banish the 1/1 rating

[spaghetti_western]

"...hey brian... be a leader..."

 

forget it ben. neither brian nor the 'spinal tap' crew of wallnuts (sic) is prepared to even comprehend the easiest of adaptions to implement that could improve the site. no need to bother with explanations cuz they wont comprehend

[bens]

. . . give them the benefit of the doubt, they deal with many, many things that we as posters/critiquers don't even consider. the site's not perfect, if i were king for a day you know i'd make alot of changes, but all we can do is suggest, prod, encourage; the bottom line is, is it worthwhile to participate, and if it is, let's enjoy it. i think it is. come virtually visit, stay a spell, then invite me over; that's what this is largely about in the end anyway. take care, keep up the good fight! ben

[jbq]

I still don't see how you "improve" the site by changing the value of the lowest possible rating, or having two different lowest possible ratings. You still have a lowest possible rating (or several), and there's nothing to do against that except removing the rating system entirely, which definitely wouldn't improve the site.

[bobatkins]

I think photo.net should be working on a random comment generator for those people who have a vocabulary limit to "crap" and "wonderful". With one click of the mouse you could generate erudite comments guaranteed to flatter (or crush) any photographer.

<p>

Stuff like <em>"The munificence of your image made my earlobes pulse with excitement"</em> or maybe <em>"I was transmogrified by your eclectic vision"</em>.

<p>

As for ratings, well, maybe some people would prefer to live in Lake Wobegon, where "all the children are above averge". On photo.net perhaps all images should be above average?

[bens]

jean-baptiste, if you were referring to my comment in this thread, i've made many suggestions in the past, feel free to look through my folder if you'd like for them.

 

bob, i didn't know you wrote photo feedback comments! wonderful!

[george ewald]

I may be a little off track here, but I don't pay much attention to the ratings. I have not been doing photography all these years in order to collect points on Photo Net. What I do care about are the comments. I would rather have no points at all in this system, and encourage everyone to leave comments.

[root]

I don't think anyone can offer any evidence that a 1/1 was ever given based on the merits - or lack thereof - of the image. We know that many, if not most, are given for reasons having nothing to do with the image, so the onus is on you to show that they aren't ALL bogus.

 

First agree they're BS, then we'll decide what to do with them.

[root]

. . . and no one is saying there aren't any images deserving of a 1/1. It's just that they are all ignored and the 1/1s are applied to other images for other reasons.

 

There is no need to rate ANY image unless it has some reasonable chance of getting high visbility vis-a-vis the TRP.

 

Why is this so hard to understand?

[mottershead]

Actually 1's are about 1% of the ratings, and then my robot deletes most of them. Same thing with 2's. The only 1's and 2's that remain after about 24 hours are from people who have a beautiful normal ratings distribution. Any 1 or 2 from someone who looks too over-eager to give them: whack!

[root]

I'll say it again, Brian. There are people who know all about your - dare I say it - obsession with a beautiful ratings curve and make sure that they offer a sufficient number of suitable ratings to make sure that their nasty 1s and 2s look OK to your ratings model. The Polish 'scissors man' is only the most obvious example.

 

What do I base this assumption on?

 

Timing. . . . something your database doesn't recognize.

[jbq]

Ben: actually, that was a response to Mr. Western.

 

I tried to think of other solutions, e.g. averaging the ratings given by a certain person against a predefined average and standard distribution, but then I realized that this could be abused very easily as well.

[WJT]

Carl...I think that would be Polish Razor man. Regards.

[bobatkins]

I think we're on the wrong track. We should learn from Homeland Security who, after exhaustive research, concluded that color schemes were far more intelligible by the public than Numbers. I therefore propose the following color scheme in place of numbers:

 

<ul>

<li>Dark Chocolate - replaces "1"

<li>Mud - replaces "2"

<li>Puce - replaces "3"

<li>Pink - replaces "4"

<li>Peach - replaces "5"

<li>Scarlet - replaces "6"

<li>Crimson - replaces "7"

</ul>

This would be far less offensive than numbers. Who is going to complain about a double Dark Chocolate rating?

[knicki____]

Bob, I'm ok with the dark chocolate but puce? I think not.

