What happened to photo.net?

[mottershead]

Marc,

 

As I said, you make the case that photo.net should be a museum. A place where an elite of informed people select the Top Photographers who are deserving of respect. The role of everybody else would be just to look, and not say anything that would upset the selected people or prompt them to leave.

 

There are tons of sites like that on the Internet, generally small and run by art gallery owners trying to sell prints. The photos that are admitted are the ones the gallery owners think they can sell, which means either the photos should be decorative or the artist should look like he or she might become famous/notorious and collectible.

 

It is a long, tedious and basically impossible process for most people to get photos into such places. But if somebody is talented, original, or potentially notorious enough to get his photos into an art gallery he should certainly try. Once in, he will be treated very well in the ego department, although the process of getting in can be more ego-bruising than an impolite comment or low rating on photo.net.

 

Once in, the photos won't be in a place that receives 80000 visitors in one day, but the photographer might sell a few prints. So if you don't insist on all-respect-all-the-time and would like "to keep touch with the masses" (as one person put it), you might try photo.net for the visibility and the art gallery sites for the honor, as several excellent photographers do on photo.net.

 

 

Brian

[mg]

Well, again Brian, this is all agreed and understood. But there are other things in my previous post, which imo deserve more consideration than the "whining" you are here refering to here. I think that you basically answered here about the less important part of the problem, not about the main issues, namely insulting comments, ratings like 1s and 2s on images like Tony's or Emil's, the possibility of getting help from curators against abuses, etc. That's the future of photo.net. That's what needs appropriate actions and discussions, imo. Regards.

[mottershead]

Marc, one last point. YOu frequently ask why we don't avail ourselves of "help" with the abuse issue. The answers are simple:

 

First: basically the people who want to help with abuse for the most part seem too self-interested and I don't trust them to be as judicious as Jeremy Stein. I fear that they will start cutting wide swaths through the ratings and comments of other people based on hunches, feelings, and suspicions, rather than evidence.

 

For example, even though I very much admire the work of Emil, and would never consider giving his photos a 1/1 rating, I also would never make the statement that a 1/1 rating of such-and-such a photographer (even Emil) is automatically abuse. The rating scale runs from 1 to 7, and all of the values in the scale are legitimate ratings. And it doesn't run from 5 to 7 once you are a Top Photographer, and 1 to 7 for everybody else. The "1" value is not there to trap abusers. People are entitled to their reactions and to their interpretations of the rating scale.

 

On the other hand, a person who has made 30 or 40 ratings and has consistently been an outlier on the low side (or for that matter, the high side) of the distribution -- that starts to seem like abuse to me. Or a person who only rates a small group of apparent friends high and everybody else average or low.

 

Looking for patterns like this is the approach that Jeremy takes also. It happens to be an approach that requires a lot of tedious investigation. People intent on abuse must be smart enough to disguise it, because getting clear evidence is not easy. I don't get the feeling that the people offering help are prepared to do this type of work, but rather would just delete the ratings and comments that seem obviously "wrong" to them, and ban the people who made them without solid evidence.

 

Second, we don't really need help. The problem of dealing with abuse is not a workload issue; as I said it is an issue of having sufficient evidence to get a conviction. I am overloaded, but Jeremy is able to keep up with the abuse mail quite well. (One reason is most of the abuse mail is fairly quickly dismissable as whining.)

 

Since the person reporting the abuse generally believes it is screamingly obvious, this produces some conflict.

[dant]

As the originator of this thread, I'm very pleased on how animated it became. I pointed in a previous response what photo.net roles would be. Reading the discussion, I may draw the conclusion that this place is mainly a "convenient exhibition place for top photographers". <BR>

My issue was visibility. And this not to be appreciated, but evaluated. And maybe to share with others the moment when I took the photo. And I want to know if and why I succeeded or fail in my attempt. I had pictures hanged on an exhibition hall. This was satisfying in a way. Just to know that somebody is looking at them. I didn't stand next to them, asking people: "what do you think?". I have choosen photo.net for this, to be critiqued, evaluated, discussed. I tried to play this role for others.<BR>

I guess I have to be first a top photographer and then I might be visible (don't mind the paradox). And then I would have other specific problems, mostly ego related :) Some understood that and they became top photographers :) not only by the quality of the work they exhibit here but also by tricking the system. My problem was that I have not received any input except the 6 speechless ratings (it looks like just another ego problem, I agree). I have spent a lot of time in schools being rated about everyting. And there, at least, there were other signals and possibilities to understand why you are so good, so bad or so briliantly mediocre. I didn't receive even insults. How could I get at least some of these? :) They could be meaningful sometimes.

