Rating System Proposal

[jim schwaiger]

Marc,

 

1a) I would rather not have any option limited, but if one should be limited, I think rationing the highest rating would be the way to go. Without knowing how people would use it, it is impossible to know if limiting it is necessary. If it it limited, I would limit it to 1 per time period or possibly even tied to the number of ratings they give. For example only 1/100 ratings may be rated as "Perfect" so after a 100 ratings you have 1 "Perfect" to give. Let them accumulate, so after a 1000 ratings I could give 10 images a "Perfect" rating.

 

1b) That is a fair question and I can't say definitively that people would use "Poor" if it were the lowest option. For it to work, I think you'd have to remind people that the scale is non-linear and that "Poor" is a broad category that should encompass many images. A sample "expected" ditribution might help people to be comfortable using the lowest rating. But you simply can't know without setting it up and watching their behavior. I still think there are valid reasons to avoid a lower rating than "Poor", for one thing, it might as well be titled, "I'm an abusive member of Photo.net" for that is the way most Photographer's see "Bad" and "Very Bad".

 

I'm also not stuck on the words I chose, but I think that a section could be dedicated to helping those who don't understand the meanings because of language differences. "Very Good" might be difficult for another language to understand, so I don't know if that makes it better for everyone or not.

 

2ab) If an image is rated by a high percentage of people isn't that it's own bonus? It probably means the image is provoking or emotional to the viewers. We could certainly find and display the most rated images, but that in itself doesn't mean that they are better or more emotional than a new image with only 20 ratings. On the other hand, images with high scores AND lots of ratings should be honored. I guess the easy way is to define thresholds, say find the Top Images with more than 1000 ratings, etc. That should bring up truly great images from the past.

 

3) I agree, it perpetuates an existing problem

 

4) I have thought about this a lot and I can certainly see the benefit to the photographer, but the load it places on the interface, rater, and overall ratings system made me abandon the idea.

 

One idea I considered was a simple section where the rater can check which factors he thinks are exceptional in the image. So for the "High Key" images a member might check that the "Composition" and "Emotion" are exceptional. The next member might check the "Lighting" and "Technique" as exceptional. It would be a bonus-only system that could be used several ways and it would also place many of the factors for the overall rating right there on-screen.

 

There are several flaws with this that I won't go into just yet.

 

Thanks for trudging through it. Your critiques are always appreciated and I hope I have been fair in this initial reaction. I will archive this thread and consider it more carefully when time allows.

[root]

I'd be interested in knowing how you all think the recent changes in

the 'top pages' will affect the things we've been talking about. Try

several of the different search combinations and see what comes up. .

[mg]

Thanks, Jim. I think I've got nothing to add, as I agree with you on all accounts, including when you say that certain variables are difficult to predict. If anything, my only comment may be that 1 image deserving a 7 out of 100 would maybe be a bit of a low limit. I'd say 3. Small mater.

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Carl...

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I'm actually almost glad you asked... After a few days, it appears to me that the number of images available in the 3 days is huge - around 4000 in average. That's 200 pages ! If we now assume that not everyone can spend enough time to go through 200 pages every 3 day, or through about 1200 pictures - 60 pages - every day, it becomes quite clear to me that the present system: 1) will priviledge pictures that strike 2) will give good chances to many to have 1 or 2 critiques instead of zero - hopefully.

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My conclusion is that this system may need some small amendments later, but that it is actually good... BUT... I now realize how many pictures per day I had NOT seen all this while... and I also realized these days, that there are actually MANY people who upload 10 to 20 pictures on the same day... That leads me to believe that the new top-rated pages would work better if PN limits the number of uploads to 2 or 3 per day... If 20 people upload today 20 pictures each, that's 400 shots, and 1 third of the total. Basically, these 20 people alone will slow down all users by 33%...:-)

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Most people I saw who upload many shots are amateurs (uploading more or less half of their last roll, or new comers (uploading their portfolio in a day), which will be a wasted effort in both cases, since few of the many shots uploaded will get critiques.

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I feel now that the site needs to limit the number of uploads, for this system to actually provide more critiques. I'm just affraid also that some users may be discouraged after flipping through 20 pages... or less...

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Finally, I am now asking myself whether users will still write comments and rate or critique poor pictures if they want to browse through most of what's there to see...

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PN may want to analyze some statistics in the days and weeks to come, in order to find out what exactly has changed...

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That's all for now. Cheers.