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DPChallenge Forums >> General Discussion >> Controversy About The Voting Process (How I Vote)
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 08/11/2003 09:42:21 PM · #26
It's entirely up to you how you want to vote I guess.
But as someone else pointed out - your voting strategy gave an average of 2.52
That's the same average as someone using the voting scale of 1-4
(not 1-10) with a standard bell curve distribution (my maths might not be be up to scratch, so forgive me if I'm wrong)
08/11/2003 09:47:57 PM · #27
Originally posted by heida:
Ofcourse people are free to vote as they wish and theyre also free to have opinions as they wish and this is just my opinion that I dont like this voting system


Heiða,

I said in my first post that I am a very austere photo critic of others and even more so of myself.

AUSTE'RE, a. [L. Austerus.

1. Severe; harsh; rigid; stern; applied to persons; as an austere master; an austere look.

2. Sour; harsh; rough to the taste; applied to things; as austere fruit, or wine.

Guess it fits, correct? I have always applied my triple ranking method to my own photographs on a daily basis... Most of them don't make it to my first backup.

By the way, you haven't shared how your smart and fair voting works yet...

I do appreciate your honesty,

Harold

Message edited by author 2003-08-12 16:22:30.
 08/11/2003 09:53:55 PM · #28
You think the average picture is somewhere between "some thought" and "almost a picture." That's pretty offensive, actually. There's some great work around here - stuff that if you participate, learn, try to emulate, you may actually do one day. If there's a 1-10 scale, and you are using 2-4 as the basis of 95% of the photos on the site, do you truly think there's THAT much difference between your 4 and your 10?

It's "too harsh" (and I'm not a santa claus voter). I think you should adjust your perception of what we're producing given these rules. And that's MY opinion. You're entitled to yours.

Message edited by author 2003-08-11 21:54:03.
 08/11/2003 09:55:44 PM · #29
Originally posted by ozdick:
It's entirely up to you how you want to vote I guess.
But as someone else pointed out - your voting strategy gave an average of 2.52
That's the same average as someone using the voting scale of 1-4
(not 1-10) with a standard bell curve distribution (my maths might not be be up to scratch, so forgive me if I'm wrong)


This is now two votes for the bell curve. This could lead to a very philosophical discussion about the 'average' life.

You might want to discuss this in the Web Site Suggestion area. You could have them apply the bell curve to the individual prior to the sum and the total average. My son and I had this discussion earlier today, and we concluded that it might increase the overall scores, however, it would not have an impact on the rankings.
 08/12/2003 12:19:04 AM · #30
Originally posted by glimpses:
My nightmare in virtual and information systems is that everything is faked.. because it is possible to fake it.

Matrix!! :)
 08/12/2003 01:56:23 AM · #31
My average is fairly low but I vote as fairly as possible across all pictures. There are some wonderful shots submitted. There are also some very average shots and some poor ones. As long as one is consistent within one's own system and votes on all photos it's all good.

Also someone like hcljs actually expands the scale. His 10 is worth more within his own system. In such a large scale you'll hardly notice, but those of you trying to say his scale is limited to 2-4 or whatever are quite wrong.

Seems to me that in the end the pictures are ranked fairly. Anyone out there trying to manipulate his or her votes is just wasting time that could be spent becoming a better photographer. If your photo deserves the top 10 it will mostly likely get in the top 10.

This site isn't about feeling good, it's about learning to become better photographers. I would love to win a ribbon, but I've got a long ways to go to get there and my scores should reflect that. My average on right angles is right about 5 and I actually think that's quite generous when I look at my submission.

Message edited by author 2003-08-12 01:58:07.
 08/12/2003 02:11:38 AM · #32
OK I know people have had their say, and well i am probably repeating them, and everyone has their own system, but I just think that your system is idotic. Like to me it seems like you are trying to push peoples scores down and build your own up.

I really think that mosy photos should be somewhere between 4-6. Those would be the scores I would give for averages. A 4 is a lot average photo, and a 6 is a good photo. 7-10 would be the wow factors, while 1-3 would for me be very bad photos, photos that didn't meet the challenge, or sometimes I will give a low score to people that have photos that are the min size of 120 pixles (as all teh detail is lost).
 08/12/2003 02:13:59 AM · #33
Originally posted by hcljs:
Originally posted by ozdick:
It's entirely up to you how you want to vote I guess.
But as someone else pointed out - your voting strategy gave an average of 2.52
That's the same average as someone using the voting scale of 1-4
(not 1-10) with a standard bell curve distribution (my maths might not be be up to scratch, so forgive me if I'm wrong)


This is now two votes for the bell curve. This could lead to a very philosophical discussion about the 'average' life.