[root]

Brian,

 

There are surely positive steps that you can take which would reduce

the impact of the ratings which cause all the whining. You can

consider the source of the high and low ratings by measuring the

credibility of the rater by tracking any number of variables - time on

the site, number and length of comments, content of rater's portfolio,

deviation from image's average, and many others. This is what Jim's

formula does. You could simply lop off the high and low scores. You

can go to a votes only system. There may be flaws in all these ideas,

but many of us are convinced that the improvement would be worth the

effort.

 

We're being told to wait patiently month after month, but on the other

hand you tell us that the system will always be inherently flawed and

that we should simply accept it. I wonder how much work would I be

willing to put into modifications that in my heart of hearts felt

would not really change anything? . .

[root]

Dan,

 

You should put your energy into promoting Critique Circles. That's

where you can separate yourself from the ratings game. Those of us

who are willing to offer suggestions for improvement find little

satisfaction in a note dropped on an image that is not part of a

discussion and may or may not be appreciated. We have also learned

that many 'requests for critique' don't really mean that at all, but

are rather requests for high rates. .

[root]

Brian,

 

" The rating scale runs from 1 to 7, and all of the values in the

scale are legitimate ratings. And it doesn't run from 5 to 7 once

you are a Top Photographer, and 1 to 7 for everybody else."

 

I would suggest to you that it does.

 

You're a good photographer; I've gone through your portfolio.

When was the last time you took a 'bad' picture, much less

uploaded it? I'm saying that once you learn the basics, it is

virtually impossible to take a poorly composed image with

inappropriate light. They're not all going to be 'very good' or

'excellent', but yes, they're all 'good' - 5. That's your minimum

standard for taking the picture rather than walking away. The

people who would rate you low or even OK don't yet recognize

that what you took was better than what they would have done in

the same time and place.

 

Students have no business rating teachers. The difference

between this sort of behavior and abuse is perhaps a difference

without a distinction. . . .

[gauthier]

I'm sad to see that Marc has deleted all of his pictures once again. I call him a friend and like most of his work a lot, even though his constant crusades to save the world sometimes get on my nerves. He's right most of the time, but I wish he was more thick skinned and patient. Some humor could help him make his points, too. Spinak's "Clifford" made the same points more efficiently, in my opinion.

 

Anyway, what can I say? I'm far from being a top photographer. What's funny, though, I that although my recent pictures are far better than those I posted in the summer of 2001, they received less attention and, in some cases, comparatively lower ratings. I think that the 6 ratings "limit" is part of the problem. A single user who didn't get the finer point of a picture is enough to sink it.

 

There are a few instances where I suspected malicious intents, but overall, I'm not an interesting target. The fact remains that I don't make it very high in the top pages nowadays, whereas I sometimes scored high with (I feel) lesser photos a year go. I cannot explain this.

 

A thing worthy of notice: even though I'm often a harsh rater, I never recieve retaliatory ratings, or very rarely. I probably give as many 3 as 5, and almost as many 2 as 6. My page reads: "You have rated 3304 photos on this site, with average ratings of 3.95 for originality and 4.01 for aesthetics." This is very close to the "4" target, and MUCH harsher than Marc's rating. His page reads: "This member has rated 4500 photos on this site, with average ratings of 5.63 for originality and 5.62 for aesthetics."

 

I suspect that Marc's problems are caused either by the fact that he targets some people he feels are cheaters (and then they retaliate, perhaps because they indeed are) or by the fact that beaing a top photographer, there's some childish gain in attacking his ratings. I don't know how this observation fits in the bigger picture but I just thought it was worthy of notice.

 

That said, I cannot agree with Brian when he says that the good stuff eventually emerges and that the bad stuff always sinks. Some of the good stuff is lucky enough to emerge, most of it is lost forever (it's increasingly difficult to access old stuff, many commands don't work anymore) and some crappy stuff makes it on the big list because it's colorful or because the photographer has many friends.

