Good to know its working well... and that its making it fairer for all...

That's excellent news!

Thanks, Caedes!

Excellent

YAY :D

is the "voting booth" the only place where votes are counted?

and who has say about what images are placed into permanent gallery?...based on what precisely?

Good work, Caedes. Thanks for all your work.

*crowd goes wild*

jeenie11 - it appears that is the case - thread on voting here.
Artisan4 - they are done on the discretion of the Praetori using a number of criteria....there is a thread somewhere...aka Why Was My Image Deleted?!?!? here.

Glad to hear the new system is bringing in more votes on average per image.

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A quick couple of questions for clarification sake. You said, "As each image gets more votes it will further refine the c-index and further marginalize those votes which are 'questionable.'" From previous discussion, it was my impression that images were either promoted to the permanent galleries or "archived" after a month. If this is the case, does that not mean that "archived" images are no longer cycled into the random voting booth? Would that not prevent such images from "getting more votes"...to further refine the C-index? I'm glad to hear that all images are receiving more votes on average, but five to ten votes is still a relatively low number of votes on which to base a meaningful "average," IMHO. As I said in another discussion, it seems that once an image gets five or so votes, it can easily get stuck in a downward spiral if a couple of voters don't like the image, for whatever reason.

Those concerns aside, I know you've done a great deal of work to try to make this work, Caedes, and I thank you for your diligence in trying to ensure a meaningful voting system. Wen

I think its a great thing, and even better thats its working out so well. Im glad many people have stayed and waited it out and are still here. It was surely worth the wait! thanx a ton!

WHERE ARE ALL THE MODS ?
I am going to send Boris after them ...

BTW Wendy has been absolutely right in saying what she did before making the final bow out of politeness I am sure !!! Does anybody read this stuff at all ?! Am upset, sorry.

I have already PM'ed replies to both the artists who posted the questions above several days ago. I'll PM one to Wen now. Getting "upset" isn't likely to acheive anything with VOLUNTEERS who have no obligation to provide you with immidiate service... thank you very much...

Why not answer their question here? I'm sure there are many others that would like to know the answers. Thanks

I believe that in any instance in the past when a member has raised a valid issue or asked a question that had not been already covered at length in previous threads, moderators or Caedes have responded to their queries, regrettably it seams that whenever a news item is posted relating to the voting system, it is invariably hijacked into a flame/troll fight with more axe grinding than a lumber yard in high season. Whilst valid points are raised here, some have already been addressed elsewhere and those that have not are it seams being answered directly. As Sam pointed out, giving volunteer moderators a hard time over this or any other issue for no good reason is totally inappropriate.

I had my doubts about this voting system at first. Hell...I flat out thought it wouldn't work at all!

I think that MoeAction raises a good point though. If we are going to take the time to answer a question it should be in a public forum whenever possible. It doesn't take any extra time and might prevent another person from asking the same question. It also avoids this impression an outsider might have that the question was ignored.

Both of the questions I addressed have been answered several times in other forums. I beleive most regular members would already know the answers. Additionally, the person who asked the question might no know to check this thread for an answer, or when to do it. Answering by PM ensures that they receive an answer to their query. In any case, Scionlord has answered them both now.

Actually, your PM to me simply confirmed the point I was trying to make, Sam - - that many images go to the archives with c-indexes based on five to ten votes and are taken out of the voting pool for random voting. That means that the majority of images will not "slowly gain more votes as time goes on" in order to " further refine the c-index and further marginalize those votes which are 'questionable,' as Caedes suggested.

As I suggested in my PM response to you, one way to keep images in the loop to a certain degree would be to somehow combine the random vote average and the selective vote average on image pages. While archived images would be taken out of the random voting pool, viewers can continue to vote on archived images they like in member's galleries. Perhaps, if the combined vote average on archived images reached a certain minimum (i.e. 75 or more), those images could be shown on TNI, recycled through the voting booth and/or given additional consideration by moderators for the main galleries. .....Just a suggestion. Again, the problem, as I see it, is that image c-indexes are based on such a relatively low number of votes that one or two extreme votes can have major effects.

Thanks for your response to me Sam...just wanted to share what we discussed with others who may have similar concerns. Wen

.

*bows to Samatar*

Personally, I'm glad the voting system seems to be working and Kudo to Caedes and the Mods for the time they put into the site.

Wen does bring up an intersing point on the "Archived" images... do they still remain in the "Voting Que" for future votes? If not, I think it does make for an additional point for the need of an "Archived" or "Personal Archive" section where they are put.

I'm sooooooooo confused =(

Here is my therory on this whole voting thing....Mind you all I am new here..lol Personally I dont care if my work gets archived, I think its good enough that my work gets index peroid. The comments and the amount of times they get downloaded is all that matters to me. I still vote alot in the booth. Ok thats my Therory..lol

There is one thing I wish that would change in the voting booth is that we would be allowed to skip a image in a subject that we do not like for example (I dont like photos of people or pets) Now that I'm not allowed to skip it I am forced to vote on it so there for i'm not going to give it a good vote. If its good quailty i'll give it a 5 or 6. This is my only complaint. If is something that cant be changed no problem. I'm just happy to be a part of this site and I thank all the staff here for there time and efforts.

