Open letter to dpreview or why I wouldn't participate in challenges any more

fermy said:

Le Kilt said:

fermy said:

Ed at Ridersite said:

You complain about the 1-star votes, but what about the 5-star vote? Do you feel it is essentially a perfect image?

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I know what a poor image is. I don't know what a perfect image is. Do you?

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One where people go "Wow!" and no-one finds anything to criticise.

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Such image does not exist.

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Ye of little faith...

In addition, maybe any vote below two stars (fair pic) would need to be substantiated by a comment, or the vote would not be accepted.

So it would be perfectly ok to vote one star and comment that I don't like the pic. But I would be exposed as sandbagger. That should discourage things like that.

DK Baker said:

jrtrent said:

I don't know how you're going to get personal taste divorced from the voting. The Challenges Help article here at DPReview says we are to rate each image according to our own interpretation of how aesthetically pleasing the image is and how well the image meets our interpretation of the challenge's criteria (name, description & rules). Each person's biases about the nature and purpose of photography and the likes and dislikes we've developed over time will determine how aesthetically pleasing a particular photo, or even approach to photography, is to us.

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Once I began to consciously evaluate images for clarity (in proper focus), composition, creativity and degree in meeting challenge criteria - then it became fairly easy to recognize the remaining 'like it' value is just my personal taste. Instead, I've added another factor of 'uniqueness' - or how much is this not like any other picture of this subject I've seen - whether or not I like the subject.

Additionally, if the challenge has absolutely no rules or if the host has not DQ'd an image for violating their rules - then I will not vote 0.5 unless the entry is of horrifically poor quality and bears no resemblance to even the title of the challenge - so, usually not at all. (At least that's how I'm voting now - historically, I got a little too literal and voted a lot of 0.5s.)

Not sure why, but I did not vote in the 50 series. In the 25, I only voted for 4 that I felt earned 4 or 5 stars. If you interested, here's my 36th place in that challenge >
http://www.dpreview.com/challenges/Entry.aspx?ID=507382&View=Results&Rows=25
(Guess I should have cropped it some - to get past the thumbnail vote!! lol)

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Yes, when you zoom in, you get to appreciate the great focussing and quality - which I did ;-)

DK Baker said:

Nonetheless ~ There should be something DPR can do. Lord knows they've received a lot of suggestions!!

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I expect non-anonymous voting would probably lead to far more complaints and arguments. Some stats on overall pattern of voting might help - i.e. showing how many of each votes a voter has cast in all challenges combined.

You've really captured a lot of personality in this photo. IMO it is excellent. I'm sure the subject was very pleased with it.

Joe

fermy said:

Ed at Ridersite said:

fermy said:

Ed at Ridersite said:

You complain about the 1-star votes, but what about the 5-star vote? Do you feel it is essentially a perfect image?

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I know what a poor image is. I don't know what a perfect image is. Do you?

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1st place came pretty close IMO.

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Ahh, the first place, that's a glorious picture, no objections from me here...

Now to answer your previous question. To tell you the truth, I am not that surprised by the 5 star vote. Before, I had several total strangers tell me that its an epic photo. Someone left a rather encouraging note right in the challenge. I assume that's the one who voted with 5 stars. This picture does move people, obviously not all of them, but there is something in it.

I, myself, do not have delusions of grandeur that this photo should hang in Getty, absolutely must win the challenge, or even finish in top 20. At the same time I know that it's a decent photo. Now it appears that 3 voters felt that this is one of the worst photos in the challenge. Frankly, I find it hard to believe, different tastes notwithstanding. I also find it impossible to believe that someone thought the winning photo is crap. Do you believe that?

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Well, at least the pic got a better place in the Hats challenge !

I voted on about 15 photo's in that contest. I gave a higher than average rating to a picture that was really not that good, but I felt the author's pride in the subject. It made me feel good looking at it. I hope that's OK to do, because if a picture says something to me or has a description that reaches to my emotions, even though it may not be technically great, I vote higher... it's how I vote.

I specifically did not vote on yours because even though I thought it was a crisp well done portrait, I just didn't like it, so I ignored it. As others already stated earlier, perhaps a few people didn't like it and made a choice to tell you with a 1. Harsh, yes but perhaps they were honest too.

--
Barb

RaptorUK said:

Those votes are most probably Sandbagger votes . . . there is no excuse. This is a known issue . . it has been talked about for a long, long time, DPReview will not do anything about it . . boycotts have been tried before . . and failed to even be noticed !

