Improving Image Share

[HouseAtlantic]

Imo, I think the rating system was put there for nothing, I don't see a point in it, besides giving encouragement. I don't think it's a contest, that's not a bad idea, but I don't see any point in being competitive or too judgmental about it with your rating.

I've never rated anything on the nexus lower than a 10, because I try and encourage the people who have taken those shots, I'm not a critic.

[MalachiDelacot]

Lot of good comments in this thread.

I have gotten to the point that if a picture already has a 10, I won't rate it unless it's exceptional and want to give it a 10. It is difficult for me to rate a picture above a 9. The only pictures I would rate a 10 are those that I would want on my wall in my home and I would see every day. I don't rate high because they're "cute" or just because I like the person. People too easily get their feelings hurt or others become upset with lower/honest ratings. Bottom line is, I dislike the rating system and feel the pictures should be posted for enjoyment or ignored, depending on preferences.

[kalia]

So seems we've got people on two sides of the issue - *only* give 10s period & only give 10s to spectacular pics - both saying they just don't like the ratings system. So things I think we can see agreement on:

 

Current ratings system seems to breed more ill than good - for no fault of its creator, just happens to not have worked out well in this instance. Do those who don't like ratings at all like a simple "+" system? And if that were implemented, what ideas are there for encouraging constructive feedback for those who desire it? If we've no ratings system, we've also no top 25/100/whatever - so would a "random 25" take the place of that? On esf some time ago someone suggested a kittenwars-like thing, would that perhaps be the replacement? Perhaps as an extra check on submission - "submit my pic in the image war [a different name would be better]". Hmmm*. Also seems to be agreed that any sort of ratings system adjustment/replacement would want to focus mainly on increasing the number of ratings (while still avoiding making it too easy to troll, and thus creating more work for our moderators).

 

Tags are good - doesn't seem to be much argument on tags being good, just that there shouldn't be a limitless number of tags & that it shouldn't be solely at author discretion. Useful, of course, only if we can also filter searches by tag. ;) Seems if folks wanted to start suggesting tags here . . . . ;)

 

At least one other person agrees that a way to pull some amount of random pics for viewing would be good.

 

 

* Image battle - you submit a pic to it, 2 pics are drawn at random from the pool of submissions & pitted against each other for, say, a week. Folks vote for one or other, winners - get a little symbol/tag on the images (so you could filter by image battle [so need a better name]) maybe? And again, perhaps it's a voluntary thing, so if you're not into the whole competition thing, you just opt out. It's a silly thing, and the votes have no comments, and it's just one screenshot vs one other screenshot & happens so often that it's perhaps much less personal. Then again, someone like Floydian1 who takes a *lot* of screenshots might end up dominating the pool - but then again as it'd be random, perhaps he'd be competing against himself a lot.

 

 

The other thing again is encouraging feedback, which seems to be a struggle on any screenshot thread/site. It just takes a lot of energy to put together coherent sentences sometimes. :P But hey - maybe that could be a tag? "Feedback especially desired"? (Probably shortened to "feedback", lol.) And then folks who do want to give back & do critiquing or anything like that could *first* browse that section - and you'd put that tag on your picture at your own risk, so to speak. :biggrin: Of course, site rules would still apply & posts could be reported, but I think we've got an exceptionally fair moderating staff here and people could post honest feedback without fear of being instabanned or anything like that, especially as such criticism would have course focus on the technique & not the content. (I.e, "this shot could have been lit better" rather than "another landscape shot - I'm so bored with those", just to define what I'm saying.)

[SpacemanSpIiff]

Taking off the top 25 and replacing it with random 25 would be an awesome idea to me, it would stop this petty competition everyones in to get up there. The '+' Idea would be nice too with the top 25 removed/replaced.

 

i like the image battle idea, the problem with that i see is you could get the same person's images on both sides! so it shouldnt allow someone like floydian with his mass number of images to compete with himself.

 

I always, ALWAYS want feedback on any image i upload, yea a nice simple 10 with "pretty" tagged on is nice, but id rather people to thoroughly go into what they like or dont like. its those ratings and comments i take most to heart, even if the rating is low, I love constructive criticism!

 

great suggestions kalia.

[LoginToDownload]

I'm also always hesitant about giving a picture a lower rating... A + system, random 25, etc all sounds wonderful to me, though.

[Leenysaurus]

Just read through the "Call for Originality" thread and then a little through this one.

 

I'll just say I hope something changes when and IF I do return to this community. Because I'm leaving and going to spend my time playing this awesome game. I've gotten too dragged into this competition over images lately and all I do is take screen shots rather than, well ... play Oblivion. I've barely gotten much through the game! And it makes me sad to see some of the quarreling going on around here.

 

Anyway, I'm ranting off topic from the thread topic. I like the random 25 idea a lot. And I hope you all come to a decision on the system, and good luck. I might be back. After all, Oblivion is my favorite RPG.

