As with a few others, I am becoming a little exasperated with all the high scores that have been flying around recently. In reality one can say that they don't count towards anything too tangible; and that the meaning of life, the universe and all therein will not really be affected that much if you give a particular photo a 4 or an 8 or a 10. It is of course purely subjective, and what someone gives a 10 to, I may only give a 7 etc. However, as has been said before, there has been a tendency to rate highly for reasons other that the quality of the photo. If you log on and see that you have scored a 10, then there is (or should be) an inner satisfaction and a sense of achievement. Alas this is no longer the case, as 10's are so commonplace here now that no-one bats an eyelid. Those who still get a kick when they receive yet another 10 for another 'average to good' photo are surely only kidding themselves.

Stripping things down to base level, all I want to do is take better pictures. I know this is not a professional organisation and that we are not all professional photographers and that everything we say doesnt come from a photography textbook. What we share when we comment on each others pictures is a learning through experience and through truth; well it should mean that, and thats where I feel the current problem lies.

I suppose after all that there should be some point or suggestion for a solution. However, I suppose the solution is nothing to do with changing the the rating system itself as there is nothing really wrong with it in itself. But I do feel that one way to try would be to narrow the spectrum and reduce the scoring system to a 5 point scale instead of a ten. Do we really need so many points between good and excellent? On the scale, 6 is slightly above good, yet we all feel disappointed if we get a 6. I think it would be far better if rating was only out of 5. 1=below average, 2=average, 3=good, 4=very good, 5=excellent.

At the end of the day the 5 could become the new 10 and we would be back to square one, but less choice leads to a tighter marking scale and I think it would make it easier to rate. The purpose of this site is for us to be able to help each other through praise and constuctive critisism with the goal of improving our ability in something we love doing, namely taking photographs. If you are here for another reason then there is nothing more I can say.

I'm a new user of this particular site. I have had the same view point in many another forum/photography sites. It all comes down to people being scared to give anything but a 10. For fear of backlash perhaps.

I agree, if I get a 6 on a photograph then it's above average but needs improving. If i get a 10, which I have on other sites, it means my photo is the best photo anybody has ever seen. To which I would be kidding myself if I believed that.

It would be good to see a site where the users would vote on allot more photos, but truthfully. Possibly the only way to do that would be to limit the amount of 10's & 9's a user can give a month. Now I know that would be difficult to do in a phpbb based site, due to lack of code, but never the less it would be refreshing.

Anyway, that’s my 10 pence worth.
Have a nice day!

Totally agree with rjvc.the site has become a joke with the scores.giving 10s doesnt improve anybodies photographic skills what so ever.
Gone are the days when there was good photographers on here,who you could learn from.
Now all it seems to be is "pat on the back" photographers who seem to put average photo,s on.but still get high rateings.
Hence Mark i no longer wish to upgrade my account.

alfiebasher, I've changed your account back to the standard one with 5mb of free space.

I would have expect more of a response to this thread than "I've downgraded you"!!!, especially from an admin. Wow, how to throw a site down the drain, lets not listen to the user base. Poor.

I'd like to say I registered with this site with good expectations and within a week I have found it lame. 5Mb of free space, is that a joke?

For extra info on this topic go here. http://www.photographyblog.com/forums/inde...?showtopic=1138

I do agree that the ratings seem a bit to consistently 9's and 10's or no rating at all lateley.
Very few people will give anything below an 8 for a while now.
I believe it is more productive for us all to have a realistic rating system. The problem with so many high ratings, as I see it, is that it leaves no margin for the really exceptional images and really what is getting between 8 and 10 now should probably be spread out from 5 to 10.
It's rather dificult sometimes though, as you don't want to discourage people. If the system is consistant though I think it would be fine to use lower ratings where appropriate.

Always a tricky issue though.

There's nthing wrong with the ratings system, it's the people who abuse it for whatever reasons they have.

I, for one,. have stopped posting because the ratings have been ridiculous for quite some time. It seems to me that certiain people are using the site to have little get togethers and smooth each other's egos .. more like a chat room than a photography site. They're throwing 9's and 10's around with gay abandon. It's unbelievably discouraging for anyone who is trying to be serious and to have constructive criticism. As a for instance this post http://www.photographyblog.com/gallery/sho...=500&page=1
was rated as a 9. I'm not criticising the poster of the (?) photo, but I can't believe that ahyone could rate this so highly.
Thoroughly p***ed off and bored, bored, BORED!

I don't think there's a perfect system - some of you seem to think that ratings system is the problem, some don't - but I'm more than willing to listen to suggestions for improvements

We might be upgrading the Gallery software soon, so I'll have a look and see what we can do...

My opinion is the rating system sucks and shouldn't even be an element on photographyblog, there are other photography sites that operate without a rating system, so why can't this one. Rating systems are abused full stop, due to not wanting to offend others. When I see images I don't like, I don't comment, I don't rate, simple as that.

There are other images on the blog I feel are worthy of a 9/10 and I will give that image a 9/10, what I like is not going to be to other peoples tastes, but if I give it a high rating, that is my opinion of which I am fully entitled to, just as others are to theirs. If I see an image I would want on my wall at home, that means I must like it, no matter the quality, whether they've followed all the photography rules and critieria, it is down to personal taste.

As for the image above DP anyone can see it was meant to be a little bit of fun, it made me smile, I didn't rate it, but I commented. I don't think Amanda posted the image thinking this is going to be a top image and will be rated accordingly, she posted it for fun.

SCRAP THE RATING SYSTEM until at least someone can come up with an answer to make it better, I always thought this blog was friendly and informative, not an overtop, stuffy follow the rules photo site, it is meant to be for fun as well, not just for photo critique.

Rant Over

G@zz@

Mark scrap the ratings.lets leave comments on the photo,s.what you like or dislike about it.its the only way for anyone to improve in my eyes.

As Dp has said there is nothing wrong with the concept of a rating system the problem appears to have been a recent lack of self discipline, of course a persons rating is always going to be subjective, but throwing 9&10's consistently at pretty snapshots does get a bit tiresome. If we remove the rating system I feel we will still be left with a similar problems of frustration and anger where in some instances you might be enticed to look at a photo with 13 comments only to find it behaving like a chatroom, of course I'm trying not ot generalise as many ratings are sensibly applied and comments sympathetically given. I would like to see the rating system stay if possible maybe in a modified form. But then why change something which for a long while worked quite well.?

Take care all Jogi