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I try to look at an image in a few ways.

I start at 10 and deduct from there. I look at things like:

1. Is it based?
2. Are mold lines removed?
3. Highlights and Blending
4. Good use of colors.
5. Advanced techniques used.
6. Is it an easy model to paint (large surfaces vs highly detailed).
7. Rule of Cool.

I agree that people tend to vote strangely on dakka. So take it with a grain of salt. Same thing with CMON people tend to skew lower but on a site like that its expected.

Heck I would be happy if more people voted on stuff. I have over 80 images and none with more than 4 votes.

Kevv6 wrote:
You could even make that the change .. you can't leave votes without putting a comment in the comments box, just the same as when you fill out an online form/application.

No, bad idea, there aren't enough votes to go round as it is, no point making it harder for people. No one actually likes online forms, do they?
With time the comments would become so spammy that they'd become worthless. , OK, 10/10, Ace, Bad, :(, 5* and that lind of nonsense.
Currently with the quick vote system I can sit down on occations and smash out 20 or so votes in 5 minutes. I suggest anyone reading this thread takes a break and does the same for a bit!

I'm surprised anyone takes the voting here seriously. It is all over the place.

Fun fact time!
We have 77,723 registered users
We have 504654 images

Each image needs 5 votes to become active
We need 2523270 votes in theory to make every image active. ie showing it's score.

We need to average out 32.46 votes each!!!!

In order to get a fair number of votes for the scores to even out i'd suggest each image gets at least 20 votes

We're gonna have to average 130 votes each just to get the gallery voting system working up to scratch.

Now if a mod can tell us how many new pics per day Dakka averages and how many new users we get daily then with some kind of maths someone smart should be able to figure out how many posts we should each make per day/week/month in order to keep the gallery in good order.

Those that don't keep up will be left behind!

Well, I've voted 1 723, so I'm on the ball. You guys need to keep up.

You've posted 3004 times
You've only voted a paltry 1723 times
Keep up!

Edit: Ok, you fixed it. Good job now keep running, they're gaining on us!

I made a similar thread few years ago and I think the best reply was about "whats the point of voting if scores are given via strick set of rules".

I think the best way to give scores is give them a number and then ask why you gave that number. If you can't answer you should lower the score.

I think the real "problem" is more of the community at large. Dakka just doesn't have quite the same vibe as places like coolminiornot. The community itself isn't made up of higher end painters everywhere, so I think when people scroll through and they seem something they like, or they know that they can't do they score it high, which is why so many "lower end" paints and models get high scores. Everyone has a different standard, but no one here really bashes heavily on painting, and we give each other a lot of tips, help, and like to see improvement.

While someone may start with say, a coat of green, a blob of red so on and so forth, over time they eventually get better and I think people when they click through a forum or a gallery and see that improvement will score higher as a result of the actions of the painter/modeller.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
Fun fact time!
We have 77,723 registered users
We have 504654 images

Each image needs 5 votes to become active
We need 2523270 votes in theory to make every image active. ie showing it's score.

We need to average out 32.46 votes each!!!!

In order to get a fair number of votes for the scores to even out i'd suggest each image gets at least 20 votes

We're gonna have to average 130 votes each just to get the gallery voting system working up to scratch.

Now if a mod can tell us how many new pics per day Dakka averages and how many new users we get daily then with some kind of maths someone smart should be able to figure out how many posts we should each make per day/week/month in order to keep the gallery in good order.

Those that don't keep up will be left behind!

I love your proactive thinking and as you mentioned yesterday I only had 19 image and I have since then bumped it up to 60, as you said I have to lead by example.

To be honest, i actually ignore painting scores now
I can turn out some really quick and nasty models which get voted up higher than something ive spent ages painting

Also, i just go for the coolness votes instead now
More open to comments, but suits me alot more.
Stuff like this works better for me to upload:

@Troller: Good job buddy, you can really rattle through them with the turbo voter (even at work or on the phone) Shhh, don't tell the boss.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
You've posted 3004 times
You've only voted a paltry 1723 times
Keep up!

Edit: Ok, you fixed it. Good job now keep running, they're gaining on us!

Welp there goes my weekend to voting to catch up to posts.

There are limits, lol.

Just to add to the comments about how users vote.

