Fewer comments on photos

[alexguerra]

Now that everyone seems to be happy with the abduction of all 1's and

2's (judging for the absence of more complaints about it), why not to

try and do something to invert the tendency that I've been noticing,

as others here, of fewer comments being given? I'm aware that you need

to give them if you want to get them, 'there are no free lunches' as

Brian said and that's very correct. But the fact is that in the past

month or so I've been leaving some 5 to 10 comments on average each

day and what I get back in no way gets any close to those numbers.

Just some 1 or 2 per day in good days...

 

How about creating a system in which someone can only request photos

for critique, if this person himself gave a certain number of comments

before to other photos, let's say 3, 4 or 5. I know quantity is not

synonym of quality, but I think I still prefer to have some bad

comments than nothing, if among those 'forced' comments 1 would show

to be useful. Besides, if people would just limit themselves to write

things like "6/6", or "Great!" they would get easily recognized for

that behaviour resulting in them being the ones not getting comments,

due to their commenting reputation. This is just my opinion.

 

Alex

[billfoster]

I agree with you Alexandre that this is a problem. I just posted a collage that I worked hard on and thought was fairly interesting and thought-provoking. I got decent ratings, but not a single comment. I would like to get more honest feedback, but it just doesn't happen that much. When I do get comments, they are of the "nice picture" variety.

 

But, I don't think your solution is workable. I beleive it will jsut lead to people posting five or six "nice pic" comments every day or drag the number of ratings and comments down even lower.

 

I agree it's a problem. There are less ratings and comments than there used to be, but the only solution is still to be active and try. Maybe one day our adminsitrators will come up with something better ... but it's not easy.

[wim1]

I absolutely agree with that Alex.

 

In fact, I'm setting up a community website for photography enthusiasts which does exactly that. Furthermore, it will actually be impossible to leave a rating and not leave a comment.

 

Also, my opinion is that the whole point about rating Originality and Aestatics is a bad idea. It complicates things. People that rate pictures should be able to take various things into account when rating, and the rating should reflect these, including (but not limited to) things like originality, aestatics, lighting, composition etc.

 

My 2 cents.

Wim

[mottershead]

Wim, it isn't necessary to set up another community web site for photographers with that particular set of rules. There are already dozens of them. Pick one.

[wim1]

Brian,

 

But none really offers all the features I'm after. Besides that, I'm a freelance web developer and think I can do a better job than most of them out there.

 

It seems to me that the whole critique system here at photo.net needs a massive overhaul.

 

Just an observation.

 

Regards,

Wim

[mottershead]

Turning to the topic of the post: the problem with these kind of posts is that they are based on the perspective of one or a few people, relying on their own experiences. The number of comments that any one person gets on his photos depends on the photos and has a lot of random elements; the number fluctuates up and down a good deal for no obvious reason. People routinely post "Fewer comments on photos" threads in this forum, and there are always a few people monitoring this forum whose recent experience is consistent with that and who will second the notion. People who have a different recent experience don't bother to contest this claim. So, if you judge by posts in this forum, the number of comments has been declining steadily for years.

 

<p>In fact, the overall number of comments has been increasing for five years, and the number of comments per photo is fairly constant. I've attached a table showing the number of photos being submitted to the Critique Forum and the number of comments they received.

 

<p>The message here is that, notwithstanding perceptions to the contrary, the number of photos being submitted to the Critique Forum has increased markedly since 2001. More photographers are submitting and they are submitting more photos. The number of comments per photo has been fairly constant the entire time, fluctuating between 3 and 4 comments per photo submitted.

 

<p>

<table border=1>

<tr><th>Quarter<th>Photos in Critique Forum<th>Comments<th>Per Photo</tr>

<tr><td>2001-1<td>480<td>1778<td>3.7

<tr><td>2001-2<td>1755<td>5666<td>3.2

<tr><td>2001-3<td>2619<td>9763<td>3.7

<tr><td>2001-4<td>2528<td>10142<td>4.0

<tr><td>2002-1<td>3727<td>14679<td>3.9

<tr><td>2002-2<td>4502<td>15944<td>3.5

<tr><td>2002-3<td>5966<td>21666<td>3.6

<tr><td>2002-4<td>5568<td>20295<td>3.6

<tr><td>2003-1<td>6854<td>28090<td>4.1

<tr><td>2003-2<td>6367<td>27448<td>4.3

<tr><td>2003-3<td>12692<td>43336<td>3.4

<tr><td>2003-4<td>17213<td>58610<td>3.4

<tr><td>2004-1<td>24643<td>85821<td>3.5

<tr><td>2004-2<td>29785<td>116713<td>3.9

<tr><td>2004-3<td>32643<td>130922<td>4.0

<tr><td>2004-4<td>36909<td>148973<td>4.0

<tr><td>2005-1<td>37636<td>156105<td>4.1

<tr><td>2005-2<td>38846<td>142053<td>3.7

<tr><td>2005-3<td>41201<td>143259<td>3.5

</table>

[nicholasprice]

Alexandre, not everyone is happy about the loss of their 1s and 2s, but my thread about it

(although perfectly reasonable and civil) was deleted. Apparently admin are heavily into

censorship when people have opinions that they don't like!

 

Regards, Nick.

[mottershead]

It was deleted because (a) the discussion had run its course anyway; and (b) it was degenerating into personal exchanges. It was easier to delete the whole thing than edit out the nonsense.

[nicholasprice]

I have always maintained that comments are much more important than ratings, and it is

good to see that there are as many comments now as ever; however I still maintain that I find

it hard to believe that no-one on this site could consider any of the photographs in my

portfolio worthy of a 1 or a 2! - It upsets me a little that my photographs are no longer

dividing opinion as I thought they were.

 

Regards, Nick.

[joe baker pine bush ny]

If i may add a helping hand,i think if in the photo title when downloading the photo, if you ask for comments please,you will recive more comments,this is an experiment i,am working on to try an incorage comments,by asking for comments were ever it is possable to.

i just started this yesterday and i would ask others to try it also,and see if the results are better. i comment on about 40 t0 50% of the photos i critique,i consider this a high percentage,if we could get others to comment on 20%to 30% wow this would really be great.

[price]

The statistics are interesting. Even more interesting would be number of comments for

photos with total scores ranging from 2-6, 7-9, 10-14. The interesting number would be

the middle group, photos in the average category. These are the ones that could benefit

from thoughtful comments.