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trevor
Anonymous Poster
Aug 21, 2002, 4:47 AM
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There have been numerous discussions to the usefulness of the Photo rating system. So I decided to determine exactly how successful it really is. During this process, I made a critical assumption: the current rating reflects what the masses feel the photo is worth. I realize that the fewer number of votes for a photo, the less this assumption makes sense. With this assumption, I learned the following:
1) The average vote is 7.75, which is entirely too high since the average is supposed to be 5.
2) People rarely vote "bad" photos high: The top overly generous people were: atg200, bobtheboulderer, cass, climbinganne, crackaddict, jmlangford, polarwid, ponyryan. I don't see this as much as a problem.
3) People more often than not, vote their photos lower, rather than higher than the consensus. borrego was one of the few exceptions to this with 9 photos rated by himself too high. Still not a problem in my mind.
4) Few people are sabatoged based on their name. rrradam with 143 and PTPP with 89 were far ahead of the rest of the crowd with the number of time someone tried unsuccessfully to vote their photo down. I've talked to them both and they are usually OK with this since they realize that their personality causes problems. Not a huge problem but it's isolated atleast. More on this below.
5) Pessimistic voters who vote good photos low, usually voted low across the board. The 15 users with the most "against" votes also had an average Vote of 3.8. Unfortunately a couple of these could be psuedonames of more common users. But still it isn't widespread and if removed would probably not make much of an affect of ratings.
Basically the rating system seems to be rating the photos about as accurately as subjective humans can rate them. After all this is just people's opinions. We could make the system maybe 1% smarter, but that would unlikely make a difference in photos with more than 5 votes.
However, I have thought of a way that could discourage blatant and repeated sabatoging of another user's photo. I've posted a new bug for this enhancement:
http://dev.rockclimbing.com/view_bug_page.php?f_id=0000127
In short, you will get to view users who consistently vote good photos low by UserID (sabatoge). To be sabatoged, the photo must be rated higher than 7, the Vote must be for less than 3, and the total difference must be atleast 5. Also, the voter must try to sabatoge atleast 4 photos from that photographer to be considered sabatoging a them. We will list the page by Photographer or by Voter.
For example, passthepitonspete is the second most sabatoged user on the site. Are you curious who is doing it? Maybe the people who did it, wouldn't try to do this so often if they know that the info would be public.
BTW, the list of Voters sabatoging Photographers has only about 15 combinations on it (mostly against Adam and Pete). Since we have about 15,000 Voter/Photographer combinations, this only happens in 0.1% of the cases.
My question here is do we want to stop complaining about the photo voting system and accept reality or should we try to enhance it slightly.
[ This Message was edited by: trevor on 2002-08-20 21:47 ]
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sauron
Aug 21, 2002, 4:57 AM
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Quoth my bugnote:
I have VERY STRONG feelings against this.
The chance for false positives, is very much too high.
For more on this, see a similar discussion on photo.net:
http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=003cBJ
Please pay specific attention to my replies, I am feeling that what I wrote there, is starting to apply here, starting with this change.
- d.
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roughster
Aug 21, 2002, 4:59 AM
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Blah, after further thought, I have realized that becoming involved with this conversation just marks you as a target for getting low votes.
I would say my best thoughts on this would be to remoive rankings all together and allow one user comment per picture. The photos with the largest # of comments, good or bad, rank the highest.
Finally, randomize the cover shot to pull from every picture submitted as med or higher over the last month. Maybe give the highest ranked (most comments) pictures a heavier weighting to make sure they show more often, but over all I think it should be mostly random.
I think Qualitative (i.e. subjective) votes just create tension in the community that visits this site. I would rather have no ranking at all than the current one.
[ This Message was edited by: roughster on 2002-08-20 22:15 ]
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toobigtoclimb
Aug 21, 2002, 5:05 AM
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Stop the madness!
This is a climbing site, not a photo site. More importantly, people need to understand that an on-line community is just like any other community. Everyone is not going to play by the rules, but most people are. In a real world community there are leaders and rules that keep the community in order. This site has rules, they might not be perfect, but they are the rules. Community leadership, important in the real world, is equally important on-line. If people are to lead the website then they need to have the characteristics of good community leaders - direction, understanding, compromise. Life on this site, like real life, will never be black and white.
This site is one of the best out there. It is a fantastic forum for the climbing community and has given me some of the best climbing days of my life. If the photo rating system isn't perfect, who cares? If the Q rating system isn't perfect, who cares? I chatted with John Gill the other day for crying out loud. Where else am I going to get that opportunity?
In short, this is a great site. It will never be perfect. Quit trying to make it perfect. Enjoy the many benefits of this site and the unique body of members. Friendly, nasty, sneaky, gracious, knowlegeable,leaders, followers, yuppies, gumbies, newbies, sporters, tradsters, boulderers - essential diversity that forms the foundation for any community.
[ This Message was edited by: toobigtoclimb on 2002-08-20 22:07 ]
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climbchick
Aug 21, 2002, 5:34 AM
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The only big flaw I see in the current system is that if a photo gets a low vote right away, it gets pushed to the bottom of the pile and no-one else may ever see it. I like Fiend's idea -- to only tally the votes up at the end of the day. Or maybe have the overall score be re-averaged after every 5 votes or something. If everyone has the chance to see and vote on a pic, most of the vindictive voting will get washed out.
The problem with exposing saboteurs (??) in the way you described is that it would be quite possible for someone to honestly dislike more than 4 pics posted by a photog who may have posted 50 or more. Why not just let all the votes show -- I don't see what it matters.
