Mate Rating: A different angle

[vincetylor]

"You are bloody right here, Carl...:-) I have had dozen of times people going through my folders with average ratings as low as 2.XX and such. :-) And many times, indeed, these ratings (which I assume, perhaps wrongly, that they were abusive) remained. BUT... Lately, I saw that many abusive ratings were deleted on the site - and on my pages as well... " Marc G.

 

 

Sir Marco, why is it that if somebody rates your images "two points lower" than the current averages they are what you called "abusive ratings", yet if you do the very same thing to others they are "honest ratings?? Although in fact now, you are not even saying that, but in reality have admitted trying to "demote them" or arrange to "your liking".

 

A grand case of hypocrisy perhaps??

[laurie_m]

Marc,

 

In response to my post, you state "Nobody needs to balance anything. Just rate a picture for what you think it's worth. It's THAT simple."

 

In my post, I stated "It looks to me that the only sensible approach, considering the variables out of our control, is to rate honestly, if at all, and forget the TRP"

 

I don't see an argument here (not looking for one either) :)

 

I have read older threads (several months ago so I don't have links) where some of what I think was called the "balance brigade" commented that the mate raters had gotten together and were posting more high rates to offset the balance rates and were also posting retaliation rates.

 

I haven't the time to do the research myself. Perhaps I shouldn't have believed the comments that were posted in the old threads. Either way....my opinion is if I rate an image, even an over rated one, I'll give it a rate based on my reaction to the image not the other rates that have already been posted. Mostly, I will probably comment instead of rating since everyone seems to have a different take on the rating scale despite the definitions posted by PN.

 

On that note, I'll step out of this discussion and let you guys continue your battle.

[vincetylor]

Laurie, I believe many would agree with your comments here. This is the problem that seems to go on and on. Marc is not the problem in my opinion. However, I think many of us can agree that lowballing (his way of handling the issues) is not the solution either, but in the end only complicates everything.

 

The solution lies in the lap of Brian. Either he will find a more meaningful solution or many of us will just move on to something better. It's old and boring for anybody to read these same old complaints. When something was being done a couple weeks back, we felt a measure of relief, because at least it was being addressed. Now, with everything seemingly back to where it just was (minus a few HONEST ratings) the frustration levels are coming back as well.

 

Who needs it. It's Brian's problem and unless it bites him directly on the fanny, there appears no urgency to do anything substantial. So the question is, why should we care, if he's fine with it??

 

Another waste of my morning...

 

 

To stay out of the forums, I need to not read the forums either.

[mg]

"So to "rearrange the ratings to YOUR LIKING" (in your own words Marc) you are in fact manipulating the system to a large degree. You should rate each image according the the value of THAT particular image itself and NOT according to where you believe they belong."

<p>

You are so blinded by your own silly assumptions, that you can't even comprehend a single thing. Here is what you are suppose to understand - assuming you get a brain later...

<p>

Rating "each image according to the value of THAT particular image" is exactly what I always did, and this is NOT INCOMPATIBLE with the fact that I chose to also rate the pictures I disliked and rated them in order to demote them. Get it, now...? This was your last lesson, hopefully...:-)

[mg]

Rating an image you dislike with a 3 or a 2 or an image you find average (4) with a 4, is by no means abuse, although ANY such rating by anyone will always demote a picture which had an average of 6 or so. Anyone rating any picture a 4 KNOWS HE'S DEMOTING SUCH A PICTURE: that does not make him an abuser.

<p>

Now pack your bags and get that brain home, will you...? :-)

[root]

" . . . you surely must know that your opinion on my using a filter on an image carries very little value."

 

Really? Why not? I actually like landscape shots and have some opinions about them that are shared by quite a few photographers who understand this genre quite well. It sounds to me like you are guilty of exactly what I said earlier. You've bought this whole TRP thing hook line and sinker without daring to look too closely at the analysis that supports the conclusions that various people have reached . . . . . unless they disagree with you.

 

"I do believe one can benefit from such a tool designed for photographers. I do not use one all of the time, but often will shoot with and without from any given location. It just so happens as you gain experience, the images with one applied correctly are often (not always) aesthetically more appealing."

 

Obviously you believe that or you wouldn't continue to use them. What you're doing is using the postcard market as the ultimate judge of aesthetics, ie if it sells, it's good. There are other benchmarks that I consider more useful (not that I expect you to embrace them given your financial involvement.)

 

 

On the subject of the balance brigade, it is not at all clear from what Doug said that his rates were dishonest, although he clearly allows for the possibility that the motive for rating the most popular images on the TRP could be less than pure. He did not say that the rates he gave to those images were in fact less than what he would have given had they not been given such visibility. There's a difference. You seem to be implying that the act of rating established images even though we may not like them is dishonest. There is actually some truth to that, which is why NO ONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO RATE TRP IMAGES - PERIOD. You rate RFC images off the queue in the order they come up without skipping.

