Voting

Hello to everybody.

It is incredible but I already noticed more than ten times that some wonderful images (not mine, to specify) have received negative votes... How is this possible when an image corresponds to the relevant topic, and is really beautiful?... Hey pals... wake up... do your best to improve... yes, being a pure amateur, I allow myself to advise you in such a manner... or is it too human? Is it normal? To me yes, it is very much human, but neither good, nor normal. Think about it......

Hi Biliana,

These photos most certainly don't respect the quality chart. Maybe they have a watermark or a frame or are too small. As I mentioned above, this is not about the quality of the photos, but that of the encyclopedia as a whole. We will soon improve the moderation tools which will be more transparent.

Please post photos here if you have doubts.

Hello Adrian,

I really don't think that EVERYONE who votes is well aware of the quality chart... myself, for a clear example. However, I NEVER ever vote down a photo that corresponds to a Fotopedia article. Regardless my genuine desire to believe in people's good intentions, the truth is quite far from this. Some people do vote down because a photo of SOMEONE ELSE appears too nice to them. This is sooo sad. And really hope could be avoided in a nearer future. Warm regards to all camera artists on Fotopedia!

Please provide links Biliana, here or send them to me by mail. I can check the history of a photo and who voted for it.

I will email you some screenshots as soon as I come across minus voting. Thanks for your support.

Dear Adrian,

i've made the same observation with a few of my pictures. Could you please check why this picture was voted down:

http://www.fotopedia.com/en/Sunflower/items/hardyuno-h0Mk2mPo4yk

This are sunflowers in the article sunflower

Thanky for your support

Have a fine Easter weekend

Hartmut

Hi Harmut, Jean-Marie speaking.

First of all , we have no tools to get in the mind of people who voted negatively, we have good technology but not that good :):)

So I can just look at the picture carefully (thing I do very carefully each time one of my pictures is voted down) and try to understand the reason. In many situations I realize there is some obvious quality issue that I did not notice earlier for whatever reason: I am sure it happened to you before, you took the picture, it really captured the reality you were experiencing at that time, you became very enthusiastic and in your enthusiasm you  did not notice at first it was noisy or fuzzy, or ... It just happened to me yesterday: a few pictures I posted months ago in an article were voted down and indeed they were fuzzy!! 

So I got through this exercise on the picture you mention and at first it looks OK but... there is indeed an issue. You background is, I must admit, less than optimal:

As you can see by yourself these people's heads in the branches are not looking great and are really destroying the picture. So yes I would have voted down myself as well. It is not irrelevant, it is not violating the quality chart, it is just not a great picture that deserves to stay in the Sunflower encyclopedia article. There are already better pictures in this article and keeping it there would not even be a good thing for you. We all sometimes are not attentive enough when we shoot and later when we post. This is life, it just happens. Nothing wrong, no reason to be hurt. I'm sure you understand.

Have a good Easter week end as well and keep shooting great pictures for our pleasure!

Jean-Marie

Unfortunately it seems the the detail of your picture I attached in the previous message did not make it through. So just look in the upper left your original picture and you will se the heads I was talking about:

http://www.fotopedia.com/en/Sunflower/items/hardyuno-h0Mk2mPo4yk

jmh

The quality chart doesn't allow for overly photoshopped pictures and calls for lifelike images. However, it doesn't mention black and white photos. Are these allowed? I don't particularly like them since they don't really show the world as it is.

Hi Philip,

Your point on Black & White photos is very good. B&W and photography have a long history. Many old photos are black and white like in the Treaty of San Francisco article and many other historic articles. These are rare and great illustrations. Even in articles about cities, for example, it is nice to see some old B&W photos, they bring a lot of meaning. Many photos have been taken in B&W for years. Today of course, with digital cameras, B&W is a type of processing but it used to be much more than that.

We like B&W photography, not B&W processing. It isn't always easy to differentiate both, yet we have seen the community has been doing a pretty good job using votes. No rule seems necessary, for now at least.

Best,

Adrian

Well, I only just noticed that it is possible to report any quality problems via the "inappropriate report" buttons.  I wrongly assumed it was only for reporting abuse.

As for B&W, I think it is off relevance, and not just in older photos.  Many serious landscape photographers use it for example.  It serves a useful purpose, if used in the right situation - to draw attention to texture, for example.

