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01/10/2005 05:16:50 AM · #1 |
Hi
I been a member to this awesome site for about a months and have submitted a few photos for some challenges, I have noticed that people in general are very tough on their judgment, most of the winner pictures 'never' go past a seven. I mean we have a scale from 1 to 10 but i think people stick to 3 to 7
This has made me weary of how i vote.. and i am not sure if it is a good thing
Anyway i am not interested in hearing; 'people will do what they want o do and we can not control voters', as is the obvious thing, but I would like to ask some of you if this is the case or if I have the wrong idea
So do you use the whole scale or just 3 to 7, or worst 1 to 7 ??
Greetings to all
pano
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01/10/2005 05:23:02 AM · #2 |
| I am a newbie, so my opinion should not count much, but as far as I can understand it, if the scale is from 1 to 10, it means that we have to vote from 1 to 10. Though i would never give a picture a 1 or a 2, but thats my personal opinion. |
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01/10/2005 05:41:04 AM · #3 |
Arancha,
When you were in school (or maybe you stillare, I donno) didn't you just HATE teachers who gave the worst work an F and the best work an A, even if ALL the work was clumped around the mediocre-to-decent range by any objective standard? In other words, your grade was based not on the "objective" merits of your work but, rather, on the quality of your competition?
Ideally, a given image would receive the same score regardless of how good (or bad) the other images are. Allt hat woukld change, from callenge to challenge, is how HIGH the score has to be to be the "best" in a given challenge. And in fact that's what we see here: some challenges are won with much lower scores than other challenges, essentially meaning that no group of images burst away from the pack with a ton of 9's and 10's. Rather, the best of the images got more 7's and 8's than their close competitors.
Pano,
There's a misconception in what you said. If 10 voters give an image a 10, and 20 voters give it a 6, the average vote is 7.33. So this would not constitute a "misuse" of the voting range. It's just a matter of personal preferences, and of how averages work.
On any given challenge I may give from 1-5 10 votes (5 is my high, 1 is my low, thus far), a handful of 9's, a good number of 8's, a few 2's, rarely a 1, and a handful of 3's. The rest cluster in the 4-7 range. This is a classic statistical "bell curve".
If there's a "flaw" in the voting system, it seems that it's in how there's no separation of personal taste from matters technical. IMO, if the challenge has been "met" (admittedly sometimes a subjective judgment) and an image shows technical competence (good clarity, sharpness, lighting, composition, etc) then that image deserves a better-than-average score. On the other hand, if an image meets the challenge in an especially creative or striking way, but its technical mastery is clearly limited, I think it deserves a worse-than-average score.
It bothers me to see photos of little technical merit receiving very decent scores because they push emotional buttons in the voters. This, to me, is wrong; DPC is (or anyway ought to be) about attaining mastery of the medium, and this requires technical competence as a minimum standard for better-than-average scores, IMO.
But then, that's just me, and I'm a hardass.
Robt.
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01/10/2005 06:09:50 AM · #4 |
It's not a misuse of the voting scale, or even a matter of being harsh in voting -- it is just the nature of statistics.
An average has an inherent pull toward the middle, or average. This is 5.5 for the 1 - 10 scale used here. The greater the number of voters the greater the pull toward the middle. And this pull is from both the upper bounds and the lower bounds. For an image to move away from the average, it must have a force of impact that propels it. The greater the force propelling it, the greater the distance from average it accomplishes.
To forces, one the inherent pull toward mediocrity and the other the creative competence of the creator in communicating with the audience. It does not really matter what that force is used to propell it as disgust, incompetance and prejudice will move it lower than the average in the same way masterful execution, emotional impact and technical competance will propell it towards the top of the range.
David
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01/10/2005 06:36:48 AM · #5 |
I do not think that Pano was wondering, at least I didn't understand it that way, why the challenge results were so low, but if the scale used to vote was between 3 and 7. I don't use that scale, I vote from 3-10 depending on the merit I see on the picture. That doesn't mean I always have to give a 3, or a 10 ... only if I think picture deserves it.
Message edited by author 2005-01-10 06:38:01. |
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01/10/2005 06:59:37 AM · #6 |
The scale for voting is from 1 to 10. A quick glance through the challenge results will show a histogram of all votes cast on any particular image; it can be easily seen the entire range is used during the voting.
