How can we resolve the poor rating/no comment problem with the new setup

[renzsevilla]

Since the new setup has been effected i notice that the long-time

problem about critiques who give poor ratings without any explanation

for giving so has worsened. They have been given the chance to rate

irresponsively. I somehow know the reason why the setup was

modified, it aims to prevent postings of the argumentative issues

particularly about the poor rating/no comment thing.

 

This setup unintentionally invites abuses and problems in the near

future. Because they know that they can get away with poor rating/no

comment critiquing. For me, it does not serve the purpose of the

site. Most subscribers would rather not raise this question to the

administrator since they know that it would only add up to the piles

of works the latter is attending to.

 

In my humble opinion, the new setup does not serve the purpose of the

site since abusers are so free to just poorly rate as many pictures

as they can.

 

Is there a possibility that the old setup would be applied again?

 

More power to photo.net!

 

renz sevilla

[dougityb]

on the other hand, now that it's harder to trace ratings to their source, many who have in the past refrained from rating less desireable images are now free to do so without fear of unjustified or hypersensitive retaliation. In other words, it's possible that under the new system, members are more free to rate images they don't like, where as under the old system, this meant hurting feelings (low ratings for trash work) at the risk of being retaliated.

 

There's a widespread misconception that any low rating is an abusive ratings. It just could be that someone thinks the image is poor, or has serious fault.

[absinthe]

How many times are you going to post the same post?

[nikos]

<i>Because they know that they can <b>get away with poor rating</b>/no comment critiquing.</i>

<p>

What exactly do you mean when you say this?

<p>

What is this horrible fate that they can now evade, and which was previously certain if you could see the ratings?

<p>

As far as I know, the administrators, abuse department and automated abusive-rating-pattern detactor systems can still see who rated what. And they do whatever they always did to deal with ratings abuse.

<p>

The only difference now is that you cannot see who gave you a specific rating under your photos. What is it that you used to do before to people who rated you low? What is it that they are 'getting away with' now? And why is that thing valuable and worth keeping?

<p>

Please elaborate... tell us, it's really interesting, and very revealing I must say.

[vincetylor]

"Because they know that they can get away with poor rating/no comment critiquing. "

 

Nikos, what he means is that people CAN lowball and not be as accountable. In other words, there are people that are not sincere when handing out lower ratings. When 50 people rate an image an average of 6 and a few rate it perhaps a 2-4, it is obviously possible to be sincere when doing so. However, just like insincere mate-rating can be an issue, so can insincere lowballing. I remember Brian saying something about when they made the ratings public three years ago...never mind here I'll just post it.

 

Brian Mottershead , jul 03, 2004; 04:02 p.m.

"Although probably turning it back on at whim would be quite amusing to watch. As I recall it was pretty amusing when the rating identities were first exposed about 3 years ago. The initial reaction was kind of shock. Then a couple of days later, an edit-your-ratings feature was introduced, and there was a big scramble by people to remove the 1/1 etc ratings that they had secretly (they thought) been dumping on their rivals' photos."

 

While I found this comment to be quite amusing, it also makes Renz point rather clear. People DO lowball. Now with ratings anonymous, it just means they have some place to hide. Before, we knew who they were and what they rated. So if there was lowballing, it could easily be exposed. His point is valid in my opinion.

[vincetylor]

Renz, two things to keep in mind. One is that this is an experiment. IF it proves to be a better way, then it will become permanent. And two: Brian has stated several times that very likely they will turn the identities BACK ON every once in a while, one day per week or one week per month etc.. So I'd just not worry about the ratings too much right now. Just my opinion.

[peter_smirnoff]

Nikos Moraitakis wrote: "...What is it that you used to do before to people who rated you low? What is it that they are 'getting away with' now?.."

 

I've seen that happen. You rate someone "lower" than their assumed average and they would: (a) post abusive comments to some or all of your images; (b) rate a dozen of your images even lower; © keep abusing you.

[james_oneill]

Before there were a lot of people who got upset when you said anything was average or less. 3s and 4s are not abuse.

 

What you seem to be saying is "before, when someone gave me a 3 I could go and abuse them, but now I can't". A change for the better I would have said.

 

the reverse also applies before when someone gave you a 7 you might have felt obliged to go and be nice to their pictures.

 

That said, I liked to track who had given which scores to my pictures. If someone low scored me I liked to see what they did like. I regret the passing of that.

[louis1]

If you want to you can enter the rating you gave with the comment.

