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11/08/2004 09:51:54 AM · #1 |
I am not really complaining about my score (of course, I wish it was higher), but what I found peculiar was the number of votes that each image received. It seemed most got under 200 votes.
Are people only voting on the challenges they enter? There were only 124 entries. I understand that there were a lot of pictures in all the challenges to vote on, many probably got sore index fingers from clicking the mouse. But doesn't it kind of prove that many challenges running simultaneously is not a good idea?
My entry is below.
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11/08/2004 10:09:47 AM · #2 |
I didn't submit for music, but i voted on most entries. Sometimes, if I didn't submit, I don't vote. It just depends. I actually voted on every OFS entry, all 488 of them, but i only actually recieved 243 votes. so it really seems like most of the submitters didn't even bother to vote, which I think is a little sad. If you submit, I think you should vote.
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11/08/2004 10:12:32 AM · #3 |
Originally posted by ericlimon:
I didn't submit for music, but i voted on most entries. Sometimes, if I didn't submit, I don't vote. It just depends. I actually voted on every OFS entry, all 488 of them, but i only actually recieved 243 votes. so it really seems like most of the submitters didn't even bother to vote, which I think is a little sad. If you submit, I think you should vote. |
I noticed that as well. 240 votes and 488 entries. Of course all the entrants may have voted but they apparently did not vote on all the entries. I know it was a bit daunting but....hmmmm. I voted on all. Quite a task but it got done. Unfortunately I am voted out for now so I hope I can do the same for the Indecision and Bizarre Nature Challenges.
Message edited by author 2004-11-08 10:14:21.
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11/08/2004 10:12:48 AM · #4 |
Originally posted by ericlimon:
I didn't submit for music, but i voted on most entries. Sometimes, if I didn't submit, I don't vote. It just depends. I actually voted on every OFS entry, all 488 of them, but i only actually recieved 243 votes. so it really seems like most of the submitters didn't even bother to vote, which I think is a little sad. If you submit, I think you should vote. |
they should revise it so you have to vote. i actually thought there was a minimum, not that its the reason I vote. Im here to give and take comments.
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11/08/2004 10:14:53 AM · #5 |
I guess not just music challenge was plagued with low numbers of votes.
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11/08/2004 10:20:32 AM · #6 |
You have to vote on 20% of the photos in a challenge for your votes to count. In Music, the minimum number of votes was 25; I'm sure there are many people with limited time/slow connections who voted on fewer than all the photos in the challenge.
Personally, I thought running four challenges at once, especially with one of them a massive Free Study, was a mistake which would significantly reduce the number of votes and (especially) comments in all of them. |
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11/08/2004 10:22:45 AM · #7 |
Originally posted by ericlimon:
If you submit, I think you should vote. |
I totally agree. I almost always vote on 100% of the challenge entries I participate in (barring being on vacation or something like that during the voting period).
That being said, I don't know how many other people feel that way. You'd be surprised by the number of "DPC free-loaders" (people who submit without voting, or only vote the bare minimum instead of 100%). For example, I'm aware of one active DPC participant who has a difference between votes cast and votes received of over 34,000 votes, and lots of others active users with differences of 15,000 to 25,000+ votes...
One possible solution to that problem would be some sort of "credit system", where you earn the privilege to participate in challenges by voting and/or commenting on challenges... |
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11/08/2004 10:24:09 AM · #8 |
Originally posted by saintaugust:
they should revise it so you have to vote. i actually thought there was a minimum, not that its the reason I vote. Im here to give and take comments. |
Revising it so that you have to vote would have people randomly assigning numbers, and probably getting bored... possibly not even viewing the photo they are assigning the vote to. You have to keep in mind that some people are on dial up as well (which has been stated over and over again on this site) and going through every single photo can be a daunting task especially if you haved to wait a couple of minutes or 30 seconds or whatever for each one to load.
