I'm wondering what the opinions of others here are on Photo.net, especially the ratings system. I haven't spent too much time there, but am often baffled by what rates and what doesn't. Any thoughts on that, or on the site in general? I'm not trying to knock it, just curious as I'm sure many of you have been around these communities much longer than I have and have had a chance to form better opinions.
In my opinion ratings create more of a competitive scene rather than one oriented towards learning and/or fostering more meaningful discussion of aesthetics, ethics, technique, etc.
I agree. I was a moderator with another site that had ratings and contest winners based on ratings of the viewers, etc. and there were just endless problems. People creating false logins and rating their own pictures high and everyone else low. It was just a mess. It created endless bickering and suspicion. I really like this format much better. The learning aspect is far superior to the competitive format.
Amen. It's often mean-spirited there, with childish feuds and retaliation for poor ratings. Definitely a different atmosphere here.
If anything though, it's sometimes TOO nice here! Seems like occasionally the comaraderie, friendships, etc. out here get in the way of true critiques.
Please go ahead and nit-pick!!! That's the point!! I still consider myself a rank amateur at this, but have definitely improved since coming out here for true critiques.
I post photos there more for a "general public" oriented concensus rather than review from photographer peers. There are some decent photographers posting and rating, but it seems like there is also a fair share of 14 year olds and vacation snapshooters.
I don't rate photos there anymore as I think it's a waste of time and bad in general. It's as if anything lower than a 5 makes you a jealous A-hole, and 6's/7's make you a poor, easy reviewer. There's really nothing to be gained. For example someone could post a pretty picture of an iconic image and I'd likely feel it deserves a 1 or 2 for originality but I'd get slammed if I were to post such a rating despite even giving it a 5 or 6 for aesthetics. Whereas the general group would probably post 5's and 6's for both originality and aesthetics. It's pointless as honesty isn't a priority there.
I like NPN's system better as it's open ended critiques only. Not about petty decimal points.
I agree with many of the comments already posted. I stopped going to photo.net and haven't been back. There is a lot of nasty comments to be found there that aren't worth much to anyone. This site is FAR more helpful and friendly, although I agree that sometimes it is a bit too firendly?? I guess sometimes people get caught up by the old saying "if you don't have anything nice to say..."
I agree wholeheartedly with Guy on this. Ratings only work if there is a strict standard by which the work is measured. Since photography is a visual artform that defies rigid quantification, ratings are not truly applicable.
Our community here at NPN is much more conducive to learning because it does not use a rating system.
I agree with all of the above. The photo section is much too "political." Sometimes juvenile. I do follow the posted forums, but no longer visit the photo forums.
Guy said it best. I've had a gallery there for years. I no longer accept numeric ratings. I rarely get any constructive critique though sometimes the forums discussions are interesting when ratings aren't involved. It's also worth mentioning I get more images stolen for web use from there than all other sites combined for whatever reason. Occasionally though, my gallery has attracted some worthwhile clients.
Numbers are evil. When one`s self expression involves an urge to compete for ratings, it`s time to leave any form of art behind and pick up sports.
I sometimes search the p.net forums for info and I can`t help but wonder about the offensive comments and flaming. ---`shrug`---
Still, I have several photogs` galleries bookmarked from p.net. Some very talented people in that crowd... although their ratings may or may not show this.
I've never paid any attention to the photo posting forums on photo.net. The Canon EOS Forum is sometimes decent for equipment/technical questions, and the Forum Moderator, Bob Atkins is an extremely knowledgeable and nice guy who I respect a lot. I occasionally dabble in some of the other forums there, but there's seldom anything "vital" in them.
I'm not a fan of ratings on photography posted on internet web forums because the result simply never comes close to objectively valuing images. It is true that some percentage arguably end up correctly rated but many more that ought to rate highly don't while others that ought to rate low end up rating high. And that isn't simply a matter of personable subjective preferences and styles. Most forums with image ratings make little effort to educate those assigning values except to state a rating number range as in 5 to 0 or 10 to 1 etc. From that then, someone thinks 3 is an average rating for nice image while others think anything that looks ok ought to at least be a 4 or 5. The result is continuous bickering. Of course those thinking 5 means ok don't want the guy that assigns a 3 to a nice image to even vote. Then you get those with a grudge that will rate down images of those who did so on their images. And there are those that seem to simply be envious of better photographers so will low rate the very best images apparently enjoying seeing them descend into mediocre levels.
At photo.net there are quite a lot of chronic posters that continually leave one line back slapping comments to their forum friends like "wonderful", beautiful" "WOW", etc with the usual smilies while rarely posting anything analytical or objective. On some forums, if one posts even modest objective criticism to some of these chronic posters others are quick to gang up on the input as though it is threatening their team and setting a bad precedent. I could go on with a list of more such negative issues. A good example of just one of the many forums that have had troubles is at www.summitpost.com that is a large community of mountaineers that besides climbing take pictures of mountain landscapes.
I like people who make comments about images to say something meaningful. For those that do so to my own posted images I'll say thankyou regardless of whether I agree or disagree with what they have to say. Those making a comment are not always going to consider everything that might be given a quick minute's look at a small web sized image so people need to relax, give them slack, and not get excited on either end. I do notice there is less of the backslapping type inputs here with more objectivity which I found refreshing. As far as ratings go, I would prefer simply displaying how many times an image has been viewed. That just necessarily tends to be a better measure of how interesting an image is. Changes to usual forum software could also make that more interesting by keeping the most heavily viewed images over a period of say the last week, or couple weeks, or whatever makes sense, as thumbnails at the bottom of the browser window. ...David
Discussion
13 repliesThanks,
Greg
Guy
If anything though, it's sometimes TOO nice here! Seems like occasionally the comaraderie, friendships, etc. out here get in the way of true critiques.
Please go ahead and nit-pick!!! That's the point!! I still consider myself a rank amateur at this, but have definitely improved since coming out here for true critiques.
I like NPN's system better as it's open ended critiques only. Not about petty decimal points.
BTW, I include myself in that group at times...
Our community here at NPN is much more conducive to learning because it does not use a rating system.
-PB
Kent in SD
I sometimes search the p.net forums for info and I can`t help but wonder about the offensive comments and flaming. ---`shrug`---
Still, I have several photogs` galleries bookmarked from p.net. Some very talented people in that crowd... although their ratings may or may not show this.
At photo.net there are quite a lot of chronic posters that continually leave one line back slapping comments to their forum friends like "wonderful", beautiful" "WOW", etc with the usual smilies while rarely posting anything analytical or objective. On some forums, if one posts even modest objective criticism to some of these chronic posters others are quick to gang up on the input as though it is threatening their team and setting a bad precedent. I could go on with a list of more such negative issues. A good example of just one of the many forums that have had troubles is at www.summitpost.com that is a large community of mountaineers that besides climbing take pictures of mountain landscapes.
I like people who make comments about images to say something meaningful. For those that do so to my own posted images I'll say thankyou regardless of whether I agree or disagree with what they have to say. Those making a comment are not always going to consider everything that might be given a quick minute's look at a small web sized image so people need to relax, give them slack, and not get excited on either end. I do notice there is less of the backslapping type inputs here with more objectivity which I found refreshing. As far as ratings go, I would prefer simply displaying how many times an image has been viewed. That just necessarily tends to be a better measure of how interesting an image is. Changes to usual forum software could also make that more interesting by keeping the most heavily viewed images over a period of say the last week, or couple weeks, or whatever makes sense, as thumbnails at the bottom of the browser window. ...David