 

What if we decided the 1 and the 1/1 didnt really mean all that much to us? Then wouldnt the 1/1'ers be defeated. Isnt this all their purpose? 7 out of 10 times someone will rate higher to offset the 1/1 by someone else to make up for the lower rate.

[ky2]

Actually, there was once a photo.net feature that had the perfect answer to this rating fiasco. We had rating circles, where solid people with a respectable mind (and site-record) rated submissions. Why has that evaporated? Can we put it back? Bob/Brian?

[james_oneill]

Why not catch 1/1 ratings when posted and ask the rater to enter an explanation for the moderators so that when the photographer mails "abuse" they can have an explanation ... actually the system could auto respond to a mail to abuse from the photographer by mailing them the explanation, hence giving something similar to the requirement to post a comment with a 1/1 we used to have.

[joe604]

My 7-year-old daughter came running up to me excitedly, "Daddy, Daddy! Is my picture good?"

 

I gave her the constructive criticism she needed, "No, Sweetheart. It's awful. I took you to the museum last week so you would know what great art looks like, and compared to that, your picture is awful. Sure, it's better than most of your classmates, but if I'm not completely honest, you won't learn to do better."

 

"That's okay, Daddy, drawing isn't fun anymore."

 

No, that didn't happen.

 

Anyone who is tempted to click the 1-rating button needs to do some serious introspection. There is no reason to ever rate a picture as awful -- even if it is truly awful -- at least I cannot think of any legitimate scenario.

 

If the picture is not awful but the photographer is someone you don't like, then a 1 rating is mean.

 

If the picture is awful and the photographer is simply trolling, then a 1 rating only encourages him.

 

If the picture is awful and the photographer is a novice, then the 1 rating is cruel. A 1 rating is not constructive criticism. If you won't give constructive criticism in words then simply move on!

 

So, if there is no legitimate reason to ever click the 1-rating button, then why have it there only to tempt the anonymous mean-spirited?

 

Deleting the 1-rating button does not change the scale, as "spaghetti western" points out. The average ratings for most pictures would be unaffected because they do not get 1 ratings. The absence of a 1-rating button should have no impact on the photos that are contenders for Top Rated Photos recognition.

 

Replace the 1-rating button with a reminder to use the Comments for that kind of feedback.

[paula grenside]

I see that the low-rating question is back. I myself asked, short ago, whether it was possible to "force" the low-raters to post a comment with their 1/1, 2/2. I was rightly answered that the figures would be replaced, or accompanied by: double shit, shit, crap, super crap, etc. Unluckily it is true.

 

But what if at least the raters <b> who don't expose any photo of theirs for critique</b> weren't allowed to rate? What's the purpose to come here and low rate the others' with no possibility for the recipient to see what these gods of photography can produce? A few check I did out of curiosity showed a good percentage of 1/1, 2/2 raters refers to the non-displayers.

 

Of course there are also low-raters who expose their work and, though I don't agree on slamming a photo without explanation, at least they are showing what they can do and their standard ( according to them.

 

This would not solve the problem but would eliminate free lance snipers.

[paula grenside]

Hi Spaghetti, have you deleted all your photos? Come on, this will only increase the delight of low-raters. Put them back.

[cenelsonfoto]

I think the rating system should be further refined to allow votes of say, 1.02654785424, you know, in the event that 1 is too harsh but 2 would be more encouragement than necessary.

 

Of course, this would apply to most of my own work.

 

;)

[christos]

It is obvious that the issue calls for the re-introduction of - d u e l - in our society or at least this site... As our moral standards and precious values increasingly erode by the undermining tactics of low-raters... this is the fine moment to make new rules:

 

Any photographer who feels insulted by a low-rater or not satisfied by the given exlanations should be allowed to call the latter person in a duel... cameras, lenses and main topic might be chosen by the low-rater. I believe this will resolve the issue once and for all...