 

There's plenty of smelly socks to go around, Vincent. My reason for inserting myself into this argument is to try to get across the idea that it is virtually impossible to rate images in a completely objective way, given the current dynamics of the TRP sort and, most importantly, given the complete freedom to rate whomever we want with virtually no constraints. You want to separate your thousands of high rates given from those who, in your opinion, somehow have more sinister designs on their own visibility than you do. I think you're kidding yourself.

[root]

I see Marc just made exactly the same point regarding "downrating" TRP images with an honest lower rate. The fact that many others share your views only reinforces mine regarding the whole rating process.

[vincetylor]

Sorry Marc, my brain may need help that is true, but I'll pass on help from you. Blinder leading the blind...

 

Your ratings were not sincere then and because you have stated your true motivations here above for all to see, they certainly are not sincere today. Case closed. Enjoy lowballing and most importantly, have fun at it! I am sure the retaliations from those lowballed will be even more fun for you. Aloha

[mg]

You quote me saying to Carl "I have had dozen of times people going through my folders with average ratings as low as 2.XX and such. :-) And many times, indeed, these ratings (which I assume, perhaps wrongly, that they were abusive) remained".

<p>

First, please note that quantities (28, I think) of ratings averaging 2.5 is really MUCH lower than I ever rated even the worst folders by the photographers whose work I really disliked. Now...

<p>

Secondly you ask: "why is it that if somebody rates your images "two points lower" than the current averages they are what you called "abusive ratings", yet if you do the very same thing to others they are "honest ratings??"

<p>

Here comes the lesson ofmathematics for you... I have already rated images 1/2, which had averages above 6.2/6.2... Now that'snot two points below their average, but respectively 5.2 and 4.2 points lower than their average. Now again, let's post the pictures here and let's see whether I can defend my opinion, and whether anyone would agree with me, with you, or what...? Are you going to force me to find an example myself...? :-)

<p>

Thirdly, I have a few 1/1s ratings left in my folder - one of which I trust is the only 1/1 left by Mr. I.M. on this site - yes, your mate, sorry. :-) Now... That's not 2 points below the picture's average either... So get your figures straight please...

<p>

4thly... Now... Do I believe this 1/1 on one of my very best images (best imho) is abusive...? YES. Call me an idiot if you like, but my past issues with Mr. I.M. on this site (and my modicum of understanding of photography as well as people's madest likes and dislikes) explain in my view this rating on my "Little Prince".

<p>

Finally, please note, I wrote this, too: "these ratings (which I assume, perhaps wrongly, that they were abusive)". "Perhaps wrongly"... Meaning that if I think a rating is abusive, I am aware it is still VERY difficult to demonstrate that it was an abuse.

<p>

You obviously don't need any demonstration of anything to be 100% sure that you are right and that your pictures and your friends pictures are all very good...

<p>

And then you talk about hypocrisy... yet you are or at least have been 75% of a mate-rater yourself, and still, you shout now now after your own kind...:-) Let's all laugh about it and close this discussion - which was probably yet another waste of time trying to make you understand a few basic things that your logic can't seem to start understanding... See Ya.

<p>

Note to photo.net's administration: this is what happens on a web site when the terms of use are not respected and when ad hominem attacks are not removed on time... You end up with silly verbal battles.

[vincetylor]

Carl, why do I place little value on your "I believe using a sunset filter is tacky" comment?? Well for one thing that is just your opinion. For another, the word "tacky" certainly does not even make sense here. I also DO take and post images without any such filters, take a look. The way you approached the subject was not in a sincere manner quite frankly, rather you were trying to incite/flame etc. Which didn't work because I know you and know how you operate. But the greatest reason I hold your opinion on this subject in very little regard, is because you have very little expertise in this type of shooting. Sorry if this may not be what you want to hear, but you asked me a direct question. There are no such worthy images in your folders.

 

"What you're doing is using the postcard market as the ultimate judge of aesthetics, ie if it sells, it's good. There are other benchmarks that I consider more useful (not that I expect you to embrace them given your financial involvement.)

 

This comment makes little sense, in fact is quite the oxymoron. The fact that I use these images solely for my living is what dictates which images will be used, how they are used and at times how they are created. I know how to take an image that will be appreciated by purists to the craft of photography. But i also know from experience that the public does have a different taste. By recognizing these differences Carl, I am able to do this for a living. This and only this. If I hope to continue down this road for the rest of my years on this earth, then yes, the *buying public* offers the pulse I am most interested in. For what it's worth, I am still looking to improve my craft every day and have a very diversified portfolio. Just have yet to post some of my more recent work. Life is busy. Too busy for this, which is why I will have to just stay out of the forums altogether.

 

Marco,

 

You can always point to one image here and there to support your claims of honest ratings. How nice of you. The fact you have gone into ENTIRE FOLDERS trying to as you put it to "Re-arrange the ratings to my liking" or "indeed to demote them" as well as the fact your averages to those *select* or better yet *targeted* individuals are significantly lower than YOUR OWN RATINGS average. Coupled with your confessed "The story about Mr Toussaint... If I remember it properly - and I do, more or less - Vincent's story is roughly correct" that your numbers fluctuated greatly because he was then on that page and you wanted to bring him down, only proves the case again and again that your ratings have not been honest. Sorry if this is a revelation to you.

