tc_reed Posted October 5, 2003 Share Posted October 5, 2003 I posted a question on this earlier today and Brian Mottershead decided to remove it from the forum. My original question was about the ratings and comments system. How does it work and what purpose does it serve if it is abused by members and PN caretakers? I don't mean to attack Brian on this but in all fairness to me he could have addressed my question in the forum. I have rephrased my question below and have added a couple extra since I'm here. Most of us use this site as a tool for developing our hobby or craft. We even pay for the priviledge to interact with others who share our interest. I see a lot of ratings abuse along the critique path and I see a severe lack of feedback by the very people who are guilty of assigning low ratings. Now, again, I ask, who is overseeing this abuse? Also, who makes up the critique circle? How do you get on one of these teams? Shouldn't those team members be giving some sort of feedback? Just a thought! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keith_laban Posted October 5, 2003 Share Posted October 5, 2003 The purpose of the ratings system is to sort the wheat from the chaff, so that the �better� images have greater visibility within the site. I would have thought that the purpose of feedback was obvious<p>Whether the system works or not is open to debate, but frankly I�ve given up caring. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc_reed Posted October 5, 2003 Author Share Posted October 5, 2003 Keith - The purpose is obvious to most of us but not to others. I see too much "abuse" to consider "obvious" as being something that is the same to each person. As far as caring, I am sorry to hear you feel this way. I don't think it is the ratings that mean so much, but the feedback. However, I see people crying "ratings abuse" when ever feedback is given along with a low rating. On one occasion I had one of my own ratings and comments removed by PN without a logical explanation for such action. However, with the permission of the photographer I put my two cents right back where I'd left them. The feedback was what the photographer wanted while other PN members and non-members were being out right ugly with low ratings and no feedback. Through this experience I learned that not everyone is treated fairly on PN. Most of us let it roll off our backs but how many visitors walk away from PN as potential new members that were lost? I would hate to see this site or others like it go to the way side because of abuse issue's. Assuming that we all share the same level of common sense or intelligence is the first step in losing, anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
louis1 Posted October 5, 2003 Share Posted October 5, 2003 There is no satisfactory way to rate lower quality images which have been mate rated, ETC. Give them an honest below average rate (and because they have already manipulated their way to the top 2 screens) you end up boosting them further even a 2,3 makes them a "Top Photo" . GIGO. Best to ignore them or just comment. Unfortunately other images of a similar quality and who probably deserve a rating and comment are not so visible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc_reed Posted October 5, 2003 Author Share Posted October 5, 2003 It appears you are correct, Louis. I have seen that low ratings are boosting shotty work to top photo status. I think I will continue with my comments while re-evaluating my own use of rating system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmee Posted October 5, 2003 Share Posted October 5, 2003 Its a sticky wicket T C. Best to ignore it or it will make you crazy. Believe me, I am crazy. Where's my meds????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhenry Posted October 6, 2003 Share Posted October 6, 2003 It must be really difficult to be a moderator in such a site... <p> T.C., as far I can check this site, I dont see much number of abuse of low rating (1-2), and those are generally easy to find out (very bad picture, retaliation, low education of rater). It seems that we hear a lot about it when their number in fact is quite limited (please dont give me bunch of low rates to proove the contrary !!;-)!)<p> What is more numerous and more difficult to fight here (and I can understand up to a certain point why Brian refuse to put a his finger in it...) is the high rating abuse by people who distribute 7 like they have plenty in their pocket and attribute those to more less same photographers whatever their they may produce. That is the real database pollution IMO. I suggested few posts ago <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg-2.tcl?msg_id=0065Kt">(here</a> and <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg-2.tcl?msg_id=00624s">here)</a> to limit the number of rating (by a PNetter to a given photographer, or to limit the number of 7)... I think that would do, at least for a while (because we do are in a kindergarten!!). <p> Now I feel, depending the priority of action to be taken, Managers of this site can decide how to allocate their time,... and at some point, I cannot blame them, it sometimes can look like cleaning Augias' stables!