Just a thought

I also realised that since a while the average rating from all shot sank and I also don't understand why.
Some shots that are in my opinion good become rejected and some I don't find very good become accepted, but tastes are different and that's it what we have to accept imo.

Yes it's sad for everyone to get only 1 star votes but that's the system and the mods are doing a good job to pick only 1 star voter.

I understand how frustrating it can be but I don't think there should or can something change.

Maybe it will become as it was somewhen.

Good luck! :)

Well like I said, my snaps are getting through plenty of times. So that's not really what I posted this for. The low ratings sometimes bum me, ofcourse. Seeing you have a 8.40 rating with 25 votes and then 10 votes later you see it went down to 7.50 can be annoying but doesn't really matter, it's just annoying :p

And I completely agree with that tastes differ and such but to give 1 star.... that shouldn't be just not liking the shot, it's for feeling disgust or loathing for a shot (I for one am always tempted to give a 1star to any shot with Keira Knightley in it, but I get over myself :p).

And don't forget, when you are actually trying to find an average in anything, it always helps to cut of the extremes. Because they have too much of an impact on the main group.

I always try to use the whole scale of possible ratings that's available to me. That means my votes include everything from 1 star to 10 stars, with an average rating that's probably somewhere between 5 and 6. The snapshots that I rate with a 1 are usually shots that I think are completely boring. No interesting content, no interesting visuals. An example would be character shots, that only show the character without any emotional reaction, without anything the character interacts with and without an interesting background or maybe some special lighting.

my voting behaviour is quite similar to dooooms. i rarely give out 1 stars, but i give them out. and i rarely give out 10 stars even when it's a friends shot (sry @my fellows, especially mr. favourite aka bius :D), usually only my favs get 10 stars but also this is no rule and quite rarely... and i confess that if i have rated a shot (e.g. 8) and recognized that the general rating is to low for my taste (e.g. around 7) then i raise the rating (to 10) cause i know it will get rejected otherwise :(

well, i also noticed the general ratingdrop in the way you described it at the last time, just watch the latest sotds http://whatthemovie.com/shot/229194 http://whatthemovie.com/shot/229318 with ratings under 8 Oo thats unusual for a sotd isn't it? or scruffy accepts with a 7.5 shot? a half year ago there was no scruffy accept under 8 wasn't it?

for me its more annoying that sometimes the rating drops but the number of votes doesn't change!? especially in the time of 22.00-00.00... quite frustrating

i think a good way to handle all of this would be a limitation of the times you can revote, like 1, 2 or 3 times, personally i would remove the revote... but well, to be honest: for me it's going well in the moment so generally i don't care about it all :D, but i would be pleased if the voting behaviour would change and it seems like i at least care so much about that i post it here :)

edit: forgot to mention that i also think the mods do a great job in both ways. finding cheaters, low voters, multiple accs etc. and also with the unknown magically accepting randomness :D

I Know what you mean. First I didn't want to say something, since I'm only back a short while. But you only pointed out things, that already existed before I left WTM (and were part of the reason I left. I just got really upset to see some really good shots voted down just so other shots had a chance to make it to FF or because some people thought a special user already had enogh snaps in FF. And I'm not talking about my snaps either ;) And it even more upset me to see, that surely some people used multis or other" friends" to boost their (sometimes not even special) shots in the FF. )
Anyway... even I already realised an immense drop in the rating of shots. The first few days after my return the shots often had very high ratings and 6-7 was rare... most of the shots had 7 + ratings, SotD had 8 or higher most of the time. Now a 7+ rating is already something "special". The average rating for a shot seems to have shifted at least 1 star downwards. And this all just happened over the timespan of 2 weeks, so no wonder it was noticeable to me.
Also I noticed very good shots getting rejected while other, sometimes worse shots made it to FF and even SotD. (All of course just my taste and I'm only speaking for myself here :)
Now to my voting behavior. It ranges from 1 to 10... I try to use all the stars available, that's what they are for, right? ^. I also use 10 rarely, because a shot has to be absolutely awesome to me... that's what the 10 is for in my eyes... if I would give it out all the time, wouldn't make it so special anymore, now would it? I also try to use the 1 very rarely and only when it is justified... shots that get a 1 from me have to be really bad quality, absoluteley boring with nothing special whatsoever (character shots for example) or "tasteless". Of course this is all very subjective and beauty is in the eye of the beholder ;)

