Time for some new options

[jayme]

Please excuse me, I mean no disrespect to anyone. Over the last few

months, I made a serious decision to ignore the TRP. I had found the

rating system not only confusing, but not an accurate representation

of the best of the best, as I previously & erroneously assumed the

top pages of the TRP would be. Occasionally, I would peek in, but

after 2 pages, I would leave disappointed & confused. I understand

that our rating system is one vote, one member. So..... the top is

not necessarily the top and the bottom is not necessarily the bottom.

 

Yesterday, I had some time, so I decided to visit the TRP in earnest.

I had convinced myself, I MUST be missing something. I found the

first 5 pages were dominated with images of nude women. I did see one

image of a male penis, that made me shake my head & laugh out loud,

titled "Asleep". While I admit, nudes, including penises, can be

photographic art, most of the nude images found on the first 5 pages

of our TRP were not, in my opinion, about photography or art.

 

I am not offended by nude bodies, quite to the contrary, I find the

human body fascinatingly beautiful. It takes a lot to offend me.

While most of the images on the first 5 pages didn't offend me

because of the nudity, they offended me because they were so poorly

composed & executed. Yet..... there they were on the first 5 pages of

our TRP. I asked myself what am I missing here?

 

There must be a way, without having to scan the entire TRP daily, to

find what we each think is really well composed & executed

photography. I noticed another thread asking how one could skip to

the middle of the TRP, where they hoped to find the "better" images.

 

Most of us long timers have a massed an extensive list of

our "favorite photographers". When we only visit their portfolios, we

sadly become known as "mate raters".

 

I think it's time that PN realize that not many of us can scan over

300+ images added to PN per day. I would like to see all of our

images categorized, similar to when you request a critique. I would

also like to be able to access these categories without having to go

thru the critique queue. Some of the best images on PN are no longer

in the queue. At present, the system is a hit or miss way of locating

something that interests us. This way, those interested in nudes, or

macro, or landscape, etc photography could look at what interests

them most without having to scan the entire 300+ daily images.

Nothing else would have to change. The TRP could remain as wondrous

as ever. The rating system can remain one member one vote. The

critique request can remain unchanged too.

 

Just give us a way to cut through what doesn't interest us, to what

does. I also would like it if we could chose to specialize ourselves.

Optional of course. But this way, we would be able to locate others

with similar interests a lot quicker & easier. For example: If you

label yourself a landscape photographer or a macro photographer,

others with like interests could look you up & you could look them

up. Also, categories like "New photographer" or "Professional

photographer", "Serious Amateur photographer", etc would help to

understand and get help & help others.

 

New photographers come to this site daily. Most get over looked for a

long time because of time constraints on scanning the TRP. Please,

give us another option.

[johncrosley]

Hear! Hear!

 

John (Crosley)

[cappoldt]

Jayme, I saw the default TRP this morning as well - I suspect that the nudes were there because of robot rating activity...in other words, someone with a penchant for tormenting the moderators programmed some code to go into the Rate Recent Cue and highly-rate all the images in the cue that were categorized as "Nudes." Last time this happened (last week?), Brian was on it pretty quickly, and the TRP view "normalized."

[jay_patel]

Jayme, <br><br>

 

Excellent suggestion. A while back I suggested a way to use something like out favorites list to display the images in TRP (as well as to calculate the ratings based on the photographer we admire or respect), but there was no respone. <br><br>

 

-Jay

[atvjunkie]

I've been a member of PN for a few months now and really quite enjoy the site more than any of the others on the net that I've seen. Enough so that I actually ponied up to become a paid member. (A bargain in relation to the amount of enjoyment that I receive.)

 

Here's my perspective...

 

Typically I click on critique requests and then only choose the categories that I'm interested in to see what's new. Photos that I rate are generally only ones that I really like. When I see one that I like, I usually click and go see the rest of their portfolio. In doing so, I'll generally see another photo there that I really like and then rate it too. The only problem with this is that my ratings that I give are not anonymous because I directly rate. It would be nice to be able to do this and remain anonymous.

 

If you look at the statistics of ratings that I've given, they tend to be on the high end of the scale. The reason is that I only rate photos that I really like. If it doesn't move me or there are aspects about it that aren't appealing to me, I don't rate it. Because of this, it looks like that's the only way I know how to rate.

 

In the past I have avoided going through the Rate Recent section for one reason. Because I generally don't feel like wading through stuff that I'm not particularly interested in.

 

Anyway, Jayme really hit the nail on the head! Time for some new options.

[mcgarity]

Hear hear for Jayme.

