Hi Folks and fellow artists Im referreing back to the post (http://www.renderosity.com/messages.ez?Form.ShowMessage=71435) about getting cut down in grades when you get a "4" when having straight "5's". I also think this sux, I got one this night myself with no explanation. But this is not why I am writing this message. From time to time I have felt that images are being overtipped. I mean, my last couples of posts have gotten almost straight 5's (and the occasional 4). Somehow its not quite fair... Ok I don't want to downgrade my work, trying not to sound so pretentious I think Im getting quite good. But compared to the work of VooDoo for example, I have yet to learn what he knows. It always feels good when getting a 5, but somehow its not always warranted. Im am also a part of the problem, when I visit at pic witch have 5.00 I rarely dare to give it a 4, even if I can back it up with some constructive critics in fear of being "that downgrading nogood son of a #%&#;". But giving grades like 5 and also giving critics tend to send the wrong message. It might make the apointed flaw seem less important or even disregardable. This might impact on the learning curve. I wish there was a way of getting out of this dark spiral but I cant see what that would be. I hate to see the day when everyone recieves straight fives, and on some days, the "Whats New" section is piled up with "5.00". Now dont go and give all my works a 1 because of this post :) Does anyone else care to comment on this? Kindest Regards Kristian (username: Kristian1)

Funny how honesty can wane in the face of reprisal - eh? I am not that good - so I try not to post often as I do not want to have to look back and cringe when I finally do get halfway decent at this. If I don't forget, I usually disable the rating feature. And anymore the comment feature as well. I love an honest critique of my work, but too often as you pointed out folks tend to be generous to a fault in making their comments and in giving ratings. But that is to be expected. The Gallery is a show place where folks (supposedly) post images they are proud of and want to share with others. Consequently, I think those viewing these images (with some expections) generally try not to rain on anyone's parade by showering them with negative ratings or remarks. I have had better luck posting a WIP in the forum and asking for suggestions. There are a lot of very talented and knowledgable folks here, and I ponder every comment I get for its merits and try my best to learn and improve. For the rating and comment system to work in the Gallery, I suppose folks will have to risk being brutally honest, and not worry about or be given to retaliation. I don't see that happening. More realistically, a panel of judges elected from among us who are viewed by the majority to be the best qualified might work. Hate that you got cut down with no comment as to why. That does suck! Rob

Haha I think that the best way to solve the problem is to make the point system 1-10 with that people have more flexibility to rate the picture what they feel. An average picture would rate at 5 or 6 A good picture would be a 7 or even an eight whereas an excellent one 9 and 10. This would be a great solution.

A agree that perhaps increasing the scale would present a more fair solution. But couldn't the change result in even more palcings of high 10's just because people tend to think to highly of pictures. "Wow, that wa really cool picture I will give it a ten right away!". Im not sure wht to think, maybe there should be moderators on the forum who sort out bad judgements and people who put low marks without explaining why. Perhaps apoint a range of "judges" from the more experienced of the members. These people should be be able to really analyze the picture and tell what needs improvement. These people could be more honest and direct because of their title. People would know that they know what they are doing and react thereafter. You could have another checkbox in your postscreen to disable/enable "Judge"-comments... What do u think Kristian

I think the best system would be a different rating about: -Technic -Color/light -Overall view I think this could be done in a short time and gives technically no problems to introduce. What you mean about this ? SHARKEY

I don't know Sharkey. Not all people are qualified to give opinion about Technics, light and so on, this limits the opinion to educated artists. When you just have one thing to judge, less experienced people can tell what the overall impression of the picture. But maybe we can meet halwways, if we get a panle of "judges" (se my above post) they could have the possibility to place opinions based on Technics/Light/Overall. What do u think? Kristian

I agree that we're getting too much 5's lately. My opinion to the suggestions above: 1. A rating between 1 and 10 would not solve the problem but make rating more difficult ("Should I give it a 7 or 8??"). Enough people will always rate top notch. 2. A separate jury rating seems very reasonable. Also the possibility to turn this on/off like the member rating. 3. Different ratings for certain aspects are complicated, time consuming and may be even unfair. Some pictures are simply great, even if the lighting is bad, or whatever. In conclusion: I would suggest to add a separate jury rating and leave the rest as it is. The only problem left will be electing the jury. Those jury people will have a lot of work to do in the future!