 

Participation in the rating system seems low and makes manipulation easier. Erratic feedback doesn't promote participation. Being an active participant isn't rewarded in any way (better priority for ratings, etc) which makes it a loss of time even more. If you're fair, you don't receive much "positive retaliation" either, making it even less worthwhile. I wonder why I was crazy enough to rate several hundred pictures in the past weeks because frankly, I gain very little from it.

 

Sorry for the long rant, I have little to propose as a solution, but I thought I'd share some of my observations with Brian.

[mottershead]

Philippe, I didn't actually say that the good stuff always rises and that the bad stuff always sinks. I said that I don't know of any cases where the discrepancy is due to abuse. There is a lot of good stuff that sinks, and not just because of inflation, and I would like to do something about that.

 

There is also bad stuff that rises, but again I doubt that it is generally due to abuse, but more to the fact that people persist in applying wrong standards of aesthetics -- that is to say, not the correct standards that I apply.

[carl_williams]

<P>

I've just returned to photo.net after a break, and find the reduced range of ratings a bit pointless, to be honest. I suppose an odd

number of steps gives a "middle" rating, but it might as well be 1-9

or 1-99. The ratings are only really meaningful if taken in context,

or so it seems to me. That is, taken with reference to the way a

person tends to rate, their preferences, the relative qualities of

similar photos by the same photographer and so on.

</P>

<P>

I don't tend to rate photos that I don't like,

whereas some people only rate photos they don't like, some rate everything. The ratings are pretty much random, except when taken in context.

</P><P>

If a photo of mine is rated, I usually go and look at the rater's

profile. This tends to be the way I find most interesting photos, and

I'm aware that my photos are most-seen in response to my rating

others, which is about the only reason (for me) to rate at all when the rating

is so nearly "thumbs up" vs. "thumbs down". It hardly breaks my heart

if someone vindictively low-rates one of my pictures. It's pretty

obvious when checking back that someone with an average rating history

of around 1, nothing but negative comments and no photos of their own

is best ignored, and I really can't understand why people

get worked up about such folk. (Admittedly, the "rankings" are of absolutely no interest to me whatsoever, and never have been.) If anything reflects the popularity of a particular picture, I think it's the number of times viewed, but that's also subject to the vaguries of chance, the preferences of the "critique" list selectors, and, dare I mention, how much the photographer is willing to pay.

</p>

<p>

In light of the above, I tend to see the ratings as a kind of

shorthand for "I noticed your picture, would be interested

to take a look at mine?". I think the comments system is far better

for that in principle, except for a couple of small problems. The worst problem with comments, IMO, is

that there's still no way to delete comments which have been

orphaned by the photographer having removed their picture, nor do such

comments seem to vanish by themselves (I just tried). <i>[2]</i> </p>

<p>

The orphaned comment syndrome is only going to get worse now there

are quotas <i>[1]</i> and now that various photographers are withdrawing

all their images, for whatever reasons. I can see the reason for quotas, and why they may well be unavoidable, but I'd rather they

weren't necessary (and having to put a cap on the number of images

on pnet seems to weaken the site, to me - albeit probably unavoidably.)

</p>

<p>Aside from the orphaned comment thing, the quotas and the crude rating range, I can't say overall that I think photo.net has gone <i>entirely</i> down the tubes :-). There are things I don't like, but then there always

will be. I can understand people getting annoyed when things aren't as they'd like, though. All the while it's a free service, folk have "only" invested time and effort uploading their pictures (though that

investment might still be considerable, albeit with an implicit understanding that it's at their own risk) but among paying subscribers I would expect to see a more militant and ungrateful attitude towards changes with which they disagree and towards any extra restrictions like quotas.

</p>

<p>

Notwithstanding this caution against gratuitous change, I guess my wish-list for photonet at the moment includes:

<ul>

<li>that the comment mechanism be fixed to prevent orphan comments (ideally a link to the delete

URL from the logged-in user's list of their own comments)

<li>that the comments have a link to the photo and the photographer

<li>that the user's workspacce include a list of recently rated, as well as recently commented-on photos.

<li>that someone donates enough hard disc to get the quotas lifted :-)

</ul>

</p>

<p>Finally: I think I've worked out what POW is <i>for</i> - I suspect that it's a honeypot for the mean-spirited who like to vent their spleen. It keeps them busy away from the rest of the site, and as such should be maintained at

all costs :-)

</p>

<br><br><br>

 

 

<i>[1]</i> and I had to look mighty hard to find what the quota

<b>is</b> - 100 images, if anyone's still wondering.