 

I can't remember the last time I looked at the TRP. For good or bad the rating system is what it is. And what it is, is mostly broken. Thats unlikely to change so I am not going to bitch about it. That said I would wholeheartly welcome the changes Jayme proposes.

[jnicholson]

Jayme, if I understand you right then basically what you are suggesting is to be able to view the TRP by category. I too would love this feature. The problem with doing so, as I understand it, is one of system resources. The required work to generate all the different possible TRP views by category is too large a burden for the system. That leaves me wondering if most users would be willing to drastically reduce the display options in the TRP in favor of category views. For example, get rid of most of the time period choices, the TRP by average, top photographer (meaningless anyway) etc. I wonder if that would make TRP category views more possible. Just my thoughts...

[mg]

1) You wrote: "There must be a way, without having to scan the

entire TRP daily, to find what we each think is really well

composed & executed photography."

 

Answer: If you mean that there must be a way to find them IN

THE TRP, I'd say that the current rating system doesn't even AIM

that way. The nearest match among the searches would be the

search under "Aesthetics", but once "originality" comes in, forget

about finding what's well done. The Originality rating is a

nonsense, especially so as it is used every day, and that alone

screws up most searches.

 

2) Many bad nudes yesterday...? Yes indeed... A robot ? Maybe, I

dunno... But I'd like to point out that quite a few TRP searches

that I tried again yesterday brought back mostly the following:

 

- Very ordinary (and not always very impressive) pictures of

seasides (often very heavily Photoshopped).

- Birds, birds and birds (often nice, but not quite original in my

view).

- Nudes (not always good either)

- Some great and some very poorly done heavily manipulated PS

works hand in hand on the same pages.

- Typical (that is "really unoriginal") landscapes of all kinds.

- A few bugs.

 

It means to me that there are winning categories on photo.net. :

nudes, land- or sea- scape postcards, animals, heavy PS

manipulations.

 

It would indeed be nice to be able to go around the top horrors

we find day in day out top-rated in this or that category, and to go

straight to the pictures of the neglected genres we may like

better.

 

So, in short, I agree with what you propose, Jayme, but there's a

"but"... There are not 300+ pictures a day uploaded to PN, but

about 1400 the last time I checked ! AND... The objection we

faced long ago when we proposed categories was: "a) How to

be sure that each photographer will enter his pix in the

appropriate category? And b) What would happen to the

hundreds of thousands of images that were not categorized till

now?" I personally don't believe these objections are valid, but

well, a year ago, these were the management's objections - too

much work, they said...

 

Sometimes sharing a workload with volonteers may help. And

sometimes a few miscategorized pictures are better than no

categories at all.

 

3) "New photog", "Pro photog" "Serious amateur" categories etc

would indeed be a VERY NICE and EASY thing to implement. I

hope that will happen at least.

 

4) See next post for 2 additionnal ideas.

[mg]

1) As somebody suggested earlier in this thread, rating through

"Rate recent" is really a bore. AND... The top-rated pictures are

not always top, to say the least...

 

Since rating pictures means helping the site to classify pictures,

I suggest that the site could perhaps help us to help them. How

? Well, as I suggested already once or twice in the past,

 

why can't we have a way to rate a given TRP like we rate

folders...?

 

We could then go to any TRP search and have all the pictures in

a queue (similar to the Rate Recent for example). That way, we

could quickly have a strong input on what we think belong to a

given TRP and what in our view doesn't. As a result, if enough

people would use such a tool (and if the site would advertise

such a tool a little bit), the TRP could look A LOT better in a

month or two.

 

2) Create a set of pages where pictures with high rating

discrepencies would be displayed, and, one way or another,

make it a large discussion board, where all folks can add ratings

to the picture in order to either "save it" or "kill it". The rules here

would be a bit complicated, but the implementation should be

fairly simple, and besides generating ratings this way, the best

part is that it would generate powerful discussions - a bit like in

the POW forum, but on any image. If anyone is interested, we

could discuss this 2nd idea more toroughly in a separate thread.

 

---- And here, there should be a 3rd idea, which is an old idea:

have a set of pages somewhere (preferably categorized as well)

where the Elves and perhaps some other folks chosen by the

management would ANONYMOUSLY post thumbnails of the

best photos they saw. This too would generate interesting

discussions, by the way. Regards.

[mg]

PS: I forgot to mention that I like very much as well the idea of

having each photographer indicating his specialties, and to have

a way to search the photographer database through their

specialties. With this and the label "professional" or "Serious

amateur" etc combined, we would have an easy way to find the

photos we want even though the photo categories would not be

implemented. I also believe that a photographer should be

limited to, say, 3 or 5 specialties at most, or else the specialty

search would be useless - some folks may want to label

themselves as specialists of everything...

