mikeoday

Sorry Dimitare for high jacking your thread a little, but …

It never occurred to me Lex that reviewers might give significant weight to the degree of correlation between the

subject of an image and the category in which it is submitted. Now, having read your post, I can see where you

are coming from and your approach is of course as valid as any other.

My problem though is that I have very little confidence in my ability to correctly categorise some images;

particularly at the margins. I simply try to do my best but sometimes though I find it almost impossible. For

example, consider the attached images that I’m about to add to my gallery and post for critique - I have no idea

where to put them!

To help me, do you know if the administrators have published a guide to help us identify the most appropriate

category?

Thanks

Mike<div></div>

Hi Dimitare

As I understand it, there are a number of different sources/reasons for lower ratings we receive:

1. honest personal opinions based on the viewer’s personal rating scheme

2. malicious or vindictive ratings in pay-back for poor ratings or comments

3. intentionally low ratings (either manually entered or from a ‘bot’) in attempt to distort the system to give greater visibility to their own images in the top-rated-photos gallery

I believe the administrators have made very good effort to curtail the actions of the last two. Indeed, if you watch the ratings on a particular image over time, you will likely see some of the ratings (low or high) removed by the administrators as being from suspect sources. So I believe these last two, whilst an annoyance, are not all that significant.

With regard the main source then…

I believe the issue for most of us is that of calibration. That is, for me, I take the view (quite likely wrong for all I know) that the average photographer on this site is a hobbyist of average skill. So if I were to grade photographers from: 1 (gradma, point-and-shoot camera, needs grandson to ‘download images’ (whatever that means), etc.) through to 10 (professional or ‘full-time’ hobbyist who regularly produces potentially competition winning images), then the average photographer for me is a 5 and is someone who likes to plan trips just to take photos (but can’t find the time to do so as often as they would like) and produces images that are, in the main, not too bad and occasionally good enough for friends to want a copy for their wall. So getting back to the point about calibration, a photo rated as ‘4’, by me, is one that I believe to be at the standard of an average photo produced by an average hobbyist – that is, an image that the average photographer themselves, would consider to be amongst their average photos. The implication from this is that a ‘bell’ curve with median at ‘4’ is clearly not appropriate from my perspective. That is, for me, if the site consists of average photographers producing average photos but only submitting their ‘above average’ images, then the median, as judged by average photographers, will be higher than ‘4’.

From reading the perfectly valid comments from others, it is obvious that they set a far higher standard and rate accordingly. All perfectly valid of course and very obvious and normal for them.

So as I see it, the main reason you and I and everyone else gets 3/3s and 6/6s for the same image is simply due to the personal rating system/calibration of each of us. So as long as we get enough ratings (something the administrators are actively trying to improve I understand) then the individual systems/calibrations will themselves average out and we will receive a ‘fair’ guide as to the relative merits of our images as determined by the average member.

To your example images then: using my personal system, I would say that, compared to the average photo produced by an average hobbyist, I would rate all of your images higher than 3 and at least one at 5.5. But then, this is just me and my system.

Keep up the good work and don’t pay too much attention to each rating. Just look at the mean.

All the best

Mike

Thanks, much appreciated.

Cheers

Mike

Is it possible to filter the critique forum for 'Critique Only' requests?

Is it possible to search through the older 'critique only' requests?

Thanks Mike

Ah, I'm not sure.

I have the 80-400mm on a D70 body. The connection with the camera is very firm, without any rotational movement. If there is movement of the lens relative to the camera then maybe you should get it checked out.

Cheers

Mike

As Bruce has said, the main obvious and pervasive impact of the rating system is that the site's search functions are built around it. Over time, only those images that are highly rated and/or often rated, float to the top. Such functions are great for showcasing the 'best of the best' on photo.net and it is a feature that sets this site apart from some of the others.

Having said that, I would appreciate the added ability to find those gems that others, for their own reasons, have rated less highly. This might include say, a random option or the ability to specify the range of ratings or dates to search. Eg: random bird photo, random portrait with average rating 4 to 5, highest rating pet photos in 2005.

What do others think?