Names Back Beside Ratings

[sammm]

I like Vincent's idea of putting names in order by time instead of alphabetically.

 

Thanks, I like seeing the ratings again. Among other things, it really helps to know whether I'm getting a 5/5 from someone who rates an average of 4/4 or a 6/6 from someone who rates on average at 6.2/6.2 - I am usually much happier with the 5/5!

[maurik]

Wow Brian, pretty quick fix of that glitch. Now I do indeed only see the direct ratings and then the average of the anonymous Rate Recent ones. Excellent. This also tells me exacty how way far down the "Rate Recent Sum" page I should look for my photo :-)...

[WJT]

The return of accountable ratings is a welcome sight. <n>Thank you Brian!</b> I would prefer to have ALL ratings visible, but this is a good first step. <p>

The second step should be to remove members who <i>continue</i> to rate abusively. The following rating distribution is from one such non-paying member as of today:<p>

 

<center><b>Ratings Given</b></center><p>

<center> 1 2 3 4 5 6 7</center><p>

<center><i><b>O</b></i> 0 0 0 0 0 1 215</center><p>

<center><i><b>A</b></i> 0 0 0 0 0 0 216</center><p>

Only a few weeks ago you removed all of her ratings because of her abusive practices. As you can see, she is right back to the same old abusive behavior. <p>

This is only one of several members who continue to rate this way inspite of your best efforts. Brian, you need to curtail this kind of rating behavior for this site to become credible once again.<p>

And changing the default Gallery view to RR-Average would be more fair. Regards.

[kathywilson]

Could someone explain this?

On the details view I have:

7 ratings, Aesthetics: 4.29/7 Originality: 3.86/7

 

On the breakdown it says:

Summary of ratings Aesth Orig Ratings

5/4 |1 -----

6/5 |2

 

 

There were also 3 anonymous raters who rated the photo in the "Rate Recent Photos" feature, with an average score of 5.67 for Aesthetics, and 4.67 for Originality. Only the anonymous ratings in the Rate Recent feature are used in some of the Top Rated Photos rankings.

 

And earlier this morning there were names next to all of the rates, and all of the rates were shown. Now? No names, and only some of the rates. And the average doesn't seem to be right for either set - the ones that were direct, or the ones that were anonymous. What gives?

[mottershead]

Walter, just because the ratings are visible does not mean that they are counted anywhere. Ratings with a pattern like you show have almost certainly been disqualified. The only thing ratings like that would be good for would be to make the recipients feel good and to put the photos on the Favorites page of the rater. Also a hundred or so accounts with high numbers of sevens are currently suspended from photo rating, although they are not banned and are able to participate in other aspects of the site, such as commenting.

[tom_henkel]

Let's hope the greater levels of anonymity in the RR queue will encourage more ratings per photograph. The limited number of ratings has, IMHO, been one of the big failings of the rating system. If your photograph only gets 10 ratings, one 7/7 artifically boosts the average and one 3/3 drags it down. Hence the extremists tend to have a much bigger impact than they deserve. If more ratings were given, the fringe high/low ratings would have much less meaning.

 

One thing I do miss, however, about the now anonymous RR is the ability to go back and look at the photographs posted by the people who rated my work. Respect (or lack thereof) of the work of the rater greatly influences how I feel about the ratings received. I'd feel better with a 3/3 rating from someone who posts great work than a 7/7 rating from someone who is clueless.

[yongbo]

Hi Brian, What is the criterion for ratings to be disqualified? For example, I did give Vincent 2 or 3 pairs of 7s and I believe he deserve that. If he posts more images in the future, can I still rate his work? (From the RFC, I can't tell who the photographer is, that might make all the ratings get disqualified)

[pawel_czapiewski1]

This morning i was able to see the names and numbers given in RR so i was able to identify abusive behavior of several individuals who were among the first to rate. Ratings of some of them changed several times from 3's to 4's than 6's. At the beginning average was below 4. As of now 4 rates on my image are disqualified but i think their behavior influences others and at least for now is counted in average.

I think we shouldn't go to anonymous ratings just yet. All kinds of abuse should be dealt with first. Now when RR names are blacked out again i cannot even tell you who it was.

[kslonaker]

One good thing about having names beside the direct rates is so you can see if someone leaves a comment stating they are rating 6/6 or 7/6, etc., and then they leave a LOWER rate! Why lie? I'm certain that's happened more than once. I have had maybe 3 people do that on one image - say they are rating 7/6, 7/7, and so on and yet when I happen to look at the numbers, maybe there is one 7/6 and the rest are lower. So two people "said" they were rating a certain number, but didn't come through. Not that I care, but again, why lie??? Either don't put the numbers in the comments, don't rate at all, or tell the truth. I can take it if you give me 5/5 or even 4/4 for that matter, if you just give me a clue why.