[jayme]

Thanks to all for offering their thoughts on this subject. I may not always comment on all the forum questions in this section, but I do take a peek at it regularly. The standard answers to most suggestions for improvement seems to be lack of time, 2ndary to lack of paid employees, 2ndary to lack of money. Or, lack of server space, 2ndary to lack of money. Or, they just don't agree with the suggestions.

 

 

I have often wondered if the owner/owners of this site would be interested in selling it?

 

 

The site format & their general mission statement is a fine one, but for some reason they just can't seem to raise any money. Photography, both professional & amateur, is big business. I just don't understand why PN can not be profitable. Nothing I've read in the explanations seem to justify the end result of lack of funds, lack of physical resources & lack of paid employees. Business is business. I see the new pop up ads, while annoying, we endure them. It doesn't influence how I feel about Circuit City or my buying plans from Circuit City. It seems to me that the lack of a good business plan maybe the problem.

 

 

PN has a wonderful photographic following, who support PN. We do keep coming back. As I see it, it has to be an inadequate business plan for the future, or..... they are making a conscious choice not to grow.

 

 

PN needs to grow. I agree it needs to be careful to expand & grow in the right direction according to their mission statement. As I understand it, Brian is the only paid employee, amazing. They obviously have fortitude. But again, it seems money for site development & staffing is what they lack to realize their full potential.

 

Again, I wonder if the site could be bought & for how much?

[mg]

Jayme, I think, if the site would sell shares, many people would

gladly buy some shares. But I doubt PNet would be for sale,

since it belongs to people who accepted and could afford to even

lose money with the site. Besides that, I don't recall the exact

figures of what PNet costs yearly, but they have been made

public at some point, and I remember they were HUGE. :-) PN is

not a small machine, and it costs a bomb to maintain - hardware

yes, but mostly bandwidth is expensive at PN.

 

I remember discussing with a Photo.net friend at some point

about the amount of money we would need to start a similar site

on a much smaller scale, and to maintain it for a year. It

appeared to us that a very small site would require a minimal

investment of USD 100.000 per year or so. I'm still keen on

setting up such a site myself at some point, but right now, I've got

2 kids to feed and can't afford alone to invest this kind of money.

 

But well, if there were 50 people interested to invest 2000 USD

each or so, I trust something could be done to create a much

smaller version of photo.net... From what I heard on other sites,

tho, nobody is really making money with such sites, and

photo.net still accepts non-paying members, whereas other

sites don't...

[James Kazan]

Marc<BR> Usefilm and Photosig both accept non-paying members.<BR>Jim

[mg]

Yes, James. I was refering to Photopoints: they recently went

pay-only... Cheers.

[tholte]

Jayme, "I have often wondered if the owner/owners of this site would be interested in selling it?" Everything is for sale at the right price. I hope and pray that PN never sells, I like the helter-skelter mish-mash of hacks (like myself), pros, know-it-alls etc that combine for a rather anarchical-freewheeling society of photo nuts. I also like the motley crew of moderators and curators that put in their time for little or no pay and some times, no respect. Where else but in America can you get this kind of entertainment for nada, zilch, zero? If some slick corporation buys PN (like they have other popular photo sites) it will not take long before the goofy bean counters take over and kill us with ads boring schlock. Viva anarchy!!!!

[jayme]

Tim- I agree. I also like PN's unique set up, it does work most of the time, that's why we keep coming back to the site. However, we just need a way to seach that works.

[Coho]

Jayme is right. As of now, 8pm PST USA, 35 of the top 50 and 27 of the top 30 are nudes. This seems to be a significant change in the TRP. Like many others here, I have no problems with nudity but too many of these images do not warrant TRP status. If other members are right about the robots, I suppose they are nude robots. I also noticed the animals in the nature photos were not wearing any clothes but they are far more colourful than humans.... Can anyone come up with a realistic solution to the robot problem?

[bdpics]

At Pbase, many have been complaining about poor customer service. Someone mentioned that there are approx. 30,000 paid Pbase subscribers. Even assuming that 100% are at the base membership level of $25 per month, that means Pbase grosses over $60,000 A MONTH! Admittedly, I don't know what bandwidth and hardware costs are, but $60,000 a mo. is a sizeable chunk of dough.........FWIW, there is also NO advertising at Pbase.

