| Author | Thread |
|
|
09/21/2005 09:22:38 PM · #1 |
Question - how do you vote? How do you decide between a 3, 5 or a 7?
Here's my view of the voting worldâ€Â¦
A. Did you meet the challenge criteria? Yes, automatic 3 points
B. Was it a good technical picture? Sharp? Focused on subject? Yes - see "C" below. [BTW, even if it's tack on, if it doesn't meet "A", 1-2 points]
C. Was the picture interesting? I.e., Was it creative or different from the rest.
"C" is the clincher for me. For example, with "Bubbles", I expected to see a lot of kids with bubbles; some really cool studio shots with great lighting, colors, and of course..bubbles; some bubbles in the sky; some drink bubbles, etc.â€Â¦ For these shots, if they were technically good, I only score them 4 to 6, simply because they didn't excite me, I expected them.
For pictures that were not only technically sharp, but also made me do a double take, or admire the pure artistry of the shot - score = 7 to 10. And by the way, I'm not a big lover of over Photoshop'd or NeatImage'd pictures. Some of you folks are real artists at it and craft amazing pictures (truly wasted shots just sitting on this web site), and then there are others who think that NeatImage is a hammer and every picture is a nail. Over processed images lose 1-2 points from me. Sorry, just my opinion.
It just struck me as I am sitting here voting on the new challenges...this is what I think about when voting...but what do others think when they vote on "my" pictures? What criteria do you use to assign numbers? |
|
|
|
09/21/2005 09:39:13 PM · #2 |
I mostly do a bell curve, rating similar photos under each number from 1-10. I use all 10 numbers on every challenge. Starting at 3 just turns 3 into the new "1" so I don't see any point in not using the full range of 1-10.
A photo that clearly doesn't meet the challenge gets a 1-3. By clearly I mean I cannot in anyway concieve of HOW it meets the challenge. Say the challenge is "round" and the picture is of a dog and a cat lying together. They don't appear to be in a circle, nothing round is noticable, nothing in the title helps either. I mostly give 1's in these cases but sometimes a particularly striking picture gets a 3 out of me.
But assuming the photo meets the challenge I give each of the following a mental thumbs up, thumbs down or a neutral vote.
Lighting
Composition
Story
Originality
Use of focus (does it help or hinder the overall shot) A shot can be completely blurry and still be a 10 if it works for that particular shot.
Color
Contrast
Appeal
How well it meets the challenge
etc.
Not all pictures have to have all elements. An abstract might not have a lot of "story" and that's fine.
After I sort of mentally process these things I give it a number. 5 is my "not bad but nothing special" score. Then I sort pictures relative to the other submissions for the challenge. The initial score giving is simply a tool to get them roughly sorted. Then I go through them again and move them up or down so each group is roughly "equal" in my eyes.
Shots that meet the challenge particularly well usually get bumped up 1 group over shots that are otherwise the same but don't meet the spirit of the challenge as well.
|
|
|
|
09/21/2005 09:45:46 PM · #3 |
My voting method is very complex... in fact it's so complex that I doubt anyone would understand it, but I will give it a try...
1. I look at the photo
2. If I like the photo a lot, i give it a high score
3. If I think the photo is average, i give it an average score
4. If I think the photo sucks, i give it a low score.
I would love to see a broken down voting system where we could rate various parts of the photo on a 1-10 scale and let the system average those votes.
|
|
|
|
09/21/2005 09:45:58 PM · #4 |
I'm not so exact about my system, but I'm really trying to do better about using the full scale. I used to very rarely vote below a 4, because I felt too bad giving low scores. And I was too conservative about giving high scores because I thought I'd see something better later on and wanted to leave room. So I basically was only using 5, 6, and 7! Now I'm using 1-8 pretty freely. And later I'll go back and look at the 7 and 8s and bump my favorites up into 9 and 10s.
|
|
|
|
09/21/2005 09:56:18 PM · #5 |
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
...
I would love to see a broken down voting system where we could rate various parts of the photo on a 1-10 scale and let the system average those votes. |
I try to do that and have seen others too, this is my format:
Fits challenge=0
Color/lighting=0
DOF/focus=0
Wow factor/uniqueness=0
Attractiveness=0
and comments
If you fit the challenge you get a 5 instantly then 0 or 1 in the other fields, if I believe it is worthy of a 10 I find the section that seems to be they did the best in and give it a 2. I insert this in the comments so that they can see my reasoning behind their score. I have often thought of changing this to...if you meet the challenge criteria you get a 10, then subtract from all the areas I think need work.
I agree that maybe you should just have boxes with the main components of a great image that you check and that gives the image its score. Just an idea.
|
|
|
|
09/21/2005 10:16:30 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
My voting method is very complex... in fact it's so complex that I doubt anyone would understand it, but I will give it a try...
1. I look at the photo
2. If I like the photo a lot, i give it a high score
3. If I think the photo is average, i give it an average score
4. If I think the photo sucks, i give it a low score.
I would love to see a broken down voting system where we could rate various parts of the photo on a 1-10 scale and let the system average those votes. |
There's a little science in every show... :)
I Like it...I Rate them the same way.