[mottershead]

Yongbo, sevens are disqualified if you exchange a lot of them with the other person. That is, he gives you sevens and you give him sevens. The logic behind this is that there are two cases where people will exchange sevens. Two excellent photographers might exchange sevens, or two mate-raters might exchange sevens, either dishonestly, or more likely, socially or self-deceptively.

 

Now in the case of two excellent photographers, disqualifying exchanged sevens doesn't matter because the two of them will get good ratings from other people with whom they are not exchanging sevens. There probably won't be any impact on the standing of their photos. In the other case, disqualifying the sevens will lower the ranking of their photos, which is a good thing for the Gallery, although probably not very encouraging to them.

[pawel_czapiewski1]

Big fat thank you to the site administration for dealing promptly with the bots. But some long-term solution should be considered. There were few suggestions in other threads today.

 

 

Kim i spend less time on PN than i used to because of all that eerie tension. Let's hope that recent changes will lead to a solution acceptable by majority of active participants.

[jay_patel]

Brian,<br>

Nice logical explaination for 7/7 cancellation. It may not always be fair, but atleast rational behind it is well explained. <br>

And should I say, that I love to know who rated me my photographs. Some of this is really interesting to see...Thanks.<br>

-Jay

[yongbo]

Brian, if the rating cancellation applies to both 7s and 6s, the ranking will be more accurate. PN should not close the door for anyone; maybe now you can reconsider to let the banned members come back. Some of them are also the victims of the mate rating game. A healthy community is as important as the intelligent system. Thanks again.

[WJT]

I had that happen to me a couple of days ago too. A nice comment but a low rating. It really is sick behavior; such small minds. At least this system will help in that area. Regards.

[jayme]

Brian- I thought when you first changed the rating systen to anonymous, I would like it, but.... I actually prefer all my ratings be known, NOT anonymous. Maybe giving the critiquer the option to be anonymous or not might be a solution. Naw...... just make us all known. That way it makes us all reponsible. Admittedly, when I give a low rating I usually explain why and offer solutions or suggestions for improvement, but sometimes people do retaliate. Just a fact we may all have to live with. That's just a chance you have to take when you decide to critique and rate.

[DuncanBowers]

Brian you said: "The Rate Recent Queue has the last 40 days worth of photos that have been submitted for critique. Currently this is about 28,000 photos. "

 

On the Photo Critique Forum:

Critique Requests

Post a New Request

Recent (Rate) (List) (Browse)

 

What is this Recent (Rate) list then? I clicked on 'Recent (Rate)' and only viewed about 7 or 8 pics before being returned to the Critique Forum Page.

thanks, Duncan

[jay_patel]

Kim,<br>

I agree with you why lie about your feeling....This should help people be honest about the photographs.

[yongbo]

<b>Kim</b>, it's not a surprise. Put the name back, people might spend more time to explain why give that rating. Leave a constructive comment can prevent a lot of things from happening.

[Doug Keller]

I searched this page for the word "POLL"... and didn't find it... so, I'd like to suggest that all of these issues could be better handled with some basic polling software. Then we could all just vote for what we want. Right now, I'm inclined to think that the negative people are running the site... the complainers and hate-raters (or whatever you want to call them). Me? I'd love to have full disclosure of all ratings. Sure, people might retaliate if I rate low, but... who cares? I would see who they were in the list of raters, and ignore them. I mean, I'm already perfectly aware of the quality (or lack thereof) of my photos... I pretty much open them up for critique to SHARE them with others. Doesn't most everyone?? And then, if anyone likes them for whatever reason... we make the occasional online acquaintanceship. :-)

[DuncanBowers]

Douglas, i agree now after a year on the site i have become really less bothered about the ratings; the PN audience has a very narrow beam of the photography it likes; i am much more content in my own work to not take to much notice of the ratings.. now. however that wasn't allways the case and i think te moaners are people who just take it too seriously (like i did for a while) or people with very fragile egos who need to get a life. as such, both need handling with a certain respect fortheir feelings. thus, hide the ratings... anyway i'm off now to give you a few 3/3's - please feel free to revenge me back :)

good luck, happy shooting etc, Duncan

[michael_dimarzio]

Thanks for the change, it's for the better but all ratings should be with a name. All reasons for this have been stated above over and over.

 

I like getting low ratings with a name, not to retaliate (retaliation is for nuclear warfare) but so I can see what the guy that rated me lower does, once I had a decent photo rated 2/2 by a guy that had 1000 pictures of cats, who cares, another low rating was from a guy that had a great portfolio, it was judged fairly and it was good to see where I failed in his opinion. Comments are what we want, and the ratings allow us to have create an easy dialog.