Another thing that would help out both the members and the staff if the staff could keep the discussions of the voting at the top. In other forums they call that stickied. I'm only speaking of the discussions that are useful. To be honest the faqs here are ummmm well not exactly helpful but some what confusing. (not all of them)

The voting system works great! THIS is obviously not nearly as good as THIS! Oh, and, THIS is obviously better than any of the images in my gallery. =0)

Ummm... who's the one who needs to get over it??

The Liberals?

What I've always thought the past 3 years I've been a member here is that when I place a vote on a "New" picture or an archived one, that my vote would actually be calculated on the c-index of that image.

Now it seems that only a handful of votes actually comprise it's c-index? That is completely useless to have an option to vote if it wouldn't matter anyways. Also, no picture gets its justice if the c-index is only based on less than 20 votes.

I really think that pictures with 10 or less votes go into the random voting cycle. The rest of the pictures should constantly have a calculator continually on them for selective voting. Maybe max each image of having no more than 100 votes possibly?

Voting is one thing (Oft.discussed) - Yet as most of my images are now below 50 - I don't pay much regard to the almightly 'C' (For me, I have my own feelings about my work, or I would not have posted them). What about good old comments?? Wouldn't it be great if making a contribution to an aspiring / established artisan was valued more than a number?

I've seen good work, that I don't happen to download as there are simply too many good ones and not enough hard drive space (I have 4GB left on my machine), but I download so that the person's c-index won't suffer. How silly.

Voting has its' place as a quick and simple tool, but caedes is really so number / votes / how many - oriented, that I feel the real shame is the loss of focus on the help that could be given in the form of words.
My opinion - you can disagree.

The only one really good news for me concerning the presently discussed system would be the complete abandoning of the much disputable VOTING BOOTH and compulsory voting. This is my honest opinion and I am not going to change it before someone convinces me that the idea of Voting Booth has any sense at all which is rather unlikely.
Therefore please stop being sooo funny and announce 'good' news about new voting system which sounds - excuse my French - simply idiotic.

One issue I have with the voting booth is- sometimes it requires a comment or two on an image to understand it. Sometimes a picture or image will make no sense to someone voting without knowing why or how the picture was taken. Therefore more than likely resulting in an unfair low score. Whereas if someone knew more about the picture he could more fairly judge it!

The phone booth got an 85?? Really?? LOL

It's really funny sometimes the things you don't notice when they’re 2 inches away from your nose... until 60 seconds ago I didn’t even see the vote button on all the picture pages, and thought we only voted randomly.

I agree that random votes & not-random (unrandom?) votes should all be put together or alternatively the idea of anonymous random votes could be abolished. As a bum here for a free ride I am one who must vote randomly for each pic I upload. In the beginning I can't say I was always fair, as I would give much higher votes to pictures of personal interest and hand out 5's or 6's to pictures that are pretty much meaningless to me such as floral or anything abstract (nothing against either of those, just not my thing).

Now when I vote on a type of photo that is in a categories that does not turn my crank, I try to fairly rate it against other photos in the same category. Meanwhile I am sure I have hurt the rating of some fine wallpapers in the past... they were just not fine for me.

My humble point is that those of us that are forced to vote in order to upload are not as likely to give a fair vote. If you are voting because you just merely want to vote on a picture, than that will probably average out in a more fair way in the end.

I for one...always give a fair vote on the random....however; it is probably a personnel opinion...

I agree with Andfre here. Altho I am not required to vote anymore I used to be & I still do from time to time. I kind of feel it's ones duty. Until not long ago I too would not give fractals & the like the attention they deserve since I was mainly interested in photography. That is definitely a downside of mandatory voting. Altho now I respect the work that goes into those images, I still wish one could skip over the ones he didnt feel qualified to comment on, or feel you were biased against.

I agree cuddlebuddy48 that is the way it is supposed to work in theory. I was not trying so hard because I was new and was more interested in my own wallpapers (albeit selfishly) than in rating other peoples. As I grew to feel like a part of the site, I felt more responsibility to the people's art I was voting on. It seems to me that non-paying members are more likely to be new therefore the vote might not be as fair... without insulting anyone that is/was spot-on serious right out of the gates.
There may be all sorts of possible holes in this logic but it's from my perspective as a still sort-of-newbie :)

Compelling people to vote on images from a category they have no interest in seems to be a significant factor here, and a number of members have suggested that people be given the option of choosing what categories of images they wish to vote on (i.e. photography, abstract, computer generated images, etc.) One of the reasons I don't participate in random voting all that much is that I am forced to vote on a disproportionate number of images that I have little interest in. If I were allowed to choose image categories, I know I would frequent the voting booth much more often. Wen

Good idea of the categorical random voting. If I choose to randomly vote on 10 images of Photography, I already know what I'm rating on and have made the choice to vote in that category. Sasme thing goes with Computer Art...which I would vote and by interested differently on.

