Two years ago, Photographica began voting on stories for the front page. The decision was made after many people felt that the front page was far too busy and their story was only on the front page for a short while. Voting has succeeded in slowing down the number of stories posted to the front page. In fact, it has worked all to well. Yesterday, despite more than a dozen new stories, only a single story made it to the front page.
After giving it quite a bit of thought, I've come to the conclusion that voting was a mistake and we as a community should come up with a better way to rate stories and photos. Perhaps we do not need such a thing at all and nothing is rated.
As of today, I've turned off voting for Photographica. If your story was under "new", it will now show on the front page. If your story was hidden because it did not recive enough votes, you'll find your story resurected as well. If your story is a draft, it will remain a draft until you publish it to the front page.
- WoooFrigginHoooo...
Three hails for the king!
I'm sure we can come up with something. I liked the separation, but the voting was very cliquish at times and had basically come to a hault this week.
I personally vote for something that has to do with comments. But seeing as the number of comments has dwindled even lower than the number of votes, I'm not sure how that's going to make much a difference either.
- Film-junkie: Back in 2008
- Spike Lee
- Say...CHEESE
- So shoot already!!
- Walking on Sunshine
- Mmmmmm... Multiplicative
- ©kitzi
I liked the idea of voting … I agree that it did cause some very good images to languish or even die on the new page!! And when there were more people posting than voting … that created a real problem.
Maybe a “Rating Method” ( 1-10; ABCD, etc) could be established where viewers would rate images on some sort of a scale … to help with the popularity contest syndrome these “ratings” could be anonymous … that is to say the photographer would not know who had evaluated (rated) their image(s).
This "rating system" could be kept separate from commenting … sometimes there is just not enough time to keep up with one’s own commenting on new images … with all of the new images being posted … so a quick “rating system” could accomplish nearly the same thing as commenting.
I believe it was ROCKADEE who suggested that some way of identifying how many times an image had been viewed might also be useful … I like that idea too.
- Out of Focus!!
So you are signing on to the KISS theory (Keep It Simple Stupid). I like it, when all else fails, simple is usually the best answer.
I agree with Stan, the voting or rating system, seemed to be a way of knowing how effective or appealing your photos are to others. Not everyone writes comments to each photo....and the majority of the time the comments are pretty non-critical and watered down.
Perhaps there could be 3 rating criteria that everyone could "rate" a picture on... From 1 - 5
1. Exposure/Lighting 5-excellent 4-above average 3-average 2-below average 1-poor
2. Composition 5-excellent 4-above average 3-average 2-below average 1-poor
3. Focus/Technical 5-excellent 4-above average 3-average 2-below average 1-poor
Maybe a score of 10 or higher makes the front page.....also it provides a mechanism that allows the photographer to see in what areas he/she needs to work on.
Also, maybe voting only occurs on the "Bi-weekly Challenge" and takes place after the deadline rather than during the two week period. The person that receives the most votes for the challenge...gets put into a "featured" page....or quarterly "Hall of Fame" page...or maybe they win a Photographica tee shirt....
Just suggestions....seems like something could be done to spice things up a bit.
- ain
- Film-junkie: Back in 2008
I'm afraid we've lost too many good members already due to our "comments". By adopting a "rating system" system that provides some level of feedback to the "poster" that is both critical and helpful, the "poster" wins...the voter is able to provide a meaningful critique without being biting...and the best pictures are displayed as before. All of this can be anonymous...although anyone who would like to comment still can...but for those who don't want to comment or can't articulate what they like or dislike about a post, still have a means of expression without fear of confrontation or rebuttal.
The "love" comments can be given in the General and the Infinity forums.
- ain
- Spike Lee
- Spike Lee
Here goes with my 2-cents again ...
I really feel a rating system is the way to go ... although I think thumbs up or down might not be very helpful to the "poster' ... Much like "Great Shot" is not very helpful!! Lately voting has outweighed comments by a huge margin ... There could be several reason 1) the shear number of posts make it difficult to comment on every image; 2) for a lot of us that are not very sophisticated photographers .. (I'm including myself) .. Commenting can be intimidating ... Am I going to say something stupid ... Do I really have enough experience to now what I'm talking about? ... Do I really understand the technique used (do I even recognize a special technique was used?) ... Can I even recognize good technique from bad technique? - I believe that this is Photographica's average user ... this is not meant to take anything away from our talented and educated users ... there just aren't the same number of them.
A rating system that gives us some starting point will make our comments more meaningful ... and might even make us better photographers in the process!! It will also give the poster a quick check as to how their image was received. But by making it to simple it becomes meaningless and therefore not very useful in helping us improve our photography!!
I really like Jam's take on this and feel that it should be given some serious consideration??
The above "Anonymous User" is looking for constructive criticism ... I now in my own case I don't have enough experience to give a lot of images the critique they deserve ... so I just make the comment that it is a "Great Shot" ... how many other users are in this same position??
Cory ... Could this discussion be put out into one of the forums for a broader comnment?
That’s my 2-cents!!
- Out of Focus!!
- come over for lunch
I agree with andrea on that. And sometimes people don't want to say that they think it's out of focus, or the comp isn't all that great. So they put, nice set. Or say something about the subject matter. That's why I liked jam's idea of anonymity with a rating system (the poster still gets something from the ratings and the less experienced folks kind find comfort in giving input without it applying to their name).
And being one of the "educated" members as stan said, I try my best to give a meaningful, yet gentle critique. If I can find something to critique (as andrea said, sometimes it's just a great shot) I will. And at times I'll go back to see if anyone agrees or disagrees with what I said because I like to know what other's people take on the photo is. A lot is just personal judgment. And that helps me improve the way I might look at that shot or similar shots.
I think we've lost a lot of our 'educated' members so it's becoming hard to get solid critiques for everyone. Which I think is why the commenting is down so much as well. People found safety in being the anonymous voter. I know KISS sounds good, but maybe there's a nice middle ground?
- Film-junkie: Back in 2008