Remove anonymous ratings capability from new accounts?

[david.de.orueta]

Odd ratings seem to be an issue: very fast 3/3 ratings or 3/3 ratings on photos

that by all means are better than that. And it seems that the majority of these

come from newly created accounts. May I suggest that newly created accounts have

the ability to rate anonymously withdrawn until some circumstances are met, for

example: past at least 1 month, have posted 5 comments... (or what ever the

administrators find to be relevant).

[joshroot]

On th surface it would seem to be a good idea. But in all honesty, the bogus ratings would just wait one month, or make 5 comments, or whatever, and we'd be right back where we are now.

[larry w]

I know this has come up about a zillion times ... But it's my opinion that that ratings should not be anonymous.

 

I think that people should stand by their ratings.

 

The argument that people would revenge/buddy rate and therefore undermine the integrity of the rating system ... Is undone by anonymous 3/3s.

 

I understand there are no good solutions and that either way, some people are simply not going to be happy ...

 

But in my opinion, if the goal of the site is to be a learning site (which it most certainly is), then anonymous 3/3s aren't helping anyone learn anything.

[lex_photo]

What bugs me more then anonymous 3/3s are not getting any critiques. Who cares what your

ratings are if you don't know why someone liked or didn't like your photo? If people are that

concered about the poor ratings why not get rid of them for awhile and see if the number of

critiques goes up and/or the complaints go down. Just a thought - Lex

[joshroot]

<i>"I know this has come up about a zillion times ... But it's my opinion that that ratings should not be anonymous."</i>

<p>

Then you, no doubt, have read the answer that I give every time as to why ratings are not totally public. When ratings are public, people cannot act like adults. They harass, revenge rate, and send awful emails to those who "wronged" them by rating lower than they thought was deserved.

<p>

<i>"If people are that concered about the poor ratings why not get rid of them for awhile and see if the number of critiques goes up and/or the complaints go down."</i>

<p>

The ability to request critique and not ratings has been available for a long time. Virtually nobody takes advantage of it. Which tells me that ratings must be important to people.

[lex_photo]

I never click that button hoping that by my picture being shown also for ratings, more

people will see it and hopefully stop by and say something. I get on average maybe 5

ratings for a picture and I'm lucky to get 1 or 2 comments if any and most come from the

same few people (and I greatly appreciate their advice and comments and concider them

now friends). I don't know if this is that I'm still new, and still learning so I don't have the

best or most exciting work to look at or if this is the norm. Any way I bet many don't click

that box for the same reason, or maybe just because it's one more box to click.

 

By the way, thank you for always responding to forum post like this. I'm sure you get tired

of it, but it's nice to see that you all care, are just as concerned, and listen to what we all

have to say. So again Thank you for all your hard work, this is a great site to learn, share,

and see what others have done.

 

Lex

[david.de.orueta]

I know that any system that is put up, can be surpassed, but making it more difficult maybe would get rid of some. What about letting the users vote for the accounts that are permitted to rate anonymously? (Or is that too silly?). You get to know the people around after a short time here, and I would happily vote for some other users here.

[larry w]

<b><i>"I know this has come up about a zillion times ... But it's my opinion that that ratings should not be anonymous."</i><br>

<br>

Then you, no doubt, have read the answer that I give every time as to why ratings are not totally public. When ratings are public, people cannot act like adults. They harass, revenge rate, and send awful emails to those who "wronged" them by rating lower than they thought was deserved. </b><br>

<br>

Yeah ... That's why I mentioned that in the next line :-D <br>

<br>

And like I also said ... Neither solution would make everyone happy, but it would be MY preference that people could not rate anonymously. It's the evil I'd prefer as seeing people toss out anonymous 3/3's in the first minute photographs come up, is what generally keeps me from posting photos for critique.<br>

<br>

Not that I think my work is all that special (after all I'm not a professional, yet), but as someone who is still learning (and comes here specifically TO learn), I'd be interested in knowing WHY something I submit is a 3/3 when I can't see your name, and a 5/6 or 6/6 when I can.<br>

<br>

Maybe there's a happy medium where the overall rating can somehow be calculated differently where the ratings are weighted somehow (maybe anonymous ratings should have less impact). I recently saw a photograph that had two 3/3's and not another single rating under 6/6 in 15+ ratings. The two 3/3's were of course anonymous. Maybe the highest and lowest ratings should be thrown out. I don't know. But I do know that it <b>appears</b> that there are people tossing anonymous 3/3's just for giggles.<br>

<br>

Again ... I understand how it is and I accept it. Just giving you a little feedback. Oh and for the record ... This site is most definitely worth $25 a year, just for the learning potential alone.