I like the judge idea best. However, to build upon what Sharkey suggested. I suppose you could break an image down into categories and than rate each aspect on a scale of one to ten. Then total and average for the final rating. But, as duesentrieb pointed out, this would be time consuming and possibly unfair. I remember once reading about some computer programmed to dissect and rate speaches for proper grammeric use, syntax, etc. Lincolns Gettyburg Address, and the works of William Shakespear, among other notables, ranked poorly. Still, I kind of like those "how are we doing" survey. You know the ones. Excellent - Good - Adverage - Fair - Poor - Sucks - Really sucks - Really really really sucks, with a cherry on top and pickle too! I always fill those out honestly. Really! (was my lips moving?) Rob

Where's the spell checker on this thing. There is no D in average! Whatelse did I miss.

Personally I'd leave it as it is, the galleries are just a place where people can share images. There is no 'prize' in getting straight 5's just like there should be no penalty for getting straight 1's. Any rating system be it out of 10 or 100 or 1000 will have the 'people rate too high' aspect because by our very nature we do not want to hurt people's feelings. If you must make a change, strip the ratings altogether and merely have comments, that way people can say 'yeah, cool, but it could use....' My two pennies worth.

I suggested something that might help this over in the news/contact forum but nobody responded. I think possibly doing something like starting the little rankig box at 3 instead of 5 might prompt a better acceptance of lower scores. I barely ever give a 5 and normally I dont want to rate pictures because I dont want to be accussed of killing someones score or whatever. Just my two cents

With a 1-10 we'd just get all 10's. I think we should just strip the rating system and stick to the comments.

I strongly dislike the judges idea. Who's to say who's a more qualified judge of an image. I wouldn't want my work 'judged' by somebody elses idea of an 'official body of pretentious hob-knobs'. When it comes down to it; the judges would not end up being the people most qualified to critique a work (if there is such a concept with I doubt); but rather it would be the people who won popularity contests. I enjoy the current system. The comments allow for people to really say what elements they have an opinion on. I think the ratings serve no real value though. They should either go or at worst be set to a default position of 3 rather than 5. When I view an image in the galleries though and want to see what people thought of it; I read the comments, not the ratings.

ok... here's how I think the rating system should work.. you can rate an image in the following ways: +2 - very good +1 - pretty good 0 - average -1 - below average -2 - not very good at all.. and then you can TALLY the votes instead of averaging them... that way: 10 ratings of excellent and one rating of pretty good doesn't result in a lower ranking image than one that just had one 5 pretty crazy.. but it would be easy to implement and also to preserve all of the existing ratings...

I kind of agree with Bob Sharkey. Maybe a "overall artistic impression" catagory, one for "Technical execution", and one for "Themes" might work. In general, all opinions should be justified with a few lines of text. Nobody likes to hear that "everything you do is great" because we are all looking for comments that will help us improve this image or the next one. (Aren't we?) Still, I can live with what we've got. Clarifying comments mean more than a number rating anyway, at least to me.

Tim's got a good idea. Either that or just leave off the rankings entirely. If I really want to know what people think, I prefer a comment over some number... Similarly, I give almost exclusively 4s and 5s, merely because I attribute no significance to them. If I put 4, it means I had something to point out that might be improved. If I said 5, it meant I liked the picture and I couldn't think of any or perhaps minute things that might be worked on... Therefore, if there must be a rating system, I'd do TLaubach's +2 to -2 system. Otherwise, I'd prefer simply comments.. after all, that's really all I want when I put something up.. opinions and suggestions. =) Rosh

Hi All, Remember, there are only five ratings, no fractions, no decimals. So, the way I look at it: 5 = As good as the top 20%, or at least 80% perfect. :-) 4 = As good as the top 40%, above average, with some minor flaws. 3 = Top 60%, so-so image, with some good points but some distractions. If an image is a 3 or below, I usually won't rate it. If the artist and the image have potential, I may private message them some constructive criticism. I really think either a 1 to 10, or a 1 to 5 with some decimal choices would be best. My vote would be for 1 to 5, split into quarters, i.e. 5.0, 4.75, 4.5, 4.25, 4.0 etc... I think this option would be more compatible with the current ratings system, while allowing some greater breadth in ratings. Fiontar

Well I was also thinking. Maybe if the onlooker had to type the score or rating instead of clicking it on the automatic 5 number things would be alot different. Implement that with a 10 point system and you got it 70% average looking pictures in the art section.