joe_orsak

Vincent, Thank you for one of the only "Kind" objections presented. I went through my "Sent" e-mail list to find the e-mail so that I could provide the exact e-mail.

 

Here it is:

 

Recently, I took a picture that I am quite proud of. To date it's my favorite piece. It's called "Take up your Cross daily." If you get the chance, check it out at wwww.photo.net. You have to be registered on the site but registration is simple and free and it's a great site. Drop a comment and a honest rating. I'd be most appreciative. Visibility on the site is determined by # of ratings. After the first day it was posted it is in the top 25 photos for the three day period. Since the piece has a message that I'm hoping to convey, more visibility is a great thing.

 

The link below is the photo.

 

http://www.photo.net/photo/2519008

 

Sincerely,

Joe

 

 

Now, Vincent, (and everyone else) I honestly had no idea that asking friends to look at and rate my shots was a bad thing. I will be seriously considering dropping my membership here since that was a major part of my motivation for being here. Allowing my friends access to see my shots and to give me opinons on my work.

 

Additionally Vincent, there are 2 things I wanted to point out to answer your question about the number who sign up and rate as you put it so respectfully which seems to be ever lacking in these forums.

 

#1. I e-mail to around 200 people.

#2. I don't know the exact number (Brian would) but I think around 15 people signed up in the last week maybe 20. Not sure. So roughly 10% of the people I e-mail signed up.

#3. Many of the people on my e-mail list (75%+) are Christians and are responding to "Take up your Cross Daily" as my title of the work and that I am wanting to "get the message out" more based on more visibility. (Honestly, I'm always a little sad that so few actually sign up and rate or comment.)

 

I hope that illustrates in a more understandable way why 10% of my friends signed up and rated my picture and pretty much most of them only rated THAt picture and a few others. Over the period of several months there were roughly (according to Brian) around 30 of my friends. As to be expected, some had rated others stuff. Some had rated only my stuff. Some had rated very little and some had rated a lot of my photos. The spread of activity makes it fairly obvious that these aren't bogus accounts and that it's random people with random tastes in the site.

 

I actually thought I was promoting the site and trying to encourage people to check it out. However, most aren't really into photography and it's a bit like inviting people to church. You get a few that are interested and most just dabble around for a while at it and never come back.

 

 

So, Brian, no. I see your point, but I don't agree. And yes, I will be considering dropping my account here.

 

 

To answer Kelly's question,"This is why I have never understood the passion for rating images."

 

Kelly, I don't care about the "Score" for scores sake at all. I'm a very amature photographer. I've been shooting for 6 months now. I'd prefer that everyone comment and leave detail critiques on my shots but they don't. If you check out my ratings you will see that I have rated around 800 pieces and commented on all 800 ratings. So, the ratings only become important to me to TRY and decipher what makes a successful shot and what does not. I take improving very seriously and I think I can look at my work over the span of time that I've been shooting and see definite improvement. That has ALL come from my efforts here on this site; Observing ratings on my photos and even taking the time (in the past when it was possible) to e-mail people who rated low to ask them as kindly as possible to explain the low ratings for me so I could learn from why they didn't like the shot has lead to me improving. Perhaps you as a professional and possibly schooled person, odn't need to worry about such minutia in order to improve at what you do. For me, it's one of the only means I have.

 

i hope that sheds some light on the perspective. :-)

.[. Z, understandable position. You have to understand the things I've said before. That being: #1, I'm not against nudity when done tastefully and respectfully. #2. I'm for sectioning off and limiting to adult access (with as much unintrusiveness as posisble) in order to keep PN off of blocking software.

 

I don't want PN blocked. I want the public to be able to get to this site. I think it's an awesome site. I also don't want 8 year olds at the library checking out the TR Penis shot of the week. So, the "compromise" of 2 reasonable positions would be to responsibly consider and work towards means that would allow for both. It is doable and responsible.

 

Thanks for being respectful during the conversation.

 

regards,

Not ot mention, what the heck is wrong with wanting your friends to see / comment / give a genuine opinon on your work? Good grief.

I repeat:

None of my friends have EVER rated all my shots 7's or even 6's. Every single friend I have was told and did rate as the saw fit to rate. Consequently, (as with myself), many didn't rate some of my shots that they didn't care for. It amazes me that firends in RL are OBVIOUSLY biased and incapable of rating where as the "friends" we meet and make here on this site are perfectly capable. The hypocricy is thick enough to cut with a knife.