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karlbaba
Aug 21, 2002, 6:24 AM
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It true that none of us are getting paid based on how our photos rank, but for some reason, these photo votes and Q ratings motivate some good behaviour relative to other unmoderated sites. Since this is a "community", folks will try to work the system and whatnot. It's never going to be perfect but I appreciate the efforts of those improving the site.
The main refinement I would like to see in the photos is a full 1-10 scale. There is plenty of difference between a 5.8 and a 5.10, same with photos.
PEace
Karl
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rrrADAM
Aug 21, 2002, 6:37 AM
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I agree with broadening the votes from 1-10, all numbers.
However, randomly selecting from the large pool will put up pics of users climbing on their "home woodies" or worse. Bad idea.
I can care less when mine get hit, as it all comes out in the wash. If users like shots, after many votes, the bad ones are more or less negated.
As for photos getting pushed to the bottom, users should be clicking "sort by date" to keep up with all the photos submitted.
~Adam
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trevor
Anonymous Poster
Aug 21, 2002, 4:09 PM
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First of all, the main reason that I wrote this is to point out that the current ranking system is actually working quite well despite all the complaints. Although not perfect it's far better than random anarchy that some people suggest. People that think that total randomness haven't spent much time browsing photos in the 2 and 3 point level.
About the false positives and the people who sincerely didn't like the 4 photos, I would bet money that 95% of the people in my list really were voting the person down, not the photo. It was really obvious and since I actually know these people and how they feel about each other, I'm pretty sure of it. But still, it was a VERY limited area.
[ This Message was edited by: trevor on 2002-08-21 09:11 ]
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atg200
Aug 21, 2002, 4:42 PM
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I would also love to see the full 1-10 scale. It would make voting more realistic and accurate.
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dsafanda
Aug 21, 2002, 4:59 PM
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1 vote for a full 1-10 voting scale
1 vote against the above proposed "sabatoge" sniffer.
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tim
Aug 21, 2002, 5:22 PM
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Well, you got the full rating scale (that was ridiculously easy) and you'll be getting minimum-#-of-votes-to-rank and vote-attribution soon.
Let the carnage begin, suckers! We'll see how long this lasts before people start sniping.
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pianomahnn
Aug 21, 2002, 5:41 PM
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I see no problems with anything.
A few people complain. Whoopdeedoo. They're the small majority.
I don't want to see buttshots of people on their home woodies. Not exciting.
With or without the possible new addition to the photo system, it is fine and works well.
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passthepitonspete
Aug 21, 2002, 9:42 PM
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I am amazed, angered and appalled that anyone would "vote my photos down"!
While I will confess to being rather "tired" of seeing Adam's photos on the front page so damn often, I also recognize that he probably submits more photos and accordingly ends up on the front page more often. Though some of his photos are quite mediocre in my opinion, and I wonder how the hell they stay there so long! Others, however, are pretty good.
I have been TEMPTED to "vote down" some of Adam's photos, because I personally cannot stand the man and have no respect for him, and am more than happy to publically [sic] say so! [I voted Adam a "5", though, because he does a lot of work around here]
But despite my personal feeling about someone, I would NEVER stoop to actually vote his, or anyone else's, PHOTOS down. To vote Adam's photos down would be underhanded and decieptfull. [sic] I vote photos what I believe them to be worth. I am also glad that you have added the "9" category.
I am actually a "photographer" - I hope you understand the difference between who I am, compared to someone who merely takes pictures.
I have THOUSANDS of slides from El Cap, and when I can motivate my lazy ass to submit them here, you guys get "la creme de la creme."
You ONLY get the best of many of my thousands. Many of the ones that I submit deserve high ratings, compared to the butt shot/sport climbing/really fricking TERRIBLE photos that grace this website, and take up server space when they really should be deleted. I agree with Chris that "I don't want to see buttshots of people on their home woodies." I want to see bitchin' photos of climbers on the world's great climbs!
Or even not-so-great climbs, as long as they are great photos!
However, I do not understand how to figure out who is sabotaging my photos!
Trevor, I am reasonably HTML/www-savvy, yet I do not "get" your instructions.
Can you or someone else please explain again to me, step by step, here on this post, precisely how to figure out who is sabotaging whom.
Please keep it simple so computer wankers like me can figure it out.
If someone is stabbing me in the back, I sure as hell want to know who it is.
Thanks for your help.
Pete
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rrrADAM
Aug 21, 2002, 10:01 PM
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Pete... I'll submit some photos of me drinking coffee, you should like those much better, as many of your pics are of you drinking coffee. I make a good quad mocha, ya know.
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calamity_chk
Aug 21, 2002, 10:09 PM
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Adam .. "good" is an overwhelming understatement regarding your quad-mocha-making abilities ..
MMMMMMMMMM .. MMmmmooocccchhhaaaa
.........
No real opinions on the photo thing .. toobig can attest to the fact that very few pics of me will ever end up on the site .. lol .. and i only vote a 10 if i'm super impressed with a photo; otherwise, I generally dont vote at all.
[ This Message was edited by: clymbr_chk on 2002-08-21 15:12 ]
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tim
Aug 21, 2002, 10:18 PM
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Quit whining, ya babies. Post some shots, and if they get voted down maliciously, you'll soon find out 'by whom' and can take it up with them.
keeee-rist
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trevor
Anonymous Poster
Aug 21, 2002, 10:32 PM
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I'm closing this topic since I now have the information I need and I don't want it to digress into a flame war.
But to answer your questions Pete.
You cannot see people who sabatoged your photos. I am the only one who knows and I don't see any benefit in making that public. Most people have said that they don't want/need to see them. After all it's someone's right to vote against your photo. Maybe they simply don't like it.
And also, Pete, yours weren't the most "sabatoge" photos. Adam's were by 45% more than yours.
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Photo Sabatoge and Inflating