I'm just curious as to why it is so important to have more votes? (this is a rhetorical question... thanks)
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11/08/2004 10:27:02 AM · #9 |
Just to add another point of view (not necessarily my own) ... I know of at least one DPCer who only votes on challenges they are NOT entered in ... a self check of sorts so that person has no vested interest in the results.
Originally posted by EddyG:
Originally posted by ericlimon:
If you submit, I think you should vote. |
I totally agree. I almost always vote on 100% of the challenge entries I participate in (barring being on vacation or something like that during the voting period).
That being said, I don't know how many other people feel that way. You'd be surprised by the number of "DPC free-loaders" (people who submit without voting, or only vote the bare minimum instead of 100%). For example, I'm aware of one active DPC participant who has a difference between votes cast and votes received of over 34,000 votes, and lots of others active users with differences of 15,000 to 25,000+ votes...
One possible solution to that problem would be some sort of "credit system", where you earn the privilege to participate in challenges by voting and/or commenting on challenges... |
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11/08/2004 10:28:28 AM · #10 |
Originally posted by RiderGal:
Originally posted by saintaugust:
they should revise it so you have to vote. i actually thought there was a minimum, not that its the reason I vote. Im here to give and take comments. |
Revising it so that you have to vote would have people randomly assigning numbers, and probably getting bored... possibly not even viewing the photo they are assigning the vote to. You have to keep in mind that some people are on dial up as well (which has been stated over and over again on this site) and going through every single photo can be a daunting task especially if you haved to wait a couple of minutes or 30 seconds or whatever for each one to load.
I'm just curious as to why it is so important to have more votes? (this is a rhetorical question... thanks) |
To get a better average, is one. As you may have seen before, there always is a weird scoring pattern. Your image is better than mine -- 1, 2 or 3... Things like that. So more votes evens out the odds of people voting down and you would get more objective voting. IMHO
Message edited by author 2004-11-08 10:29:21.
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11/08/2004 10:30:37 AM · #11 |
Originally posted by EddyG:
Originally posted by ericlimon:
If you submit, I think you should vote. |
I totally agree. I almost always vote on 100% of the challenge entries I participate in (barring being on vacation or something like that during the voting period).
That being said, I don't know how many other people feel that way. You'd be surprised by the number of "DPC free-loaders" (people who submit without voting, or only vote the bare minimum instead of 100%). For example, I'm aware of one active DPC participant who has a difference between votes cast and votes received of over 34,000 votes, and lots of others active users with differences of 15,000 to 25,000+ votes...
One possible solution to that problem would be some sort of "credit system", where you earn the privilege to participate in challenges by voting and/or commenting on challenges... |
EddyG: The difference between votes cast vs votes received is not an accurate indicator of participation.
Perhaps a better one would be percentage of votes cast/challenge entered. Something like "I've cast votes on 83% of the entries for each challenge I enter."
I could be in a challenge with only three others, and thus be restricted to casting three votes, while potentially receiving 25,000 votes if all members participated in this strange event. |
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11/08/2004 10:32:09 AM · #12 |
Originally posted by EddyG:
Originally posted by ericlimon:
If you submit, I think you should vote. |
I totally agree. I almost always vote on 100% of the challenge entries I participate in (barring being on vacation or something like that during the voting period).
That being said, I don't know how many other people feel that way. You'd be surprised by the number of "DPC free-loaders" (people who submit without voting, or only vote the bare minimum instead of 100%). For example, I'm aware of one active DPC participant who has a difference between votes cast and votes received of over 34,000 votes, and lots of others active users with differences of 15,000 to 25,000+ votes...
One possible solution to that problem would be some sort of "credit system", where you earn the privilege to participate in challenges by voting and/or commenting on challenges... |
I think you need to be careful how you start throwing out terms like freeloaders, like this.
For example, I'm probably one of those that falls in that category:
Votes Cast: 7459
Votes Received: 23707
which means I've handed out on average 64 votes in each challenge I've entered and fall in to your 'freeloader' bucket with a 16,000+ vote difference. (ignoring the reality that some challenges have vastly different numbers of entries than others)
While in your case you are:
Challenges Entered: 69
Votes Cast: 12753
Votes Received: 14043
Obviously, very commendably on par.