You might want to discuss this in the Web Site Suggestion area. You could have them apply the bell curve to the individual prior to the sum and the total average. My son and I had this discussion earlier today, and we concluded that it might increase the overall scores, however, it would not have an impact on the rankings.


In fact I believe this to be quite right.
There was a recent discussion similar to this for the fuji mugs website on wether the scoring there should be changed.
If I remember someone made a comment to the effect that it didn't matter what scale you applied, the end ranking for a large number of votes would still be the same.
So you could even change it down to a "Yes" I like it and "No" I don't like it vote, and the end ranking would still be pretty close to what it is now (I haven't actually gone through the scores to see if this is true, but if someone wants to test this out, go right ahead :)
 08/12/2003 02:25:00 AM · #34
I personally think that it's hcljs own perogative to set up a voting scale if he wants. I also agree that he is perhaps forceing us to take a harder look at what we consider good photography. I am a beginner, and my submissions show it, but I'm driven by this site to improve, even if it is little by little. I appreciate his effort to at least let us know what he is doing, so that he is not confused for a ghost voter who is only around to lower everyones scores without reason.

Without turning this into another comment thread, I am concerned with your lack of comments. I understand that your voting system does take a while, but if you are such a hard critic, and it looks like you have proven that, why not share your actual thoughts on the pictures that don't do well on your scale. It has already been said that this site isn't meant to be a professional site, so if you are grading us on a professional scale, it would be beneficial to have more than a nameless number. Just a thought.
 08/12/2003 04:55:27 AM · #35
Originally posted by jmsetzler:
It's just a number... I don't particularly care to know how any individual votes. When I see people post their intricate voting strategies and formulas, It makes me wanna do something bad like go look at their photos and see if any of their own photos rate higher than a two or three on their own scales... :)


I have a similar voting scheme to hcljs, 1-2 in the bin 3-7 maybe keep it, 7 wallpaper, 8 hang it in the loo, 9 hang it in the lounge, 10 hang it in the Louvre.

But Im quoting the above, cos I actually have dpc submissions that Ive later gone back to and deleted from my hard drive, so I do follow my own rules.
 08/12/2003 05:23:21 AM · #36
I find it very sad to see that someone who happens to have very different opinions from the majority on how to vote, but who seems to be consistent in his approach, has his actions referred to as stupid and offensive just because others don't like them or choose to vote in a different way.

As for offensive, what I find offensive is to enter a debate not to explain why you disagree with this individual or why you feel this individual's system is unfair but purely to name call, to attack his way of doing things as stupid and to cast aspersions on his motives.

It seems to be pretty clear to me that this is not an approach designed to push his own ranking up nor does it appear to be malicious voting. This suggests that the only reason to vote low is to increase one's own score. This seems to be a rather blinkered and narrow-minded assertion.

I also think it's sad to suggest that voting low/ being a harsher critic is somehow considered more acceptable if the voter is themselves a better photographer. Since when has it been necessary to be good at everything in order to pass juddgement on it? It seems that we don't mind if we get high votes from people who aren't much good at photography but we can't accept low ones from those same people!

As for not caring how "any individual votes", it seems many people on this site profess not to care as long as the individual in question votes in a way they feel is valid.

I also am surprised by the assertion that if one is voting fairly one's average vote must be in the fives. Why so?

Surely we should all be allowed to have different opinions on the overall standards of images on this site? If we aren't going to be permitted this, why don't we just get one person to vote and have that score multiplied by how many of us there are and have done with it?.

If one person happens to think that the overall quality of images is excellent and tends to average in the sevens, and someone else thinks overall quality is low and averages in the twos and the majority of us think quality is reasonable and average in the fives surely all their opinions are valid. Yes, the majority of voters think there is some "great stuff" here but that doesn't mean that every voter must see the same merit in the same images. Many of us feel that the average photo deserves 4-6 but what it deserves is a matter of opinion, not a matter of fact. An average vote is just that - an average - not a mandatory requirement that all votes fall in the same reduced range.

Oh, and an average of 2.52 is not at all the same as only using a scale of 1 to 4. I'm sure any statistician could back me up on that.