 

Secondly, visibility on this site ISN'T determined by score but by sheer volume of ratings. (I know you can set it to check by score, but it still is based on # of ratings.) So there is little if no motivation to tell friends to rate HIGH but only to RATE period.

 

Here's a perfect example of one of my "biased" friends. His ratings were deleted because he had only rated a few of mine and a few other photos. He uploaded several of his own shots but his ratings are not valid somehow because he's a "friend" of mine in real life.

 

Brian, I challenge you to e-mail this person and question his integrity or honesty in his ratings. While your at it, ask him how he feels about his ratings being deleted. Why not delete his account too. It's probably bogus.

 

http://www.photo.net/shared/community-member?user_id=946040

 

Sad!

"Some might well disagree." - .[. Z

 

 

Yes, you are correct. Some might disagree. In respect and deferance to both opinions a compromise could be reached without denying access too or limiting the nudes.

 

However, my point that "tolerance" is what we scream for as long as it's your opinon = my opinion, rules the day. If there is no effort to accomodate a VALID opinion that nudity is not for minors, then no one should complain when this site makes the "banned" lists.

"but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart." - Jesus

 

Obviously this doesn't apply to a woman being nude ONLY as lust can occur WITH clothes on, but I'm thinking even YOU wouldnt' argue against the point that lust occurs MORE without clothes than with.

 

"A wise person will remove himself from temptation, understanding the incredible power it has." - Proverbs

 

"Ah. There's warning flag. One of those "Christianists"... " - James O'Neill

 

James, judgement is really unbecoming. And a quote out of context is a dangerous thing. Please, to demonstrate accurately what I said, provide context:

 

"I am a Christian and I am VERY into my faith. Having said that, I've NEVER been against nudes that are very tastefully done."

 

You see, your point in trying to make me out to be something that I'm not gets defeated before it ever gets off the ground. My point wasn't anti-nudity as you attempt to make me out to be but to limit the access to an age group that shouldn't be seeing it any way.

 

"covering themselves up was the beginning of sin." - James O'Neill

 

No James, disobeying God was the beginning of sin - not covering their nakedness. Covering their nakedness was the result of eating from the tree of the "knowledge of Good and Evil." You see, once their eyes had been opened to good and evil, they saw fit to cover their nakedness.

 

"Pretending sex doesn't exist is just a fast track to the maternity ward or STD clinic." - James O'Neill

 

James, I do not need to let my daughter get hit by a car while playing in the street to teach her that it is unsafe for her to play in the street. Neither do I need to let her look at nudity to tell her that sex and sexuality is good. God made sex. He made it for the contractual relationship of marriage. Period. I can point out NUMEROUS Old Testament and New Testament passages if you'd like to demonstrate that the sexual relationship is defined for the context of marriage only. Couple that with Jesus' teaching that to look upon a woman lustfully is to commit adultery and you have a pretty seemless argument for avoiding nudity (Especially as a young person with less maturity.)

 

"Pot calling kettle black." - James O'Neill

 

No James, I have not misquoted or misrepresented your opinion. I can not, however, say the same for you. Nor can I say that you represented my opinion without mockery or condescneding judgement.

 

Age verification only happens with purchase? No, I disagree. Age verification happens in NUMEROUS non-purchase methods. All of which could be easily required to access the "Adult" section of the site which would contain any form of nudity that PN saw fit to allow.

 

If you registered AND validated yourself as an dult, the nude photography could come up in the critique que or anywhere else just as normal. However, if you were not registered as an adult member, then those shots would not come up.

 

As I stated, it would require work up front for sure, but would demonstrate a concern for the situation that would probably KEEP PN off the banned lists. Not to mention that it would make the auditing of the nudes a lot easier.

 

Respectfully,

No, Sheraton is a client of mine and I know scores of people there. All of which are on my e-mail list. So it makes complete sense that they would create their accounts on or around the same day since I emialed all of them at the same time along with about 100 other people. There are some from the sheratoniah.com e-mail address that I know signed up a while back with another round of e-mail that I sent out on another photo. I don't send out links to my photos unless i have a shot I particularly like or think is a good photo. Some comment and have commented in the past.

 

As I said about my wife, you guys deleted her account ratings when she had over 400 ratings. Now she has relatively few because she has been uninterested in going back and doing all that rating again. She hasn't even rated all of mine I don't think becuase she's generally peeved at you guys.

