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07/10/2017 01:48:07 AM · #26
LOL ... I am one of those who recently re-joined dpc after a time of absence. It is good to see that the same "discussions" aka moans are still ongoing ;-P.
I would like to weigh in here on purely mathematical and psychological points.
Number of votes that a picture gets DOES influence the overall result. 1 vote in a million (up or down) won't have much influence, 1 vote in 10 does.
However, as a dpc member, maybe we should just accept these "things" and move on, particularly because there isn't a likely solution for this for the time being and it just creates unhappiness - waste of energy if you ask me.

The random viewing ... that's an interesting one, because if you see 3 mediocre images in a row and then a slightly above mediocre, you are likely to give that one a higher score than if the previous 3 had been excellent images. There were some studies done on that, but I honestly can't remember where to look that up without spending far too much time on it.

The 3s ... I can't believe that after all this time you guys are still moaning about it - there are some really grumpy people voting here, take pity on them that they need to release their frustrations on your images and move on ...

And I can't believe that I just got sucked into this discussion in the first place :-)

07/10/2017 09:18:04 AM · #27
The problem is you only have to vote on 20% - that probably goes back to the days of dial-up where it took ages to vote. These days the majority have much faster internet access. It's crazy, if you vote on a challenge it should be mandatory to vote on all of the photos.It's a joke and needs changing.

07/10/2017 10:53:51 AM · #28
I don't believe there is complaining from Jake about receiving a 3 vote. That's not what this discussion is about. He stated clearly that he does not care about the actual vote received. From what I understand, it is about the lack of requirements to have voters vote on all images in the challenge. He isn't complaining that he got a 3, he is simply stating the 3 made more of a difference in the overall end score between the two images because the vote total is different for the two images, or three images.

When I first came on board here, you could count on well over 100 votes in every challenge. I was always told to remember that once you reached 100 votes, your score did not change too much one way or the other if you received a low or high vote. Now there is less voters and less folks voting in total. Less votes means every vote really makes a difference to the end score. Why then doesn't the site change to reflect this drastic drop in total voters per challenge? Why not make the voters vote on all images? I do when I have time to vote. It's not fair to everyone as a whole if all the images are not scored in a challenge. Who ever is cherry picking the best images to vote on and leaving the rest to rot is not doing the site any good.

07/10/2017 02:24:58 PM · #29
Yeah, the main argument Jake is making is more about the differences in the overall vote count and how it affects each image's overall score differently. It's eye opening to see how much difference it makes when a 3 (or any vote) is cast on images when there is a wide margin between the total number of votes recieved.

I think there are some good points brought up in this thread. The voting on at least 20% rule was back when there could be hundreds of images so it made sense that it might discourage a voter from voting at all if they had to vote on a large number of entries. Now that the number of entries is a fraction of what it used to be, it might be good make voting on all a requirement...or at least to raise the minimum percentage?

Another good point brought up is cherry picking which images to vote on from the page of thumbnails. How about having the thumbnails display on a different page only after you voted on the image? Not sure if that's possible but I think only seeing entries as you vote might be a good idea.
07/10/2017 03:51:37 PM · #30
Free Studies are still 100+ images. I may or may not get through all of them when I start voting. That's because, while the "majority" may have fast internet nowadays, there are still plenty of places that don't ... we're in an area that the fastest internet available is DSL. No cable, no fiber-optic, etc... and FWIW, the community we live in is rural but not remote. There are plenty of other rural areas like ours without high-speed internet. Yeah, the little 20-40 entry challeges are pretty doable for the most part.

Oh, and the whole conversation about chicken s*** people that leave a vote of 3 without leaving a reason - those are fine with me. I, for one, don't really want to know why someone gave me a low vote. I just expect to not meet everyones standards - it is what it is. I'd rather have silence (no comment) than to read someones bizarre interpretation of what photography "should" be. Yes, bizarre IMO may very well be someone else's norm. I get that.
07/10/2017 04:02:59 PM · #31
Originally posted by Cuttooth:

Now that the number of entries is a fraction of what it used to be, it might be good make voting on all a requirement...or at least to raise the minimum percentage?

It might well be a good idea, but it requires coding and that's something only Langdon can do. We can bring it up, but if he does not have the time to invest we have to make do with the way things are. We can make all the arguments we want back and forth about what Langdon "owes" his customers and so forth and so on. but in the meanwhile, we're in a state of stasis as far as changes to site coding are concerned. I don't know how to effect a change to that.