Strictly speaking, no photo is a true representation of what would be seen if you were standing in that place.  Photos are a cropped view of surrounding, the perspective is often different to the human eye, and time is altered (kind of) via either a very fast shutter-speed which freezes action, or a slow shutter-speed which causes motion blur.

Well, I do want contribute with quality photographs. I have at least one picture that I sincerely don't understand why it has been voted down. I would be glad if anyone could help me evaluate this issue. I added it to the article "Demographics of Brazil", from which I would like to highlight this excerpt: "Historically Brazil’s population always experienced large degrees of ethnic and racial interbreeding, mutual assimilation of cultures, syncretism and, above all, racial miscegenation."
Here is the picture of mine which I think it's relevant: http://www.fotopedia.com/en/Demographics_of_Brazil/items/flickr-823...

@Emerson: Just to clarify, I did not vote (up or down) for that particular photograph of yours. My hunch is that anyone who did vote down your photo must have been put off by its quality. Although strictly speaking this case is not mentioned in Fotopedias quality chart, but to have a large portion of it occupied by the back of a head is rather disturbing. Maybe you made some other photos of that particular occasion?

Thank you for the feedback, Benny. That head is truly derogatory and I could have cropped it out of the frame, but thus I would put the guests aside as well. A pity, since the racial diversity and mixage mentioned in the article also appear among them.

Anyway, a composition issue is something that I can consider as acceptable.

Adrian,

I just uploaded some photo's ( http://www.fotopedia.com/en/Coastal_and_offshore_rowing/candidates ).

Now some of them got a yes and a some a no. Question is why.

Why yes, that's easy. Photo is ok according to the quality chart and fits the wiki article.

Why no, that can be made more easy. When someone votes a no let them make a choice why. And report it to the photographer so he knows what he did wrong. At this moment I don't have a clue why the photo's got a no.

Thanks,

Dave

I would like to weigh in on the concerns of negative voting. 

I agree with the comments in this forum concerning negative voting that appears to be to the point of being malicious. I have looked at photos  with 8 votes that I thought were fantastic . A week later there are 2 minus votes for the save photos.

I realize there are a lot of excellent photographers posting mind-boggling shots but those should not be considered the as standard to be worthy of appreciation. There are a lot of folks that are putting a great deal of effort into composing shots, quite happy and proud of the results, then slammed by negative votes on Fotopedia. This is really a shame and not fair. When I got my account and posted my first shots I was hooked. I was really enjoying looking at folks photos and encouraging their efforts with a positive vote if I liked they efforts. If I thought the shots were terrible, I simply didn't vote for that entry.

I encouraged several friends that are basic level photographers (as am I) to post their photos. Most really enjoyed it but over the past several months all have stopped using Fotopedia due to the voting. I log on one or two times a week now, vice the two or three times a day I used to do a few months ago.

Enough, I will close with a suggestion. Change the option to positive voting only, eliminate the negative, or display who voted (negative or positive) for each photo (I understand this would be a massive undertaking and not realistic.

To those who are posting your best efforts, keep it up, I really believe there is a lot of talented photographers on this site. Don't let the negative acts of a few discourage you. 

Burch

When you vote on a photo, you are indicating whether or not the photo is relevant to the article.  It's not for rating photos for aesthetics, or for how much you like the photo.

If people are using it to indicate whether they like the photo or not, then we're bound to have problems, because we have different tastes.

You can use the report button, which is an exclamation mark in a triangle, to inform the photographer about any technical problems with the photo, i.e. over-exposed, out of focus, etc.

I also agree with Dave's suggestion of selecting a reason when voting down. As Emerson said, the feedback  is important to improve as photographer.

Well, Dan, this is all what this discussion is about, and considering what you've just said, if it should be so, now I have no further doubts that we do have problems of understanding of how to use the tools. Otherwise, why this close-up of a Nelumbo nucifera (lotus flower) was ranked -2 and removed from the article about Nelumbo nucifera?!

http://www.fotopedia.com/en/Nelumbo_nucifera/items/flickr-425483249

As for me, I always voted down when it is not relevant, but I feel that there are people that simply do not read the article. When I don't like it, I simply do not vote. But, for instance, there are lots of pictures in articles about places that I don't know. At times I cannot tell whether the picture is relevant to that place, but if it's a great picture I vote it up, believing that the photographer is faithful.

