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10/07/2005 06:28:00 AM · #26 |
Originally posted by rikki11:
Can these be tracked? There's been an awful barrage of low scores especially tonight and I'm wondering if there are any precautions SC or the Admins are taking to prevent this? It's utterly frustrating and when you see great photographers getting hit hard, it's depressing for people like myself who average 5.1s in challenges.
Just a thought. |
I hate to sound harsh or mean, but the problem with low votes tonight is probably due to what I encountered when I voted tonight...a lack of images that deserve higher scores.
I am normally a generous voter. I rarely give scores in the 1-2-3 range. I always (and I mean ALWAYS) have several 10s in each challenge, sometimes as many as 6 or 7. I voted on Coffee Shop tonight, and I made full use of the scale this time. I have not yet finished commenting, but rest assured that my 1s and 2s (and maybe 3s if I have time) will be getting some comments. I don't think there is some vast conspiracy, and I don't think it's the trolls...I think it's just that the challenges have entries this time that are subpar and people are voting accordingly. :(
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10/07/2005 07:32:34 AM · #27 |
Originally posted by laurielblack:
I hate to sound harsh or mean, but the problem with low votes tonight is probably due to what I encountered when I voted tonight...a lack of images that deserve higher scores.
I am normally a generous voter. I rarely give scores in the 1-2-3 range. I always (and I mean ALWAYS) have several 10s in each challenge, sometimes as many as 6 or 7. I voted on Coffee Shop tonight, and I made full use of the scale this time. I have not yet finished commenting, but rest assured that my 1s and 2s (and maybe 3s if I have time) will be getting some comments. I don't think there is some vast conspiracy, and I don't think it's the trolls...I think it's just that the challenges have entries this time that are subpar and people are voting accordingly. :( |
These were my thoughts exactly but your wording was so much better than I could have put it. I know my average scores given will go down from this challenge. It was a boring challenge to vote on.
Message edited by author 2005-10-07 07:34:16. |
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10/07/2005 08:10:46 AM · #28 |
Originally posted by bear_music:
There just isn't any way to police it, sheesh. In order to police this you have to have some sort of consensus as to which pictures don't "deserve" the low (or high) votes, and the only way you can generate the consensus is by peeling off a certain percentage of votes |
Not necessarily; there is the concept of "deviation" and "karma". If at the end of a challenge, the score you assigned to an image is not within +/-4 of the final score, your karma is reduced by an amount proportional to the deviation. And your karma affects how much weight your ratings have the next time you vote. So if you are a troll voter (or use ghost accounts to assign low or high scores, or whatever), eventually your karma would get so bad that your votes impact the final score by an insignificant amount. Likewise, your karma is increased (up to a maximum of 100%) if you voted "fairly", and it also increases for voting on a larger percentage of the entries instead of "cherry picking".
Quoting from the rules of another site where this concept is used:
"the level of karma you have is automatically determined by your personal voting habits. It drops when you deliberately give an image what you don't think it deserves. It raises when you rate all the images in a contest fairly ... this is not a system of punishment and reward, nor is it a judgement of your personal tastes. It's merely a way to measure your ability to discern actual image quality, and allows plenty of room for your individual tastes to come into play without damaging your karma. It maximizes the effects that consistantly fair and observant voters have on an entry's average, and minimizes the effects that 'quirky' or downright dishonest voters can have."
Requiring comments on the lowest or highest scores would not be helpful, as there is no way to enforce meaningful comments, voters could simply type "nice" as their comment and still click "1".
Personally, I would just prefer the ability to see individual voting breakdowns on a per-challenge basis so that there is some voter accountability, while still retaining anonymity...
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10/07/2005 10:43:06 AM · #29 |
The karma thing is done by another site. It is pointless. The amount of deviation is yet another ineffective way of policing. Why is it stupid? Because it forces everyone into the same voting scheme. That is contrary to the point of voting. That's like when someone says "I'm not going to count your vote seriously because you disagree with the mainstream." That's moronity.
Historically, progress has been made by people who do not follow the norms of their society.
The point here is NOT the average voter. I and most others have absolutely no problem with people voting with thought and purpose. If you want to give me a 1, do so. That's why there is a 1 on the scale.
The problem here is that there seems to be a lot of people giving 1's without thinking or for reasons that are not related to the photograph.
How can we fix this? Perhaps something could be set up that would make people comment on 1 in 3 or 1 in 2 comments. That could be a gentle encouragement to make people put a little more thought into their voting.
Policing has always been a real band-aid solution. Encouraging people to do things for the right reasons is a better way.