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmee Posted October 6, 2003 Share Posted October 6, 2003 LOL. It is all horse_____ Jacques. The proposals you have made have been made before. The Admins hold up their umbrellas and just walk away. Have you heard of Peter's Principle? The Admins have simply reached their limit to act on the site. Its being over run by ethusiastic participants. Its like a pendulum. It will have to swing the full cycle and return before we see any changes. It feels like we are going into overload and our brake shoes are worn out. Let's hope there is a run-away hill available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhenry Posted October 6, 2003 Share Posted October 6, 2003 Not Peter principle... but Schum-Peter's one...<p> "Small is Beautiful".. LOL!@ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mmmee Posted October 6, 2003 Share Posted October 6, 2003 LOL. Merci. There is mirth if nothing else here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lex_jenkins Posted October 6, 2003 Share Posted October 6, 2003 To generate threads like this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottershead Posted October 6, 2003 Share Posted October 6, 2003 The purpose of the comments is to share opinion about the photograph with the photographer and with other viewers, with the aim of helping both the photographer and other people viewing the photo to improve. The comments are not a "guest book" intended only for the photographer. The purpose of the ratings is to aid the site in ranking the 1200 to 1500 photos that are submitted daily, or the half million that have been submitted in all, so that people can be presented with a relatively small number of "Top Photos" with which to start their perusal of the photo database. The ranking is done by asking people to reduce their response to a photo to two numbers, since our computers can't read comments, and you can't do statistics on comments (other than to to count them, which we in fact do.) The primary purpose of the ratings is not feedback to the photographer. An individual rating is unlikely to provide much information, since little can be known about the tastes and rating practices of an individual rater. Reducing one's reponse to two numbers turns out to be a fairly hard thing for people to do, and most people are not very consistent. These problems tend to come out in the wash when multiple ratings are aggregated. The result seems to be somewhat reasonable rankings of the photos, although photos that don't conform to popular tastes tend to be under-ranked, and certain subjects (such as nudes) tend to be over-ranked -- for reasons that are not entirely related to the quality of the photography. The Top Photos code uses the ratings to produce a large number of different rankings. The default Top Photos view simply counts ratings and even the low ratings increase a photo's rank. The reason this is the default view is that it tends to soften the impact of retaliatory ratings and excessively generous ratings, since all ratings count as +1, no matter how high or low. But there are many other ranking methods, and in most of them a low rating does not help and a high rating does. Some of the ranking methods (such as Number of Comments, or Number of Views) are not based on the ratings. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc_reed Posted October 6, 2003 Author Share Posted October 6, 2003 Seems to me that admin has its hands full. As to not seeing much ratings abuse, I have viewed quite a few photo's and have found many instances of unusually low ratings and many overly high ratings. I care not about the ratings except that some do. For this reason some have experienced a negative response from other members. My biggest concern is the lack of feedback or comments in general where uploaded photo's have been sent out for ratings and comments. Do the people on the ratings teams (whoever they are)not know about the purpose behind the comments section when they ask to be assigned to a ratings team? If they do, then why are they not providing feedback to the photographers? Copy from Brian Mottershead response above: The purpose of the comments is to share opinion about the photograph with the photographer and with other viewers, with the aim of helping both the photographer and other people viewing the photo to improve. The comments are not a "guest book" intended only for the photographer. I think we all understood the purpose of the ratings and the comments intent. I querried only to understand why they're not being overseen by admin. Not a big deal. I have already pointed out that I will stick to same old ways of commenting as normal. However, my ratings with be thinning. I think this will help on my part to keep low quality photo's from being elavated to a top photo status. I appreciate all the feedback. It is clear to me that this has been on going and will not be an issue for me in the future. Thank you, Brian, also for your response. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mottershead Posted October 7, 2003 Share Posted October 7, 2003 The reason that individual ratings and comments are not overseen by administrators is that there are hundreds of thousands ratings per month, and tens of thousands of comments. This does not mean that the Gallery is not moderated. We periodically run automated scans to pick up patterns that have proven to be problematical in the past, such as a person whose ratings are all low, an account whose rating activity seems to be entirely to pump up the scores of one other person, or someone who rates every photo in a portfolio low shortly after receiving a low rating from the owner of that portfolio. We also have an abuse@photo.net mailbox, where people can send complaints about abuse. Many people interpret this as a "Please-remove this-obviously-stupid-low-rating-on-my-photo" mailbox. It isn't. The volunteer who mans this mailbox, Jeremy Stein, is very judicious, in that he looks for a pattern of abuse before responding to complaints. The full range of ratings from 1 to 7 are valid legitimate ratings and people are entitled to use the full range, even if nobody else agrees with them. We don't remove an isolated rating just for being low. On the other hand, if Jeremy does see a pattern of abuse, since he does not have a lot of time for surgical satellite-guided strikes he may just blast all the ratings and comments made by one member, or all the ratings over a period of time, including ratings and comments that nobody has complained about. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darren_conklin Posted October 7, 2003 Share Posted October 7, 2003 I can agree with you on the no feedback for a low rating. I have actually had a 1 on a photo that most of the ratings were 5's and 6's. I myself try to leave a comment on every photo I rate telling what I liked or didn't. I like the comments and read them on all the photos I view. They point out things I miss and sometimes I still don't see it. I have noticed though that some users get a lot higher rating than others with a similar pictures that was aesthetically a lot better. I myself am guilty at not looking at photos that don't catch my eye and they deserve to be looked at and rated. I also very rarely rate digital photos because they usually look grainy when I go large. I left a comment on one that that was why I only gave a 6 instead of a 7. I received a comment back on how a 4megapixel photo at 800x600 could not be grainy even though I could only view it at about 300x400 from someone other than the photographer. So I viewed it on 2 other computers with the same results. After that my Wife and neighbor who are both amature photographers viewed photos together and the second we went large we could tell wether or not they were a digital because they had areas especially in the sky that were grainy. Now I have a hard time rating a digital unless it looks like it was done with Velvia. It did show me though that there are some people that have a little circle of ratings especially since the only technical data was the camera used. I also have a hard time rating the ones that obviously aren't great because I'm afraid of turning somebody away from photography. I do give a lot of 6's and 7's because I usually only rate the ones I really like and don't usually rate the ones I don't. Some of it is because I don't want the retaliation because a lot of the ones I didn't like that I thought were terrible are from top photographers in that circle. I myself just ignore some of the ratings I get. I usually look at the portfolios of the people who rate mine and after realize the low rating they left was fair. I don't think we should limit the amount of ratings one person can get from another person though because that's not fair to the one who submitted it. I have probably given more than one rating to the same person and that would be because they do an excellent job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paul compton Posted October 7, 2003 Share Posted October 7, 2003 I must admit from my point of view, It`s not a low rating that bugs me, but the fact that someone, puts a low score with no reason why, when i get a low rating i jump to that person photo`s expecting to see mega snaps, but quite often, i see naff stuff, or no photo`s at all. It would be nice i think if someone put a score below 3, the they have to put some comment why the feel the photo is bad, or they can not place the score. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc_reed Posted October 7, 2003 Author Share Posted October 7, 2003 Thank you, Darrin, for your comment to my post. I think you are the only person, so far, who actually understood where I was coming from. I appreciate your feedback. It's nice to know there are those among us who try to act accordingly with what the site was intended to be used for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc_reed Posted October 7, 2003 Author Share Posted October 7, 2003 Thank you, Darren, for your comment to my post. I think you are the only person, so far, who actually understood where I was coming from. I appreciate your feedback. It's nice to know there are those among us who try to act accordingly with what the site was intended to be used for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc_reed Posted October 7, 2003 Author Share Posted October 7, 2003 Thank you, Paul, for your feedback. I see you too knew where I was coming from on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc_reed Posted October 7, 2003 Author Share Posted October 7, 2003 Thanks for another response, Brian, to my inquiry. I'm not sure how Jeremy fits into making accurate judgement calls but it has been my experience that even when I protested a comment of mine being removed from a persons photo which I rated, I worked it out through e-mail with the individual who made the complaint and put back my original rating and comment. As it turned out, I was not being mean or abusive, but honest. I was caught in