Originally posted by Cuttooth:

Another good point brought up is cherry picking which images to vote on from the page of thumbnails. How about having the thumbnails display on a different page only after you voted on the image? Not sure if that's possible but I think only seeing entries as you vote might be a good idea.

Again, that's a coding issue, PLUS that means people who are not going to vote can't see the entries until the challenge has rolled to the results. This is especially a problem when registered members, who can't vote on the Sunday and Thursday challenges, suddenly find they can't VIEW them either. It's not a simple problem to solve. And as far as I know, there's never been any hard data compiled on how much cherry-picking actually goes on. I'd be surprised if there's that much of it on these smaller challenges, although I'd concede there might have been a LOT more when we had 2-300 entries in each challenge.

I kind of tend to think this is a cultural issue, so to speak. I believe if we REQUIRED 100% voting or your votes don't count, or 100% voting or your SCORE doesn't count, we'd just lose members immediately in protest. So in one sense, it's up to us to promote or foster a culture in which members understand that the whole thing only works if we freely give our time to voting whether or not we enter. It's my feeling we basically USED to be like that, or close enough to it that the whole thing worked pretty well even if some individuals only took and didn't give. The forums were lively, the vote counts were high, it was terrific...

Or was it? Seems to me we had at LEAST as many complainers then as we do now, more actually. It seems to me like there was always someone crusading to right what they perceived as wrongs in the DPC community. Of course, one man's treat is another man's poison; what Joe sees as "freedom" Mary might see as "license". To penalize members for not voting, to pick one example, is conceptually akin to stripping certain rights from citizens who don't vote in elections. We could go on and on in that vein but, as a moderator, I'm not very inclined to try to shape the system through coercion. I'm for fewer restrictions and more encouragement to willful participation in the community.

How can we make that happen?

Message edited by author 2017-07-10 16:05:14.
07/10/2017 07:24:06 PM · #32
Jake sent me a long email, and I'd like to mention, for the record, that his reasons for separating from the site are only peripherally related to the issues expressed in this thread. It's not my place to say more unless he should ask me to, but this is definitely not a spiteful withdrawal, in case anyone's wondering.

Message edited by author 2017-07-10 20:24:27.
07/10/2017 07:34:52 PM · #33
Never Mind.

Message edited by author 2017-07-10 19:39:45.
07/10/2017 09:03:01 PM · #34
I have strong feelings about voting and participation, especially in a contest environment. If there's anybody who wants to hear more, feel free to PM me. But I know other people have strong feelings that are different than mine and I accept that people are different. So rules are a difficult subject.
But yes, I think there should be some voting requirement to participate on DPC. There are too many here with very few votes given overall and lots and lots of entries (and ribbons) in their portfolio.
I don't think there could be anything that rules HOW one votes, just that somehow the voting happens. And there appears to be a real lack of it at the present.

Consider this possibility... or something like it..... by the time you have entered 10 challenges, you must have given a quantity at least 50% of the number of votes you have received. For example, if you have received 100 votes, you have doled out at least 50. And then a check again at 50 entries or every 100? That may mean you have to skip entering and vote a couple of challenges to catch up but at least we could assure the voting process is happening and people are participating on both ends. Of course the benchmarks I chose are arbitrary and would need to be discussed. And please notice that this would not dictate whether you vote the challenges you enter or not. Just that you're voting your share.

I haven't completely thought this through, but I suppose something similar could be instituted for commenting (my own opinions about that are not as strong but recently the lack of comments is very noticeable).

07/11/2017 05:16:12 AM · #35
To encourage a bit more participation, how about having a couple of hidden gem type challenges? As far as I can make out, there have only been 6 in the past, the last one being Nov 2016. They do always seem to have a few more entries than normal challenges. It may encourage a few people to come back to the site.

Originally posted by Bear_Music:



I'm for fewer restrictions and more encouragement to willful participation in the community.

How can we make that happen?
07/11/2017 12:17:49 PM · #36
FWIW -
* dpchallenge is very difficult for a lot of people - most voters have high standards, it is difficult to find a good subject that meets the challenge and get a good shot of it within the open period, and there is a HUGE learning curve to the editing process. The flip side of the difficulties is that the site encourages you to be actively, continually involved in photography.
* dpchallenge takes a non-trivial time commitment. I really like the format and voting process, and think it generally works well. For me, the current approach is to make it as easy as possible for people to participate. Please survey before making changes - just because some folks are vocal doesn't mean their point of view is representative.
* the folks who participate in dpchallenge, and especially those who serve on the site council - doing their best to keep things going, are some really great folks - and some world-class talents.
* In my opinion, participation in dpchallenge has gone down because the rewards are not perceived to be sufficient to justify the effort. It seems the ribbons pretty much go to the same people, and there is no obvious way to improve (and see that you are improving) your photography.
* Anything that makes it easier to participate (like extending the open period from one week to two), provides some variety (dp league), increases rewards (unofficial ribbons) would improve the site, and probably increase participation.
07/11/2017 12:23:59 PM · #37
Originally posted by dtremain:

* Anything that makes it easier to participate (like extending the open period from one week to two)...