Time will tell if things really get out of control. Things tend to balance out in the end usually. In the meantime, lets see what happens in the next few challenges.
We can always hope that people will put more thought into the voting if we put more thought into our submissions. |
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10/07/2005 11:01:58 AM · #30 |
Haven't thought this through so it's probably full of holes but why not link the comment to the vote so the vote is indicated next tothe comment?
Often I get a comment which I usually find helpful but it would be good to know how, in relation to the comment, the person voted for me?
P
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10/07/2005 11:12:52 AM · #31 |
Originally posted by eschelar:
The karma thing is done by another site. It is pointless. The amount of deviation is yet another ineffective way of policing. Why is it stupid? Because it forces everyone into the same voting scheme. That is contrary to the point of voting. That's like when someone says "I'm not going to count your vote seriously because you disagree with the mainstream." That's moronity. |
Agreed.
Originally posted by eschelar:
Historically, progress has been made by people who do not follow the norms of their society.
The point here is NOT the average voter. I and most others have absolutely no problem with people voting with thought and purpose. If you want to give me a 1, do so. That's why there is a 1 on the scale.
The problem here is that there seems to be a lot of people giving 1's without thinking or for reasons that are not related to the photograph. |
How do you know they're doing it for those reasons? Maybe they don't like the photo, maybe they feel it's too overprocessed, maybe they only like grungy/blurry/way-out-of-the-box/whatever photos. Maybe they think it's not a good photo if it doesn't convey some sort of protrayal of suffering or societal disorder. Maybe it's just not their cup of tea and they don't feel that the technical aspects outweigh the subjective.
Originally posted by eschelar:
How can we fix this? Perhaps something could be set up that would make people comment on 1 in 3 or 1 in 2 comments. That could be a gentle encouragement to make people put a little more thought into their voting.
Policing has always been a real band-aid solution. Encouraging people to do things for the right reasons is a better way.
Time will tell if things really get out of control. Things tend to balance out in the end usually. In the meantime, lets see what happens in the next few challenges.
We can always hope that people will put more thought into the voting if we put more thought into our submissions. |
Trying to police the votes to eliminate "trolls" is not only impossible (different people are always going to have their own feelings and opinions and will vote accordingly, no matter what the voting scale), it will also lead to much much more in the way of hurt feelings and feelings of unfairness than the system now produces.
Yes, it would be nice if you were required to comment on 1/2 votes, but if that were the case you would either get a spate of 1-2 word or cut-and-paste comments, or the so-called "trolls" would simply move up to the 3 votes and still say nothing.
And I'm with GeneralE. Where is the evidence for all of the "ghost accounts" and voting conspiracies? If you (or anyone) know about them and are keeping quiet, you are just as guilty as those committing these acts of voter fraud.
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10/07/2005 11:17:55 AM · #32 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
I'm starting to feel insulted. All you folks stating with such certainty that their are multiple account and cheaters out there.
You have no proof. If you do, please email the admins (Menu: Help > Contact) as they are prepared to do something about it. But if you have no proof, please quit insulting the administrators (and their unpaid lackeys) and impugning the integrity of those who cast votes. |
C'mon General, tell 'em the truth. There are only 4 people on this entire site.... You, me, Drew Langdon (same person) and the other person reading this thread right now. All other "users" are simply multiple aliases the three of us use to make the other user think he's not the only one here. ;-P
CONSPIRACY REVEALED!!!
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10/07/2005 11:28:08 AM · #33 |
Originally posted by eschelar:
The karma thing is done by another site. It is pointless. The amount of deviation is yet another ineffective way of policing. Why is it stupid? Because it forces everyone into the same voting scheme. That is contrary to the point of voting. That's like when someone says "I'm not going to count your vote seriously because you disagree with the mainstream." That's moronity. |
I don't think you understand how such a system works.
A +/-4 "voting window" leaves a huge margin for individual voter expression. For example, take a photo that ends with a score of 7. That means you could vote it from a 3 to a 10 and be considered "voting fairly" and your karma would not be negatively affected. Obviously if the photo ended up with a score that high, it had some redeeming qualities, enough so that a vote of a 1 or 2 would be considered "inappropriate" by the overwhelming majority. Even if you hated the subject of the photo, it would have other factors that make it deserve a score higher than a 1 or 2, or it wouldn't have been scored so high by the voting populus. This sentiment is expressed time and again in the forums by people who comment on the number of low votes given to a photo (and to a lesser extent, the number of high votes given to poor photos).