A voting strategy isn't valid only if it agrees with the majority!!

For those insisting on the importance of bell curves, I imagine if you plot a graph of average votes by all voters you will find the bell curve you are looking for!

I'm also not quite sure what is meant by the suggestion that voting by lists is unfair. This idea of lists is purely to give consistency to voting. I use a rough list in order that, when working through hundreds of entries, I know that I'm being consistent and scoring any given entry in the same way regardless of whether I come across it early or late during voting. I don't understand how having a list makes voting unfair and would be genuinely interested to hear about it. The rough list that I use can be viewed under my profile.

If anyone is willing to enter discussion about why they feel differently, I'd certainly be interested. However, if people are going to post only to insist that a vote can't be valid (indeed, must be stupid) if it doesn't match their own, then I'll bow out of this discussion now.

Kind Regards
Kavey
 08/12/2003 06:06:22 AM · #37
Being sufficiently anal to actually dive into Excel and graph the sample votes, it's pretty obvious that the poor guy's voting IS a bell curve, allbeit somewhat biased to the lower end of the scale.

What this seems to show (obviously you'd have to sum it across many challenges to get any significant results) is that the votes are being cast in a statistically consistent way - in other words, it's following a 'normal' pattern - with a low average. Which tells us, err, exactly what he told us to start with, that he has high standards in voting.

Now here's the really really important maths bit: IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT HIS AVERAGE VOTE IS!!! No, honest, it doesn't. All it will do (if say 50% of voters followed the same rule) is to reduce the actual number you see, NOT your position. It doesn't matter if you get a 4 for your 'slightly above average' picture because he's just given less than 4 to all those 'average and below', so you're still ahead.

In fact, I'd argue that voting to a low average is actually a very GOOD thing, because it increases the resolution of the higher votes. If all 'average' pictures are confined to say 3 or below, then that gives a full range of 7 points to distinguish the pictures that are above average. If you aim for a perfectly symetrical bell-curve then you only have a 5 point resolution.

For what it's worth, I start off with a 5 for an average picture that I can see a link to the challenge on. I knock points off for missing the challenge or feeling the picture is below average and I add points for pictures I feel are good. I add more for ones that make me think "wow that's a neat picture". I would appear to have an average vote of 5.5202 which actually tells me that I am also failing to obey a strict, symetrical bell-curve but I'm pretty sure that if you graphed my votes I too would have a bell-curve distribution slightly skewed UP. At the risk of repeating myself, it doesn't matter because a picture I consider to be above average gets a higher mark than one I consider below average. And it all balances out.

Please, when you start trying to use maths to prove a point it would be nice to get it right. An average of 2.52 does NOT mean voting on a scale 1-4 it just shows a bias. It took me 5 seconds of thought and 10 seconds of typing in Excel to get a very clear graphic showing that.
 08/12/2003 06:28:52 AM · #38
Originally posted by ganders:
Being sufficiently anal to actually dive into Excel and graph the sample votes, it's pretty obvious that the poor guy's voting IS a bell curve, allbeit somewhat biased to the lower end of the scale.


haha. you are quite funny! Yes, obviously, it is a bell curve, albeit his bell is quite a thin one, and with the lagging end tapering off towards very negative territory (too bad, the voting system only goes down to 1, so we can only see this through extrapolation). That said, it's pretty amazing to me why so many are fixated with numbers. There are other ways to boost your ego, guys! Just keep submitting and keep us, artistes and critics, arm-chair happy.

[edited to correct a spelling error..oops]

Message edited by author 2003-08-12 06:30:13.
 08/12/2003 06:49:29 AM · #39
Originally posted by tarique:
Originally posted by glimpses:
My nightmare in virtual and information systems is that everything is faked.. because it is possible to fake it.

Matrix!! :)


Ignorance is a bless. =)
 08/12/2003 09:40:43 AM · #40
I think the point I was trying to make before was that 2.5 was the average you would also get on a 1 to 4 voting scale - since
(1 + 4) / 2 = 2.5 - so voting on that scale would give pretty much the same result as hcljs' method (hey - it's just as valid :)
A scale of 1-10 averages 5.5, since (1 + 10) / 2 = 5.5

I mentioned before that I read you could do away with the scaling of scores and just implement a Yes or No vote for meeting the challenge.

