Family/Friends Doing Rating/Critiques

[laura2]

I notice something on photo.net. I see husbands and wives and

relatives critiquing each other, and it's kinda obvious in some cases

when there are 6's and 7's and glowing critiques for every picture

they put up. Is there really anything wrong with doing that? It seems

kinda tacky to me. I mean, I could go get all my friends, my parents,

and my boyfriend, and even my college professors to do that, but it

just strikes me as "cheating." I thought this network was supposed to

support personal growth as a photographer!

[bobatkins]

Well, obsessing over ratings isn't a good way to grow as a photographer.

 

While you might complain that you don't get enough constructive comments on your work - and that would be, and is, a problem - what husbands, wives, families and friends give each other in the way of ratings should have ZERO impact on your growth as a photographer.

 

Read the articles here, participate in the forums, display your work (and become a photo.net patron of course) and you will grow. Fret over what other people are doing and you probably won't.

 

It's not as though photo.net could do anything about this anyway, short of becoming very intrusive and devoting it's limited resources to becoming the "photo police". Those resources are much better spent improving the software, developing new features and enhancing the site content.

[hal_bissinger]

Ha! The whole damn ratings thing is "tacky". Friends, relatives even the same person rating work- what else is new. What good do ratings do anyway?

[bacsa]

Ratings should represent a quick honest feedback about the first feeling of the viewer that was generated by the picture(not the name or the title). Sometimes folks (like myself) don't have the time to examine details and/or comment, sometimes they don't exactly know what's wrong or good about the photo, sometimes they are just in the mood for a silent "evaluation". In this way, in most cases, good ratings should:

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1) give an idea to the photographer if a photo is completely bad, flat, boring, or good, eyecatching, original, pleasing and

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2) being completely personal, tell something about the viewer's taste/mood as well.

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There's nothing wrong with that if a rate cheers you up or pushes you down, so far that you realize, what does it mean, and helps you continuing on or abandoning a theme, a subject, an idea, or, in the worst case, photography as it is.

[laura2]

I always wondered how different things would be on here if lets say, someone had to critique an image before being allowed to rate it. It might be interesting, too, because maybe a 4 in someone's eyes is a gentle way of saying it's poor while not actually being bad material, while someone else might be thinking with a 4, "gee, this isn't so bad, not so original, but hey, it's really cool! who deserves 7s on here, anyway?" When someone leaves me a rating without a comment, a million things go through my head. Why would I receive a good/bad rating? What's so great/bad about this piece? Are they giving me bad ratings because I wasn't thrilled with something they did, and don't really have anything to say about the work? What would be a good idea to improve on in the composition?

 

I don't really care about ratings, personally, except I notice that the higher you can get your ratings, the more exposure your work gets on the site (top-rated photos), meaning more in-depth critiques due to increased traffic on your images. That's what I mean by "cheating." If you can get your girlfriend or drinking buddy to give you all 6's and 7's on your work right after it was put up, then you might actually subconsciously "influence" others to give high ratings, while a pattern of 3's and 4's from strangers might subconsciously influence someone to say "this is crap because everyone else thought so. If I were to think it was good, then it might be a reflection on my own education in photography and my personal skills. 3/3! no one will ever see this on the top rated photos page! ick!" and then no one really looks at the image any more after about 2 weeks.

[mottershead]

If husbands, wives, mothers, friends, etc become active participants on the site, and happen to rate photos of the photographer higher than everybody else, it probably won't be noticed, and probably won't matter much as long as it isn't too blatant, and they rate other photos honestly.

 

If they rate only one photographer almost exclusively and more than just the odd photo here or there, and they are giving very hight ratings to obviously bad photos, eventually one of our moderators or robots will detect it and zap the ratings. Probably another member will see it before the robots do, and turn them in. We might also ban them. We might ban the photographer, too, if the only ratings he or she ever received seemed to be fraudulent ones, and this was causing undistinguished photos to push too high into the "Top" pages of the site.

 

While friend-rating goes on, most of the people doing it are not so blatant. The problem in the rating system isn't usually single individuals of average talent getting a lot of relatives or false accounts to rate only him. That is very easy to detect and stop. What are problems are the cliques of good photographers who rate each other a little higher than they might otherwise and mutually help each other to the "Top Pages". In many cases, the photographers don't actually need much help, or even any at all to achieve visibility on the site. They are more unconfident or impatient than dishonest, and sometimes it is just schmoozing. This is much more difficult to detect and do something about.

[bobatkins]

It's also possible relatives really do think these images are good. My mother thinks many of my photographs are truely wonderful - and that's not because she's out to boost my photo.net ratings!

 

BTW she's not online and hasn't rated any of my images, so I'm pretty sure I'm safe from the wrath of the moderators...

[laura2]

I think I'm being misinterpreted now. I let everyone I know look at my images, but I don't have distinct accounts where lets say, every single picture rated is mine, and it's rated with a 6 or 7. My mother looks at my images too. I've also distinctly told her not to rate them or to comment on them...

[bobatkins]

If people had to critique images in order to rate them, not only would the average level of critques drop, but the number of ratings would drop too. Given that the most popular images rarely get more than 20 ratings, this wouldn't do much for the diversity of the ratings and would lend itself to even tighter "cliques" or "rating circles".

[dustinhenry]

If I could get enough interest gained with my Drinking Buddies enough to actually want to sign up for a Photo.net account simply to rate my photographs, I should quit photography as a hobby and move onto some form of persuasive speaking/writing career!

[h._p.]

I've only just started putting photos up and I don't really think I'm worried whether someone rates the pics or not.

 

One thing I've noticed over the years is that a lot of photos that win contests wouldn't get space in a newspaper and a lot of pictures that get space don't win contests. It just depends on who you're trying to please.

 

As far as this particular issue is concerned, a high rating from lots of people you don't know would indicate that you're doing something right whereas a high rating from a lot of people you do know might be construed by some as just a nasty form of self abuse.

 

After a very long time selling my photos the only rating that really impresses me is the number of digits on the cheque :-)

[neil]

I don't think the ratings are such a big deal. Every person who rates you will evaluate you on a different scale, anyway. Some people rate low, and some rate high.

 

The only way to use ratings is to look at each individual one in context of who rated it. Or if you get a whole lot of ratings, the average might start to mean something.

 

In the past, I have advocated a rating system that is much more descriptive. Why not have a bunch of possible attributes, and let the reviewer choose 2 or 3 strongest and 2 or 3 weakest. These could include lighting, composition, subject, color, mood, etc. This would provide a lot of useful feedback even when people choose not to comment.

 

In any case, if your mother wants to leave a comment, why not let her do so? She can sign "Mom" at the bottom to clear up any potential confusion.

[mark_jordan3]

Laura, To a certain extent I can understand some people's concerns with ratings...perceiveably to those who try to earn top photo rankings. But, what possible damage can a glowing critique cause?? I think this network (Photo.net) does support personal growth very well for those who choose to use it properly...those who abuse will continue to come and go. There's an inherent human element to this site that can never be "programmed" out.

[cd]

Here Here on the last line from Harvey !