[spaghetti_western]

a whole lot of prejudice and ignorance displayed in this thread, and a lot stems from the mistaken reading of my question

 

i did not propose to alter the ratings scale, which everyone believes is 1-7. in fact, it is 2-14. check out the TRP rankings to verify this. the only difference is that the system would simply not count the 1/1, 2/1, and 1/2 combinations. mean spirited raters could levy 1/1s to their heart's content, but those rating combos simply wont get counted, and those raters wont dare to complain. see? clean and easy change. no fuss, no muss. and fewer complaints to the abuse dept. even brian admitted that most of those ratings get purged by his bot. my proposal would simply put brian's bot out of biz, and i suppose he'd balk at that :-)

[._._z]

'It's better, you see, as it only goes to 2.'

[cappoldt]

...This one goes to fourteen.....

[mg]

I don't really think banishing 1/1s would make much of a difference, but well...

 

Imo, the main point was raised here by Carl Root: do we or don't we agree, that most 1/1 (or even 1/2 and 2/1) ratings are in fact malicious...? Then indeed we'll see what to do with them.

 

Brian posted in this thread a brilliant piece of humor which showed nicely how silly reasons people may have to use such low ratings, but in a later post, he also wrote this:

 

"Actually 1's are about 1% of the ratings, and then my robot deletes most of them. Same thing with 2's. The only 1's and 2's that remain after about 24 hours are from people who have a beautiful normal ratings distribution. Any 1 or 2 from someone who looks too over-eager to give them: whack!"

 

Questions:

 

1) Please provide us with accurate figures as for the exact percentage of 1/1 and 1/2 or 2/2 ratings that are actually deleted by this robot. I can't tell for sure, but I have seen from the beginning of photo.net times loads of 1/1 ratings which remained "un-deleted" despite the robot - including many on my (now deleted for the most part) photos, including on pictures by Tony Dummett and Emil Schildt.

 

2) "The only 1's and 2's that remain after about 24 hours are from people who have a beautiful normal ratings distribution." This is precisely where I think the robot needs a better brain. What is "a beautiful rating distribution" please ? Nonsense, imo. Once, shortly after the ratings were set back to "semi-anonymous", I received a couple of 1/1s, about 7 to 10 of them, on 5 or 6 different pictures (now deleted as well. I had a fairly strong suspicion as for who this 1/1 rater was - somebody who has already been abusive on many occasions on this site, somebody who has one of the most serious mate-rating track records around, etc. I check this person's rating distribution on the site, noticed he had only submitted 4 times a "1" rating in O, and the same in A. After 2 weeks, I checked again, and it was still the same. Then I deleted 3 or 4 of my pictures rated 1/1s a couple of times each, and immediately noticed that there was only a single O1 and A1 rating left in this person's "ideal" rating distribution.

 

Meaning...? Well, all of this person's 1/1s on this site were ALL awarded to me, and yet, the robot saw it as a normal thing - I suppose - since the ratings had remained for about 2 or perhaps 3 weeks...:-)

 

Wanna tell me again how great this robot works...?

 

"Any 1 or 2 from someone who looks too over-eager to give them: whack!"

 

This sentence is just plain wrong from my point of view - although it certainly depends on what one would call "over-eager" to give multiple low ratings...

 

Another example: Is someone who joins the site today and rates about 30 pictures on the site, including 14 pix by Mr. X with an average rating of 2.5 or so an abuser ? Yes or no ? And what if he never logs on to the site after that...? Would the robot kill those ratings nowadays...? Last time, even the abuse department wouldn't do a thing about it - that's for sure...

 

I think the anti-abuse squad at photo.net really needs to take a good sincere look at itself in the mirror, and to finally admit "nope, we are not doing the best we can to limit abuse to the minimum"...

 

But then again, I am convinced the abuse department is not spending much time and effort to fight abuse for 2 fairly good reasons:

 

a) For as long as people will be able to create fake IDs, it seems QUITE pointless to delete abusive ratings... (NOT COMPLETELY pointless though...)

 

b) There are more important things to do (at least in the management's opinion), and ratings are of course less important to most of us than photography.

 

Still, as it is, the site's TRP are a joke, and many people get annoyed by repeated abuse and silly harrassments... Which certainly is a very sad aspect of this community.

 

I'll join Ben S once again in requesting a serious discussion with Brian and other admins in order to stop the rating folly on photo.net - hoping for a way to get more constructive feedback and less abuse on the site.