<br><br>

<i>[2]</i>

nor do orphaned comments provide a link to the commented-on photographer, which can be very frustrating if you know that the deleted photo has been re-uploaded after a bit of re-touching, say, but can't remember who uploaded it. The work-around is to comment, click on "edit comment" straight away and bookmark the "edit comment" page just in case you need to delete it. (Or whine to the already overstretched

maintainers... :-) Perhaps a benefit is that it does give prospective critics pause to consider.

 

[mg]

... Always raising at the right time and place...:-)

<p>

You said about my page: "His page reads: "This member has rated 4500 photos on this site, with average ratings of 5.63 for originality and 5.62 for aesthetics."

<p>

Yes, it does read this. But I think I can safely say that the highest number of shots I rated in a day from the top-rated pages must have been about 10 to 15. Out of 300. Normally, I would rate the best ones by priority, or the ones that I feel are highly interesting, though maybe imperfect. And yes, you are right that I often make a point to rate pictures on the very first pages that I feel are way over-rated. But I rarely rate them 3s or below because they are rarely THAT bad. The standard thing is a picture that's rated a 6 and which is a 4.5 to me, and I'll drop a 5 and an explanation. Or on the other I'll see a shot at 5 or 4.XX, and give it a 6, because I feel that it has been tremendously under-rated. In such case, I'll look at the ratings it received, and often find a 2 or a 1, and at least 3s that brought this very good image down the drain... That's how I found out about what I would call abuses - which Brian doesn't call that way, as we read above. And that's how my average rating is quite high. Also because I almost never rate outside of the top-rated pages (too inconvient and slow to do so) and critique forum (rarely).

<p>

"I suspect that Marc's problems are caused either by the fact that he targets some people he feels are cheaters (and then they retaliate, perhaps because they indeed are)"

<p>

I have never "targetted" anyone specifically, in the sense that I have never done anything else than expressing my sincere opinion about what the work was worth. But indeed I have targetted in general, on my way, over-rated shots and under-rated shots. Often, if I see a picture that has the average I feel it deserves, anda few good comments, I just pass. So of course I rate by priority AGAINST the flow, not going with it, and that may have made me the target of a few. But again, I do not feel I have been the victim of "serious" abuses. A few obvious retaliations, yes, but mild ones. So, no major effect on the pictures. My problem on PN is rather the general atmosphere.

<p>

"I cannot agree with Brian when he says that the good stuff eventually emerges and that the bad stuff always sinks. Some of the good stuff is lucky enough to emerge, most of it is lost forever (it's increasingly difficult to access old stuff, many commands don't work anymore) and some crappy stuff makes it on the big list because it's colorful or because the photographer has many friends."

<p>

I think you are right here, but I also think that Brian's reply to this makes sense. Many people actually do not go for the same thing as we may go for. Not everything is in that sense an abusive intent.

<p>

Finally, I completely agree with the end of your post, Philippe.

<p>

Now to Brian,

<p>

I think you have clarified your position very well, Brian. To you, a 1/1 on Emil's work is not necessarily an abuse. Well, I have a different opinion. (Check who rated Emi 1/1 by the way, and you won't be so surprised...:-)

<p>

My opinion is that a 1/1 on Emil or Tony's work - again, as an example - is not necessarily an INTENTION of ABUSE, but it is nevertheless an abuse.

<p>

To me, an abuse is not only a low rating targetting someone because you don't like him as a person or such. I also call abuse all abuses that may not even be intentional. Basically, if an opinion is so obviously out of order that the rater seems to have forgotten to even consider the OBVIOUS positive points in a picture - technique for example -, it's an abuse to me.

<p>

You said that people are entitled to use the 1 to 7 scale based on what ever interpretation of it they may have... Well, that explains it all. That's something I'm absolutely opposed to. Let's say I like dark mood shots (and yes, I do), and let's say that sunsets bore me (yes, in general they do, not always), then nothing stops me from rating a good sunset a 3/3 and a bad sunset a 1/1, whereas I will maybe rate a good mood shot 7/7, and a bad one 5/5... IF THAT MAKES ANY SENSE AT ALL, THEN I'M THE QUEEN OF PNG. :-)

<p>

Ratings are based on an average here, which means that a picture rated low once goes down, and that it may even disappear. I do not see why a good sunset picture would disappear because I happen not to like sunset shots !! Well, that's what happens daily on PN. To you it's normal, to me it's an abuse. It's abusive because I do not put my pictures up to PN to know whether people like PS in general or not. I want to know, among those who can accept PS works in general, what is their opinion about this or that piece I upload.

