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09/02/2015 08:41:04 AM · #1
On DPC?

Here are the 4th through 7th place finishing scores in the most recent challenge:

6.7671 
6.7662 
6.7639
6.7237 

So I suppose the message here is "VOTE!" ? =D
09/02/2015 08:55:50 AM · #2
You can blame me sorry I was going to bump yours -)

I noticed I finished sixth twice by the smallest of margins also.

I also noticed some votes were scrubbed off. I had .09 less Just before rollover, not that it would of made much difference my photo was bad and boring.

Message edited by author 2015-09-02 08:56:37.
09/02/2015 09:01:49 AM · #3
The tentacles of the results could be more far-reaching ...
perhaps even affecting the uber-important unofficial battle for 3rd place in DPL! =O
09/02/2015 09:06:26 AM · #4
Wow, I didn't notice that - Super close! Every vote really does matter with these small turnouts.

I was at 7.4 after 20, 7.0 after 50, then down down down. Single 3's or 10's make your score swing in chunks.

Tate fwiw I gave your image an "8" :)
09/02/2015 09:24:53 AM · #5
Suspend any thought about my words here being about anything DPL related, official or otherwise, as this is something I've raised many times on many occasions, publicly and privately.

Yes, one vote counts for a lot.

My 16th place image received between 5 and 9 fewer votes than 7 of the top 10 images, and fewer than all but 2 images in the top 30. Last round of the playoffs in one challenge all but one entry from my entire team had total vote count that was 4-5 votes below the average number of votes across all images in the challenge.

No one has ever been able to explain why this happens, and given that there are no numbers next to the average that go with "Participant" and "Non-participant" there's no way to determine just why some people consistently have more votes than others, and some have consistently fewer.

I'm not implying or inferring anything with regard to how voting is done, or not done, or whether or not there is impropriety occurring somewhere (there is - it's just a matter of how rampant, how consistent, and how intentional you want to say it is). I'm simply saying that yes, one vote counts for a lot. I've just yet to be able to determine how much "extra votes" count for, or how much the lack of them cost.

09/02/2015 09:33:15 AM · #6
Originally posted by backdoorhippie:



No one has ever been able to explain why this happens, and given that there are no numbers next to the average that go with "Participant" and "Non-participant" there's no way to determine just why some people consistently have more votes than others, and some have consistently fewer.


it think its when people start voting and never finish.
09/02/2015 09:35:58 AM · #7
Have you ruled out the thumbnail effect ? Not everyone cycles through the images, some click on the most interesting thumbs and don't vote on the entire challenge. Interesting thumbs often mean interesting picture, thus higher votes.
09/02/2015 09:41:07 AM · #8
Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by backdoorhippie:

No one has ever been able to explain why this happens, and given that there are no numbers next to the average that go with "Participant" and "Non-participant" there's no way to determine just why some people consistently have more votes than others, and some have consistently fewer.

it think its when people start voting and never finish.

I *think* Jake's ruminating on the fact that he, and his team, consistently have 4-5 fewer votes each than the rest of the participants?

In any event, I know in MY case if the last-minute votes in "Morning" hadn't happened, I'd have easily ribboned. And yet none of them were excessively low, a 4 was the lowest. So yes, the paradigm is changing; in the old days, a single vote rarely made a difference, but those were the days when we said "Don't even WORRY about your average until you cross the 100-vote threshold..." Nowadays, we never even reach that threshold, so a single vote is a much more significant factor in the total average, and volatility in scoring is the norm.
09/02/2015 09:51:11 AM · #9
It could be partly DPL related just in that if your team is voting on all the images while other teams are not due to burnout (teams that are no longer "in it" so to speak).
That could explain the lack of votes since your teammates cannot vote on other teammates images.
09/02/2015 09:56:02 AM · #10
Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by backdoorhippie:



No one has ever been able to explain why this happens, and given that there are no numbers next to the average that go with "Participant" and "Non-participant" there's no way to determine just why some people consistently have more votes than others, and some have consistently fewer.


it think its when people start voting and never finish.


I'd like to believe this except that if you look across challenges there are some people who consistently have more than others and some fewer, it's just a matter of extent.

And no, Bear, I'm well finished ruminating about that challenge, and the results - I just bring it up as a rather glaring example of how this anomaly can impact a team and not just individual finishes. We've all watched as last minute votes get thrown in and our image dumps 0.05-0.2 in the last hour of a challenge, costing us positions and ribbons. The only hope is that everyone is suffering the same spate of voter outrage, because to think otherwise one must presume that someone(s) is purposefully manipulating votes by dumping low, but not exceedingly low numbers at the "better" images in hopes of bringing theirs up - either through multiple accounts or with the help of "friends". Is that what's happening? Who knows!! But it would certainly explain why the top 10 almost always have more votes than average. And perhaps those of us who experience the lower vote totals can take heart in the fact that no one is fearful of our images?