 

Yes, sure, lets end this boring waste of time discussion. But facts are facts and your lowballing tactics are not what the site needs. To get up on the stage and tell the site how many people have lowballed you with abusive ratings, while at the same time knowing you have been, and still are doing the same, should warrant you a trip into the Photo.net Hall of Shame!

 

May I be your inductor??

[akochanowski]

Marc, old boy, I thought I'd seen you at your most charming when you were getting banned from PhotoSIG for (here's a surprise) rating down "undeserving" photographers who had too much success from the silly masses, but you're outdoing yourself today! I'm gonna grab me a bucket of popcorn and sit back to watch Mt.Gougenheimius blow tonite! It may be an annual event, but like a good lunar eclipse it's still fun to watch.

[vincetylor]

Banned from Photosig too?? I never knew that. I was at Usefilm when he was banned from their as well for the same egotistical reasons. Guess now we know why he keeps coming back here, nowhere else to go...

[mg]

Just to set the records straight afterall these lies...

<p>

1) I was not banned from Psig for the reasons Kocha stated above. There are only 2 people who know the reasons: Willis Boyce and myself. The only fact you might have known of is that I removed all my pictures from Psig a week or so before I got banned. The actual reason for the ban was an email exchange you never got to read. Yet another way to distort the truth.

<p>

2) Usefim...? Same story, exactly.

<p>

P.S: Lucky you, I might soon be banned from photo.net as well, because I'm right now opening a thread asking the management why libel/defamation, and ad hominem harassment are now permitted on photo.net's feedback forum. By the way, this is exactly what triggered my deletion of pictures on Psig, and the subsequent ban. I have absolutely no respects for people like you Kocha or you, Vincent, who manipulate the truth for the sake of their personal agendas. Over and out.

[vincetylor]

Well, when one gets banned in two separate photo websites, and then his visits here gets compared to "a pair of smelly socks" by the guy that runs the place, the common denominator in all three is who??

 

You just had to show up here tooting your horn. I warned and warned you to let the hatchet remain buried. Just couldn't let it go could you Marco?? Just had to come over here using both six shooters at once. Giuess you might want to aim before shooting next time. The foot is always the likely target otherwise.

 

Wish you well.

[akochanowski]

Hey Monsieur Magnificent, I am getting the world's smallest violin right now to accompany you on your effort to have management have sympathy for you. Surely the thought that you might depart (again) (or is it again and again and again), leaving PN without your daily dose of logorrhea will be enough to send Brian to his knees crying "Oh God, dear God, why did you forsake me?"

[akochanowski]

oh, and you can spin your getting banned from PSIG as a matter of some deep, dark philosophical exchange known to only two people (did you have a secret handshake too?), but I saw it, and it was nothing more than you throwing hissy after hissy when you saw photographers you thought had less talent than you getting higher scores than you. Management had enough of your incessant complaining about ratings-- theirs and yours-- in the forums and you leaving snarky comments on their photos and threw you out. Hmmm...

[howard_foto]

seems to me quite reasonable that if one were truly serious about rating images under a broken system that elevates, by hook or by crook, popular genre images, that one would go about it much in the way that Marc G does, provided that the rater is true to his own tastes and system of rating images generally. and I don't think it matters whether he applies those ratings to the critique queue or to the TRP pages or to particular portfolios, provided that those ratings are generally consistent as aforementioned. if the system permits that, then it is valid, even if that system is broken, bankrupt, corrupted, or whatever. makes me glad I don't involve myself with ratings, dirty biz and all.

 

that said, however, the moment you put yourself totally "out there", Marc, as the don quixote of a photo website, you cannot be surprised or chagrined when others call you on your public behavior, especially if you have positioned yourself as a "public figure" on this (and apparently on other photo) website(s). such "attacks" are NOT ad hominem, since it is not you, Marc, who is being attacked in order to sway others to one side of an issue argument that you may be a participant (the definition of "ad hominem" is a personal attack to advance an argument!), but rather that it seems you are quite simply disagreeable to others regardless of whether they agree or disagree with you on a particular issue. how do I know this? because recently I took a detour down that same sort of silly road (in this thread and one or two others) and people called me on my behavior while ignoring the positions I raised. so I backed off and put out the blaze rather than relight the fire.

[beepy]

Wow.

[akochanowski]

Oh Markie, I know this thread is like a sore bunion for you, 'cause you've been whining almost non-stop for two weeks about the injustice of it all "verbal abuse" and all.... boo hoo.

 

By the way, smart boy, it ain't "verbal" since it's written, and it ain't "abuse" since it's true. I am really enjoying your frustration, though, Lord knows I can't deny it.