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Showing posts 26 - 46 of 46, (reverse)
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03/16/2007 01:01:24 PM · #26
I have been hanging around here voting for a while now ...

challenges entered: 23
votes cast: 27,774
votes received: 5,251
comments made: 2,224
comments received 476

I vote 100% in every challenge ... doesn't matter whether I'm entered in it or not ... I learn from looking at the photos and from browsing the forums ...

Message edited by author 2007-03-16 13:01:36.
03/16/2007 01:08:35 PM · #27
Originally posted by Falc:

Votes Cast: 48,401
Votes Received: 38,147

10,000 to the good - I can take a holiday from voting ;-)

Me to. I've cast more than twice as many votes - 46,448/19,991 - as I've received.

But why should there be any relationship whatsoever between the number of votes cast and the number received? There should NOT!. Voting should be a choice, not an obligation. For time considerations alone the number of votes cast in large challenges will be lower than others. That only makes sense.

Though many chose to do so, the only compelling reason to vote in a challenge you enter is to see how you compare with the other submissions. That in itself is a learning experience.

Message edited by author 2007-03-16 13:10:14.
03/16/2007 01:11:03 PM · #28
Originally posted by stdavidson:


Though many chose to do so, the only compelling reason to vote in a challenge you enter is to see how you compare with the other submissions. That in itself is a learning experience.


Exactly! I learn by voting ...
03/16/2007 01:42:43 PM · #29
Originally posted by rheverly:

I'm wondering how anyone can justify participating in the site while having a vote given to vote received ratio of less than one (let's say "significantly less than one").

And that last bit is my ultimate question.

Rob

I can give you two good justifications:

1) Site rules allow you to vote on 20% of the entries in any one challenge. Some people avail themselves of this rule.

2) The ratio is largely out of the photographer's control, if you look at the math logically.

Let's say I enter an Open Challenge, which ends up with 101 valid entries. The largest number of votes I can possibly cast (legally) is 100.

In theory, all 50,000-some registered users could vote on my entry, giving me a ratio of "somewhat" less than one, and even if only 2-300 people voted on my image, it would still skew the stats well below one. Just a few challenges like this and the stats would be permamnently out of whack.

Since the photographer can't control how many people vote on their entries, there is no way for the photgrapher to control the voting ratio, even if they vote on every image in every challenge.

BTW: Exactly the same principle applies to the stat of comments given vs received. We once had a challenge where entries were limited to photographers who had made more comments than they'd received.

This lead to threats of people "ganging up" on a particular photographer, where a group would all go comment on that photographer's images, inundating the photgrapher with an avalanche of commentary which they would never be able to match single-handedly.
03/16/2007 02:03:45 PM · #30
Dial up?
03/16/2007 02:20:57 PM · #31
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

...
2. The "first tier" of voting would last for 3 days. At the end of that time, the top 25% of images based on average vote received would move to the second tier of voting and the rest would b e removed from the voting page and lumped, as far as finishing positions go, in an "also-ran" category with the image score as calculated at that time.
...

Hi Robert. With all due respect for the time and thought behind your post, I have an issue with item #2.

Three (3) days isn't long enough for quality votes. There are many people that vote in stages over several days, and IMO, those votes have more meaning/quality than the voters that zip thru all entries in the first hour casting votes on all. Most of the time a score doesn't even stabilize until it hits around the 100 votes mark, with wild swings the first couple of days.

A side effect could also take place where people, in a rush to vote, zip thru all images instead of pacing themselves as they do now. I'm not talking about the "zippers" we have out there now - we'd end up with a new breed of "zippers".

There is already discussion taking place at times, about how images with detail or images that require a thoughtful look to "get" what the image is saying are getting missed/bypassed by the 2 second stock/ad type images with quick hitting impact. Implementing a 3 day cutoff would just exasperate this effect even more IMO.
03/16/2007 03:04:19 PM · #32
Originally posted by glad2badad:

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

...
2. The "first tier" of voting would last for 3 days. At the end of that time, the top 25% of images based on average vote received would move to the second tier of voting and the rest would b e removed from the voting page and lumped, as far as finishing positions go, in an "also-ran" category with the image score as calculated at that time.
...

Hi Robert. With all due respect for the time and thought behind your post, I have an issue with item #2.

Three (3) days isn't long enough for quality votes. There are many people that vote in stages over several days, and IMO, those votes have more meaning/quality than the voters that zip thru all entries in the first hour casting votes on all. Most of the time a score doesn't even stabilize until it hits around the 100 votes mark, with wild swings the first couple of days.

A side effect could also take place where people, in a rush to vote, zip thru all images instead of pacing themselves as they do now. I'm not talking about the "zippers" we have out there now - we'd end up with a new breed of "zippers".