It is quite feasible that SOME of my friends had 100% of their ratings on my stuff. Additionally, I know that NO ONE ever rated all my shots a 7 and that NEVER did any one of these people rate all my shots a 7 or even all 6+. Every single person who I ever sent a link to has rated 4,5,6, and 7.

 

My wife's 1st ratings were 400+ when they were deleted and at the time I only had about 100 - 120 shots. That is a fact whether it is remembered or not by the site admins.

 

She is now at around 80 shots rated (I think I haven't looked at her account when she's rating in a while so it could be higher). Do you blame her for not being very excited about going and rating a lot of other's photos again Brian? So will she be deleted again? If so, I think I can safely say we will not be paying $25 again or participating in this site any more.

James,

 

You certainly have the right to feel that way as you have no clue of who I am, my intentions, my integrity or otherwise - though I find it interesting that you ASSUME the negative.

 

Work on this site (fortunately or unfortunately) is increased in visibility by the sheer number of ratings. Period. I send out links to my friend when I have captured something that I feel brings Glory to God.

 

Case in point (my last submission):

http://www.photo.net/photo/2519008&size=lg

 

My intentions in this photo should be obvious. The theme should be obvious. That I desire to increase it's visibility to send that message to more people is MY prerogative.

 

To say that friends and family are incapable of rating fairly is (without the long conversation) just wrong.

 

My wife hates computers. She types at about 10 words a minute and thus doesn't particularly care for forums. She has on more than one occasoin posted a comment. Her account is kimorsak@houston.rr.com. Feel free to e-mail her. That is her active working e-mail.

Bottom line is the TRP is inappropriate for children and it is readily assesible without any parental warnings or otherwise. Maybe you think it's ok for your 8 yr old daughter to be taking ganders at penises, but I don't. You also can't watch children ALL the time and I for one make certain my computer is protected against such inevitabilities as stumbling on sites that they should not be seeing.

 

It does not take a "Puritan" to think that nudes, even tastefully done ones as is the case MOST of the time on this site, to determine that this site is inappropriate for children. It takes a responsible parent.

 

Everyone screams about "tolerance" and what is really being screamed for is "tolerance of my view and yours as long as yours is the same as mine." When that criteria is not met we resort to such tactics as calling someone a "Puritan."

 

Saying that the PUBLIC library internet shouldn't have filtration on it that keeps kids from being able to access sites on it because you want the right to browse all sites freely is the same as demanding that the PUBLIC library stock Hustler. That's simply silly.

 

A fix could be applied Brian that might make your uneviably difficult job easier. When a photo is uploaded, a category for "Nude" could be selected. The "Nudes" could be viewed anywhere on the site just as normal AS LONG AS when the person signed up (must sign up) for membership, they indicated that they were an adult. This would be more trouble for you in the beginning but in the end it would give you the capacity to query the "Nudes" category to look for those trouble photos like you talked about. It would also be a very "Responsible" thing to do as a professional site - demonstrating concern for the viewer who SHOULD NOT be taking looks at the top rated penis shot of the week.

When something like 9 out of 12 photos on the top rated list are nudes and one is even a penis shot, I can safely say I wouldn't want my teen daughter or son stumbling across the shots.

 

I am a Christian and I am VERY into my faith. Having said that, I've NEVER been against nudes that are very tastefully done. USUALLY that's the case here but certainly not always. However, nudity is NOT for teens. THAT is a decision that should be left up to the parents and it is quite understandable that this site would get blocked on those grounds and if a parent chooses to use software that filters this site that would certainly be their prerogative. It wouldnt' be very hard for nudes to be sectioned off into a category of their own that required "Adult" passes to get too. This could be easily done when registering for the site which we must do already.

 

At any rate, you may believe it's perfectly ok for teens or children to check out the top rated photos and get a good look at a penis, some bush, etc. However, you have to accept that there is a valid an equal opinion that disagrees.

Well.. I do understand. It still kinda sux. I will be sure to now tell all my friends to spread some ratings around for each shot of mine they do. I can assure you the wife will be peeve. She says she doesn't understand (especially the first time) why her ratings were deleted. She had 400+ ratings (I still only have 170 photos posted) so she was rating like 3 to 1. Actually, the deleting of her ratings killed her interest in the site. She's only been rating mine ever since and she hasn't even rated all of mine. :-(

Pnina, recently my wife had over 400 ratings deleted. I only had about 100-125 loaded images at the time. She was very upset to say the least. This is an issue I'm currently talking with Brian about. I understand the concept but they need to improve their methods BIG TIME. She wasn't VERY active on this site but she did rate photos of other people. Now she's started rating again. I think it's kinda lame actually.