Many of the Entrants and Voters do not visit the Forums so don't know about any such boycotts . . . so will not take part even if they wanted to.

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I know it's an old issue, just got fed up, really, and decided to voice my displeasure. The way I see it, if I don't like how something is run, my only option is not to participate. I realize that there is a slim chance of boycott working, but I don't see other means of changing the situation.

RaptorUK said:

So how do we lessen the impact of the Sandbaggers ? well one way is to have more votes . . . . if your entry had received 43 votes instead of 23 your 1.0 scores might have had a lesser impact on your overall score . . .

If you don't vote you are contributing to the problem . . . . it's time to start voting, do your bit to lessen the issue.

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There are several simple ways, most of them has been suggested before. Here's my take.

1) There should be no negative votes at all. Negative vote is illogical. The value of a photo (or any piece of art) is determined by how many people find interest and inspiration in it, not by lack of perceived faults.

That can be a simple thumb up system, but IMHO 3 star system would work the best, with some formula under the hood that takes into account the number of votes received and their distribution among the stars. The formula must be designed so that any additional vote can not bright the score down.

2) To encourage people voting, make it so that before entering the challenge you should cast 20 votes, but you can't vote in the challenge you've submitted to (to avoid the collision of interests). Want to enter in another challenge? Cast 20 more votes.

IMHO that would produce a reasonable system.

AndrePooh said:

In addition, maybe any vote below two stars (fair pic) would need to be substantiated by a comment, or the vote would not be accepted.

So it would be perfectly ok to vote one star and comment that I don't like the pic. But I would be exposed as sandbagger. That should discourage things like that.

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IMHO, one can go that route, but that would not solve the problem. People are sick enough to make duplicate accounts and place negative votes through sock puppets. IMHO there shouldn't be negative votes at all, as I suggested in the previous post.

Joe Pineapples said:

You've really captured a lot of personality in this photo. IMO it is excellent. I'm sure the subject was very pleased with it.

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Thanks! The subject was even more pleased with coffee and sweets that we had ;-)

There have been a lot of very good suggestions made throughout the posts in this thread as well as other threads. However, the issues seem to be running in circle and I fail to see progress in reaching somewhat of a consensus of guidelines that the Hosts could use/implement in the Challenges. Is there a summary somewhere of all the suggestions made ref. the voting for example and could this be suggested to DPr, unless of course DPr loves it this way so as to increase the hits. Could it be that the Hosts, in the infinite wisdom, as well as frequent posters willing to change the system, look at the suggestions, select what the understand could be done and implement some of them themselves or go to DPr and ask for specific change coming in a concise manner from many participants. Maybe all this has already been done but I don't know that because I am new to the Forums.

AndrePooh said:

In addition, maybe any vote below two stars (fair pic) would need to be substantiated by a comment, or the vote would not be accepted.

So it would be perfectly ok to vote one star and comment that I don't like the pic. But I would be exposed as sand-bagger. That should discourage things like that.

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You should then also ask those giving 5 stars to justify themselves as they could be helping friends...

Just as we see how many votes are given to a pic, we could see how many votes a person has given in a challenge. That would help identify sand-baggers, which a host could ban from participating or voting...

Anyway, the best system still remains a preference order (like Eurovision song contest etc...)

barb_s said:

I hope that's OK to do, because if a picture says something to me or has a description that reaches to my emotions, even though it may not be technically great, I vote higher... it's how I vote.

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I do the same thing, especially with titles (since I vote in slideshow mode, the title is the only description that I see initially). I don't understand this letting the picture speak for itself idea; a good title enhances my understanding and enjoyment of the image, and if there's further explanation of the setting or event that produced the picture, that's all the better.

I can tell you why this technically correct photo of yours polled so badly. First I'll explain that I've been a portrait photographer for almost 50 year. Even today at my age, I'm still shooting about 10 wedding a year.

Although I've never won a competition or any awards - I've never entered a comp or sought an award- I've got a substantial recommendation business. I haven't needed to advertise for over 10 years. The phone just rings and the greeting always goes like... "Hi, such and such said I should call you"...

OK so the reason -- well my opinion of the reason at least is: CONFRONTATION.

I've shot a number of portraits just like this one in mono and colour. I think the first one was my mother after she gave me a new camera for my 16th Birthday.

All but one has produced the same re-action in viewers. They were confronted by the direct 'in-your-face' nature of such an unsmiling images. Very few females will ever look you straight in the face with a "so-what" look. When they do it in a portrait it assaults the senses of most males and this site is predominately male visitors.

Cheers...
DJ.