That being said, I ended my post with the statement "I would just prefer the ability to see individual voting breakdowns on a per-challenge basis so that there is some voter accountability" because I realized that some people (such as yourself) would mistakenly interpret a karma system as somehow "violating" your ability to vote how you feel. Just because your karma could be reduced on a single photo that you voted a "1" doesn't meet that your votes will be thrown out next time you vote. In all likelihood, a small number of "outliar" votes wouldn't have any impact on your karma, since you would most likely have more votes that would be considered "fair", thus keeping your karma stable.
Message edited by author 2005-10-07 11:36:20. |
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10/07/2005 11:40:23 AM · #34 |
Originally posted by Palmetto_Pixels:
Originally posted by GeneralE:
I'm starting to feel insulted. All you folks stating with such certainty that their are multiple account and cheaters out there.
You have no proof. If you do, please email the admins (Menu: Help > Contact) as they are prepared to do something about it. But if you have no proof, please quit insulting the administrators (and their unpaid lackeys) and impugning the integrity of those who cast votes. |
C'mon General, tell 'em the truth. There are only 4 people on this entire site.... You, me, Drew Langdon (same person) and the other person reading this thread right now. All other "users" are simply multiple aliases the three of us use to make the other user think he's not the only one here. ;-P
CONSPIRACY REVEALED!!! |
Shhhhhh!!!
Originally posted by EddyG:
That being said, I ended my post with the statement "I would just prefer the ability to see individual voting breakdowns on a per-challenge basis so that there is some voter accountability" because I realized that some people (such as yourself) would mistakenly interpret a karma system as somehow "violating" your ability to vote how you feel. Just because your karma may be reduced on a single photo that you voted a "1" doesn't meet that your votes will be thrown out. In all likelihood, one such "outliar" vote by yourself wouldn't have any impact on your karma, since you would like vote other images "fairly", thus keeping your karma stable. |
This type of system should be fairly easy to impliment, since it would just display the raw data from which the "average vote given" is derived.
It also might eliminate (or at least add credibility to) all those threads discussing what kind of voting scale people use.
And Eddy, I think you mean "outlier" votes ... or maybe not ; )
Message edited by author 2005-10-07 11:41:09. |
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10/07/2005 11:47:30 AM · #35 |
Why is everyone trying to get my dog to be the policeman of thsi site? Is this a conspiracy? Will she get paid?
Robt.
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10/07/2005 11:48:22 AM · #36 |
If you want to show me a ghost account, show me a profile with the following characteristics:
Challenges entered: 0
Forum posts: 0
Comments made: 0
Votes made: >100
Average vote given: <4.000
I'll believe in the possibility of ghosts when I see an account like this. Until then, I think it's just too much work. Someone with some time can go hunting if they want.
I'm sure people are voting for their buddies and such. I'm sure it's common enough that it only makes a small difference (it's all evening out). I doubt the # of people any one person instant messages to "give him a 10" is low. |
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10/07/2005 11:58:22 AM · #37 |
How about this guy. It goes the other way 335 votes, 1 comment, average vote 6.8.
Took me about five minutes to find him. If I can find one with an average of 6.8 it should not take too long to fine someone with an average under 4.0.
Likely the guy came in, voted on one challenge and left. Or we can be suspicious and make a conspiracy out of it. |
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10/07/2005 11:58:29 AM · #38 |
Just to throw in my opinion, the worth1000 style karma system sucks ass completely. Maybe there would be a way to implement it effectively, but as it is, it either literally forces voters to stay between 3 and 7 or makes their future votes worthless. On the rare occasion someone does actually want to award an image a 10, they usually lose karma for it, even if it's one deserving image in the challenge, which means their vote means less (or nothing) in future. The only way on Worth to gain karma is to religiously vote 3, 4, 5 or 6 for every image, with the majority being 5's... trust me, i know, i'm having to vote that way now to make my vote count again.
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10/07/2005 12:03:57 PM · #39 |
You know, since I've been on a roll this week in the forums, I'll just say it. I'm so tired of reading "we should do this like site XYZ" or "do that like site 123" or "increase the image size like site PDQ lets us" and a myriad of other suggestions to be more like other sites. I came to DPC because I liked DPC. I stayed at DPC instead of other sites because I liked it more here. If I liked site XYZ or 123 or PDQ better, I'd participate more over there. Why make this site more like another site that's already in existence? Just go over yonder where the grass is obviously greener. Sure, things evolve over time and changes are made that make things better (or worse) but overall, I still believe that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There is no practical evidence that anything is "broke" just yet. Let's not fix it to oblivion like some other site somewhere down the internet pike.