So to your point, it is because of the lack of participation in this place that discrepancies like this do matter to me, particular when war is being waged for virtual trophies (please notice my tongue in my cheek).

As for the "thumbnail effect", for me to comment on the fact that you can even vote on an image based on its thumbnail on this site would be enough to send this straight to the RANT section.
09/02/2015 10:03:09 AM · #11
can someone please explain how the vote scrubbing works?
09/02/2015 10:04:53 AM · #12
Originally posted by tate:

It could be partly DPL related just in that if your team is voting on all the images while other teams are not due to burnout (teams that are no longer "in it" so to speak).
That could explain the lack of votes since your teammates cannot vote on other teammates images.


I've run these numbers, and the only way this works out would be if my team voted and every other team didn't. A single team not voting would simply raise the numbers of their images above the rest since they could not vote for their own anyway but everyone else did.

Again, I am truly not trying to imply anything specific. I'm only saying that I'm a numbers person and this is something I've noticed consistently in my 18 months here - and long before the DPL. There are ways of explaining it away, for sure, but the patterns are consistent and that points to something, even if it's the fact that the people fortunate enough to have had their image voted on before someone said, "I've had enough, I'll finish voting tomorrow" and never finished tend to do better because it's usually the thoughtful voter who gives higher scores.

I do want to understand how it's possible to vote purely on thumbnails - unless it's a matter of looking across thumbnails and then selectively voting. I am only presented with a scoring grid on a thumbnail after I've voted on an image. With that said, I think 20% is awfully low in terms of the minimum number of images you need to vote for in order for your vote to count. I can imagine that when there were hundreds of images to vote on in every challenge that this seemed reasonable. But when that amounts to 13 votes I believe it's time to change the criteria.
09/02/2015 10:05:30 AM · #13
Originally posted by Mike:

can someone please explain how the vote scrubbing works?


I think I just did, quite accidentally. If a person votes on less than 20% of the images then their vote is scrubbed.
09/02/2015 10:10:16 AM · #14
Originally posted by backdoorhippie:

Originally posted by Mike:

can someone please explain how the vote scrubbing works?


I think I just did, quite accidentally. If a person votes on less than 20% of the images then their vote is scrubbed.


I think it goes deeper than that, if I voted 1 on 99% images and 10 on 1 then that would most likely get scrubbed. I did hear it was quite an algorithm they use.
09/02/2015 10:13:48 AM · #15
Originally posted by Ecce_Signum:

Originally posted by backdoorhippie:

Originally posted by Mike:

can someone please explain how the vote scrubbing works?


I think I just did, quite accidentally. If a person votes on less than 20% of the images then their vote is scrubbed.


I think it goes deeper than that, if I voted 1 on 99% images and 10 on 1 then that would most likely get scrubbed. I did hear it was quite an algorithm they use.


Which is good to know, because that's the sort of thing that looks to be intentionally manipulative and shouldn't be allowed. But that begs the question, "If that's happening, why is it that my score almost always goes down after acrubbing?"
09/02/2015 10:14:29 AM · #16
Here's the number of votes for the top 12 images from the dirty challenge from 1st-12th place.

73
73
69
73
77
72
76
75
71
75
76
74

The lowest vote count is for Jeff's image (3rd place). My count is the 3rd lowest (6th place). Much of our team voted on all images (but were unable to vote on our own) - so our vote counts are lower, I presume.

Message edited by author 2015-09-02 10:16:06.
09/02/2015 10:22:26 AM · #17
Originally posted by backdoorhippie:



Which is good to know, because that's the sort of thing that looks to be intentionally manipulative and shouldn't be allowed. But that begs the question, "If that's happening, why is it that my score almost always goes down after acrubbing?"


mine went up in the last challenge.
09/02/2015 10:25:51 AM · #18
Originally posted by tate:

Here's the number of votes for the top 12 images from the dirty challenge from 1st-12th place.

73
73
69
73
77
72
76
75
71
75
76
74

The lowest vote count is for Jeff's image (3rd place). My count is the 3rd lowest (6th place). Much of our team voted on all images (but were unable to vote on our own) - so our vote counts are lower, I presume.


interesting he was the only image on the front page not on Glasseye. clearly the members of Glasseye thought Smurfguys pic was from our team and the low votes got scrubbed.

i would like a special investigation. Maybe dpc could hire an upstanding investigator like Ted Wells?

Message edited by author 2015-09-02 10:30:25.
09/02/2015 10:27:06 AM · #19
Originally posted by tate:

Here's the number of votes for the top 12 images from the dirty challenge from 1st-12th place.

