darrell_m

Welcome Mary and Garry.

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00I4b3&tag=

I'm glad to see the ad content in the forums appears to have returned to how it was a week ago. The name thing? (I know it's off topic but you did raise it) At least I'm not anonymous. Members who paid with a credit card cannot be said to be so.

i love nudes. i really do and i've posted several myself. However, er, I don't know how to put this delicately so I won't bother. What is going on, with all these nudes at the top of the TRP, is manipulation. Someone is playing a game. They log in with multiple accounts and give any old worthless tat 4 or 5 7/7's. About a week from now someone else who posts in the nude section will post here saying 'Hey, half of my rates have disappeared,' and that nice man from abuse@ will then explain what I've just explained. I've been around just under a year and have seen this happen time and time again. If I can spot it why can't those who are better qualified than I am? btw-Jennifer, i clicked on your name and checked out your page. Those farm pictures are a bit phallically, don't you think?

Instant P2P education<div></div>

The rating thing is highly emotive but we shouldn't take it too seriously.

I rarely rate now and rarely bother with the TRP, prefering to browse through

the Critique Forum. Just how silly is the rating system? Well, <a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?topic_id=1481&msg_id=00I5AO&photo_id=4950317&photo_sel_index=0">this

photo</a>, posted today, is revealed as appreciably inferior to <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/3861170">this

one</a>, posted in November. Occasionally I have re-posted images and the discrepancy

between rates received has been pronounced. <a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/4153012">This

particular photo</a> in my folio gained massively 2nd time round. Two serial

raters who first time round thought it worthy of 5/5 gave exactly the same image

6/6 on its 2nd appearance. A recent nude scraped together a dozen votes averaging

4.68. A re-post 2 weeks later sees it with 72 rates with an average just above

6. So which value should I take as the real? The 1st? The 2nd? The existence

of such a discrepancy dictates that I should accept neither.Probably the best

photo I've taken recently received one of the lowest marks I have in my folio.

Where do I go with this rating? I don't. In the end I go instead with my instinct.</p>

<p>I do a lot of work in one of the less popular genres (child) and although I

hope my work might cross genre boundaries and offer more than just a pic of

a cute kid, I appreciate that others might not think so. Carl is totally correct

to point out that rating in genres we have no interest and knowledge in is pointless.

I know nothing about insect, automobile and macro photos. Well, I know they

don't interest me. Probably if I took more time I could come to appreciate the

nuances involved but frankly I'm not going to. Equally I am not going to rate

these photos either. How could I? What do I know about it? I wouldn't ask a

plumber what he thinks of the carpenter's table, even though their toolkits

look similar. </p>

<p>Until the interface was changed and there was a lot of commotion about the

updating, I wasn't even aware of the existence of the RR system. I think I looked

at it once, decided it was a poor way to go about appraising a fellow artists

work, and forgot about it. I only ever rated through the critique forum. A radical

solution to the RR problems would be to simply abolish it. If a TRP and anonymity

are required make the rates from the Critique Forum anonymous and use that venue

to determine the TRP. Dwell on the idea for a minute of two. Think it through.

It makes sense. I could expound if invited.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, when the RR interface was changed the facility to easy locate photographs

submitted as Critique Only was removed. See attached picture for how it used

to be. I read elsewhere that Philip believes 'ratings are not core to the mission

of the site, which is peer-to-peer education.' A restoration of the Critique

Only facility would go part way to achieving that aim of P2P education. Photos

submitted for 'critique only' are now invisible. The newbie or the shy photographer

who would rather not undergo trial by rating has no other option if they wish

others to see their work. P2P education through useful critiques is worth a

1000 rates. If Philip is serious in his intent, an encouragment to critique

could quite easily and quickly be added to system. Provide a link to the 'Critique

Only' photos from the drop down 'gallery' menu.</p>

<p>Ray, I hope I have stayed on-topic and offered something which hadn't been

said before. Consider leaving my contribution. It took a while to write and

is meant to be of help.<div></div>

<p>Two questions<br>

1-Why am I seeing so many ads? As a paying member I am used to seeing no ads

at all. Now they are almost everywhere. I see the same number of ads whether

I log

in or not and this situation has lasted a week already. Why is this?<br>

2- How long is this going to last?</p>

<p>Apologies if this question has been asked before. I remember seeing the

threads

but I can no longer find the links. Perhaps you could just post a link to it

if my questions were answered fully somewhere else.</p>

Hi Philip, thanks for the answer. I'm intriqued with Narciso's reply. Is it true that the subscribing/non-subscribing ratio is 50-1? Seems unlikely. Brian once pointed out that the income of PN was split roughly 50/50 between advertisers and subscribers. That would suggest to me that it might be a good idea to at least consider pursuing rather than abandoning the subscriptions. If a massive subscription drive tripled the number of subscribers would the result allow PN to drop advertising altogether and yet still maintain the largesse of free membership?

 

One further point. You say 'it is unlikely that there will be any dramatic changes.' but there are many of us using the forums who consider the changes this week to be more that a touch dramatic.

Juliette, how do you know all this?

I am happy to pay my $25 (a fantastic bargain) per year to PN. One of the

principle reasons for so doing is to surf free of ads. If PN do away with

subscriptions completely I am wondering whether that means we will all have no

choice but to suffer ads or will a mechanism be put in place where we can opt

to pay something in order to continue avoiding them.

Hi Bill. You are not being punished but the Critique Only box could read 'For near invisibility click here' This was hotly debated at the time it was implemented and the system was, IMHO, much better before. See this thread for a full explanation http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00GQ9b

Thank you Juliette. Do you know if they are completely random. I am hopeful that nudes will be filtered out as they are not at all appropiate for the home page.

Kris, when you come across pictures you don't like (children, cars)do you still bother to rate them or do you simply skip on to the next?

Hungary is part of the EU. I would imagine that copyright protection is just as enshrined in its law as in France or the UK.

let's all imagine it's permanent. hopefully it will last for a week or two. notice the nudes have disappeared too. maybe apple said no ratings next to their ads.

Someone pointed out to me once that if comments were obligatory for 3/3's you'd get 'It really sucks, dude' as well as the rating. I also heard of a guy giving out 3/3's on photos because they were B/W. Jonathon, don't take the ratings to heart.

More time? You're kidding. 2 minutes to email the candidate and 2 seconds to change the link. The current one has been there so long i can't even remember who the one before it was.

I think there should be two featured portfolios-one Brian chooses and one voted for by the members. That way at least when Brian's on holiday the same old bollocks that's been there forever will not annoy people quite so much.

! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

That little box which says 'Request Critique' which we all click could also do with a re-naming.

Brian, has the default TRP been fully restored to the status quo? I had a quick look through the top 200 and only found 3 nudes (all very tasteful) Is it restored or will it take a few days? Thanks.

I confidently predict that no-one will EVER respect my predictions again. Gentlemens excuse me, Brian?

I confidently predict that nudes will NEVER return to the default TRP. Nice dance, Brian.

Nicely put Mr Walker. And why the lack of response from admin? The curtailing of an entire genre, let alone one as important as nudes, surely is worthy of explanation. Or even acknowledgment. Maybe I missed the discussion. Really, I'm still hoping it's a bug because it just seems too strange too be true. Maybe a sponsership deal is in the making. Coming soon-a cleaned up TRP brought to you in association with Canon. A little clarification would be nice-but I guess that will come later, once the photographers start putting their nudes in portraits, fine art, abstract, studio etc.

7/7 for Sondra for setting up a bot like that. What can I say. Wow.