<p>

If people wanted general opinions about sunsets, PN could just provide them with a statistic - 65% of people like sunset pictures, or such. What people want is an opinion about their sunset shot compared to other sunset shots, and to know what's right or wrong with it... If anything at all is right, imo, it already can't be a 1/1. Now show me one picture by Emil or Tony that has absolutely nothing right ?! See my point...?

<p>

That's all. I've nothing else to say. PN is a subway, where people are welcome to spit all over the floor, because there are no signs saying not to do so. And they are welcome to throw down a wall if they don't find the door that leads to the platform... Fair enough. That's exactly why I'm out of it, and will remain out of it for as long as people will be set free to rate Emil's work or Tony's work 1/1. And free to insult others repeatedly without ever getting kicked out.

<p>

I think that some of your opinions stated on this page, Brian, are clearly flawed. I agree with 90% of what you propose in general, but I think your position about abuses is just not logical. 1/1 is ONLY for the worse pictures on the site, which have nothing at all going for them, and it stops there.

<p>

You said you do not trust people to go about abuses the way Jeremy and you do, and now I can say: you are right not to trust me in that sense. We just don't have the same definition of what's an abuse. Period. A wonderful reason to leave rather than trying to "save the world" once more, as Philippe puts it...:-)

<p>

(By the way, Philippe, some day you'll have to tell me what's wrong with trying to make any place a better place...? :-) Cheers.

<p>

Brian, all the best, and I hope that the new rating system would be strong enough to almost annihilate the effect of nonsensical ratings that I call abuses. If so, I'll be back, but I'm tired of being a tiring person for now...:-) So, I'll give you the peace you certainly deserve... I do disagree with you in this case, but well, that has no effect at all on my respect for you and for what you have done so far. Just keep up the good work, and do let me know when time comes if you can bare with a windmill-chaser as one of your curators...:-)

<p>

Cheers.

 

[gauthier]

The problem is not trying to change the world, Marc. It's trying to change people. People won't change. Some will remain honest, some will remain cheaters whatever you do with the system. What we want is for cheaters to have as little impact as possible - a faint background noise. Another problem is that nothing short of perfect will ever satisfy you. We live in a real world, not in a philosophical contract, and I welcome any improvement, even if not revolutionnary.

 

BTW, I rarely, if ever, rate from the top pages. Maybe this is why I receive no retaliation - the people I rate usually have no position to lose or to defend. The down side is that I rarely get much inflated feedback either - no one is trying to recruit me in a circle of friends or whatever.

 

Believe it or not (I barely can myself) I rated over 200 pictures from the "Editor's choice" today. Well, let me tell you this: I don't believe the editor really picks 100 pretty good pictures as he did some time ago. The quality of most of these pictures ranged from boring to truely horrific. They usually received ratings in the 2-4 range, with an occasional 5. As a principle, I never rate 1 - it's just too offensive to people.

 

The incredible thing is that I sometimes got 10-12 almost identical and really bad pictures from the same guy. I takes at lot of patience to rate 200 pictures that way. Yet, this is exactly what Brian expects from us, with his idea that our rating should go along a standard curve. I wonder how many users do it.

 

On the other hand, if you only rate the people who are already on the front page, you do absolutely nothing to give some deserved visibility to new talent. All people on the front page are there because they have friend and relations who regularly check their pages and rate (hopefully honestly) their pictures. If you're a top photographer, people will look at your pictures and you'll make the front page pretty often. If you're not, chances are that no one will notice your stuff and you'll never be on the front page, no matter how good you are.

 

Rating from the editor's choice page is often tedious, because there's so much crap, but it's the only way we can insure the occasional pearl can emerge and be seen by everyone. But as few raters with a good eye ever wander in these lands, of course lots of stuff remains buried - the eye candy sometime emerges, but the edgy stuff is very likely to remain unnoticed.

 

I don't say this for my last beautiful picture, uploaded twice without ever making it to the rotation system, of course. It's not really that edgy. ;-)

 

(Again, sorry for that long rant that adds nothing constructive to the debate; at least I'm not trying to put Brian in an embarrassing position, so maybe I'll be forgiven.)