Can someone from the Fotopedia shine his/her light on this matter, please.

Because I really don't get it. This photo http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-2998379815 got a -1, but this is what the subject coastal and offshore rowing is all about. And according to the Quality chart there is nothing wrong with it.

If this keeps going on and this is what fotopedia is..... then fotopedia is not the place for me.

Just updating the link for viewing the Nelumbo nucifera picture that has been removed from the corresponding article with -2: http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-425483249 (not relevant?)

Hi,

It is very interesting for us to follow this conversation and hear your opinions and suggestions on the voting system. We are aware the system can be improved and there are especially issues of communication. Here are some thoughts and suggestions.

First I want to react on the discussions about negative and "malicious" voting. We monitor the voting. Nearly all negative votes are done by members who contribute regularly and who have proven their photographic skills. To have access to such feedback is a great opportunity for photographers to improve their work. It has helped me. A negative vote and score shouldn't be seen as a bad thing.

Fotopedia's priority is the quality of the encyclopedia. There are already many sites to improve ones photographic skills but there is only one high quality photo encyclopedia. Negative votes are necessary for the encyclopedia. Without negative votes, photos of poor quality would make it to the top of articles. Any photo could get 5 votes with time if it weren't for negative votes. Forcing members to write a reason each time they vote negatively will discourage negative votes and hurt the encyclopedia's quality.

I suggest we create a forum where you can post a link to a photo and ask for feedback and explanations on why a photo got negative votes.

Another interesting part of the discussion here is about relevance and quality. The overlay on a photo actually asks if the photo is relevant or not when you vote. We should change the question on this overlay to something like "Is this a great photo to illustrate this encyclopedia article?".

Quality is relative to the article. In articles with many photos, the quality requirements get higher. If there are already great photos in an article, adding a photo that is ok and relevant isn't enough. When I vote a photo up or down I often do it in comparison with other photos in the article. I vote up photos who deserve a better score compared to the other photos in the article. Over time this will ensure the best photos are at the top of the article.

When you add photos you should help the members to vote by adding only your best selection of photos. There are several discussions in the forums about clutter in articles. Some members are using all there 50 photo quota on articles like Italy where there are already great photos. Those 50 photos might be relevant and good yet they are not good enough compared to the photos already in the top of the article. One or two of these photos might make it, members should only add these two in the first place. Please select photos that are different enough and good compared to the ones already in the article.

Please keep the discussion going. I look forward to hearing you on these thoughts and suggestions.

Adrian

PS: Emerson: the horizon on your photo is tilted. It is disturbing. I would have voted your photo down.
PS2: Dave: Quite a few of you photos don't have a clear focus (mostly due to the camera you are using I guess). On some of them it is not so bad and the composition makes up for it (I like the first one in the article). If you added your photos to the sport article they probably wouldn't make it to the top, yet it is great you added them to the Coastal and offshore rowing article, which was empty and where they are especially relevant.

Hi all,

very strange problem with me as well...

http://www.fotopedia.com/en/Uttarakhand/items/4naurjl8ch3f7-h9m5RC9...

this photo of mine was voted down (hugely -ve) by the moderator itself... and the reason that was provided is written as "Fotopedia Quality Chart recommends you add larger than 800x533 photos to the encyclopedia. This photo you added has been reported as not respecting this rule and removed from the encyclopedia."

wat does it mean...if u go to the photo information 'i' part then u can c tht the photo is 3008x2000 .... I dont understand at all why such a wrong information was given directly by the moderator RAPHIE for this photo....

its absolutely relevant for this article.... if there is any problem in photo quality then it is acceptable for me but unethical voting cant be tolerated...

Please check what went wrong with this photo....

Sukumar

My suggestion is that the voting system would work better, and be more easily understood, if we were able to vote using a scale of say 1 to 10.  Where 10 means you think the photo is excellent.

Then the average score is used to rank the photos in the article, and a photo would need to have at least 5 votes, before it can appear, and need to score an average of 6 or higher.

So, similar to how you might rate products on Amazon.

Would also need to work out what order photos need to appear in, when they have the same score.  Perhaps the could be sorted in date/time order, with the newest high scoring photo appearing first.  That way all the best photos should get their moment of glory in the top spot.

The current system is flawed, because a photo which has been on fotopedia for a long time, will have a advantage over a newer photo.