73
73
69
73
77
72
76
75
71
75
76
74

The lowest vote count is for Jeff's image (3rd place). My count is the 3rd lowest (6th place). Much of our team voted on all images (but were unable to vote on our own) - so our vote counts are lower, I presume.


My guess is you voted for the other participant's images and they didn't vote on yours. It is possible to determine how many participants actually voted, though the numbers are not so clear when DPL doesn't allow voting on your own team.
I did vote. Everything except for the two images from my team.
09/02/2015 10:34:39 AM · #20
Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by backdoorhippie:



Which is good to know, because that's the sort of thing that looks to be intentionally manipulative and shouldn't be allowed. But that begs the question, "If that's happening, why is it that my score almost always goes down after acrubbing?"


mine went up in the last challenge.


Mine went up too which is great but also means I had even more really low votes than what's still there. :/
09/02/2015 10:39:32 AM · #21
Originally posted by Cuttooth:

Originally posted by Mike:

Originally posted by backdoorhippie:



Which is good to know, because that's the sort of thing that looks to be intentionally manipulative and shouldn't be allowed. But that begs the question, "If that's happening, why is it that my score almost always goes down after acrubbing?"


mine went up in the last challenge.


Mine went up too which is great but also means I had even more really low votes than what's still there. :/


i was thinking the same thing.
09/02/2015 10:40:44 AM · #22
So really what we need is more participants, of course.
How to get them? Market the site? Maybe encourage photography teachers to use it as a tool for their students (fresh blood)?
One vote should not be swinging ribbons around, IMHO - Let's get more (new) people in here!
09/02/2015 10:43:53 AM · #23
Originally posted by tate:

So really what we need is more participants, of course.
How to get them? Market the site? Maybe encourage photography teachers to use it as a tool for their students (fresh blood)?
One vote should not be swinging ribbons around, IMHO - Let's get more (new) people in here!


i'll be participating less now that dpl is over for a myriad of reasons, so you will have to replace me too. :P
09/02/2015 11:10:39 AM · #24
Originally posted by tate:

Here's the number of votes for the top 12 images from the dirty challenge from 1st-12th place.

73
73
69
73
77
72
76
75
71
75
76
74

The lowest vote count is for Jeff's image (3rd place). My count is the 3rd lowest (6th place). Much of our team voted on all images (but were unable to vote on our own) - so our vote counts are lower, I presume.


The one is indeed lower, but the rest are in line with the average +/-1 (70.86 votes).

Again, my point is not to complain about results (mine, yours or anyone else's), it's to speak to the varying vote totals in the light of your "1 vote matters" statement. Yes, Jeff's vote total was the lowest (1 more vote than mine), and the question then is if one vote makes a difference what would 3 votes have done? Would he have finished 1st or 2nd, or could he have been bumped from the front page? Three add'l votes of a very non-threatening 5 from people just trying to get through all the images would have put him in 6th behind you and off the front page. Then again, only a single vote of 8 or more moves him up one position. The impact of one vote is a lot, and its impact is felt more the fewer votes you have.

There isn't a way to "fix" it, though I suspect raising them minimum vote total from 20% to at least half, if not 75% of images, would do a lot to even things out.

As for marketing this place to photography teachers, I couldn't do that in right conscience. I came here hoping for open and honest critiquing of images, and there's very little of that unless one asks for it. A scoring system that has no consistent meaning for any particular number on there will only discourage and drive folks away, like it did me the first time. It's a godawful place to try and learn until you figure out how to make that happen behind the scenes. There are a LOT of good people here, and the more you get to know them the less you think about the numbers that the "competition" in this place is built around. I don't care about them until someone wants to make a point about how they matter. 64 images were submitted in the last challenge, 4535 votes cast, and 146 comments given. 15% of the comments were given to the top 3 images, the same number given to images 38 through 64. You can learn photography from doing the challenges, but only if you do the time on your own. Only a small handful of people here will take the time to really be constructively critical with their words while voting, and I appreciate their diligence. But when you can slap a 3 on something without saying why you think it deserves it then this place is just a contest site and nothing more.
09/02/2015 11:18:15 AM · #25
Originally posted by backdoorhippie:

[quote=Mike] [quote=backdoorhippie]
As for the "thumbnail effect", for me to comment on the fact that you can even vote on an image based on its thumbnail on this site would be enough to send this straight to the RANT section.


Slow down and read for a moment, that's not what I wrote. And no, you can't vote in thumbs, you can't even vote before an image is fully loaded top to bottom. It's simple - better images get more views in thumb mode, then they get more votes because they get more views. Not saying that's a perfect system, but it's a much less nefarious scenario than the one you posited.

And I'll take the moment to mention the obvious that it's the height of arrogance to think when someone's images score better than your own they are cheating, rather than maybe people voted them higher because they felt they were stronger.
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