Changes to Voting System

[lcarreau]

You voted on the dog lcarreau. And commented on it. What are you complaining about?

You can't blame people for playing by the rules that they are given. We are all part of that process... we just need to develop the best set of rules so that site participation is maximized and good contributions are acknowledged. And I like seeing bits of members' personal lives in their photos!

Not denying that .... but don't have to be a Rocket Scientist to see how BROKEN the system is ... ANY CHANGE will be applauded as a positive one !!!

If voters who vote are kept anonymous than people will care less about voting on particular people's photos, and might actually try to make sure they vote on the BEST photo to make it.

Vitaliy has a very good point. Part of what's bogus with the current system.

[mrchad9]

If votes were anonymous then I would vote 2/10 on all of Vitaliy's crappy ice climbing photos.

[lcarreau]

And, I would vote 1/10 on strange four-legged animals that belong on Facebook and are only posted for the POPULAR vote .....

Includes unicorns ...

[Rick B]

Sorry, I don't have time to read the entire 12+ pages, but just wanted to respond to some remarks from Matt early on.

1) "Never seen a 3 option voting system." I know of one here: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=1610, the middle option is a 'pig' for some reason, but seems to work. It's sort of like voting "nah" or "meh, I don't care so much for this but I've seen it".

2) "Can anyone come up with a good algorithm?" Use springs: the score is a small object that can move between 1 and 10, but it is attached to a big massive spring which is fixed with its other end at position '5'. If no-one voted, it pulls the score to the 5, the starting point. If someone votes X, you attach another spring to the object, with a strength proportional to the user's voting weight and the other end fixed at point X. This way, people will start pulling the score this way or that way. Well it's probably just mathematically equivalent to a weighted average with a heavily weighted default '5', but in any case it would behave very much as people would intuitively expect. E.g. you won't have any counter intuitive things where a 9 lowers the score even if the current score is 87%.. Well, it's just a random thought, maybe you like it, maybe not

Oh and also, don't change too much at once... "Small moves, Ellie, small moves."

[mrchad9]

What would the formula be Rick?

[Rick B]

What would the formula be Rick?

In the end it's just a weighted average, with the weights being the user's voting power. The only added ingredient is a default '5' vote, that every contribution receives from the system, with some pretty large weight. This avoids that the first '10' vote immediately gives the contribution an average score of 10.

The springs help to visualise, with the strength of each spring being the user's voting power. The default vote is a big, strong spring which tries to pull the score to 5, and as people start voting, it is like they add their own little spring which pulls the score in their preferred direction. Users with more power have stronger springs, and they can move the score more significantly. If more people vote the same (e.g. 10), the score is pulled more and more in that direction.

I would say that this is an intuitively clear system to everybody. It would also work with likes and dislikes, or a three option voting system. I would really prefer a third option, it allows you to say "I think it's OK, but it still needs some work". Without it you would have to vote a 'dislike' which is often too harsh.

[Josh Lewis]

If voters who vote are kept anonymous than people will care less about voting on particular people's photos, and might actually try to make sure they vote on the BEST photo to make it.

I completely agree with this. However Matt said that in the past there was voting abuse as a result of this. I personally am not too worried about dishonest folks (which I do frown upon for sure). But Matt made it clear that votes will not go unseen. In the best case scenario only bad votes are visible, but that's not likely going to happen.

I very much like Mr. Chad's point about old photos should not be thrown out of the equation of being on the frontpage. There are some really incredible photos posted on this site that some how go under appreciated. This doesn't just happen every blue moon, I've seen this happen quite a few times per month.

Here's a example of one: (I consider this one of the best on this site)
http://www.summitpost.org/malubiting-peak-7458m/757447

[MarkDidier]

I very much like Mr. Chad's point about old photos should not be thrown out of the equation of being on the frontpage. There are some really incredible photos posted on this site that some how go under appreciated.