Another site that I frequent used to have the many tier voting system...
You think the whinning is bad here now with the current "rate my girlfriend" style voting system you should see when they have:
a 1-7 scale each for 5 different categories like Lighting, Composition, Technique (focus) and emotional appeal (interest) there was one other that I forgot now. It didn't work over there because that site was not a contest but more of a critique site...now getting 500+ uploads a day the 5 catergory 1-7 critique doesn't work.
Final rating for your pics became the average of all the categories. It was a spot on system where you needed little or no comments. If your lighting was marked down, you could see that category was low but composition and appeal were higher. Would be a great system here now that the basic challenges have split up.
If I must break down my system then here goes:
Wow, Hmmm (in a good way), I could do that, Huh?, Ewww...
ED: Omission
Message edited by author 2005-09-21 22:26:27.
|
|
|
|
09/21/2005 10:29:40 PM · #7 |
.....
[quote]
It just struck me as I am sitting here voting on the new challenges...this is what I think about when voting...but what do others think when they vote on "my" pictures? What criteria do you use to assign numbers? [/quote]
I saw from your profile => Avg Vote Cast: 3.7417
I have a hard time reconciling that with the method you claim you use unless you feel most photos don't meet the challenge. Just curious since you brought it up.
|
|
|
|
09/21/2005 10:43:23 PM · #8 |
cdcootie: "I saw from your profile => Avg Vote Cast: 3.7417
I have a hard time reconciling that with the method you claim you use unless you feel most photos don't meet the challenge. Just curious since you brought it up."
Excellent catch! That's another reason I posed the question, as I felt pretty harsh in my voting. I have voted many 1's and 2's for the "eww's" (as awpollard so nicely puts it). :-) I just started voting 3's and higher in the last 3 challenges, as I saw people rating my pictures even higher than I would have rated them.
You should see my average start going up. Actually, they say they only update the stats on Mondays and Wednesdays, so I expect the average to go up after tonight's update. |
|
|
|
09/21/2005 10:47:43 PM · #9 |
I use a bell curve. I try to have fewer 10s than 9s than 8s etc. A 6 is an average good picture and a 4 is an average poor picture. 3's are terrible (obvious OOF or too small) and 2s and 1s don't fit challenge. 5 tends to be a poor picture I want to come back and comment on as I thought it had potential, but failed.
I usually wind up with 3-6 10s depending on the size of the pool. Often it's about 1:100 or so. |
|
|
|
09/21/2005 11:02:55 PM · #10 |
Originally posted by macpapas:
Excellent catch! That's another reason I posed the question. |
Cool. Thanks for the response. For myself I am ever mindful of the Bell Curve as others have mentioned and do a secondary sorting after the first pass. All those science classes I guess. My ave vote cast is a bit skewed to the high side at 5.3 because I can't bring myself to give a one and I'm easily wow'd and I'm not as technically saavy as many others here. But that's why I here; to learn and find a community of photo nuts. (sorry...enthusiasts :-))
|
|
|
|
09/21/2005 11:12:45 PM · #11 |
Originally posted by cdcootie:
My ave vote cast is a bit skewed to the high side at 5.3 |
Not really, we can vote between 1 to 10, therefore average possible vote is 5.5
Foe me, anything below a three is off topic, offensive and taken with a camera phone.
And anything rated ten is not achived in too many challenges. |
|
|
|
09/21/2005 11:14:23 PM · #12 |
I'll start by saying that I like the informal method of voting here. People obviously have many different ways they go about this, and I think that adds to the site. There is no wrong or right way to vote - you have to simply do what you feel comfortable with.
When I first joined, the first 3 challenges I voted on I had been swayed by the "how to vote" threads and voted a real curve, using the whole scale. I found myself personally uncomfortable with that though, so, since you ask:
"Wow" or "I wish I had done that" get an 8 - 10 from me. Some challenges I've had one or two ten's; others I've had 10 of them. It doesn't appear to depend on the number of entrants; more on whether that topic brought out images that appeal to me.
I do like images that scream the topic to me, but then it's more the image quality. If something is a solid image, no real problems but doesn't "speak" to me, it gets a 6 or 7. 5's are for either obvious problems or doesn't meet the challenge (for me) at all. 4's are for those I find fairly poor, or seem to have little thought or effort.
I rarely go below a 4 - it has to scream multiple issues for me to vote that far down. I always comment on those, but I truly admire the members here who comment on the middle range image. |
|
|
|
09/21/2005 11:21:44 PM · #13 |
Here's another way to think about it. Think about the relation to the final score.
4 - you aren't doing anybody a favor by giving a 4.
5 - you are helping the real newbies bump their average.
6 - a great boost to the newbie (who's trying to break into the 5's),
a neutral score for the expert
7 and above: each is an increasing amount of "help" to the expert. A 7 will be mostly neutral to a top 20 finisher, a 10 will help anybody's score.