Edit: I would like to point out, that it was one of the reasons I decided to come back, because I saw that it seemed to be now fairer here with the ratings, when I saw how high good shots were rated. Now I already am not so sure if it was a good idea, but I will stay for now and see where this all leads ;)

@KajBorg
to "I have noticed that some snapshot rating just seem to drop hard for no apparent reason"
since many years the ratings drops slightly, if the 23 hours left comes closer. Thats nothing new. But this thing its allways much much worse, if Asmodai makes vacation. There are only 2 Mods, after Chrisy left WTM. MisterZob only push a small amount of shots, with a very close spectrum. So about 80% of the uploader gets for the time Asmodai is at vacation no magical accepts. This makes people said and it seems some people try to protect their own shots with low ratings on other shots. I got this conservation after nearly each Asmodai vacation with some friends here, we detect slightly lower rating after Asmodai is away some days. I can't get it, why they get no compensation for Chrisys leaving, WTM got many competent people like Fungus... a 3rd Mod will not solve the whole problem, but will compensate much. For example very frustrating: there are no AU/Memo handed out for the Uploader of Draw the movie and Montage effects. In both i got a shot in the Top 10. Asmodai told me some time ago, he have no time to look for cheating etc. it will take some more time... Now there are many months gone and i see until today nothing changed with my amout of AU and Memos...

@Winterwolf
You wrote "MisterZob only push a small amount of shots, with a very close spectrum. So about 80% of the uploader gets for the time Asmodai is at vacation no magical accepts."
Is this really true? I somehow can't believe this. I mean isn't it the "endeavour" of a mod to be neutral and objective when it comes to push shots to FF? Sure, a mod is a normal player too, but when it comes to accepting shots that person is a mod in that moment when it comes to that "task". I somehow really can't imagine MisterZob would neglect the purpose of this very feature. I mean, it is supposed to be for shots with few solves that got voted down etc. Otherwise it would be really sad... :(

Oh, Phoenix, you didn't know? I'm the Devil and Asmodai is an angel. Everybody knows that. Hence the drop in ratings: just because Asmodai is gone and I'm not gonna accept anything while is away.
According to Winterwolf, I only push a few old shots every day, preferably from my so-called "friends". This has nothing to do with Winterwolf sharing Asmodai's taste and not mine, of course.

Seriously, about the global drop in ratings, I can't say I know why it's happening. Maybe a majority of users became tired of seeing similar shots of the same movies all over again. Or maybe because great uploads haven't been that many these days?
About less shots being pushed, well, lately we're only getting half the amount of shots we used to get, a year ago, in NS. Why should we push as many as before? That would mean pushing shots that are not worth it.
About which shots are pushed? Well, to me, it's always been about getting the right balance. I don't think WTM should be a gallery of CGI postcards. That's why I push some intriguing shots, some shots of more confidential movies (yeah, I still think WTM is also about promoting not-well known movies that are worth seeing), some shots of older movies (yeah, lots of great movies were made long before we were born), some shots from movies that don't have over 100 Archive shots already, and some shots that actually mean something (because movies are not only made of landscapes and sunsets). But those who think that's all I push should open their eyes. Oh, and by the way, for like the 100th time: I don't even look at the uploader's name. I pick the shots I push from the NS overview, where no name is shown.
But I guess writing all this again won't change anything. Be my guest, blame the mod, that's what he is here for.