Have to agree with Chad and Josh on this. There is an amazing amount of great photography on this site that goes unnoticed. Many members submit fantastic photos on a pretty regular basis...and they generally never see the front page. This stuff needs to get to the front page, instead of getting buried...

http://www.summitpost.org/user-profile-image/737335

[mrchad9]

Ok let me propose one more mechanism if I may...

no photoshopped images!



I would rather see things like this...



Or this...

[mrchad9]

You are right Matt. I had also been thinking about anonymous submissions, for the first 24-72 hours. It would be a brilliant solution if it worked, and I agree anonymous voting is a death trap.

I don't think it should have to come to anonymous submissions though, but it might be interesting. It is good to have some community feel by knowing who submitted something too... and you lose that if you can't see the submitter. Sometimes when I see a great shot by someone I don't know, I go ahead and check out a few other pics they submitted previously.

And folks might take issue when the submitter is obvious. Any new page submitted by folks like me, marcsoltan, Dow, Sarah, Noondueler, and a few others is fairly easy to tell, and any photo attached would go with that. But then maybe trying to guess the submitter would be part of the game?

[Bob Sihler]

Ok let me propose one more mechanism if I may...

no photoshopped images!

+1000

Have some self-respect, people. Josh, with all due respect, that picture is the exact type of photo I and many others are sick and tired of seeing on the front page, in addition to other ridiculously photoshopped pictures and pictures of semi-tame "wild" animals that some members pathetically fall all over each other for in their mad rush to vote and lavish praise.

[Bubba Suess]

I don't think it should have to come to anonymous submissions though, but it might be interesting. It is good to have some community feel by knowing who submitted something too... and you lose that if you can't see the submitter. Sometimes when I see a great shot by someone I don't know, I go ahead and check out a few other pics they submitted previously.

I agree, I often discover new stuff when I start chasing other people's submissions.

And folks might take issue when the submitter is obvious. Any new page submitted by folks like me, marcsoltan, Dow, Sarah, Noondueler, and a few others is fairly easy to tell, and any photo attached would go with that. But then maybe trying to guess the submitter would be part of the game?

Again, I agree. Anonymous submissions would only really work if the pictures are not being attached to a new page submission. Of course, anonymous submissions could easily be circumvented by putting a name or watermark on an image too.

[Bob Sihler]

Isn't the logic on this slightly reversed. Instead of making the voter anonymous, how about making the submitter anonymous? At least until POTD or POTW have been decided? Then people could vote honestly because they wouldn't know who had submitted the photos? I don't really like the idea of anonymous voting with our current system, but I'm open to discussing the possibility of making it anonymous...

They'd still know. The cliquesters have very familiar subject, title, and caption patterns. But it's still an interesting idea.

Vitaliy, you're relatively new, so you wouldn't know this, but SP had big problems in the past with anonymous voting. Avatars, downvoting...and all for, shock, POTD and POTW.

[Josh Lewis]

There are a few SP members that are easy to spot when it comes to photo submissions (without looking at the author). If such system was in place, when we see shots of K2 and such we might all assume it's Afzal. Another problem with making it anonymous is that you would have to make the profile recent photos invisible too if you wanted to keep it as pure as possible.

However I could see some good benefits from this. So I admit I would not be one bit outraged.

Edit: Bob beat me to the punch as I was typing this.

[Josh Lewis]

I just now saw your comment Bob about the photo. I have never been to that kind of altitude before so I assumed it was real. I've personally seen some reds light up peaks for 30 seconds well after sunset. I assumed that it was one of those kinds of moments. Generally I can spot when things are photo shopped, but sometimes I get fooled.

Regarding a mechanism to block photo shop images, this is actually possible. In the EXIF data after doing a photo edit it says the program you used to edit it. Keep in mind that some folks might use photo shop to simply add a border (most the time I'm not a fan of inserting borders into pictures). And trust me there are ways to get around such a system if it was created.