[les]

"When ratings are public, people cannot act like adults."

 

People who can't act like adults should be kicked off this site. Problem solved. Just MHO.

[joshroot]

Leszek, I agree. But it's one of those things that is really hard to prove and a huge waste of my time to have to deal with multiple times a day.

[Michael R Freeman]

<i>I recently saw a photograph that had two 3/3's and not another single rating under 6/6 in 15+ ratings.</i><P>

That's called mate rating, and the 15+ ratings of 6/6 and higher were just as worthless (or more so) as the two anonymous 3/3's.

[Bill C]

>> [Larry] I think that people should stand by their ratings. <<

 

Larry, if I might make a couple of comments. When someone makes a statement to the effect of "people should do this or that", I sometimes take a look to see if they follow the idea themselves. When I looked at your rating summary (how many of each number you've given), I noticed that your average rating is close to 6, with nearly everyone receiving a 5 or 6. So it seems to me that you are not getting anyone worked up by rating low, so you don't need to worry about rating "retaliation".

 

I wondered why such high ratings. I wondered if you rate excessively high. Again, I took a look and it seems to me that you don't do this, rather, you seem to only rate the higher quality images.

 

Now I ask you to think, what happens if everyone does this? Do only the best images get rated, and on a scale of 1-7 only 5-6 (and maybe 7) get used? Do the lowest quality images get ignored? OVerall, is this helpful to learning? Or maybe it just makes the better photographers feel good?

 

My personal viewpoint on rating is this: if your purpose is to help other photographers know where their images stand, you cannot bypass the lower quality images. You have to give a rating, even if it's low. No cherry picking to rate just the best. So eventually, you'll have to hand out some 3's and even 2's and eventually, some 1's. Legitimate ratings. But now, it seems that you would be exposed to the "revenge raters", are anonymous ratings starting to sound better? Ok, I'm off my soapbox, now.

 

On a little different note, I'm a bit amused (sorry about that) that the 3-3 raters have become the common enemy. I remember years ago, the common enemy was "those with no images posted". This irritated the heck out of me (I have none posted). The arrogant people with 1/10 my experience want ratings and comments, but NOT FROM ME because they don't know if I'm any good. I think they really just want the ability to fling bad remarks back at my pictures if necessary. But with no photos posted, I'm a bit like the anonymous rater of today. Maybe it's good for Photo.net to have such a common enemy, so everyone can stand together against it.

 

Maybe this post will help some to see a different viewpoint with respect to anonymous rating. I should add in, if the ratings are coming from 'bots or the like, I definitely agree this ought to be prevented, however I support legitimate anonymous ratings.

[larry w]

Bill ... You're absolutely correct about my rating history. I generally only rate photographs which strike me positively (though I have provided constructive feedback as well).

 

You'll also notice that I've only rated 103 photographs in a little over a year, given exactly one 7/7, and my average is 5.74/5.73.

 

It's my opinion that as a relatively new memeber (I've just renewed my subscription for the second time, so I've been here just over a year), who isn't as accomplished as others (yet, though I'm working on it :-D ), and who hasn't been terribly active here (yet, though I plan to be at some point in time ;-) ) ... It wouldn't be right for me to rate every photo I come across. So I've tended to stay in the shallow end (as it were) and try to stick to providing (mostly) positive feedback and anytime I've rated something with a 4 I have provided feedback to the memeber as to why I felt it was average.

 

Look ... I'm not oblivious to the problem. I understand that people do get petty in their ratings based on how they were rated and not on what they are rating.

 

But I feel the anonymous ratings are equally detrimental to a person's learning process ... Especially when they vary from the non-anonymous ratings as much as they usually do.

 

Maybe a possible solution is that when someone gives a 3/3 (anonymously or not), they are required to provide a comment as to why (the comment could be anonymous as well). If they don't provide something meaningful, then the photographer can properly take the feedback for what it's worth (not much) ... But if they provided some meaningful feedback (even something as simple as OOF - Out of focus) then something can be learned.

 

Ultimately ... An anonymous 3/3 only communicates "It Sucks" ... I'm perfectly willing to have people tell me my photographs suck ... But I'd like to know what would make it not suck so much.