[mottershead]

Your basic factual statement that the ratio of uncommented to commented low ratings has increased is FALSE. I don't know what you are basing this on. Like most blanket statements about the photo.net rating system, it is probably based on your own biased and selective observations.

 

The relative number of 1 and 2 ratings has stayed the same, which isn't surprising since they were previously a tiny fraction of the ratings, and still are. The relative number of 3 and 4 ratings has increased at the expense of 5-7 ratings, and the overall average rating has dropped by about half a point already. I consider that to be good. The ratio of commented to uncommented 3 ratings has stayed the same, but you are probably getting more 3 ratings than previously, both commented and uncommented. But you tend to focus on the uncommented ones. You jump from a few selective observations in your own case to a conclusion about a global site trend. This is typical, but wrong. The tendency for people to make sweeping false generalizations from a few, usually selective, data points is one reason I despise most discussions in this forum about the rating system.

 

Anyway, I don't know how you can tell which comments/people go with which ratings, unless you are sitting at your computer all day long watching the ratings come in one by one. My answer to that is: I am sorry that photo.net is destroying your normal life. That isn't the intent of the site.

[renzsevilla]

Brian, if anybody thinks anyone really sit in front of the computer all day and monitor each rater as to how much they rate the critique request, would he be raising any inquiry? I just raised the question as to the possibility of bringing back the old setup. It's as simple as that and it does not intend to evoke fret or sarcasm from anybody. I don't see anything offending about my inquiry, is there? Honestly, I feel good if somebody rate my request high and the opposite when it's rated low. But that is not the primary reason for raising this issue. In fact, i am just a hobbyist and i cannot say that i am really good at it that. I depend more on the comment (no matter how negative it is) rather than the ratings. Rating is just a two-button procedure, if someone likes the picture, he may simply rate it high. But if he thinks he doesn't like it, you are free to rate it low. But if does not serve the purpose if you leave it uncommented.

 

My inquiry has been addressed already by other respondent and i understand that it's an experimentation. What is this forum for if we will address issues with sarcasm. Let's be civil.

[mottershead]

Sarcasm is intentionally hurtful speech. What I did in my post was to strongly contradict you, and furthermore, I said that the basis for your observation was most likely generalization from a few selected data points, which is typical. If you are feeling hurt by being contradicted and having the validity of your logic questioned, that was not my intention.

[andrew_coker]

It's possible to see how many low ratings a member gives out. I have been the victim of a retribution in the past - it's very interesting to see that the person involved has given out a disproportionately high number of 1,1 ratings in the past.

[peter_daalder]

...was changing the default view of the Gallery to be based on a 3-day time span. It is great to feel either elated, or hurt, for only a relatively short period of time... Always remember that about 99.9999+ percent of the human population doesn't visit the photo.net Gallery.<br> Boy, have I gotten some enjoyment out of that statement!Next...

[erin_____grasshopper__rice]

Peter: We need to think up a new subject to rant about... Waddya think? We'll get Doug and Phil in on it... get some beer and pizza.. Hell, Brian- you can come too! We could come up with something totally off the wall.

[renzsevilla]

Just received your email today telling me that you deleted my thread to the forum. It seems that you are one of the authors of the new setup. Honestly, Brian, I was not offended in any way. No life was ruined at all. I was just surprised by how the inquiry was addressed. The forum is for suggestions and concerns which deserves positive action or response. My inquiry only intends to suggest and not question the integrity of the site. The latter's very far from reality.

 

On the contrary, the new setup has brilliant advantages. Yet, (again, in my humble opinion) I think some of the aspects need some modification. I understand that Photo.net suggests to raters to be considerate enough to give comments for low ratings. So that the ihquirer would know what and how to improve their works. Whoever conceptualize that statement thought of the right thing.

 

Frankly, i myself untintentionally had given poor rating without comment when i was new to the site and the inquirer confronted me for such using terms like "foolish and idiotic" (perhaps such action/words deserve sarcastic response more than my inquiry). And i really learned from it. So you see, it is not as bad as it looks. Sometimes, getting the rater's attention for doing so makes some of us more responsible.

 

I do not demand to bring the old setup (no subscriber has the position to do that). I am just asking for the possibility of bring it back. If there ain't so, it's alright.

 

Thanks for hearing my opinion.

[mottershead]

Renz: you see, I just have a different model of how the ideal Gallery participant behaves.

 

First, he or she uploads photos that are beautiful, original, and interesting enough to prompt discussion. Alternatively, he or she uploads photos that are basically good but fall short of great in some interesting way that prompts a discussion.