There is already discussion taking place at times, about how images with detail or images that require a thoughtful look to "get" what the image is saying are getting missed/bypassed by the 2 second stock/ad type images with quick hitting impact. Implementing a 3 day cutoff would just exasperate this effect even more IMO.


This may be correct, and there are other, "moral" issues as well, which is why I said "semi-seriously". I'd be willing to bet, though, that every single top-20 image since I've been in DPC would have "made the cut" except, of course, in the case of challenges with very small numbers.

I'm not really suggesting that "my proposal", taken as-is, is the best way to go, not at all.

But it does suggest there might be other, creative ways to set up a voting structure as we grow...

R.
03/16/2007 03:09:19 PM · #33
All this discussion on voting or not, how many, etc.

Does it really matter? If this site only had 50 members, I would say it would. Given the number of members, entries, requirement for 20 % to count, the fact that photos are randomized for each person, AND the fact that if you look at most scores, the distribution is normal, its easy to conclude that voting on this site is fair and represents the collective opionion of the majority.
03/16/2007 03:25:07 PM · #34
Just an observation...

Nearly 5 days of voting and my Circle II entry has yet to break 100 votes. 282 submissions total for the challenge.
03/16/2007 03:29:43 PM · #35
Originally posted by PGerst:

All this discussion on voting or not, how many, etc.

Does it really matter? If this site only had 50 members, I would say it would. Given the number of members, entries, requirement for 20 % to count, the fact that photos are randomized for each person, AND the fact that if you look at most scores, the distribution is normal, its easy to conclude that voting on this site is fair and represents the collective opionion of the majority.


I guess a lot of people feel compelled to go for the 100% rather than 20%. However I think if people took more time to look at an image and only vote on 20% the quality of the voting would rise. Something for me to try myself...
03/16/2007 03:45:30 PM · #36
Originally posted by tooohip:

I don't agree with not voting on challenges you entered...


I can't say that I have a problem with voting on the challenges I have entered... particularly since I didn't place a tick in the Mys Scoresbox and have no way of knowing how my image is doing.

Do I enjoy voting... you bet...83,694 times so far since I became a member a little over a year ago.

Ray
03/16/2007 04:01:42 PM · #37
I do my part. I submit pictures to be voted on. Without that, there is no site.
03/16/2007 05:05:56 PM · #38
Bear, your proposal is starting to sound like Survivor. If you don't make the cut, you are off the island, mate! Also it will put the lower half submitters out of their misery so they don't waste the whole week waiting in the vain hope that their pic hits a 5. When more productively they should be out finding a better image. But I like the proposal and would vote for it, but perhaps it would kick in where submissions for a challenge top a number like 400.
03/16/2007 05:09:08 PM · #39
Could just do like other sites wher eyou must rack up a certain number of votes to submit a shot. For instance, you must have voted 200 times before you are allowed to submit to a challenge. The count resets after each challenge submission.
03/16/2007 05:14:00 PM · #40
Originally posted by routerguy666:

I do my part. I submit pictures to be voted on. Without that, there is no site.


Yep, that's part of it for me, too.

I also spend a lot of time commenting and participating in the forums, both of which help create a community and provide quality feedback.

I'd rather have more than a 1:1 commenting ratio, as I do, than a 1:1 voting ratio but make few comments. In fact, with the recently completed 30 days of "Where I Live" project, I intend to comment at least as many times as I received comments. It's just taking me a while.
03/17/2007 07:54:18 AM · #41
Originally posted by e301:

But without doubt I will say that my ten minutes of thoughts is more valuable to the site than anyone's quick rush through and instant assessment of the images.

that is so true. if only people would obsess more over images and less over numbers...
03/18/2007 12:40:54 PM · #42
Originally posted by GeneralE:

I can give you two good justifications:

1) Site rules allow you to vote on 20% of the entries in any one challenge. Some people avail themselves of this rule.

2) The ratio is largely out of the photographer's control, if you look at the math logically.

/snip/

In theory, all 50,000-some registered users could vote on my entry, giving me a ratio of "somewhat" less than one, and even if only 2-300 people voted on my image, it would still skew the stats well below one. Just a few challenges like this and the stats would be permamnently out of whack.


I had a very long-winded answer here (sorry, it's my nature), but thought this should do (still long, just not as long as):

For point 1, this is quite nicely summed up by routerguy666's comment:

Originally posted by routerguy666:

I do my part. I submit pictures to be voted on. Without that, there is no site.


People don't vote because they don't want to. No news there. But what this fails to recognize is that without voting, there are no challenges. Just submissions. So saying you help with part of what users can do doesn't explicitly answer the question (it does answer it implicitly, as does relying on the 20% rule, both of which recognize that the reason people don't vote is because they don't want to; okay, not satisfying to me as a member of the site, but it is what it is).