:O I didn't start this topic to blame any mods. I don't know who pushes what through, nor do I care. I was just putting in a little suggestion how the ratings might become more accurate. I think the mods are doing a fine job and they can not be blamed for any ratings (which this topic was originally about, well intended to be anyway :p)

@MisterZob
Good answer :)
But I'm supprised you are pushng shots from the overview. Some of them are quite difficult to understand when they are reduced to this tiny dimension.
Anyway it's a good thing to hide the uploader's name.

@efji
When I'm about to push them, I've already seen them in full size, back when I rated them and attempted to solve them. Then I usually remember what 2-day old shots look like just from their thumbnails.
Of course, once in a while, for instance for really dark shots, I need to open them again to make sure.

I don't want to join the "blame the mods train" if there ever was one, but Winterwolf has raised a question (at least in my mind). Currently two mods are doing a lot of work (i'm sure much more than the "regular" players see anyway). I don't really see a reason not to recruit a new, third mod. Correct me if i'm wrong though.

@MisterZob, i think you're right about not pushing the same amount of shots through as a year ago. If there are less shots in NS, there should also be less shots in FF. No sense in pushing through "unworthy" shots.

Just my two cents.

Cheers

-edit, could someone explain to me why my forum avatar isn't working?

I don't see how a 3rd mod will solve the problem but that's just my personal opinion. A third mod won't change the way of rating or fix the actual drop or won't be able to push more shots because we don't want to push more shots: in august 2011 we had nearly 270 shots in the NS, now its around 160. The actual number of shots accepted and pushed per day is fine imo.

i already asked myself who could be a good 3rd mod and i didn't find one (again, just my opinion here). There are plenty of good regulars players who are here for a long time but Asmodai & Zob are doing it for such a long time, they worked with naut & tliff, they work with me for more than a year now, they know how the website works perfectly... I don't think they need help, they're doing great except when one is away like now but that's really rare. I also try to help them by giving information about cheaters (sorry guys, i think i'm responsible of more than 50% of the last warns/bans!!) and i coded a lot of features to help them moderate the community easily.

I'm not against changing the way of rating or the whole new submissions though. The actual drop in the ratings is a mystery for me. Boring shots? Less people voting 10? More people voting 1? More accurate votes because of the new features (AUs etc)? I don't know.. But since its a general drop on all shots, we should not worried, from time to time, the way of rating changes with newcomers etc, maybe in a month it would be back to normal, we will see..

And for Winterwolf, i already told you my thought about your DtM shot on IRC, for me you should not get any rewards because of the text on your shot which clearly asks people to vote 10 if they want a DtM 4 contest which makes the rating completely inaccurate. Just my personal opinion again, i'm not a mod (and i don't push shots).

I'm happy to see I'm not paranoid and people see the ratings drop too ! My last 6 shots were rejected with less than 7/10, that's a first for me !

http://whatthemovie.com/shot/230595 : the 7th in a row under 7 :)

Hey guys. Absolute value of ratings is not important (except for SotD vs SotM and SotY). Mods have launched a war against "systematic 10". "Please use the whole range 1-10". The effect is spectacular. Not a big deal except for the uploader's ego!

BTW "just a thought" is the appropriate subject: who is allowed to delete shouts??? and why? I made a spoiler (and spoiled) shout yesterday and it just disapeared, although it was fully relevant :)

Thank you efji, just what I was about to say :) It's only the relative rating that matters, people!

For shouts: mods and the people who shouted can delete them. Although, sometimes something just goes wrong and the shout doesn't arrive.

On pushing: I do it the same way as Zob: I go to the overview, remember which ones I like, open them fully to confirm they're good and then push them.

Also: I'm back.

Welcome back Asmo.
I'm back too in uploading. Not very successful :)
I must add that, with a more spread distribution of votes, a 10 is now more effective than before in pushing up the rating.
Don't hesitate to vote 10 when you like any shot, especially mine :)

Also don't hesitate to vote 1 when you really dislike a shot, no matter whose.