Well, we did that at least ...
07/11/2017 04:18:37 PM · #38
Originally posted by dtremain:

FWIW -
* dpchallenge is very difficult for a lot of people - most voters have high standards, it is difficult to find a good subject that meets the challenge and get a good shot of it within the open period, and there is a HUGE learning curve to the editing process. The flip side of the difficulties is that the site encourages you to be actively, continually involved in photography.
* dpchallenge takes a non-trivial time commitment. I really like the format and voting process, and think it generally works well. For me, the current approach is to make it as easy as possible for people to participate. Please survey before making changes - just because some folks are vocal doesn't mean their point of view is representative.
* the folks who participate in dpchallenge, and especially those who serve on the site council - doing their best to keep things going, are some really great folks - and some world-class talents.
* In my opinion, participation in dpchallenge has gone down because the rewards are not perceived to be sufficient to justify the effort. It seems the ribbons pretty much go to the same people, and there is no obvious way to improve (and see that you are improving) your photography.
* Anything that makes it easier to participate (like extending the open period from one week to two), provides some variety (dp league), increases rewards (unofficial ribbons) would improve the site, and probably increase participation.


My feelings exactly.. well put and to the point

07/11/2017 05:04:46 PM · #39
Yes! I agree, too!

Originally posted by dtremain:

... there is no obvious way to improve (and see that you are improving) your photography.


I always think of DPC (as I have done ever since I was a newbie here) as like the game of golf.

You get your "handicap" number... your average vote received... and if you beat your average, I call that a win, if not, I stop and think why... or I ask someone else why.

07/14/2017 03:29:41 PM · #40
Originally posted by Cyrilda:

Never Mind.


+1
07/16/2017 12:34:24 PM · #41
I agree with all this stuff and want to ramble on with these points......
Originally posted by dtremain:

FWIW -
* dpchallenge is very difficult for a lot of people - most voters have high standards, it is difficult to find a good subject that meets the challenge and get a good shot of it within the open period, and there is a HUGE learning curve to the editing process. The flip side of the difficulties is that the site encourages you to be actively, continually involved in photography.

This is to me the whole essence of DPC. It pushes you to get better if you join the process. You can't help but get better if you actively participate.
Originally posted by dtremain:

* dpchallenge takes a non-trivial time commitment. I really like the format and voting process, and think it generally works well. For me, the current approach is to make it as easy as possible for people to participate. Please survey before making changes - just because some folks are vocal doesn't mean their point of view is representative.

I do find my participation waxes and wanes dependent on life. I wholeheartedly agree with the survey comment.
Originally posted by dtremain:

* the folks who participate in dpchallenge, and especially those who serve on the site council - doing their best to keep things going, are some really great folks - and some world-class talents.

True that! Stellar! Awesome! TRULY appreciated, probably way more than you know.
Originally posted by dtremain:

* In my opinion, participation in dpchallenge has gone down because the rewards are not perceived to be sufficient to justify the effort. It seems the ribbons pretty much go to the same people, and there is no obvious way to improve (and see that you are improving) your photography.

This one I kind of disagree with on a couple of levels. You always have the combination of your own scoring average, plus the reactions you get from voters in the form of comments. I'd rather have a meh score and three positive comments from photogs I truly respect and admire than an HM. I also like it when I get exactly what I'm aiming for in a challenge. That speaks to me on being able to do what I intend. And when someone whose opinion matters to me "gets it", I'm thoroughly pleased.
Originally posted by dtremain:

* Anything that makes it easier to participate (like extending the open period from one week to two), provides some variety (dp league), increases rewards (unofficial ribbons) would improve the site, and probably increase participation.

I don't think that there is any magic formula. I just hope that thjose of us who have been around for a while and feel warmth and gratitude to the community and the site help keep it going.

I know once I kind of released myself to an attitude of what will be, will be, I have enjoyed my time here so much more. It makes me sad to see people get all twisted up about things that really mean nothing in the big picture and let them ruin their experience.To me it's just so easy to focus on the positive aspects of DPC and be eternally grateful for all it has brought me.

I do love the site, but it's the community that keeps me here.
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