 

I'm late on this comment, but have you noticed that most of the people that have commented on this thread are paying PN supporters?

 

SO, THE PEOPLE THAT ARE PAYING YOUR BILLS DO NOT WANT ANONOYMUS RATING SO MAKE ALL RATER NAMES VISIBLE. Sorry for shouting, we are the paying supporters and this is what we want!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mottershead]

Sorry, subscribers are important to the site, but they are not paying all the bills. Advertising pays for more than half of the site, and advertising is driven by traffic -- which comes mostly from people who are not even members, never mind subscribers.

 

Even if subscribers were paying 100% for the site, what makes you think that your view is the majority view among subscribers? When the ratings are anonymous, there is constant clamour in this forum to make them public. When they are public, there is clamour to make them not so. I can't reach any conclusions from clamour in this forum about what subscribers want because there is always clamour. So how can you?

 

I know that it is irresistible to know who is giving you low ratings, so that you can find a pretext to ignore them, but the honest opinion of someone with a thousand cat pictures in his portfolio is just as useful (or useless) by itself as the rating of the great photographer. Why do you suppose that a cat photographers' taste in whatever genre you do is deficient? Maybe the cat photographer has a better appreciation of how hard it is to get a great photo of cats, and will tend to rate a beautiful cat photo more highly than other people, knowing how difficult it is. But, in the end, we aren't rating the photos on how difficult they were to create. A blurry photo taken from the top of Mount Everest is still a blurry photo, and the mountain scene at the top of Mount Everest isn't so different from the scene at the top of an easier mountain that blurriness doesn't matter.

 

Someone with experience in your genre of photography is more likely to be better at analyzing *why* a photo in that genre is successful or not. But, assuming that the person is articulate in English, that would come through in a comment, not a rating.

 

It does not take an expert photographer, or even a photographer, to see if a photograph succeeds, or not. I have no statistical evidence, in fact, that highly-rated photographers on this site rate any differently than anybody else. If there is a difference, it is that they rate higher, and that their high ratings are due in part to that.

 

If you want to treat the ratings as input, I suggest that you look at the averages, because an individual rating, whether from a cat photographer or someone you consider a good photographer, is almost meaningless. I'd like to make all the ratings anonymous because I think people shouldn't pay any attention to who gave them, but I am making the ones that people make directly on the photos public for the sake of community-building, not because I think people can in general learn anything useful from the names. (Other than who to retaliate against, which is not something that I see as positive.)

[gary_chambers]

Why is it that some individuals are seemingly so dependent on the <b>very subjective</b> evaluation of their work by an anonymous, or not-so-anonymous person? I can't answer that, but I'd be willing to bet that it has nothing to do with photography.

[gene olson]

Everyone has an opinion, which I wouldn't change for the world. I love it when ANYONE takes the time to critique. The worst critique is none! (It is unworthy of a response).

 

I am all for transparent ratings. Why? If ANYONE gives a rating, they should be accountable for it. Not for retaliation, or higher than warrented ratings in return, but for their opinion.

 

If I get a 1/1 or a 7/7, who it comes from is just as valid as the rating. i.e. if someone whos work (I think) is great gives me a 7/7, then I am validated through my work, and I get a pat on the back. If someone gives me a 1/1 and their work (to me) is not so great, then it puts it into perspective. Consider the source!

 

I have yet to find anyone who posts anything on this site to be garbage, it is all worthy of respect. I may not be interested in it, I may not even like it, so what?! That's my opinion! I don't feel the need to trash it for crying out loud! On the other hand, just because someone likes my junk and rates it high, doesn't mean I give them high ratings if I am not impressed with their work either!

 

I have found both wonderful and not so wonderful portfolios by looking at works from those who rate. I have found both honest, intelligent people and whining backstabbers. It is my choice which opinion matters to me.

 

Ratings with names is beneficial to me.

 

Gene O

[mottershead]

Jammin, you shouldn't feel any more validated by a "good" photographer giving you a 7/7 than a "bad" photographer giving you one -- unless there is some evidence that the "good" photographer is also a "good" critic. There isn't a strong correlation between the two. Good photographers are just as prone as everyone else to the various problems that keep people from being good honest critics. Just go and look at the photos rated highest by the "good" photographer to see what company you are in. Then look at the high-rated photos of the person whose rating you want to dismiss. How they rated others' photos is more important an indicator of their critical ability than how good their own portfolio is.

 

I've looked at creating a Top Rated Photos consisting of photos rated highly by highly-rated photographers. Unfortunately, to my eye, the results looked the same as the normal TRP views and involved exactly the same people and photos. To be honest, these views were more marred by mate-rating than the regular views.