 

BD

[jayme]

As usual, legitimate questions & suggestions have again been ignored by PN. It perplexes me as to why? Anyone have any ideas as to why PN staff chose to ignore this thread, before I start jumping to conclusions?

[amysn]

What option are you using? If you search by Average the top photos are not nudes. If you search by "Rate Recent Average," they are nudes. I think that category reflects the number of raters (e.g., 100 people rating at 5s = 500, which is higher than 20 people rating at 7s).

 

It would be nice if 1) these categories where clearer (at least a definition at hand), and 2) if the site would save your last setting or at least, default to Average.

[mottershead]

I've read the thread. I've commented on similar suggestions many times in the past, but thank you for your input.

 

Concerning the number of nudes in the TRP since last night, this is the result of bogus accounts that were created last night. Somebody is evidently trying to compel us to change our policy of allowing anybody to register and rate photos by proving how easy it is to abuse this openness.

[mg]

You wrote: "As usual, legitimate questions & suggestions have

again been ignored by PN. It perplexes me as to why? Anyone

have any ideas as to why PN staff chose to ignore this thread,

before I start jumping to conclusions?"

 

Yes, I think I have an idea why this thread is being ignored. The

last times I saw such threads ignored and asked why, just as

you do, I was told that PNet had lots of work and basically no

time, or no inclination to spend time in threads that are rehashed

versions of old threads. I also recall (perhaps not very precisely

though) that the management said they had no intention to

spend time posting in threads where the suggestions made

weren't good ones in their opinion. And I was told at that time,

litterally, to feel free to create my own site. I hope this answers

your question. :-)

 

In short, take it as: "The site runs as it runs and you are not

running it, so if you are not happy with it, just go elsewhere."

Obviously, my conclusion was that the management either had

no time for PR or no inclination to diplomatical ways and

discussions. :-)

 

I'd add 2 things:

 

1) The site seems to be aiming at satisfying the majority of

members, and therefore lots of good ideas which are likely to

have very few supporters are deemed not to be heard.

 

2) I believe and have always believed that many things on PN

could be improved, but only one man appears to be clever and

competent enough to make all decisions - so be it... Indeed he's

the only one who has all the data in his hands, and he's in

charge, so nobody can know better than him; although this is not

a garantee that his solutions to given problems are always the

best ones...

 

The photo.net gallery and rating system are a one man show, for

better and for worst.

 

As a side note, I have often wished that this man's decisions

regarding the site would all be as good as his best pictures; if

that could happen, we'd have a much better site - imho.

Regards.

[mg]

Pardon the little pun in the previous message, but well, while I

know you mean well, I truly think this thread and many others

before contained some useful ideas, and that it would perhaps

some day be the right time to try to RE-think a couple of things.

 

I hope you will some day find the motivation and the time to

analyze in depth with this community what could be done to

solve some real problems and improve certain things overall.

 

I remember a thread (in october 2002, I think) where you

explained many things and tried to be demonstrative and

objective in your demonstrations: it was regarding a possible

reform of the rating system.

 

I wish you could regain the faith necessary for such open

discussions.

[mottershead]

Marc,

 

First this thread was posted on Friday and most of the discussion has occurred over the weekend. Do I get weekends off?

 

Second, the basic suggestion is to have more category-viewing options. This is just about the most frequently-made suggestion, and really it has been discussed many, many, times. Anybody can find my comments on it simply by doing a search. In brief, as before, my response is: this would be great. The problem is that computing the TRP rankings for millions of photos is expensive (i.e. uses a lot of server time), and multiplying the number of ranking computations that would have to be done by twenty or more existing categories, never mind new categories, is something I hesitate to do because of the potential impact on the servers and response time.

[mg]

Ok. Thanks for this clear and objective answer. And yes, you do

get week-ends off, of course. And yes, this issue was indeed

brought up many times.

 

I know nothing about web programming, so let's be clear, you'll

very surely know better what's possible or not in such a case.

Perhaps this could be tried bits by bits, starting with one category

first to see how it goes...? Just an idea -and I don't know what it's

worth...

 

On the other hand, Jayme made imo other interesting

suggestions in this thread, such as having tags "professional",

"serious amateur", "beginner" and such. She also suggested

that each member could list down their specialties - which I

suggested should be limited to 3 to 5 specialties. And then there

would be at least a photographers search per specialty and

according to their level (pro, amateurs or beginners).

 

I suppose - although I might be wrong - that these suggestions

would be much less heavy on the servers...? If they can be

implemented, don't you think they would be a great help to

surfers ? Answering such questions is what I believe could in

the long run help the site. Hope we'll have your opinions on the

above too. Cheers.