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No ratings at all / Frozen averages. System down?


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I've got a little different problem. I rarely rate photos, preferring to comment directly. However when I do rate it's so that picture will be included in my list of favorite photos. It's one way we have of honoring and promoting the work of our favorite photographers. Lately, even when I rate a picture 7/7 it hasn't been included in my favorite photos list. I only have 52 so far, so it's not a question of numbers. Anybody else have this problem? Anybody got any ideas how to remedy the situation?
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Wouldn't you know it, soon as I posted my question/complaint I went back and checked my "photos rated highest" section, and there they were. Two weeks late, but maybe they were held up in the mail. Anyway, hope the problem (if there ever was one) is now solved. Regards, Jack
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Hi Brian. I wonder if you could explain the strange phenomenon that has happened recently when I enter a photo into the critique forum. Normally I would expect some response, something like 5-6 ratings + comments whilst the thumbnail is still on the category page and then perhaps a few more once it drops off and is listed only. Now what i get is just bizarre. One photo received nothing for 2 days and then received 7 ratings in an hour. Most others do not receive ratings for 8-12 hours and then they again arrive in clumps. It's like the system has slowed to a crawl. From what i can gather on this thread it seems there are several people having the same problem. I guess the problem is about a week old now. Any idea as to why? Many thanks.
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I also got images posted, which receive no ratings, as several posted in the street category (didn't check the other ones).

 

I don't understand Brian, while you keep repeating again and again how the rating queue works (you could write it somewhere on the site) instead of listening to complains... and understand that they're not the product of paranoid people.

 

Problem is simple -> no ratings -> no views -> no feedback. Plus, if somebody tries to ask for feedback in a forum (S&D, e.g.) some moderator will tell that the crique forum is the place for this.

 

I don't know what's going on, but this site is falling into pieces and instead of putting it back together, the administration keeps saying that everything's alright and deleting threads.

 

cool, really.

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Bruno, of the 211 photos that you've submitted for critique, I count only about 7 that haven't received comments and zero that haven't received any ratings.

 

Of the the several hundred photos that are submitted daily for critique, there are always some that don't get any ratings in the first 24 hours. Most of those eventually get a few ratings after a a few days, but about 50 of the photos submitted daily for critique never get any ratings. That means a lot of people had to skip by them over the course of several days. For comparison, the most common number of Rate Recent ratings for a photo is five, and several hundred photos per day get that number.

 

The photos that don't get rated actually represent a bit of a problem, because they collect at the front of the RR queue, as an island of photos that most people don't want to rate, and which they have to get by in order to get to photos that they would rate.

 

It may be that there is something "broken" about the Rate Recent queue, but when I look at photos that aren't getting ratings, they all seem to me either to be (a) no good; (b) or in a genre, such as Street Photography, that many of the raters feel uncomfortable with and ill-equipped to evaluate; © or both. It would be surprising if there were a bug that only affected these kinds of photos.

 

There is a bug in the RR queue, though, which is the "dumping out" effect that some people report. The number of instances of it being logged are far less than complaints about it in this forum, where you would get the idea that everybody is seeing it all the time. But I am trying to understand what is causing that problem.

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Brian, I am not complaining about the last 2 or 3 years but about the last couple of months.

 

I know that I have enjoyed thousands of good or less good critiques on my picture, which, in the long run have turned helpful to develope my skills.

 

But it from end of january that I have the impression that things don't work. Some of the pics that didn't receive ratings I deleted and resubmitted (losing some valuable critiques, though)... some are still there... but those 7 you're talking about are all concentrated in the last months (and I might have submitted no more than 20 in the same period).

 

About the other 13 they usually received a number of anonymous ratings which is surprisingly low.

 

Also, the ones which received a number of ratings with an average that could have allowed them to get into the TRP... where missing. I mean: if I got into the page where photos were rating a little bit more and less than mine... mine was missing. (No big deal on this, though).

 

Again Brian... photo.net was an excellent web site and I feel like the quality is getting lower... because:

 

technical bugs

 

moderator policy

 

plus there is a tendency for several people to leave after some time instead of staying here and building a better community. Countless people have left the S&D forum because of moderator policy (and also other reasons, to be honest).

 

What I don't understand: if something is reported as a problem from several people you might decide to look into it or say "I/we like the things the way they are"... there's no need to deny it's existence.

 

I know that photo.net doesn't have the financial resources that might lie behind a website like flickr, for example... nevertheless you guys have been able to set up a community here, not only people commenting "great" or "wow" but willing to share their knowledge.

 

Now it's up to you to decide who you want to keep and who you want to fly away... I'm not asking for a perfect world, but please, don't close your eyes not to see that the house is falling.

