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06/25/2002 01:21:22 PM · #1 |
This is my second week since I first joined the community. I have certainly learned a lot from the two weekly challenges so far.
I have noticed that there are many newbies like my self and at the same time there are many, dare I say, accomplished photographers/artists with great eyes and great photographic techniques. (A look at the profiles shows that certain members consistently have good entries (average scores >6) while others don't.
What if somehow we can reward those excellent photographers with a higher voting power. For example, I am a newbie with 3.5 average and 0 ribbons. It is clear that I still have much more to learn and that my photographic eyes need more training to get good pictures and .to rate good pictures. In other words, I don't feel that my vote should carry the same weight as the votes of the more accomplished people in this forum. One good vote from Ansel Adams would certainly mean the whole world to me compared to hundreds of bad votes from a newbie like me.
Anyway, I think it would be a good idea to weigh everyone's vote with his/her average scores from their submitted pictures in the past. What do you think? |
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06/25/2002 01:33:39 PM · #2 |
This is the same idea about weighted scoring I had yesterday. See the thread "No "Dumping" this time?" in the "Current Challenge" forum
(here)
* This message has been edited by the author on 6/25/2002 1:33:35 PM. |
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06/25/2002 01:39:18 PM · #3 |
The problem with this idea, it seems to me, is that it doesn't take into consideration taste. Beyond whether a photo is technically well done, it just has to be interesting. And a good photographer isn't necessarily a better judge of that than a novice. Some people really like taking and looking at pictures of flowers. Others really like taking and looking at pictures of ralphing up blood. If you start giving people's scoring weight, then it sort of could end up allowing one group to predominate (the flower people get good scores, the next challenge they rate the flower pictures higher, the rest of the flower people get better scores, then they start having more weight), etc. And then the people with the ralphing up blood pictures would constantly get ones, and would always get low scores because the flower people didn't find their photos appealing ;-)
Not that I think anyone would consciously think this way, but a weighted scoring system might introduce a certain amount of a statistical confound that might not be the fairest thing in the world. |
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06/25/2002 01:43:50 PM · #4 |
Originally posted by stephan:
This is the same idea about weighted scoring I had yesterday. See the thread "No "Dumping" this time?" in the "Current Challenge" forum
(here
Sorry I missed your post stephan. However, after reading your post, yes I think my idea is the same as yours, except that I put it in the "right" forum. :) Cheers.
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06/25/2002 01:50:01 PM · #5 |
CEO,
I believe that Kimbly is right... I also don't think you would really want weighted votes. The best thing that you can do if you want to improve dramatically is to spend time looking at photos and looking at critiques. I don't think that the critiques on this site are particularly valuable. Some are and some aren't.
What I would do with my photo if I was you... hmm... If you have a photo in this challenge and you get critiques that follow a patter... let's say that you have 5 critiques that say your photo is over exposed or something like that... after the challenge is over, or even during the challenge, try to redo your photo with better exposure. After the challenge is over, send a note to the people who have shared the common critiques on your photo and ask them if they would be willing to review your redone photo and re-critique for you... I think you would be surprised that most probalby will.
Now.. second theory... If you got ten comments that say your photo is over exposed and then you redo the photo with proper exposure... would those voters give you a higher score? It's hard to say. Some may and some may not.
You may try asking someone who commented on your photograph what it would have taken to get a score of ten maybe...
Believe it or not, some photographs can't score a 10 even if they are perfectly executed. This is where subjectivity comes into play. Not only does your photo need to be well executed, it needs to be interesting as well. It needs to have visual impact (the WOW factor). It also needs to be somewhat unique, to say the least.
There are a lot of things about a photo that makes it good or bad. However, those things are different with different viewers.
Good luck with your interest in photography :)
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06/25/2002 01:54:37 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
CEO,
I believe that Kimbly is right... I also don't think you would really want weighted votes. The best thing that you can do if you want to improve dramatically is to spend time looking at photos and looking at critiques. I don't think that the critiques on this site are particularly valuable. Some are and some aren't.
What I would do with my photo if I was you... hmm... If you have a photo in this challenge and you get critiques that follow a patter... let's say that you have 5 critiques that say your photo is over exposed or something like that... after the challenge is over, or even during the challenge, try to redo your photo with better exposure. After the challenge is over, send a note to the people who have shared the common critiques on your photo and ask them if they would be willing to review your redone photo and re-critique for you... I think you would be surprised that most probalby will.
Now.. second theory... If you got ten comments that say your photo is over exposed and then you redo the photo with proper exposure... would those voters give you a higher score? It's hard to say. Some may and some may not.
You may try asking someone who commented on your photograph what it would have taken to get a score of ten maybe...
Believe it or not, some photographs can't score a 10 even if they are perfectly executed. This is where subjectivity comes into play. Not only does your photo need to be well executed, it needs to be interesting as well. It needs to have visual impact (the WOW factor). It also needs to be somewhat unique, to say the least.
There are a lot of things about a photo that makes it good or bad. However, those things are different with different viewers.