 

Like I said ... It's simply my preference. That anonymous ratings are allowed here, will not deter me from being here and learning as much as I can from the site ... It just makes me much more careful about what I will submit for critique.

 

You'll notice I haven't submitted anything in quite a while, not because I haven't produced anything, but because I'm waiting till I feel a little more confident about my work.

 

The egos here go in both directions.

[lex_photo]

Just a quick note. I'm new here (less then 6 months) and I still consider myself very new to

photography. I decided early on that if I wanted people to rate and comment on my photos

I would have to rate and comment theirs, this only seemed fair. By critiquing others, both

ones I thought were really pretty good and those that I thought weren't, I've been able to

go back and better view my own work and hopefully improve. I've always been a bit weary

of this because I am a new photographer and I wasn't sure how people would take

criticism from me. I have had mostly good feed back and thanks (especially from those

who like me are just beginning) and only a couple of comments saying that they didn't like

my ideas (normally from more experienced photographers whose only other comments on

their page are all WOWs and the like) both of which are nice to hear, and I think help fine

tune my eye. I too fall into the trap of wanting to only rate and critique the really nice

ones, but I try to remember that I'd like advice, and since not many seem to really stop by

and give advice to those of us still in the early stages of learning, I might as well take a

moment and put in my two cents.

 

Thanks - Lex

[Dieter Schaefer]

Josh, I feel I have to comment on your reference to the "Critique Only" forum (there are apparently two http://www.photo.net/bboard/pc-recent-requests?rating_type=photocritique&topic_id=1481&subscriber_p=1&critique_p=1 and http://www.photo.net/bboard/pc-recent-requests?topic_id=1481&critique_p=1). They are hard to find, and once found, one cannot even get to see a thumbnail of the image. The only way to see a thumbnail is in the main Critique Forum page, but there they are co-mingled with all the ones that are for rating too. A complete overhaul of the Critique Only forum would be necessary before it could even be considered an alternative to the ratings queue. It's not that <i>virtually nobody takes advantage of it</i> - it is not very user friendly to begin with.

 

After I got fed up with the rating on this site, I tried the "critique only" forum for a while - hardly any respose which isn't too astonishing considering the way it is set up.

[Bill C]

Alexa and Larry, thanks for the comments. Although you've both indicated that you are somewhat "new", I think your opinions (ratings) of a photo are still valid. Now perhaps if you made technical suggestions for improvement, you might be off. But with regard to your feelings or impressions from a photo, you are representative of real people and as such I think your rating is mostly as important as anyone else. This is, after all, not a specialist site.

 

Regarding my comments about rating everything, even low quality images, I personally don't think you should do it. I know I just got done saying it OUGHT TO BE done, but the reality here seems to be 1) it just irritates the photographer and 2) it may bring a vindictive person down on you. So don't really do it. The end result seems to be that overall ratings will be high, and if I put up lousy photos I will wonder why I don't get many ratings. Maybe I'll continue to be deluded that Photo.net is to blame, or I'm posting at the wrong time of day, etc.

 

On a slightly different note, you've both indicated that you'd like people to tell you how to improve your photos. I don't think it is so easy as that. For example, say that I am a writer who has written a short story which you don't find very exciting. Then I say, "don't just tell me my story is dull and uninteresting, tell me how to fix it up the same way that Hemingway does." How can you answer this? If I'm very close to good, you could probably make some suggestions. But if it's really bad, you probably do me a great favor by being blunt and say "I don't know what's wrong; it simply does not interest me."

[john_h.1]

Sorry Larry but this whole argument about the anonymous ratings interfering with your learning isn't credible. You have identified certain rates as being invalid, namely, low rates that appear shortly after an image is posted. You have identified these particular rates so clearly that you report not posting images because of them. The obvious reaction of someone whose purpose for posting is learning (as opposed to seeking to engage in photo contests) would be to simply disregard the rates they identify as invalid. Problem over.

 

You also emphasize a desire to require low rates to have a comment but do not for other rates.

 

Your reaction is about your low rates, not your anonymous rates.

 

The anonymous ratings system is not interfering with your learning. You own decision to not post images because of these particular ratings limits is. If you are posting for learning then keep posting. If you are posting to enagage in photo contests, consider a more controlled forum for such things.

[davidmccracken]

All anonymous ratings should be disallowed. We are submitting our photos for critique. Critiquing should be compulsory.