a cross fire of abuse it seems and was edited out with the rest of the world in this persons portfolio. I'm sure that was easiest resolution for Jeremy. Not an easy task. In the future it would be nice if he could actually read the comments left by members before discrediting them. I'm sure admin is faced with this often and I was mainly wondering, again, about the comments and ratings and how they work hand in hand or if they really don't. I see a more logical approach now. My fellow members seem to really know what I'm talking about. I've been getting a lot of feedback on my e-mail outside of forum which tells me I'm not alone in this line of thinking. Your explanation and interaction has been very informative and helpful for many, I'm sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc_reed Posted October 7, 2003 Author Share Posted October 7, 2003 I agree with how you feel, Paul. That is one of my gripes. I know there is nothing that can be done to fix that issue at this time but you'd think someone would write into the website that you couldn't leave a rating without first making a comment. This would solve problem all the way around. Ratings teams would have to comply as well. They're the biggest part of the problem from what I can tell. Just looking at my photo's which have few comments. Which is odd because I stink most of the time. :) Thanks for your feedback Paul! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darren_conklin Posted October 8, 2003 Share Posted October 8, 2003 Actually you don't stink. I looked at you photos. The duck and dandelion both have dust from scanning. That doesn't mean the original photo stinks. Clean your scanner and photos and then rescan them. All of us that are scanning photos have that problem. It's easier and faster to clean the scanner and photo than to spend hours in photo programs trying to remove it. Your photo of the pail is very good except by naming it pail. By naming it pail you put that as the focal point and it's not the sharpest or focused on point of the picture the pieces of wood are. Not naming it would have taken my eyes off of it and I wouldn't have noticed that. The reason I left the comments here and did not rate them and won't is because I have contributed to this forum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc_reed Posted October 8, 2003 Author Share Posted October 8, 2003 Oh man! We gotta clean our scanners too? Photography is soooo hard! :) (mental note: get up and clean scanner) Thanks for pointing that out, Darren. I need to pay more attention to that. It's embarrassing to know that I have wasted so many hours on cleaning up a photo when it was merely the glass that needed cleaned on my scanner. Ha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
b_adams Posted October 8, 2003 Share Posted October 8, 2003 Hello all- I am just an infant in this whole "Photography" thing. I accidentally found this website and Love it! I have nearly 80 photos posted and check eagerly for comments. After reading this post I find myself feeling a bit guilty. I have rated over 200 submissions and have never left a comment. At work I must be completely aware of my surroundings and alert at all times. When I get home I am able to relax by rating a few pictures. Do "I" think it is original? CLICK. Does it look aesthetically pleasing to "me". CLICK. It is easy and I don't need to overthink the process. The problem is...I don't feel I have the experience to comment on another persons submission. I cannot offer any suggestions that would help them shoot a better shot. I would only be offering suggestions that would cause their photos to look like mine...and I am just starting out. As far as ratings, I don't give 7's nor do I give 3's or less. I hope to have gained some experience in the future that i can base my ratings and comment upon. I will, however, begin to leave comments on everything i rate. I hope i don't lead anyone astray. Thanks for the thread. Bryan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tc_reed Posted October 9, 2003 Author Share Posted October 9, 2003 Thanks for your comment, Bryan. I understand how you feel about not leaving comments if you don't feel confident or knowledgable enough in a particular area. I too have moments like that and I try to offer at least an honest note about what I liked or disliked about a photo. Sometimes a photo is able to create a feeling of stress and sometimes overwhelming laughter at whatever moment was captured. The emotional response to a photo is equally important to me as the the technical details are. That is something that is so easy to put into words for most of us. I try to never be overly blunt if I strongly dislike something. Sometimes, I find it better not to respond at all. Don't feel guilty if you don't feel qualified to make a comment. Honesty is always best policy. I have offered my ignorance on some photo's when people are asking for help. I give them the feedback that I can and leave it to PN members to pick up the slack. That's part of the learning process for some of us who are newer to photography, I think. But, hey Bryan...thanks for sharing in this forum. I see your photo's quite a bit. Lord knows we can't forget your name. Ha! :) I know. You've heard that one before. Sorry, couldn't resist. Have a good one Bryan! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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