For point 2, it's a nice theory, but it bears little resemblance to reality. From my example (Red II) and other challenges, people are not attaining a lower than 1:1 voting ratio because they have received votes from each of the 50,000 members of the site. They're attaining that ratio because they don't vote the whole challenge in challenges they enter. If there was any evidence to the contrary, I'd be interested in discussing this more, but for now, I pretty much have my answer, and it is number 1.

Remember, I'm still new here. So, what this discussion does for me is free me up from my community minded dedication to voting the complete challenge in a challenge I enter; now I can do what I enjoy, too, which is take and submit pictures, and participate in the forums. I enjoy voting some days, some days I do not. Now when I don't want to, I won't; my commitment (shared by others here) to complete the vote in every challenge I enter, self-imposed and not generally accepted by all members of the community, need not be continued.

This was a very helpful discussion, thanks to all who contributed.

Rob
03/18/2007 12:58:51 PM · #43
I don't think any challenge has ever "failed" for lack of a sufficient number of votes. Many people have run statistical analyses of the voting, which typically show that a photo's final score changes very little after 1-200 votes have been cast.

The 20% threshold in order for votes to count and the semi-random presentation of images seem to work well enough to ensure that sufficient votes are cast on all of the pictures in the challenge.

While it would be nice to get 600 votes instead of 200, I don't think it would significantly change the photo's score or ranking.
03/18/2007 01:44:00 PM · #44
Originally posted by GeneralE:

I don't think any challenge has ever "failed" for lack of a sufficient number of votes. Many people have run statistical analyses of the voting, which typically show that a photo's final score changes very little after 1-200 votes have been cast.

The 20% threshold in order for votes to count and the semi-random presentation of images seem to work well enough to ensure that sufficient votes are cast on all of the pictures in the challenge.

While it would be nice to get 600 votes instead of 200, I don't think it would significantly change the photo's score or ranking.


That's pretty much the point of the "suggested" tiered voting system: leave 'em all up long enough to get 100+ votes on all the entries, then weed out bottom 75% of the images and leave the rest up in the hopes of encouraging closer examination of, and more votes for, the potential winning images. I'm not sure we'd actually GAIN anything from this, mind you, but it's just a thought.

Sometimes i think too much?

R.
03/18/2007 02:36:53 PM · #45
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Sometimes i think too much?

R.

Perhaps -- I consider it an occupational hazard.

Your suggestion has merit if the primary goal is to award a prize to the most deserving winner, but can actually be seen as running counter to the site's stated educational mission.

If we were to have a "tiered" voting system, I'd actually suggest the opposite strategy: freeze the voting on the top 25% so people can't cherry-pick the obvious winners to leave more "great shot!" comments, and instead could focus their attention on the photos deemed in need of constructive criticism.

However, if I were to change the challenge structure at all, I'd suggest going to an eight-day cycle: the new challenge topics would not be announced until 24 hours after the voting closes for the previous challenge. That way, people can discuss the results (and outtakes and stuff) for a day, without the distraction of a discussion of the new topic(s).

This would have the additional benefit of rotating the starting day of the challenges through the week every couple of months, making it fairer for people on different schedules.
03/18/2007 02:57:42 PM · #46
Originally posted by GeneralE:

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Sometimes i think too much?

R.

Perhaps -- I consider it an occupational hazard.

Your suggestion has merit if the primary goal is to award a prize to the most deserving winner, but can actually be seen as running counter to the site's stated educational mission.

If we were to have a "tiered" voting system, I'd actually suggest the opposite strategy: freeze the voting on the top 25% so people can't cherry-pick the obvious winners to leave more "great shot!" comments, and instead could focus their attention on the photos deemed in need of constructive criticism.


I'm not sure how much effect it would have on "constructive criticism" in the mid-to-low range, but since the site IS a "challenge" site built on a principle of competition at LEAST as much as it's a "learning" site, this was/is my thinking:

We currently have frequent threads about "deserving" images that fly under the radar and don't attract the scrutiny that they need to score really well. We get threads about how the voters don't take the time to really LOOK at images, basically, so the "eye candy" tends to dominate.

So what I'm interested in seeing happen is some sort of structure that encourages individual voters to pay MORE attention (lavish more scrutiny upon) otherwise excellent images that don't fit into the so-called "DPC style". It seems to me that a weeding-out process and a final voting phase might accomplish exactly that, with voters in general taking a closer look at images they might otherwise have skipped right past, wondering "How did THAT make the top 25? Oh, YEAH! NOW I see it! Cool!" or some such thought process.

R.
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