So I guess, if we are to have this random voting, then we should have more freedom in doing so!

I guess i'm just too dense for words but........is this correct? "the only time a photo receives a vote is when it cycles through the voting booth." the reason i ask is because i posted bodie island lighthouse and it did not show any votes for the first 24 hours, but i posted 2 flowers last night and they already have votes. since we are required to participate in voting booth voting (which i happen to enjoy) how does one picture get more votes than another? jen

I think the point of random voting is that all images are voted upon, not just those you are happy with. That enables all the images to get a fair vote, otherwise we might as well not bother.

Caedes has tried to set up a system that is as balanced as he can make it, allowing for all the images to be treated equally. The fact that there are people on this site who still insist on posting low scores out of some misplaced superiority complex is the reason for the random voting system. As the votes add up, the low votes are relegated insignificant.

I believe these arguments were posted previously, and Caedes provided his reasons for the system. I believe this is a good workable system, and besides this is his site.

Caedes does this as a hobby, and he does a damn good job.

No one is trying to fault Caedes, Andrew, and I wish people didn't interpret every suggestion or honest concern as an attack of him or his website. As for random voting, if people were allowed to select voting "categories," the images that came up for a vote within those categories would continue to be "random." That is not to suggest that Caedes is NOT doing "a damn good job," but more than a few people here have concerns that the current voting system is not necessarily "fair" or reliable and could be altered to make it better. If these "discussion" boards provide no room for dissent or alternative suggestions, then what's the point? Wen

thanks for responding. i guess it's just the posting of results that i was thinking about.

i feel it's an excellent system although, and i'm sure it can't be helped, we definitely start to recognize photographers' works. i've been on the website a great deal since i joined and i know i am recognizing some stuff.

Caedes, you are a hero for running this. it's about the most awesome user friendly thing i've seen. you have a real skill!!!!! I thank you very much. you DO an EXCELLENT job!

I agree! The site is very professional & friendly, a nice balance.... great job!

I appreciate all the effort Caeds does to ensure that the voting is fair. I would just like to make one suggestion.

I don't agree that anyone's picture can be considered a "0." Each person who uploads a picture does so because they are proud of it and wants to share it with others. They deserve a fair shot.

I think what happens is that people vote "0" because it's not a subject that they like or just not their "thing." It's not fair to anyone, no matter what the quality is, so I think that all zeros should be thrown out of the mix.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Jackie

I agree with Wen. My comments were not to fault Caedes; I truly enjoy this site & think they do a very good job on it! My comments were just suggestions to improve upon the already good job being done! Fat for chewing on I guess you could say! I also agree with Jackie..there should be no 0 score unless it is a blank image! My thanks to ALL who keep this site up & running (&fun!!) Dan

Well, here's something to chew on. The image I put up yesterday (God's Love) drew a c-index of 37. The same image made the "top ten" list on artwanted.com. I found that contrast interesting to say the least. I still think that some of the variance between photos and fractals would be reduced if people were allowed to CHOOSE which CATEGORIES of images they feel best suited to vote on. Wen

Yeah, I think that was mentioned once...

Actually, it's been mentioned a number of times by several different members. I just think the disparity between index averages for photos and fractals is stark and wonder why (1) there cannot be separate distributions for the different image categories and (2) why artists/members are compelled to vote on types of images they don't feel equipped to rate. Wen

The random voting booth not only presents you, the voter, with a random image, it exposes your image to a random selection of voters with random personalities, skill levels in judging a good image, and interests in the subject of your post. The unfortunate consequence of this is that some images that were technically difficult to caputure get low marks because they aren't perfectly artistic, and lower-quality images of "cool" topics get higher marks (as an example from my own gallery, the photo of my friend playing with fire was technically easy to get - hold my breath, point, shoot. The result is really not all that good, and I think the marks reflect the "coolness" of fire spinning. Conversely, getting a face-on picture of a wild lion is a once in a lifetime event, and I had a split second to frame, focus and shoot. Marks on the image are lower, though, because in that split second I didn't focus perfectly, so the image is fuzzy).

How to "fix" this? You can be a good voter yourself - look at each image and try and imagine the circumstances surrounding the capture before you automatically aim for the 1 or 10. Then when you've finished voting, go to the image, read about it, and leave a comment. Alternatively, if you're REALLY concerned about getting high votes yourself, think about what time of day you post - North Americans will vote differently than Europeans, than Australians, etc., and younger people who stay up late vote differently than their parents who vote and then go to bed. Just remember, whichever "fix" path you choose - voting karma will catch up with you eventually!!