Good luck with your interest in photography :)
With my current entry, the problem is that all my 6 comments say nice shots. Yet, my average is only 4. :( |
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06/25/2002 02:07:19 PM · #7 |
| When you are communicating through a photograph, there are vast levels of viewers. The primary goal is to âstunâ the majority. When setting up an advertising or marketing shot, it is important to know who your target market is and to try to appeal to them specifically. I try to think of DPChallenge as a very diverse group of people from every category (a tuff crowd). I feel I would loose a certain (and very important) group of critics if the votes are weighted. Many of the voters are well versed behind a camera â others donât care about the technical aspects of the photo but rather itâs appeal. Me, I pay close attention to how difficult it might have been to acquire an image. Hanging from one leg on a rickety bridge. If my target for DPChallenge is Everyone & Anyone Iâd better have a good Idea what the majority likes. This is why I like to stir the pot when the forum opens to define the expectations of the next challenge. Weighting the votes would only help me to understand what a photographer likes. |
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06/25/2002 02:46:52 PM · #8 |
jm, you're right that there is more to an excellent photo than just good technical execution. I agree that a boring but technically perfect photo won't be a 10 on my scale either.
But the main reason why I participate in DPC is to improve my technical skills. So weighted scoring would actually help me to measure that. Assuming I knowingly submit a shot with a *wow* factor of zero but which is technically very good. Then I wouldn't actually get the feedback I sought (apart from the comments). It would be a 4-5 like the totally blurred one from the landing on the moon ;-)
I don't know how much work it would be for the creators of this website but maybe it's possible to have this weighted scoring additionally to the current scores. I'm all for leaving the current scoring system for the challenge. But adding weighted scoring would be an extra info which could benefit beginners.
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06/25/2002 03:09:54 PM · #9 |
| Good point Stephen - We already have voters with and without cameras. That might be an easy addition without changing things across the board. |
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06/25/2002 03:16:40 PM · #10 |
I'm not sure we need weighted scoring, but it might help if we removed the anonymity of the voter (not the photographer), much as is done with the comments. That way, we can all see how each photographer rated our photo, and evaluate that score in the context of who made it.
If necessary, this could be optional. Many people reveal how they vote on certain photos now in the forum discussions. I'd be happy to allow my votes to be shown to the photographer, either during or after the voting period. That way, if they think my vote's out of line, they're free to contact me individually, if it's not a suitable topic for the forums (as quite a few threads have gotten recently). |
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06/25/2002 03:55:39 PM · #11 |
CEO,
What you are experiencing with your comments is normal. Most people won't say "I don't like your photo" in the comment block because their name is going to appear by it after the challenge is over. Some people feel compelled to comment, some don't. My photo isn't doing well this week either. I'm gonna have my lowest score yet. I have comments ranging from 'nice shot' and 'beautiful' to 'it doesn't mee the challenge.' I entered this photo knowing that it would be easy for people to give me crap for not meeting the challenge. My photo is not a nice nighttime city skyline or a photo of kids playing in the street. I have one of those photos that requires too much thought in order to allow interpretation of the challenge.
I don't feel that what I submitted was a mistake, however. I submitted the best photo I had this week and it does represent city life where I live :) It just doesn't smack one in the face with hustle and bustle :)
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06/25/2002 03:57:47 PM · #12 |
Originally posted by stephan:
jm, you're right that there is more to an excellent photo than just good technical execution. I agree that a boring but technically perfect photo won't be a 10 on my scale either.
But the main reason why I participate in DPC is to improve my technical skills. So weighted scoring would actually help me to measure that. Assuming I knowingly submit a shot with a *wow* factor of zero but which is technically very good. Then I wouldn't actually get the feedback I sought (apart from the comments). It would be a 4-5 like the totally blurred one from the landing on the moon ;-)
I don't know how much work it would be for the creators of this website but maybe it's possible to have this weighted scoring additionally to the current scores. I'm all for leaving the current scoring system for the challenge. But adding weighted scoring would be an extra info which could benefit beginners.
The only flaw in this theory is that photographs that lack zing usually don't get as many comments as those who do.. you get a vote and a blank comment box... check the mid range scoring photos in all the challenges...
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06/25/2002 09:34:17 PM · #13 |
| Photos that get a high score aren't "good", they're popular. There are some very important differences between these two ideas. Some people are great at reaching a wide audience, and that's a fine skill to have, and they deserve to win. But it's not the only kind of "good" there is. The people I respect most on this site, whose photos excite me the most, get very erratic scores because they experiment and risk not reaching a lot of people because they create images that require thought and open-mindedness from the viewer. Weighted scoring would mean that these people would have a smaller degree of input to the site, and I wouldn't be interested in participating if that was the case. Their input is all I really care about. |
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06/26/2002 12:17:00 AM · #14 |
OK, how about this middle ground. What if for each score in the voting statistics of my picture (the one shown as bar charts), I could see the average rating of the voters. For example, if two people voted 1, I would like to know the average score of those two voters in the past challenges. Same for voters of 2, 3, ...., 10. Would this be too hard a script to write/program?
In this way, the voting is not weighted, but yet I can construct my own weighted score as I please. What do you think? |
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06/27/2002 04:05:36 PM · #15 |
| Well after some more thinking I aggree that this weighted scoring wouldn't achieve what I hoped for. Thanks Lisa for your good thoughts :-) |
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