However, I've also made just about exactly 10x as many comments as you have on images. (196 to 1905)
It would be definately be arguable which is more useful to the site - more votes or more comments. As I actually try and take quite a bit of time over voting, rather than rushing through, I don't get to many images. I often take a minute or so per picture. I don't have several hours per week to devote to voting.
Just a thought before you pick specific criteria to say who's useful or not around here.
Message edited by author 2004-11-08 10:41:16.
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11/08/2004 10:32:39 AM · #13 |
IMO if you vote on 20% of the entries in a challenge you should vote on them all. My reasoning behind this is âdifferentâ voting styles. Yes you could give a photo a great score on your voting scale and hurt that photographâs average if you are a low voter. [Example would be if you think a great score is a 5. And everyone else thinks it a great photo and they vote 7,8,9,or 10 â your 5 just dropped there average even though you perception [grade] of the photo was the same as the 7 through 10 voters. To make your vote scale work you need to vote on all entries. I have said this before and stand behind what I say.
NOW it is close or impossible for some to vote on all entries in each challenge because of work, school, family time, etc. and I understand that. For that reason I think DPC should come up with some type of cap on entries or limit the amount of challenges to vote on at the same time. I for one would like to see each challenge to have a cap of only 200 entries. The first 200 to submit there photo gets into the challenge. Others can submit beyond the 200 mark but would not be placed in the challenge unless a person that is in the first 200 un-submits there photo, then #201 would take its place. This would also keep people from submitting any old picture just to hold a spot guarantying them to be in the Top 200. If you un-submits you go to the back of the line.
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11/08/2004 10:37:57 AM · #14 |
Originally posted by SDW65:
IMO if you vote on 20% of the entries in a challenge you should vote on them all. My reasoning behind this is âdifferentâ voting styles. Yes you could give a photo a great score on your voting scale and hurt that photographâs average if you are a low voter. [Example would be if you think a great score is a 5. And everyone else thinks it a great photo and they vote 7,8,9,or 10 â your 5 just dropped there average even though you perception [grade] of the photo was the same as the 7 through 10 voters. To make your vote scale work you need to vote on all entries. I have said this before and stand behind what I say.
NOW it is close or impossible for some to vote on all entries in each challenge because of work, school, family time, etc. and I understand that. For that reason I think DPC should come up with some type of cap on entries or limit the amount of challenges to vote on at the same time. I for one would like to see each challenge to have a cap of only 200 entries. The first 200 to submit there photo gets into the challenge. Others can submit beyond the 200 mark but would not be placed in the challenge unless a person that is in the first 200 un-submits there photo, then #201 would take its place. This would also keep people from submitting any old picture just to hold a spot guarantying them to be in the Top 200. If you un-submits you go to the back of the line. |
If you care to mathematically show how this actually has the impact you claim, then maybe it would be worth considering. Its been shown many times in the past to not have the impact you suggest.
For example, an image that gets 200 votes of 5, has an average of, quite obviously, 5.
If one person throws in a way off base 10 vote, the average becomes 5.02
You can look at the results, most images get roughly the same number of votes. The spread makes sense, gives a reasonable distribution and doesn't actually have the impact you seem to imagine.
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11/08/2004 10:38:20 AM · #15 |
The random presentation of images for voting evens out the number of votes images get.
The downsides of mandatory voting (tried it) and mandatory commenting (tried it) outweigh the downsides of the current system.
Any significant change in the voting/scoring system would also make it really hard to compare results between earlier and later challenges.