[seven]

Philippe, I agree with your comments about the quality of the images in the

critique queue. I am also very reluctant to rate on the high-rated pages, I

seldom go there to find the most interesting images. <br>I understand that

Brian is introducing a new "favourites" feature in the medium term future that

might facilitate our search. I've decided to start one of my own in the interim -

you might like to take a look <a

href=http://www.photo.net/photodb/presentation.tcl?presentation_id=17679

6">hotlinks</a> <p> It's still very much an infant, but that will change.

[carl_williams]

Just to add that I agree with Phillipe, too, re: rating from the top pages, and to add a complaint about the disabling of "browse by date" (and all the others), which further emphasises the bias towards the pictures on the top pages. How long is "temporarily" in this context?

 

If I'm in a mood to go through a load of photos, it's nice to be able to see what's been uploaded recently, rather than to rely seeing a percentage of what the editors choose to put in the critique queue. Many excellent photos seem not to surface at all.

 

Someone earlier suggested a quota per unit time, and I think that's a better idea than the overall quota.

[dant]

Seven, your <A HREF="http://www.photo.net/photodb/presentation.tcl?presentation_id=176796">hotlinks</A> are here :)

[dant]

Actually, the interface for critique ('Editor's list', 'Critique by cathegory' and 'Critique circles') hardly encourages anything other than batch ratings. Maybe it would've been better if the browse had been made by actually jumping form one photo page to another (a sort of frame or a modified layout for photo's pages). Seeing the photo in context, with all information and existing comments would request maybe more attention from the critics. I agree that seeing just the image with the ratings and opinions hidden could help objectivity, but batch rating is a side effect not to be neglected. Just an opinion among others.

[mottershead]

It's true that the "Editor" no longer picks a 100 or so pictures. I used to do this every day before I was the Editor, just a volunteer. It used to take 45 minutes every day. The advantage was that the pictures in the selection were better, in general, than they are now, since now it is basically all the pictures that are submitted. But the software was presenting them in a fixed order, basically by submission time, and the "Editor" had no control over that. This meant basically that the handful near the top got huge numbers of ratings, and those more than 30 or so from the top, hardly any at all. Some people called it a "rotation" but it wasn't.

 

So when I could change the software, I changed it so that they rotate, as I described above. I continued to pick them for a while, but with all my new duties, I didn't have time to select any more. I thought I would run an experiment and see whether the rotation algorithm would bring mostly good ones to the top, and that the weaker ones would move towards the middle, where only the most persistent raters would come to them -- making it not matter so much that they weren't being selected. I don't know whether this experiment is successful or not.

[root]

Brian, there's no way to know since there are so many different places

where someone can view a recent upload. I do know that my last three

images that got to six ratings - two from RFC - just missed the 2-day

deadline. That's never happened before. Expanding the two-day to

three, as you suggested recently, might help, but since so much of

that view is redundant, maybe get rid of it and double the number of

one-week pages. A lot of us really do go to one-week front page and

hit 'previous' to start at the back. . . .

[root]

Update. The one not selected for critique just made the two-day.

Most raters do in fact seem to be from the rotation . . . only one

regular visitor that I recognize. Since I've never had a non - RFC

image make the two-day, yes, this modofication seems to have had the

intended result. Hope others with 'good' images will test the system

and upload some images without requesting a critique .

[nelson cotrim]

<i>Admittedly, the "rankings" are of absolutely no interest to me whatsoever, and never have been.</i></p>

I couldn´t agree more with Carl. I am pretty new to PN. One of the first threads I read was about the abuse on comments and ratings, and the subsequent creation of the Critique circles. Although I did not join the circles, as I don´t have a scanner and a way of uploading pictures, I did spent much time around them, reading the comments. I did find lots of people whose comments were really helpfull, at least in my opinon, saw their portfolios, and ended up making them my "favourites", not because of their pictures, but because of their coments!! People like Carl, Marc, Jeff, Philippe, Doug and lots of others. I spent lots of time going to previous comments made by these people, instead of going through new or top rated pictures, simnply because I could learn something with those pictures. I think my pictures have improved a lot since I joined PN, or at least I think I know how to make them look better the they did. All this because of the comments.