Some choose to not use the entire scale -- the reasons they do so are their own, and ar perfectly acceptable. Others will choose to use different subsets of the total range, while most use the full range to some degree or another. The over all result is essentually the same as if the entire range was used by all.
It seems the main point of confusion is in viewing the final scores of the images as if they were votes cast -- they are not. They are the averages of all votes cast on any particular image, and while the votes range from 1 to 10, the average will not and can not do so. This is the normal and expected behavior of scoring based on statistical averages for reasons outlined above.
David
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01/10/2005 07:13:38 AM · #7 |
I did not mean to say there was a misuse of the scale and maybe i feel i bit lost in how to judge so all your opinions are appreciated
bear_music - that is an interesting opinion, i find it hard to differentiate what makes a good photo, lets say the photo is technically perfect but it is boring to look at, has been made a thousand times or worst it promotes an ideal i don't relate to, I would personally give it a low score because in my opinion photography goes beyond the technical and into the creative area, I can there fore also appreciate the creative or venturous side of a technically 'inferior' photo..
Anyway I try to use the complete scale (1 to 10) and so far I hardly ever found the opportunity to vote on either extreme (1 or 10) but I have always with comment
Cheers
pano
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01/10/2005 07:16:57 AM · #8 |
Here is what I use:
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01/10/2005 07:35:40 AM · #9 |
The scale is 1-10 and I use that. My complex method of voting is 1 bad shot to 10 excellent shot.
That's about as detailed as I go.
The reason you never see 9's and 10's for winning scores is simply down to personal taste, with so many voters on this site, all at different levels of photography and all with different tastes your never going to get everyone voting an image 9 or 10. There will always be a few who don't like the image and vote it much lower which brings the score down to 7 or 8.
That simple really :D
Message edited by author 2005-01-10 07:36:13.
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01/10/2005 07:39:24 AM · #10 |
For example this image >  I gave a 10 to. I showed my girlfriend last night and asked her opinion (now her job actually involves paying huge amounts of money for images for publication)and she thought it was crap.
Her exact words were 'Buffy vampire person looks silly I would give it a 4'
Now I know she has no taste, but this is just human and indicative of this site and the variation of tastes.
Message edited by author 2005-01-10 07:40:04.
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01/10/2005 03:17:41 PM · #11 |
Originally posted by bear_music:
It bothers me to see photos of little technical merit receiving very decent scores because they push emotional buttons in the voters. This, to me, is wrong; DPC is (or anyway ought to be) about attaining mastery of the medium, and this requires technical competence as a minimum standard for better-than-average scores, IMO.
But then, that's just me, and I'm a hardass.
Robt. |
And yet there are many who believe that the "best" photos are those which inspire an emotional reaction or connection with the viewer, regardless of a little blur or graininess or less-than-perfect framing.
Personally, I have different expectations and criteria for judging a photo of a house fire versus a still-life of some fruit.
And as you say, different components of photography are more or less important to different people ... but I also think that "conflict" contributes to the overall progress of the art. |
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01/10/2005 03:23:58 PM · #12 |
Jon,
I thought the same as your girlfriend, exactly. But thats why challenges are interesting. To get everyone to vote above 5 on your is quite difficult. Van |
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01/10/2005 04:17:54 PM · #13 |
| I think there is another aspect to this. I see some of the best executed, most pleasing images almost always get at least one "1". This is rarely a matter of taste, but of cowardice. Someone trying to bring down the average of the best images to fare better with there own image. I can see where some images might deserve a "1". But some of these that meet the chalenge, are in focus, with great composition and subject matter cannot by any means or scale be considered a "1" by any fair minded person. |
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01/10/2005 04:20:40 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by jonpink:
For example this image > I gave a 10 to. I showed my girlfriend last night and asked her opinion (now her job actually involves paying huge amounts of money for images for publication)and she thought it was crap.
Her exact words were 'Buffy vampire person looks silly I would give it a 4'
Now I know she has no taste, but this is just human and indicative of this site and the variation of tastes. |
I gave that a five. I thought it was well executed, but could not make the conection to the theme of the chalenge. |
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