Votes were down this week because we had the equivalent of five challenges-worth of photos to vote on instead of two. I hope we don't schedule it like that again. |
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11/08/2004 10:48:46 AM · #16 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
It would be definately be arguable which is more useful to the site - more votes or more comments. As I actually try and take quite a bit of time over voting, rather than rushing through, I don't get to many images. I often take a minute or so per picture. I don't have several hours per week to devote to voting. |
I don't argue that "comments made" is a useful indicator of site participation. And I was careful not to point out specific users in my post, because I would never judge someone as a "DPC freeloader" based only on votes cast vs. received.
Unfortunately, like other users on this site, I've received "negative" PM's from people based on comments I've made. IMHO, unless you "sugar coat" your comments or say nothing but "Nice shot", you are likely to get negative reactions. You can't just give simple criticism ("The lighting is too flat" or "This is not a flattering angle of your subject") or even explain your low vote ("Sorry, I don't find pregnancy pictures attractive at all") which people are always claiming they want. So I've decided it isn't worth it to comment extensively, only to be told I don't know what I'm talking about, that I'm a moron, or that it was an "artistic decision". So I participate on the site in other ways (i.e., trying to be helpful in the forums and being an active member of the Site Council.) |
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11/08/2004 10:52:21 AM · #17 |
Originally posted by EddyG:
And I was careful not to point out specific users in my post, because I would never judge someone as a "DPC freeloader" based only on votes cast vs. received. |
Actually, I think you were pretty clear on who you were categorising as freeloaders. Maybe you didn't mean to be, but that's a different thing.
Originally posted by EddyG:
You'd be surprised by the number of "DPC free-loaders" (people who submit without voting, or only vote the bare minimum instead of 100%). For example, I'm aware of one active DPC participant who has a difference between votes cast and votes received of over 34,000 votes, and lots of others active users with differences of 15,000 to 25,000+ votes... |
Message edited by author 2004-11-08 10:52:53.
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11/08/2004 11:00:51 AM · #18 |
Yup, when I was replying, I was concentrating on "votes" because I was replying to ericlimon's comment (which I quoted):
Originally posted by ericlimon:
If you submit, I think you should vote. |
And I certainly would take into account votes cast vs. received when trying to determine if somebody was "freeloading", along with other factors (which I should have been more clear about in my first post).
Message edited by author 2004-11-08 11:01:23. |
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11/08/2004 11:13:45 AM · #19 |
Originally posted by Gordon:
Originally posted by SDW65:
IMO if you vote on 20% of the entries in a challenge you should vote on them all. My reasoning behind this is âdifferentâ voting styles. Yes you could give a photo a great score on your voting scale and hurt that photographâs average if you are a low voter. [Example would be if you think a great score is a 5. And everyone else thinks it a great photo and they vote 7,8,9,or 10 â your 5 just dropped there average even though you perception [grade] of the photo was the same as the 7 through 10 voters. To make your vote scale work you need to vote on all entries. I have said this before and stand behind what I say.
NOW it is close or impossible for some to vote on all entries in each challenge because of work, school, family time, etc. and I understand that. For that reason I think DPC should come up with some type of cap on entries or limit the amount of challenges to vote on at the same time. I for one would like to see each challenge to have a cap of only 200 entries. The first 200 to submit there photo gets into the challenge. Others can submit beyond the 200 mark but would not be placed in the challenge unless a person that is in the first 200 un-submits there photo, then #201 would take its place. This would also keep people from submitting any old picture just to hold a spot guarantying them to be in the Top 200. If you un-submits you go to the back of the line. |
If you care to mathematically show how this actually has the impact you claim, then maybe it would be worth considering. Its been shown many times in the past to not have the impact you suggest.
For example, an image that gets 200 votes of 5, has an average of, quite obviously, 5.
If one person throws in a way off base 10 vote, the average becomes 5.02
You can look at the results, most images get roughly the same number of votes. The spread makes sense, gives a reasonable distribution and doesn't actually have the impact you seem to imagine. |
OK here is what I am saying.
Lets assume that all people in this example feel the same way about the same photo. They all believe it is a great photograph.