 

Amazing ideas here so far though. Good luck again!

 

I'm off.

[Lisnpuppy]

I believe that screen shots are basically artistic expression....at least the majority. Some are posted as ..hey this was cool looking..look at my new person/armor/sword..what have you. But most are art.

 

As such we can dance around til the cows come home (yes I am from the country) and not agree on a screenie. Rating them is so subjective it is almost impossible to have any kind of fair system in that sense.

 

In very few shots have I seen a completely objective thing of which to comment..example...the lighting is bad and I cant see your person. So anything else is a matter of opinion and all is relative. I uploaded a bunch of save games and the characters which I felt were the coolest/pretties..etc...were not the ones that have been DL the most..all opinion.

 

So...what I think would be cool is this...(taking from what others have said)

 

One place where you can post photos...only for kudos and comments of nice work..where'd you get that hair..blah blah.

 

Then have the play-off screenie battle...like per day or week. 2 pics or maybe a group going mano a mano for bragging rights. A random pick based (on the specifically submitted pics) on uploader name...that way the same person wont battle themselves...that isnt fun. And maybe a limit on the number of pics that you can put up for consideration. The battle only draws from pics submitted after the thing is set up and random pick only within certain time frame. Then you can have winners of the day/week/month..etc.

 

It isn't perfect (and really people...what is in life...compromise is the name of the game here)...but lets you get your screenies seen to share for that sake..or to get peoples input. Then another place to put up your dukes so to speak and get rated. If restrictions of time and number are put on then I think people would only put what they believe to be their best work up.

 

I have no idea if this is possible computer-wise....but it seems like a good idea. I am glad that Kalia thought of this thread.

 

Thank you for your time and website space. :bunny:

[VictoriaG]

What you don't want to end up is an image top rated page like PES, although of coarse awesome in it's picture content, it has been and now is completely static as the pics there gained their positions when the site was at the height of it's popularity, now I rarely see any screenshot on there get the required 5 votes to even get on the list (the number 1 has 48) and most pics attract no votes at all.

[Dark0ne]

Note I'm reading this thread but changes to the image share section aren't high on my priority list right now. That doesn't mean it might not get done in the near future but it's highly dependent on circumstances.

 

So keep the ideas coming and when I get around to it I'll be sure to give this thread a good read through when coming to any decisions on changes.

[kalia]

Thanks to all for the continuing input. Dark0ne, I think it's understood that the file system functionality comes first. Intention here is to get some community consensus, so when you do have the time to take a look at the images section, we've got a nifty little wish list for you. :P Particularly I think everyone uploads/downloads/searches for files, but not everyone is involved in taking screenshots, so it's all that more important that those of us who *do* enjoy this form of art to say how the system works/doesn't work for us. I hope that at the least this discussion eases some of the tension, as we work towards what we want it to be, and perhaps some of the things we come up with are easy enough to implement that they can be moved on in some relatively quick fashion. (In, say, the next year or so. ;) )

 

 

So far, this is what I see as consensus:

 

*Move from numerical ratings to a simple "+" kudos system. Bit of a shame, as we just got the pretty formula for numbered ratings working correctly ;D, but people seem to feel that when it comes to images the numerical ratings are causing more harm than good. A bunch of folks are using the numerical ratings as a kudos system already, *only* rating those images they'd give a 10 anyway.

 

*Do away with the top 25 list altogether, replacing it with 25 random images. This would gain more attention for older pictures as they are pulled randomly up onto this "front" list. Since we'd have a kudos system, perhaps a search of "highest-kudos'd" would be in place, but it would not have the prominent display of the top 25 list. This would also address the static top list issue that Floyd brings up. There's a cycle there: it's hard to look back through the archives, so most folks go the top 25 list, so those images get more ratings, so they stay longer on the top 25 list, getting more ratings . . . . :P

 

*For the "competitive" aspect, add a kittenwars-type image battle. 1 image vs 1 other image, voting for day/week (I think month would be too long); submission to this is uploader's choice; some sort of coding so that it never is just one person's images vs each other; some sort of limit on the number of images in the "queue" from any one person at any one time. For example, I upload a picture, check a box that says "submit to ImageWars [uggh on the name]", but I can only have say 5 or 10 images submitted at any one time (depending probably on how long the voting lasts - if it only lasts a day, pics move more quickly, perhaps you can have more images submitted at once).

 

*Tags, tags, tags! And search by tags. Specifically mentioned: a "feedback" tag, for those who particularly are interested in indepth critiques of their shots. Tags not just at authors discretion, and some sort of tagging required at submission? I think another good tag would be "Character Portraits" or some such thing, and "Scenery/Landscapes". A tag for the winners of the ImageWars [really want a different name] thing would be great too, and make displaying those screens a nice thing.