Mark, yes I was trying to point you to the site admins take on things. I've been exactly where you were not that very long ago. As I get "older" on this site, I realize that there's just not much you can do about ratings. You live with it. I'm not all that happy about ratings not being tied to names any more since I can no longer personally ask people what there take was if I get a low rating from them. It has so many times in the past proven helpful. Surprisingly, many who rate 3 or below, if asked POLITELY by e-mail, would give a nice explination of their rating. many times I disagreed, but there were a few times I did agree. That was quite helpful and now that benefit is gone. Having said that, I do see the benefits of the new system and am trying to be as objective as possible in giving it a shot.

 

On a whole, these guys do a great, thankless, job with the site. Enjoy it as much as you can. :-)

 

(Insert shameless plug inviting you to rate and comment on my photos here.)

Additionally, I looked at my ratings on my most recent post (a shot I'm very proud of) and I have seen a lot of my friends who I sent the link to who have signed up to view that picture specifically. Can I count on all their ratings getting wiped out? If so... geez man... that's really lame. I will have to tell them to be certain to go through and just rate x number of other photos in the critique section so there honest ratings of my shots don't get whiped out. :-(

My wife had rated over 400 photos the first time she was deleted. (I only had about 100 posted at the time.) She has went through and started rating my shots again. How many shots must a person rate other than one person to not be deleted? This is really interesting information.

 

I understand the concept, but I think it might be a bad idea for a couple reasons. I regularly send out links of my photos to friends for them to check out here on this site. A lot of them may pop in only to rate the photo I send a link to or maybe a couple others. Never the less, they are honest ratings and often they check out the "Critique Photos" link which I tell them about.

 

It gives a lot more exposure to your site and potential people who might become interested. Is it really fair to delete these peoples ratings? I know when I tell my wife about it she's probably just going to pull a .[. Z type reaction and just mass rate a bunch of other peoples photos which I can assure you won't be heart felt well thought over ratings like her first 400 were.

Brian,

 

Make no mistake, I greatly appreciate the work you do on this site and as I get "Older" here, I understand things better. The ratings system (by far the biggest headache to deal with for you and for us) is just somethign I'm learning to live with. The trade off of not knowing who rates FOR ME is not great enough. That's just me though and it's certainly your site to do witha s you please.

 

Recently I had a photo get 50 something ratings which for me is a record. I think it is the best photo I've taken so far. It has an average of 6.3 something with 50 ratings. I am proud of it. There are 2 people out of the 50 that rated it a 4/4. I'd love to be able to talk with them and get their perspective on what made the photo avergae. In the end, I may completely disagree with them, but it's something that I enjoyed about the site previously. It allowed me the chance to speak with my lowest raters and find out what it was about the photo that they didn't like and perhaps improve or be aware of those points in future shots. It has DEFINITELY improved me as a photographer in the past. That is a major benefit for me that was lost.

 

In the end, as i said, your doing a great job and the site as a whole has been improved in my opinion.

 

PS. My wife on the other hand is pretty upset with you for having deleted all her ratings 2 times now. I guess you figure that since we share the same computer it's a fake account or something. She's e-mailed you about it and is still pretty upset.

Recently posted by Brian (Site Admin) in another link:

 

If people use this forum to report technical problems, bugs, etc, then we pay close attention. They don't necessarily get fixed immediately: we may not know how to fix it, or there may be other things that are higher priority. But such reports are always useful and appreciated. Even if I tell you to use another browser, or switch off your anti-virus program, or whatever, I keep it in the back of my mind that people are having trouble with this or that aspect of the site, and if I understand the problem and can fix it without excessive effort and without breaking something else, I will do so, although it might take a while.

Using the forum to make suggestions is worthwhile most of the time, We pay attention to suggestions. Even when we can't implement a suggestion, it is helpful to know what people would like.

 

There is one exception. I guess at this point, I would say that it is a waste of time to make suggestions about the rating system. Most of these have been made before, and discussed at length; they usually are based on a philosophy about the site and its systems that we don't agree with and aren't going to adopt. Start your own photo gallery site if you want one that conforms to your philosophy, assuming this one doesn't. A lot of the time, these suggestions are just someone venting about receiving a low rating or a rude comment, and even if you aren't venting, your comment may not be distinguishable from someone who is. Normally, my reaction to rating system suggestions is to type in, yet again, some variation of the standard answers that I could type in my sleep by now. It would save everyone a lot of time and frustration if people just refrained from rating system suggestions. (Wishful thinking.)