 

Second, he or she has enough expertise, critical ability, and writing skill in English to be able to write a few well-thought-out, well-written commentaties per session on why great photos are great, on the balance of pluses and minuses in photos that are nearly great, and pointing out the good and bad features on photos where the commenter has a different view than what has been expressed by the other commenters and/or by the ratings. These comments would ideally be written on photos that don't already have many comments.

 

Third, he or she spends about 20 minutes per session rating between 40 and 60 photos, without comment. The rating should be done using the Photocritique UI, rating every photo, with no skips. The ratings should be as consistent as possible considering that the rater is spending about 20 to 30 seconds per photo, without any attention paid to the names of the photographers.

 

IN other words, people should spend their "commenting time" writing longish, balanced, comments on photos that warrant comment, where the photographer will learn something from the comment, and which will interest other people who might read the comments. And they should spend their "rating time" trying to get through a fairly large number of photos and putting a rating on them, as consistently as possible, without being burdened by any obligation to write short comments.

 

That is how my ideal participant would behave; of course, nobody I know of conforms to this ideal, I didn't myself when I was participating. For one thing, it is too much like work, and anyway, why should anyone conform his behaviour to my "ideal". People will do what they want to do.

 

But in terms of changing the systems of the Gallery to nudge people towards particular behaviours, it would be towards this ideal. Contrary to what 99% of the Gallery photographers say they want in this forum -- which is comments with ratings, especially the low ratings, the guy operating the "store" would actually encourage people not to waste time writing a short comment to accompany every rating, but to give MORE ratings with no comments, without bothering with writing short throw-away comments, even on the photos rated low. And then pick a few photos on which he or she feels qualified to comment and which seem to merit comment, and to spend some time writing a good comment.

 

This way, every photo would get a significant number of ratings. And most of those photos about which there is something useful to say would get a couple of interesting one paragraph or longer comments, rather than the strings of one-line guest book style "Nice" comments that many photos get today -- comments that are basically polite social noise, but which hardly do anything to illuminate anyone, and which are often written on photos that aren't even all that "nice". You only need one or two well-written, balanced comments per photo for the distribution of ratings to be explained for the photogapher. All the one-line "me too" comments are really just social glue, which might help the "community" of the site but which don't illuminate anything, and are extremely tedious to read except, perhaps, for the recipient.

 

Only one of the several people who rated a photo with a 3 because of some fault actually needs to mention the fault for the photographer to understand all the 3 ratings (assuming he had not noticed the fault himself.) It doesn't make sense for every single 3 rater to be slowed down or deterred from rating the photo to have to stop and write "out of focus", "blown highlights", "boring", or whatever.

[nikos]

<i>That is how my ideal participant would behave; of course, nobody I know of conforms to this ideal</i>

<p>

Not quite. What you described is almost what I do every day. I spend about 20-30 minutes with the rating interface, then occasionally I write a comment on two wherever I have something other than 'wow' to say.

<p>

<i>For one thing, it is too much like work</i>

<p>

Coming to think of it, it is very much like work. Should I send the invoice to Photo.net or you personnaly Brian?

<p>

[renzsevilla]

I agree and admire your concept of "ideal". Perhaps everybody hopes for that traits in any system.

 

Regarding the first, it is very true. A person upload photos which he thinks is beautiful and interesting. People may see it as so yet it may look the other way around to others. In my case, sometimes i experiment on my photos as to the tone, the cropping, etc to create an ideal photo. And sometimes, i realize my faults from the comments of the raters. Reality check helps. In my observation, people who rate and comment a certain genre are those who are also into such style. So whenever i get negative comments, i check on their works to concretely see what the means through such examples.

 

Regarding second, I also agree that this is ideal. But from simple "guest book" words like "grainy", "pixelated", "poor tone", "crop the...", "blurred", "defocused", "contrasty", the person's lack/poor writing skills in English can be compensated. It's more than enough for the inquirer to understand what they mean and go over the work.

 

As for the third, i presume most of the subscribers overqualify to this criterion. Regardless of how fast or slow their pc's are.

 

"But in terms of changing the systems of the Gallery to nudge people towards particular behaviours, it would be towards this ideal."

 

This is one of the great advantages that i was mentioning in my last notes. The first time i encountered the new setup, the first thing that came to my mind was that it was a move to resolve the something like preventing frequent cases of requester-rater arguments.

 

I hope for and believe in such ideals. Let forget about my inquiry. Let's start rating the photos.

[nikos]

Here's your ideal participant:

 

Nestor Botta

http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=320351