Ok, maybe that makes less sense than what I posted above... |
|
|
|
09/21/2005 11:22:10 PM · #14 |
Consistancy reigns supreme!
Does it really matter where one voting scale is compared to another, as long as our own votes are consistant. Two equal photos should have similar scores throughout a challenge, and from challenge to challenge.
As vote receivers we just need to have thick skins for the ones, and not let our heads get to big on the tens. The curve on the votes received per point, usually gives us the best idea of how we've done.
|
|
|
|
09/21/2005 11:34:36 PM · #15 |
I use a system similar to Setzler's.
"1. I look at the photo
"2. If I like the photo a lot, i give it a high score
"3. If I think the photo is average, i give it an average score
"4. If I think the photo sucks, i give it a low score."
There will be varying levels of how much I like a picture, based on my impression of what the image says to me. Technical aspects come next if applicable. Then, if I think it doesn't meet the challenge, I'll lower my vote.
So, what's that mean in numbers? The majority of my votes are fives & sixes, there'll be a number of sevens, a few eights, nines & tens.
I give threes and fours for technical reasons, ones and twos for images that fail in many more ways than appeal. I've cast over thirty thousand votes, and I believe I've not cast more than two or three dozen ones or twos.
One thing I don't do is compare images to each other. I believe each image should be voted on its own merit (I'm sure I read that on this site, somewhere), and let the voting scores pick winners.
There is no obligation to find images to rate as ones or twos, just as there's no obligation to find some to rate as nines or tens. Go ahead, try to find a one, two or three in THIS challenge. |
|
|
|
09/21/2005 11:47:07 PM · #16 |
Well lets see if it does not meet the challange I will give it a 1 or 2, if it is a really nice picture and it dosent meet the challange I will make sure there is a comment about "where is ..." or I dont see the theam here
Ok so then I look at focus, comp, lighting and the technical aspects of the shot as well as textures use of color vs b&w those that dont do well there get 3,4,5
Then I look at difficulty a shot can be really nice but could also be the camera on full auto and anyone could have made that shot if at right place/time. those that are more difficult get 7-8 those that arent 5-6.
Next comes emotional level if a picture evokes a strong emotional responses those get the 9 10s
But then is the x factor, alot of people wave the "bloody red flag" with the subject being a memorial related to the time of the challenge...while thes pictures can be wonderful I ,I always wonder did they choose that and the timeing to try to get the sympathy vote. Much like my wife was stunned to see me enter a pic of our kid as I see people trying to just get the cuteness factor or or try to pass off family snapshots. On these I usually try to not use the emotion to judge it unless it is somthing overpowering and universal, like a child crying in a 3rd world country. And yes by that standard if I put a pic of my kid in a contest I do not expect it to ever get a 10 or even a 6. |
|
|
|
09/22/2005 07:47:17 PM · #17 |
I look at the photo and if it is creative and holds my attention, I stay with it and vote, basically on this scale (stolen from another DPCer)
Technical aspects 0-2 (DOF, sharp, soft, etc)
Composition 0-2
Fit to Challenge 0-2 (there is some wiggle room here because I do take into account the title, especially if I don't know what I am looking at)
Color/Contrast 0-2
Appeal (do I like it?) 0-2
And I always try to comment. If the photo doesn't catch my eye and there are tons to vote on, I move on, especially if it is just a snapshot or really bad. If I have time to come back and vote on the really bad ones, I try to comment and tell why I don't like the photo or how it could have been more effective (IMHO).
That's how I do it......NEXT!
|
|
|
|
09/22/2005 07:54:58 PM · #18 |
My voting style has changed over time.
Initially, meeting the challenge used to be paramount.
Meets: 5+, DNMC: 4-
Over time, that changed.. and technical excellence took priority
Starting vote: 6.. add points for appeal, deduct for technical shortfalls.
Now, its just based on overall appeal
I like it - high vote, dont like it - low vote.
My like or dislike might inherently take various factors into account.
|
|
|
|
09/22/2005 07:59:37 PM · #19 |
I am a proponent of jmsetzler's method of voting..it's pretty much what I do when I vote. I'm afraid I don't have a lot of time to spend over every little part of an image...either it appeals to me or it doesn't.
Message edited by author 2005-09-22 20:01:04. |
|
|
|
09/22/2005 08:17:46 PM · #20 |
| Latest method has been to divide photos into 5 (just below average) and 6 (just above average), then go through the 6's and find one I like the best(10), then 2(9), then 3(8), then 4(7). I no longer worry about a photo meeting any particular feature, even if it does or does not meet the challenge anymore. My 10 - 7 usually end up being the ones selected for ribbons. Sometimes, I do not have enough 6's and cannot see anything I would call a ten or nine or even eights. |
|
Home -
Challenges -
Community -
League -
Photos -
Cameras -
Lenses -
Learn -
Help -
Terms of Use -
Privacy -
Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2025 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 05/19/2025 07:04:30 PM EDT.
