see that you have made some changes to the way ratings and run an automatic purge according to your post: "Nestor, we do automatically delete all the low ratings of anybody who has too high a percentage of them. In fact, we just did it yesterday. We also delete ALL the ratings of anyone who gives too high a percentage of his/her total ratings to only one person. We also did that yesterday. About 50,000 ratings deleted in all. We do it every month or so. Probably I'll start doing it more frequently." I just noticed that at least four rating are now missing from my photo: http://www.photo.net/photo/1115004. Although the Details section says there are 31 ratings, I can see only 27. The most recent ratings seem to have been deleted. Why? The ratings were good, but not too high (IMHO). Although these members have rated one or two of my other photos, I should not account for a large percentage of their ratings and they even left comments. You may have a bug in your purge program. Has anyone else noticed missing ratings? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geri Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 <i>"With this new anonymous approach, I now get all of the sting and none of the salve. I guess I can consider myself one of the losers.</i>"<br><br> I do know what you mean, and I empathize. That's why, if my comment includes an "idea" of what might have been done differently to an image, I always add that I'm not a photographer. That way, the submitter can be aware that it wasn't from an expert, and ignore it, or whatever.<br> Maybe some members won't mind leaving their rating in a comment? I saw that suggested above. Some may protest that, too. Oh well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincetylor Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 Brian you said this above. "It will slow down mate-rating" I am curious to know how, or why you suppose that might happen? As it is right now, the mate-raters are very easily identified by all. They seem to not mind being exposed to a degree, but find comfort in their groups. If the ratings are now annonymous, isnt it possible that mate-rating will only get worse and not better? Having the ratings made public at least kept there actions in clear daylight. Now under the cover of darkness, it would seem reasonable that it could just become worse! The greater of the two problems between Revenge-rating and Mate-rating (in the minds of probably 90 percent from my experience) is the Mate-rating. That issue seems to have the potential to actually get worse under the current system. Perhaps there are a few ideas I have overlooked though. I would definitely NOT suggest taking the name of the photographer off of the posted images. Copyright is only one reason. There are others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bernhard Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 I recently had the problem with revenge comments piling up in my portfolio in response to ratings I gave. Thanks to that move this will be less of a problem, Thank you Brian. Now I can rate with much less fear that revenge rating will drag down my own visiblity, Thank you Brian. And yes you're right, these rating and commenting misbehaviour has the potential to drive people away, I actually considered taking down all my pics recently. But I will still get bad ratings and comments after I made a *comment* someone doesn't like. My personal solution is this: If I come across a picture that really sucks and I don't wanna pussyfoot around but be honest and blunt in my comment, I just do it. But immediately afterwards I check the rest of this photog's portfolio, pick the photograph I like best and make a comment emphasizing what I like about it. Works for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottershead Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 It won't slow down the current mate-raters initially, since those groups have already formed. Eventually, if people don't know whether the ratings they are receiving from others are high or not it might weaken the motivation. Where I think it will make a difference is in new people being recruited to the mate-rating groups. This is done by putting a high rating on the new person's photo, with the expectation that it be reciprocated. If the person reciprocates with a higher rating than really merited, in the hopes of getting more of the same for himself/herself, then the ball is rolling. But if nobody knows who is rating high then I think it makes this transaction less likely to occur. It is true that people can send blunt emails proposing exchanges. But I don't think that actually happens much, or else more people would have tripped up, and there would be more cases of where these dishonest emails were being forwarded to the moderators. I hope people think twice before they send an outright dishonest email to some new member that they don't know. Anyway, as I said above, I don't really think that the mate-rating is usually outright corruption, but rather a kind of cronyism, and many of the mate-raters would be rather surprised to realize that their behaviour was looked at that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
geri Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 "I would definitely NOT suggest taking the name of the photographer off of the posted images. Copyright is only one reason. There are others."<br>Vincent, if this is going to happen, then I better go ahead and mark <b>every</b>one as interesting, so I can find their folders again! I mean, how else are we supposed to keep track of the photographers we appreciate? Even if the names are unveiled after a few days, unless I commented, I'd have no way to find the person whose work appealed to me.