I thought I'd actually test this idea to see if it was true, by applying it to the Movies challenge. I counted those votes in the range (6-10) as a Yes vote and then calculated that as a percentage of their votes.
What I found was that this idea actually held some merit as the top 5 results would still have placed in exactly the same order (I actually tested down to 20 places and the results were still pretty consistent).

1) 149/158 = 94.3%
2) 142/156 = 91.0%
3) 133/158 = 84.2%
4) 134/161 = 83.2%
5) 117/149 = 78.5%

I wonder if this kind of voting would appease the people who don't like their photos scoring 1 votes. Instead you could say I got an x% approval rating - LOL
:)
08/12/2003 09:44:42 AM · #41

Interesting results!

I've often thought that it might be fun to try and "rank" photos instead of scoring them. Then the final order could be determined by the average of each voter's ranking. Just a thought -- I'm not suggesting we change anything. I just kind of do that in my head anyway while I'm voting....

rob
 08/12/2003 09:57:42 AM · #42
At first I thought this was a pointless thread for people whining about getting a 1, but it has helped me do a little soul searching. I now see that my average vote is way too high and that I need to adjust my voting method. I normally start all images at 5 and add or subtract 0 to 3 for challenge and then add or subtract 0 to 3 for technical merit/Wow factor. This actually gave a potential of 11, which I rounded down. In truth, I've rarely subtracted, mostly added...

This week I started at 4 instead of 5 and I believe in the future I will start at 3 and only give 10 to photos earning an 'extra' point somewhere... (I give these now for unusually high wow, humor, or interesting title)...

Thank you to all that took part in this thread... Maybe we should all re-evaluate our voting pattern and see if we are using enough of the scale.

Let's make 10 a 10 again :)
 08/12/2003 10:09:19 AM · #43
Originally posted by muckpond:
I've often thought that it might be fun to try and "rank" photos instead of scoring them.
rob


Hi Rob
This is effectively how I work and to do this I do need to use the entire voting scale of 1 to 10 - in my book it's fairer to give the poorest entries 1s and 2s than it is to give a better picture the same score as a poorer one just to avoid the bottom of the scale.
I don't know how easy I'd find it to actually rank every single photo individually as sometimes there are many which I feel have about the same merit or lack of (in my eyes) and I'd find it hard to specify which should be above the other.
Interesting idea though!
:o)
 08/12/2003 10:14:46 AM · #44
Originally posted by myqyl:
Maybe we should all re-evaluate our voting pattern and see if we are using enough of the scale.

Let's make 10 a 10 again :)


I think your idea has a lot of merit. I think a lot of people are actually only using a part of the scale because they've attached a whole lot of psychobabble assumptions to what a 1 means and therefore don't like to give it. I believe (and this is, of course, like anything I write, only my own opinion) that a 1 means simply that the photo has failed to appeal to the voter who awards it in any way. A 1 vote doesn't mean that the photographer is crap, stupid, incapable, untalented or anything else. It doesn't even mean that the image itself has no merit - just that the individual voter can't find any in it according to their personal tastes, opinions and preferences. Others might like the same image a great deal.

I certainly support the idea that the whole scale is there to be used and that it is actually fairer to do so than to resolutely avoid parts of the scale because low scores don't feel nice.

I hate getting 1s too, because it's never nice to see that some individuals feel my work is so poor but what I try and concentrate on is that there nearly always others who have liked the same image and even some that have loved it. I'd rather have 10 x 1 and 10 x 10 than everyone giving me a 4-6 vote! But that's just me!!!
 08/12/2003 05:30:18 PM · #45
Kavey, your posts say everything that I was thinking :)
 08/12/2003 05:42:13 PM · #46
If you all put as much thought into your photographs as you do into your voting systems I would finish dead last in every challenge.
 08/12/2003 06:53:10 PM · #47
Originally posted by Toddh:
If you all put as much thought into your photographs as you do into your voting systems I would finish dead last in every challenge.


I've been in the later half in the two challenges that I've been in, and tend to agree with Todd...

I believe that voting systems are needed, but everyone will have their own. What works for one person will not work for others. If you look at the voting break-downs of random entries of random challenges you will see a bell curve most if not all of them, even the ones that came in dead last and first place winners. That tells me that the way folks are voting seems to be working.

All art is open to interpritation. Some will like a pic others will not, the majority will be indefferent; hence the bell curve.

OK, i've run out of steam.

Message edited by author 2003-08-12 18:54:04.
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