 

After I have made a change in the design of the site, I find bug reports, browser problems, and other technical issues, etc, very helpful. I find "this sucks", "go back now" comments to be exasperating and demotivating. I don't pay much attention to those, and they make me regret creating the Site Feedback forum. Griping because I chose black and you like white is pointless. If it is a matter of taste, I prefer my own taste over your taste, thank you very much, sir. So, unless there is some reason to believe that your tastes are more representative of the 100,000 people who visit the site daily than mine, complaining because I chose gray and you like white is basically a waste of time. If the site is going to crash and burn because I made a wrong decision, I'd sooner it be because I went with my gut feeling than with your gut feeling. So, if I have done something a certain way, I'm not generally going to undo it based on counting "this sucks" comments in the Site Feedback forum. I prefer not to base decisions on gut feelings at all; I prefer to pay attention to hard facts, such as the traffic, the behaviour of people on the site, etc, and base my decisions on that, not on how vehement and rude people are in the SF forum.

#1. This site is hands down better than the few others I checked out and the only one I would / did give money too.

 

#2. No, you shouldn't work 24/7.

 

#3. Finding out "What's getting fixed." is just about impossible unless you search scores of threads lookinh for posts from you.

 

#4. Unless there was some systematic way for a non-experienced / vistor to the site to easily find out what future / pending updates were pending, then I'd say you are just going to have to deal with people not knowing and redundant posting of complaints and or fix recommendations. Your legitimate frustrations seem to stem from legitimate inabilities of the users to know what's up.

#5. you've got a really hard job. I'm a sys admin for a number of different companies and you only get talked to when there's a problem - not when everything is great.

Howard, I use to use word to spell check stuff that I was posting and noticed the same problem. I think it's the copy paste process that bunks it up.

I think you added the "Large" view just to spite me Brian! :-p Thanks. It's good to have that back.

Don't ask me. I didn't do anything special. I just click on "Rate" and was able to rate it. Sooo... I tried it on a photo that I planned on deleting and it worked just fine. I then deleted it. My point wasn't so much that problem but that the problems aren't really addressed or paid much attention too and that this was JUST my opinion.

 

I also said that I liked some of the changes in look (wish we could have a "Large" image though as a number of people have commented) but that there were still problems that had been mentioned previously.

 

My POINT in this post wasn't to discuss problems as I honestly feel (Right or wrong) that the problems aren't addressed SOOOoooo... if you are posting to get something done, then don't bother. However, if you just want to vent, then have fun.

 

This is one of the things I hate about "Chat" or "Bulletin board" type conversations. You can't hear voice inflection or see facial expressions.

 

I enjoy this site. There are things that definitely hack me off but as a whole I like the site. I seem to have the same beefs as a lot of others do. I don't like the idea of ratings not being tied to names but then I'm not into "Revenge rating" or "Mate rating."

 

To be honest, I've taken on an attitude of who gives a flip lately about the whole thing. I post my shots and I have a circle of friends that I've made and we rate and comment honestly on each others photos. So... what I see as short comings of the site that could be done better or whatever, just don't bother me as much any more.

First of all, there's no point in posting IMHO. This is just

a "venting" section. Nothing read here by site admins is actually

listened to again IMHO. So why bother?

 

We can yella nd debate each other until we're blue in the face and it

won't change squat on this site. They seem to do whatever the heck

they want.

 

All that said... I like a lot of the changes. There are, however,

some major flaws that aren't just my "opinion" about design layout

but genuinely FLAWS that were pointed out days ago. Have any changes

been made? No. Probably because so MANY changes were made at one

time that the screw ups are overwhelming to deal with.

 

So,... In the mean time... RATE YOUR PHOTOS. Yep. One major screw

up (I couldn't fathom it being intentional) is that you can rate your

own photos. Someone posted this several days ago. I checked it on a

photo I deleted afterwards. It still works.

 

So... don't post here if you hope for changes to be made. Just post

if you want to inform or be informed but as a means of causing

change, it's pointless.

What's teh big deal about being able to check based on how they rate? I think that's been pretty clearly outline a number of times so I won't rehash it. It is functional and serves a purpose to be able to check those who rate outside of the average and don't leave comments to try and gain some insight. That's the short version.

Ok. I had a forhead slap about revenge rating. That is a DUH! that I missed. However, it doesn't illiminate the 1/1 ratings and only encourages the bad apples to 1/1 rate now because they aren't even known.