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10/07/2005 12:08:57 PM · #40 |
Originally posted by EddyG:
A +/-4 "voting window" leaves a huge margin for individual voter expression. For example, take a photo that ends with a score of 7. That means you could vote it from a 3 to a 10 and be considered "voting fairly" and your karma would not be negatively affected. Obviously if the photo ended up with a score that high, it had some redeeming qualities, enough so that a vote of a 1 or 2 would be considered "inappropriate" by the overwhelming majority. Even if you hated the subject of the photo, it would have other factors that make it deserve a score higher than a 1 or 2, or it wouldn't have been scored so high by the voting populus. This sentiment is expressed time and again in the forums by people who comment on the number of low votes given to a photo (and to a lesser extent, the number of high votes given to poor photos).
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That's the problem. I don't think eschelar was far off the mark. Let me offer an extreme example to illustrate what I mean:
Let's suppose that you have a site with 98 teenage boys and two grandfathers voting. Let's suppose the challenge was "Nudes". Let's suppose all the teenage boys entered shots of their young, nubile girlfriends, of varying quality, and both grandfathers entered shots of their wives, both superior images technically and artistically. Each grandfather gives the other's entry a 10 (which it deserved) and the average vote given by the teenaged boys to these "weathered" female nudes was 4.5. The well-deserved 10-votes would be considered "outlier" votes and the average 4.5 vote would be considered what the image deserved, by consensus.
Obviously this example has nothing to do with DPC (we have a much broader voter base than that), but it serves to illustrate why I don't care for any system of ranking the validity of aesthetic judgments based on how close they fall to the norm.
Actually, there are many in DPC who would (and do) argue that our voter base is showing that it is biased in a certain direction, that competent, conventional, unemotional work fares better than more creative, edgier, "interesting" images that show "real" artistic development, but that's neither here nor there for the purposes of this argument. Why? Because anytime you have an open-to-all voter base images that disturb nobody will do better, on average, than images that excite some and offend others.
The explicit structure of DPC is to put images up in challenges to be voted on by the other members. The goal, therefore, is to seek common ground, to seek out images that appeal to the broadest spectrum of voters. If DPC were intended as a site that rewards "artistic courage" (whatever that may be), it would be better served by juried challenges. This is not a change I'd want to see happen.
But I do NOT understand why people get so exercised about "outlier" votes. The whole point is that we, the voters, are tasked with making our own, personal evaluations. The "voting task" is NOT "see how close you can come to the consensus in rating this image", it's "how strong of an image is this in YOUR aesthetic value system?"
Robt.
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10/07/2005 12:21:29 PM · #41 |
Originally posted by DrAchoo:
If you want to show me a ghost account, show me a profile with the following characteristics:
Challenges entered: 0
Forum posts: 0
Comments made: 0
Votes made: >100
Average vote given: <4.000
I'll believe in the possibility of ghosts when I see an account like this. Until then, I think it's just too much work. Someone with some time can go hunting if they want.
I'm sure people are voting for their buddies and such. I'm sure it's common enough that it only makes a small difference (it's all evening out). I doubt the # of people any one person instant messages to "give him a 10" is low. |
text
Wasn't to hard to find; ANOTHERLILLIM
Challenges Entered: 0
Votes Cast: 207
Avg Vote Cast: 3.7729
Votes Received: 0
Avg Vote Received:
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10/07/2005 12:24:18 PM · #42 |
There is nothing wrong with the voting system. People vote the way they want. If they like the image they score it high, otherwise, they score it low. I don̢۪t always agree with the score or the placement of images, but when put out to a public vote, that̢۪s what it got and that̢۪s what it is. Amazingly, people all don̢۪t have the exact same opinion as me. Hard to believe, huh?
Trolls are nothing more then a figment of your imagination used as an excuse for low scores. Yeah, some people vote low on every image to try to boost their image up. Some may even have multiple accounts and give themselves 10̢۪s. Remember that there are algorithms in place to identify these and kick out their votes, so the trolls really do not exist. I doubt people that would do this crap would have the creativity and intelligence to create a quality photo anyway, so don̢۪t worry about them. Feel sorry for them and their pathetic life.
Yeah, some people have low scoring averages. Maybe they are just picky? Maybe they have high standards? As long as they are consistent it affects everyone equally. I have a pretty low voting average, I̢۪m not a troll. I̢۪m just picky. But when I do vote low I will tell you exactly why.