Good response Adrian,

  I agree with many of your points but I truly believe the problem lays in what is a good photo. The eyes of someone that enjoys taking photos but doesn't have a great deal of time or money to invest, vice the trained eye of the professional/semi-professional photographers is a world apart. How can someone who doesn't have the best gear of a great eye ever compete against some of the people submitting the fantastic shots? In comparison, their best photos won't weigh up, resulting in negative votes.

I take photos because I really enjoy it. I am a member of Fotopedia to enjoy the beauty of the photos people have added. I have learned a lot from the folks on this site but I will never be a fraction as good as these artists. How should I decide what to submit? I have been very proud of some of my entries but they often took a beating with negative votes. I have albums on my account I use to share with friends and other members but I don't submit near as many shots for the encyclopedia articles any more. I know that at best I'm an average photographer but getting negative votes is depressing. 

Burch

Sukumar,

The photo that was reported as too small is this one: http://www.fotopedia.com/items/4naurjl8ch3f7-UN43lvFVENQ If your photo had been reported as too small it would have been removed from the article as well.

This one was also reported, but as being out of focus: http://www.fotopedia.com/items/4naurjl8ch3f7-J68dvh8Pvuk.

Adrian

Dan: I totally agree. With time we will need to make some changes. The voting system will only scale until a point and we probably have reached this point in a few articles already. An Amazon like rating is something we are considering. It requires a complex transition. Another way might be to keep the actual voting system but display photos depending on the number of votes they got during the past month, for example, to make it easier for newer photos to make it. Any suggestions are welcome. This is still at the idea phase.

Burch: Most of the photos on Fotopedia are from amateur photographers. There are great photos that have been taken with cheap gear. A better gear does help yet many photographers will tell you training your eye is the most important. We'll prepare some pages to help members on quality issues (if any members are interested in helping on writing them please email me: adrian@fotopedia.com). Have a look at this project and the wikipedia articles associated. It is very interesting: http://www.fotopedia.com/projects/1de-azzO4Is

"A negative vote and score shouldn't be seen as a bad thing." Ok, agreed. But it will be helpfull to know why. Maybe you can give a number of positive and a number of negative types of votes. And only the poster gets to see the why part so he knows what to change.

"There are already many sites to improve ones photographic skills but there is only one high quality photo encyclopedia.... Forcing members to write a reason each time they vote negatively will discourage negative votes and hurt the encyclopedia's quality. " To get high quality photo's people need to improve there photographic skills and giving a reason to the person who is posting will give him the ability to improve his/her skills. Discourage can be taken away by giving them the options I mentioned earlier.

"I vote up photos who deserve a better score compared to the other photos in the article." Then you also have to vote down the ones you think don't deserve a high score. But now the first photo's posted get a higher rating  because they don't get a negative vote and that's not in line with your statement that you don't want to "hurt the encyclopedia's quality".

About the 50 photo quota on a article. Why don't you change it to 10 or even 5 so people will think more about which photo to put in the encyclopedia.

So I still think a choice in why negative and even why positive would improve the encyclopedia.

Dave

ps camera at that moment was a D50 with a Tamron lens which had some issues (soft left side). But this kind of feedback is what I mean... Currently using a D90 with Nikkor lenses so future material will (hopefully) be more in focus ;). But we all know that a good photo doesn't have to in focus.

ps2 is it not a problem that everyone can vote (you don't have to login)?

.....ps3 how about a photo that doesn't belong there and even after reporting it it's still there.... because this http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-252102932 is not an oar, it's a paddle. small difference but in my line of sport (the coastal rowing) it is like calling shandy beer

I started a forum on Why was my photo voted down? in the General discussion forum. If you want feedback about a photo please post a link to that photo there.

The forum has the advantage it can be started now (it already has :-)). It also enables you to have the feedback on photos by others and learn faster. We'll see how it evolves and keep thinking about ways to improve learning.

Adrian

PS: The photo quota will change. 10 is probably a good quota for new members. If you use those 10 well the quota should increase. For most regular contributors 10 is far from enough.

PS: Dave, I removed that paddle photo from the oar article. The interface we use to check the inappropriate reports is undergoing changes which might explain why the photo hadn't been removed. Usually a photo should be removed in 2 to 3 days after a report when the report is correct.