<br><br> I'd like to keep the names visible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottershead Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 Brooks, the robot removes all the ratings of people who have concentrated their ratings on one other person. Even if nobody was concentrating ratings on you, you might have been the recipient of other ratings from those people -- and all the ratings from those suspect people are removed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wingell Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 My latest critique posting has garnered, among other ratings, a 1/1 and a 7/7. Inasmuch as I don't usually see either combination, I'm curious to learn what experience those two raters bring to their assessments. Without their identities, I can't get that information. I find this development annoying--almost as disturbing as I find Brian's cavalier comment that he might turn the identity function back on "just for fun." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhawks Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 Brian, I don't get it. The robot seems to only remove the name, but the number of ratings and the average ratings stay the same. What's the point if the scores don't change? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhawks Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 Bill, I think Brian is toying with the idea of elevating his status to "God of this Web site". All we paying members can do is vote with our dollars and not renew. Cavalier is too kind an assessment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincetylor Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 Thanks for the thoughts on how this might slow down the maters. Lets see what happens. Cut down the *ideas* presented here if you like guys, but why cut on the man as a person? Sounds to me like he is trying to improve things. If not, he can always put it back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wingell Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 Good point about the dues thing, Doug. Having just renewed my subscription, I thought about bringing it up myself. Perhaps other up-for-renewal members will take Brian's attitude under consideration now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bruno Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 Hmmm... whatever solution will have pros and cons... in the meanwhile the status quo is kept. I don't think this will change much, but it's worth trying. Only a few comments: 1. Recently I've been rating quite high, mainly because I was more interested in saying "i like this" than "i don't like that". 2. The other reason: revenge rating/comments. Looks like you cannot give a 1/1 to a picture clearly out of focus (unintentionally) that you will start receiving vindicative emails-comments-ratings. And I'm not talking about a well written email in which you're simply asked for the reasons of it. 3. I already liked the thing that when you request an e-mail a warning is generated. Got, some months ago, a mail from a guy insulting me 'cause I said he could have done things better with PS. Browsing through his portfolio and comments, I just understood that he was doing it with everyone. 4. Democracy: you go to vote. No one sees what you vote. In this way the vote is free. Probably it will work also for ratings. 5. Mate rating: don't know if something strange is going on between other people. But there are some photographers I admire here and - look what - the ratings I give them are quite high. With the exception of m.v. : she doesn't like ratings, I leave only comments :) --- Most important of all: does a rating need to come from a good photographer to be acceptable? Yes sometimes I peek through some 2's, see some pictures I don't like and feel relieved... but... ...since everybody of us tries to communicate with photography... maybe this means that our message is not understandable? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bueh Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 Why not simply have a poll where the members (or just the paying patrons) can decide these suggestions <b><i>before</i></b> they are implemented? <p> This is just not community-friendly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Landrum Kelly Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 I like the idea of it going on and off, perhaps at completely random intervals--and for greatly varying periods of time. That way one will (from time to time) still see some names of persons who like the same things one likes, but persons might be a bit encouraged to be more objective and honest overall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertbrown Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 While no PN user is going to agree with all of Brian's decisions, I think he's done his best to manage this site in an equitable manner. Considering all of the whining, complaining, cheating, and conniving he gets to deal with on a daily basis, he's done an excellent job. For anyone interested in photography, this site is a real treasure because of all the information in the archives and various discussion forums. It's too bad that he has to spend so much time settling arguments about photo ratings and then be slammed by some ill-informed hack for trying something different. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tholte Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 Time will tell if this works or not. I don't think it will but it is worth a try. I am hoping and praying that it shuts up the whiners and crybabies that can not handle a low rating of their own work and a high rating of someone elses work. I think the main reason that many really good photographers leave the site (aside from normal attrition) is that constant whining and complaining from the vocal minority of prima donna's who would not be happy unless every photo in their portfolio was a photo of the week or at least in the top five of the top rated page. I hate to see the cry-babies win but am open to the slight possibility that it could improve things. We will see and I must admit that I am impressed with my open-mindedness about this issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhenry Posted July 1, 2004 Share Posted July 1, 2004 Ist a good Idea IMO, but the fact that you simultenously announced that it is probably a temporary decision breaks a little bit the fun of it !! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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