Person âAâ votes a 10
Person âBâ votes a 9
Person âCâ Votes a 9
Person âDâ Votes an 8
Person âEâ Votes an 8
Person âFâ Votes an 8
And
Person âGâ votes a 5
Now person âGâ has a different scale and believes a great photo to be a 5, but only votes on 20 % of the entries.
If person âGâ voting scale would have been close to the others then that photo would of scored higher.
Now âphoto 1â which all believed to be great has a total score of 57 divided by 7 votes for an average of 8.1429
Now you take person âGâ out of the equation, photo one gets a total score of 52 votes for an average of 8.6667â¦. as you can see even though person âGâ felt the same way as everyone one else the photos avg. dropped 0.5327 because of his/her vote. And if there was a photo within that margin it could mean the difference in a ribbon or a higher placement.
Now I know that is just a 7-vote example and when you calculate in 250 to 300 votes the margin gets smaller. But I have seen ribbon differences as close as 0.02+ if I recall correctly.
And lets say there was a photo with in that margin and person âGâ voted on it with his/her scare then it would drop as well so person âGâ did not hinder the results because he/she vote on all photos.
Message edited by author 2004-11-08 11:19:18. |
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11/08/2004 11:24:46 AM · #20 |
Originally posted by SDW65:
Now I know that is just a 7-vote example and when you calculate in 250 to 300 votes the margin gets smaller. But I have seen ribbon differences as close as 0.02+ if I recall correctly. |
That's the key. You also have to consider the votes in the 'other' direction too. Reality is, for all intents and purposes it balances out.
You are right that ribbon margins in the scale of 0.02 do happen. They'd happen if everyone voted on everything too. The difference between 3rd and 5th place is often statistically insignificant, even if everyone voted on every picture.
Some days I feel better than others, that probably biases my vote slightly higher. If it is late in the day, that may well change my vote too. All of these factors introduce statistical variances in the results. In particular, if you force everyone to vote on every image, you'll introduce even more random variance than you get now. Less care would be taken on voting. People would vote because they had to, not because they wanted to. The variance would probably be worse, rather than better, frankly.
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11/08/2004 02:35:42 PM · #21 |
Originally posted by giega:
To get a better average, is one. As you may have seen before, there always is a weird scoring pattern. Your image is better than mine -- 1, 2 or 3... Things like that. So more votes evens out the odds of people voting down and you would get more objective voting. IMHO |
Receiving helpful comments is benficial but votes are essential to the functioning of the challenges. I don't see why we can't all agree that the more votes the better. I agree with what giega says and would add that more votes waters down the influence of the cheat voters- the people with ghost accounts and the people who show there photos elsewhere on the net while the challenge is in the voting stage. |
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11/08/2004 02:43:06 PM · #22 |
Originally posted by coolhar:
... people with ghost accounts and the people who show there photos elsewhere on the net while the challenge is in the voting stage. |
The instance first is against site rules, and should be reported and not rumored-about. The second is the photographer's right, and may be considered "tacky" at DPC but is not against the rules.
Please don't make unfounded and unsupported accusations of cheating in the public forums -- that's the wrong place to deal with it if there is a problem.. |
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11/08/2004 02:44:02 PM · #23 |
I'm a pretty die-hard voter, and even more intent on my commenting ratio... But I have to say that with the size of the free study, and number of images WORTH commenting on, I didn't even get through the free study 100%. That's the first time I failed to get through it all.
I'm not sure what the answer is, because I wouldn't want to recommend strict rules, etc. But I *do* feel that when too many contests (and more importantly to many pending images) are outstanding it limits the quality of feedback for those of us who take the time to study and comment on images.
All that being said, you wouldn't have 400+ entries in a free study if the site weren't being successful, so I'm very happy that we have this predicament :) Much better than arguing over how to get people to visit the site!
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11/08/2004 02:52:37 PM · #24 |
| Remember that much of this country, not to mention much of the world is still suffering with dial up connections and other internet complications. Dont make voting rules that are discriminatory. |
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