 

I did join photsig a while ago, but hated it. People are only interested in getting their own numbers high, so they´re all rating high and saying "Nice. Now take a look at my picture". I don´t know how something like this can be usefull. Except maybe for boosting up one´s ego.

 

I´ll never forget one sentece I read here on PN, by Emre Safak: <i>I don't know about the rest, but I don't need the attention. At least not the chin stroking type; I'm not a fine art photographer. </i></p>

 

I also did´t mind the ratings. Because if you don´t like a picture, you´re bound to rate it low, at least lower than a picture you like but is not as good as that one. I just want to learn, and to get sincere opinion of my pictures and others.

 

I did post 5 pictures during the last 2-3 weeks. I said that I did not want any ratings, just comments. I did get a few ratings, but no comments!!! They weren´t great pictures, just some that I could get scanned and wanted feedbak on how to improve them. 3 of them are just awfull, I just uploaded them because I thought they were funny, but wanted to make them better. But I got no feedback at all. I don´t want to be a top photographer, just to take better pictures. I think I´ll just mail some people whose comments I trust next time I upload a picture. Not because they will praise it (which I seriously doubt they will, I´ll probably get even lower ratings) but because I want them to tell me their sincere opinions. This will help me.

 

I started rating pictures when it was suggested that ratings of people with less than 50 ratings would be disconsidered. But even so, I would only rate a picture after I commented on it. And I do try to make my comments usefull, even if I just repeat what other people said, if that´s what I also think. I try to say what I did like or dislike about it, because that´s what I want people to do with mine.

 

I´m also sad that Marc deleted all of his pictures, I did learn a lot with them. Not because they were perfect, but because they weren´t. I can´t remember a single picture where everybody agreed on everything. This was great. This is what I want (and hope) to see in Photo.net. That´s the main reason I joined this site. To learn. And I did learn a lot. Too bad there are some people who just want some <i>chin stroking attention</I>.

[gauthier]

Brian, if I understand the changes well, pictures that get high ratings in the two days between the time they're posted and the time they get in the "rotation" start at the top of the list and rapidly get their six ratings. On the other hand, pictures, good or bad, that don't get a single rating in these 48 hours can end up anywhere in the list - possibly so far away that no one will ever see them.

 

Given the fact that there are fewer easy way to browse recent pictures, this would favour those who have a lot of friends - getting a couple (hopefully honest) ratings in the first 48 hours is critical - or those who use a phoney ID to get their first rating.

 

On phoney users, I sometimes notice that pictures close to the top of the list have suspiciously high first ratings. I see that very easily when I'm the second rater. Sometimes, I get a poor picture, rate it 3/3 and see that the average rating is 4.5/4.5 for two users. "What, the first user gave 6/6 to that crap?". Of course, opinions may vary, but the opposite case (rating high a good picture that received crap ratings before) almost never shows up. Odd, hey? ;-)

 

I'd say that the current system works better than expected in many ways (rating inflations seems to be a thing of the past) but that the small number of users and certain glitches makes it very vulnerable to abuse. We're lucky that cheaters are rarer than before - maybe because there's no top photographer's list where to show up and because it's funnier to accumulate thousands of points on Photosig!

[alberto.conde]

I left photo.sig totally disgusted of a site where people go just to get kicks out of ratings. This do not happen over here, thanks God.<p>But, unfortunately, the interface here is not easy. I have uploaded a couple of photos to-day, within the last couple of hours, and I haven't managed to see them displayed in the recently uploaded photos page. No surprise thay haven't been viewed by anybody! <p>So, I'm wondering what's the interest for me to post photos here... If I don´t get any comments whatsoever

[mmmee]

I wonder if you made them available to be viewed by the public. There is a check box where you must remove the checkmark then your photos will be viewable. Look over the information and see if your photo says "YES" to the spot where it asks if it is available for public viewing.

[alberto.conde]

Thanks, Margaret, for the help... If you check this link (http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=492640) you'll see that they figure as uploaded public photos. So, why aren't they displayed?

[seven]

Your images are visible, Alberto. You might improve the chances of a critique

by marking one "for critique" and inputting some text plus categorising. I

think you can include 1 image per 24 hours to go into the Critique Photos

section. (Community>forums>photo critique.) Photo viewcount is updated

every 24 hours.

 

You are putting a lot into the community through your comments - be patient,

you'll get your reward.

 

Glad you're back - much more mature on this side of cyberspace.