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Sorry Brian ... maybe a problem of mine, but I tried again now: dumped out after about 30 images. For me it is impossible, really, to reach the images that received 0 (or 1) ratings. But maybe I'm the only one. I'm not complaining, I'm just trying to help to solve the problem, that in my case is real and methodical.

 

Best regards

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Thanks Brian that is very comforting. I dont do street photography, so in my case it has to be (a) not good... I can accept that and live with it, but the fact is that we all (all the people posting above, that is) have been experiencing a change in the recent rates system thruogh the last months. In my case, (a), it would mean that I am getting worst and worst with time. Indeed, after two days with zero ratings, my last image got 8 rates within one hour and was placed as one of my worst images ever. How come that, after two days of having only politically correct raters, so many people voluntered in such a short time?

 

The real point is that this has happen to me, without exeptions, since the beggining of the year. The time that it takes from the critique request till the first rate arrives is increasing. This has happen with all the categories and with images rated both high and low. I do not thing this has to do with (a) because my rating average has actuelly increased during this time.

 

Any other idea? could there be a (d)?

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You recognise the problem that images which people do not wish to rate are gathering at

the head of the rate recent queue. I suggested:

 

Is it not better to give each image the same amount of time in the rate recent

queue..............

This is so far as I can see very democratic. Every image has equal time and sinks or swims.

Currently lame ducks are supported until they get their 5 rates which must mean that they

are being presented in the rate recent queue much more often than the more popular

images."

 

No one can demand an answer from you but I recognised a problem and suggested how to

solve it. I sort of expected a reply seeing as I wasn't just being negative. My New years

resolution to be positive is still intact.

 

regards Louis

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Is it possible that the queue is measuring every time we view an image and if we view it in the RFC sometime later, we're bounced out? Why should it care if we've seen the image, even if it was only in the RFC queue, if we didn't rate it. . . and if we rated it, why can't it give us the "you've already rated this" message that we get when we want to change our ratings directly.

 

Regarding images without rates. I have to assume that after 24 or 72 hours that people are getting updates on their views. Nearly all would have had to come from the RFC or category list, so doesn't that tell them that they're being skipped over rather than rated?

 

I also wonder how many people are making relatively more use of the category lists and are finding the RFC quality less and less acceptable. Let's face it, there aren't enough people with any reasonable amount of viewing experience to give this system the statistical validity that's necessary. You once questioned whether ten rates was enough and were hoping for fifteen, as I recall. Five or six isn't enough, especially if someone is inspired to tell us all that they don't like it rather than skip it.

 

What rarely gets mentioned is that we don't get to express our negative views on the popular stuff because they disappear so fast from the queue. Perhaps that's the biggest system bias of all.

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If each image had an identical fixed amount of time then you would have as much time to

negatively critique your'popular' images.

 

Of course it need not be a fixed time but could be X presentations in the rate recent

queue. There would need to be an algoritm based on the number of people going thru the

rate recent queue and also the number of images available to be presented.

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Louis, I'm thinking about your proposal. Carl, when you skip in the Rate Recent (or Rate Category) feature, that is recorded as a special "skip rating" in the rating table. If you recall, there used to be a bug where if you skipped a photo in the RR queue, then went to rate it later, you would be told you had already rated it. This was the "skip rating" not being handled properly.

 

Nothing is done with the skip ratings at present other than to keep that photo from being presented again in the Rate Recent or Rate Category features to the same rater. Other views of the photo don't count as "skips".

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Brian, is it possible to say why some people seem to be getting these 'block' ratings ie-nothing for 24 hrs and then 6,7,8 ratings all in one go? I put a photo up for ratings 21hrs ago. As of now there are no views no ratings no critiques. I know that, at some point in the next 24-48hrs 5 or so ratings will suddenly appear. I wonder if ratings/critiques are no longer 'simaltaneous' but are queued by the server and updated every now and again. If so could you let us know. Many many thanks
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Possibly not. Since I changed the operation of the queue today. It seems that there are a lot of photos with zero ratings at the front of the queue clogging things up. There are about 50 per day accumulating. They don't stop the vast majority of photos from getting ratings, but it means that it takes a long time.

 

If people would rate them rather than skip them, it would help clear them out of the way. Even one rating on a photo with no ratings will start advancing it to the front and out of the way. But people won't rate photos unless they "like" them. I don't know why so many photo with zero ratings have accumulated, but I decided to just order the queue by posting time, at least for a few days.

 

This will penalize people who posted yesterday or before and didn't have any ratings, because now the photos will be far down the queue and will be getting further down as time passes, with smaller and smaller prospects of getting any ratings.

 

But if you post a photo right now, it will enter the queue at the front. Subscriber photos stil get a bit of an edge.

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