But, to be a nice guy, I̢۪ll go vote on all the images in both open challenges and give everyone a 10. That way everyone̢۪s score will bump up a little and we̢۪ll all be happy. It̢۪ll also bump my average vote cast up as well, so I can̢۪t be called a troll anymore. Sounds like a win-win plan.
This site is to learn and have fun. That is why the site was started and that is why most of us are here. Cheating and complaining about scores is neither fun nor educational. If you are here simply to get high scores, electronic ribbons by your name and boost your self esteem, you are probably at the wrong website. Maybe try egoboost.com (don̢۪t go there, I just made it up). People spend so much time complaining here. Why not go read a book on exposure or photoshop, or just go take some photos? Do something that will make you better so you have no need to complain about your low scores.
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10/07/2005 12:27:40 PM · #43 |
What about this photographer!!!
Check out their scoring patterns and scores received! Amazing! Only took a few minutes to find them. Maybe trolls do exist?
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10/07/2005 12:28:05 PM · #44 |
Originally posted by ace flyman:
Wasn't to hard to find; ANOTHERLILLIM
Challenges Entered: 0
Votes Cast: 207
Avg Vote Cast: 3.7729
Votes Received: 0
Avg Vote Received: |
That's a new user registed August, 2005 who may not have found any of the challenges appealing yet. I was a "registered user" for a VERY long time before finally joining and entering some challenges. This user may also have a very high standard for judging photos. They have selected a favorite photographer and photo.
I'm not dismissing the possibility, just trying to consider ALL the options. Look at my profile (registered since.... first challenge entry...)
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10/07/2005 12:30:13 PM · #45 |
Originally posted by louddog:
What about this photographer!!!
Check out their scoring patterns and scores received! Amazing! Only took a few minutes to find them. Maybe trolls do exist? |
ROFLMAO.... Geesh, I looked at the numbers and was like... what do you mean "pattern", I don't see a "pattern".... Then I looked at the username. I can't believe I fell for that.
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10/07/2005 12:43:29 PM · #46 |
Originally posted by Palmetto_Pixels:
Originally posted by ace flyman:
Wasn't to hard to find; ANOTHERLILLIM
Challenges Entered: 0
Votes Cast: 207
Avg Vote Cast: 3.7729
Votes Received: 0
Avg Vote Received: |
That's a new user registed August, 2005 who may not have found any of the challenges appealing yet. I was a "registered user" for a VERY long time before finally joining and entering some challenges. This user may also have a very high standard for judging photos. They have selected a favorite photographer and photo.
I'm not dismissing the possibility, just trying to consider ALL the options. Look at my profile (registered since.... first challenge entry...) |
text
Ok, RKEMMER
Votes Cast: 906
Avg Vote Cast: 4.2009
Votes Received: 0
Avg Vote Received:
Close enough to 4 for me. took 2.5mins. to find
devil's advocate: also ran accross some top heavy on the highside..... |
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10/07/2005 12:45:59 PM · #47 |
Originally posted by ace flyman:
Wasn't to hard to find; ANOTHERLILLIM
Challenges Entered: 0
Votes Cast: 207
Avg Vote Cast: 3.7729
Votes Received: 0
Avg Vote Received: |
I think this is probably a likely candidate. The name "another" Lillim sorta adds to the conspiracy flavor too. Still, looking through Ace, how many did you have too scour? Let's say this is a true ghost...it looks like they only voted one challenge with the account. A single vote in a challenge of 275 votes can raise or lower a score a max of 0.03 (from 10 to 1 or 1 to 10). So unless we find many of these (like 20 or 50), I still don't think it's affecting things much...
Nice find though...
Just don't go looking for ANOTHERDRACHOO...I erased it.
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10/07/2005 01:12:03 PM · #48 |
Originally posted by louddog:
What about this photographer!!!
Check out their scoring patterns and scores received! Amazing! Only took a few minutes to find them. Maybe trolls do exist? |
That bastard! He always has been a cheating son of a .............. |
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10/07/2005 01:17:26 PM · #49 |
| To find the 2, it took total of 2.5mins...I'm at work so just jumping back and fourth.......and maybe 10 users looked at. Non-camera, reg. users........ |
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10/07/2005 01:18:29 PM · #50 |
Let's give it a rest will ya! Troll voters DO NOT change the overall results. It is an averaging system. And do you really believe that if a few friends vote up someones photo that that makes them win? I get an average of about 250 votes on my entires. I just looked at my top five scores. What a surprise! Only a single 1 vote in all five. And damn, what a surprise, I received 17 1's in my bottom five entries.
If you can't stand the heat .......
Message edited by author 2005-10-07 13:19:24. |
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