So...how does c-indexing work?

It's just a weighted combination of the voting and other factors like the number of views,downloads, and favorites lists.

That still seems obscure, Caedes. Although I like the 10-1 system, there seem to be a number of elements that escape definition, and therefore your elite discussion group ("mods") remains not only secretive, but also elusive and somewhat unfair.

As I stated in the "mods" discussion, why not have voting for all in three categories -- aesthetics, technique, originality -- using the 10-1 scale already in place. That way a photo can be very high in one, and perhaps not so high in the others, etc., and the reasons clear to all.

I'm thinking of maybe separating the user voted rating and the 'cindex'. I think this is a little closer to what you're talking about, and it would be easy to do since I'm keeping up with the rating still anyway.

As far as the mod's discussion board goes, do you think it would be better if we open it up for reading and just restricted the posting to mods?

I think Tracy was talking about the post made on this, the "Desktop Wallpaper, Art, etc." board in the "Imagemods" topic. Tracy, the imagemods are not an "elite group to be making decisions for the rest of us." The mods are specifically told to allow everyhthing that is not obviously stolen or indecent (ie, porn) into the user gallery. If the system were open, people could upload anything, and potentially put Caedes into legal trouble before it could be corrected.
Beyond that, the mods have no special voting priviledges on normal images, and, in fact, have only had slightly more power than the average user in voting for the first 2 contests. That is why the "mods only" discussion board was originally created.
I do like an appreciate your three category voting system idea, and think it would be a better way to help an artist understand criticism of thier work.

Not to change the subject or anything but one thing that you removed that I like was the new image link on the start page.Another thing that I was wonder was could you have it sort by date as default when you click on an authours gallery instead of randomly,because sometimes I am not on my machine and drop by the site and dont want to log in but I have to in order to see an authors new work.Being able to view but not post that part of the discussion board could also be a perk for donation.

Some good ideas there tbob. I'm writing them down. =)

I think I understand the imagemod concept better after these postings. If opening it up for general reading will clear things up for the others as well, sure -- do it. You can still restrict postings and, for the quorum type stuff, you can open a private chat line or email one another. Hope you'll still consider the three judging categories I mentioned earlier. Many thanks.

Sure thing, thanks for the thoughts. :-)

I think 10 voting steps are too many. I don't see a meaningful difference between i.e. an image worth 6 or 7 points.

5 steps would be perfectly sufficient. It's easier to rank an image as i.e. either 3 or 4.

I also don't think the number of views should be weighted into the c-index. Older images gets a higher number of views and therefore a higher c-index, not necessarily having that much to do with the quality of the image. I think the c-index should reflect the quality of the picture and nothing else.

will you have to weigh out views and downloads... say and image was viewed 70 times and was only downloaded 4... not a fantastic picture

i agree with phoenix ashes, hypothetically speaking, a picture could be viewed for a reason other then that its a good picture, maybe its so bad that people looked at it.... i dont know, and also with the view system, it may be skewed by people just browsing through every picture. also i dont understand the numbers in the c index, i.e. in 69:100 does that mean the picture is in the 69th percentile of all rated photos or what?

hmmmm......

I view all the pictures at least once, but I very rarely download any of them. Therefore, my opinion of each pic is expressed only in the rating I assign.

I just wanted to mention.... I think that the c-index is working great... Much more accurate ratings than what we had before. Bravo... =)

I think it could be a nice complement to what caedes already offer with a weekly and monthly top list out of:
by Viewed
by Downloads
by Votes
by c-index
This way everybody have a chance to view more than one list by choice.

Yeah I could pretty easily do that. If you want to make sure I remember to code that up, just drop by the dev site and add it to the "requested features" section.

There is a problem when it comes to the contest. Some images are moved from other galleries, and they are older. As someone pointed out, older images have more time to accumulate views and downloads, and thus a higher c-index. That would really unfairly skew the contest.

How about doing an average view/download per month or per week or even per day?...

Actually the *number* of views and downloads doesn't matter at all. It's the ratio of views to downloads that matters. For the contest we usually just take a poll of the ImageMods and then I go through and arbitrarily give awards. =)

I agree with CrazyIvan on this one... I view A LOT of pictures, and vote as I see fit, but hardly ever download.

Also - how many votes does a pic have to have to get a c-index number?

I think I set the minimum number of votes to 5.

There is a good discussion, very constructive.
Thank you Caedes: the new site is very well.
I agree with Frux: 5 stages of vote are sufficient.
I find that C-Index is perfect.
I am okay with Samuel for the top list: good idea.

In fact, I agree with all. Then, why am I there ??? :-))

lol.... you are here to make everyone feel good about their ideas. ;-)

The next "lol" has to pay.

hehehehe..... "lol"s are overused I must admit... =)

how about rofl?

And what does say, 32:100 mean as opposed to just say, 43

As a new Caedes viewer/uploader/participant I'd like to put in a vote for the person who said they'd like to see mabye voting on such items as aesthetics, technique, originality, I'm sometimes impressed with the technique but maybe the subject isn't suitable for a wallpaper, though I wonder sometimes should this site be limited to wallpaper suitability, or is it? It seems to be geared towards wallpaper usable formats yet some of the images may be considered difficult to use as a wallpaper due to color/contrast or subject making icons difficult to find. It's a bit unfortunate as someone said that we don't always download the pictures that we like, though I try to at least view them in the larger format, since I've found that some pictures make excellent wallpaper but horrible looking thumbnails.

Just my 2c worth. Hopefully I have not offended anyone by offering my amateur comments, but I have been a fan of art and photography for a long time and although I sometimes can't think of the technically correct term for what I'm trying to say, I hope I'm not being a total noob.

I wonder if everyone understands exactly what constitutes a "download"... my understanding initially was that this referred to the number of times someone had saved the image, but now I am under the impression that it just means someone has veiwed the image at one of the larger resolutions (is this right?)... also, as far as the idea for having three voting categories goes I think this would be too many... it seems as though it is difficult to get alot of people to vote at all, let alone in three different aspects. I have one image that has been veiwed over 60 times, and I know the c-index would be over 62, but it still doesn't have enough votes to display the rating.

I agree with the three voting idea. You could vote on the three categories, and then an average would be taken to give the overall vote. This kind of system is used in lots of other reviewing places (pc/car mags etc.) and i think it would work well.

Could you set the download counter as the number of times an image is 'right-clicked'? This way just looking at an image would not count as a download.

I just thought of something else... if you look at one of your own pics, say to check the c-index, does this count as a "veiw" without a "download"?

My thoughts about the three catagory voting exactly mirror samatar's. We have to drag people kicking and screaming into the voting booth to get then to vote in just one catagory. Additionally, the rating is such a subjective thing that breaking it up into catagories really doesn't help make it more accurate in my opinion.

As to the viewing question. Yes it does count as a view, but only once every 24 hours.

In that case, I'll just have to make sure I "download" my pictures when I look at them...