I will generally score a model with a basic paint scheme, but done to a high standard, higher than I will a mini where a technique is also applied, such as NMM OSL etc, but which does not have consistency of finish.

Really I browse the gallery to see cool sculpting, converting and kit bashing rather than the same oldpaint tecniques covering the same few minis.

I like a story behind what I see as well. taking CMONS gallery as an example Look at the top 10 for 2013 Touch of Death is pretty rad, really sweet brush work AND sculpting (which I am more inspired by than the paint job). Then I have to stop myself reading the artists theme because knowing the artists hackneyed vision I then look back and think....meh.

If I see a good pose on a mini, a good theme and a paintjob that suits the theme I may vote. I consider the painting score to include posing posture and relevance as well. Hell, I'll vote up a 3 colours minimum jobby if the mini is cleaned up and speaks to me.

 Troller wrote:


I don't have a lot of votes and posts because of the way I use dakka dakka. Due to the problem with voting I never really bother unless I see something really awesome. And I use dakka dakka a lot for inspiration so I browse a lot of forums to see what other people are doing to see if I can spark up some ideas there is no real point in posting. ANd I tried to do my own WIP forum but got to lazy to keep updating. Understand I have plenty of ground stand on from experiences on other sites where the voting system may gauge more value. I have been browsing CMON daily for about 1 and a half years now so I have seen plenty of scope.
.

I somewhat understand your assessment of the ranking system. But you lose me with the above quote. If you choose to not vote the way you feel the system should be used for both good and poor painting, why are you complaining? I go into the gallery almost every time I log on and let the random selection choose what I'm looking at. Then I vote accordingly. Sometimes that vote is N/A. But if you don't participate, I don't get the complaining.

Also, a 1 - 10 scale is about as subjective as you can get. Someone who is a beginner or maybe just has no art skill whatsoever might look at a mediocre paintjob as fantastic. A skilled painter may view the same paintjob as very poor. So having issue with a 1 - 10 rating system really doesn't fly, when it comes to something so subjective. If you don't like your stuff ranked, don't allow it. But you're never going to get a standard rating system on a 1 - 10 scale with as many varying users as are on this site. It's kinda like screaming at the moon to not rise, or holding back the tide. It's wasted energy.

This is an open, public forum dedicated to wargaming as a whole.

If the scores are not to what you see is the correct standard, it's because everyone on here is not critiquing the same way as you.

The fact of the matter is that people will give the scores they view are fair using their own ideal scale. If it differs in some way from yours or the professional standard, it's because they are viewing it from a different perspective.

It's hard to make an argument that the system is being misused when it's being put in a public place where general opinion holds more weight than artistic value. If this was CMON or any other site which was created with a more exclusive slant towards paint job quality, I'd agree with you, but this is a public forum. The scores are what they are, simply because of it's open nature.

TBH I'm just happy with people voting. I tend to go for 5 as table top quality and add or detract from there.

I used to be a regular voter. I even made a point of spending time with the Turbovoter set to "needs more votes" images, only. I joined Kid_Kyoto's crusade to increase voting when he stepped in as gallery mod, but that fizzled out after a while and I eventually gave up, as well. My vote count has barely changed, since then.

Images that garner lots of votes tend to be those that get viewed constantly (having been bumped up by initial high votes, then maintained as they actually are cool), making my vote an irrelevant drop in a very large bucket of praise (not all of which is necessarily deserved - many seem to vote based on a "coolness threshold," over which all images are 10/10, or perhaps they can't justify giving an 8 or 9 to something cool but flawed, having seen lesser models earn those scores). Images with minimal votes tend to have such scattered ratings that it would take many more to normalize the scores - votes that they won't likely get for some time, if ever. WIP shots of bare plastic end up with paintjob ratings of 5 or more, suggesting that many voters aren't even thinking about the system, let alone being consistent in their own personal scoring criteria (which itself is far removed from more general scoring homogeneity).

My own early uploads were some of those struggling to get five votes. When they eventually did, I learned nothing. I was seeing 3-4 point swings between shots of the same model from different angles. After a year of receiving no further votes, let alone any written feedback, I just disabled the scores, altogether. I needed neither a boost nor hit to my ego and they could serve no other purpose. I consider the gallery voting useless to me, as it is, and others will handle the job of bumping cool images to the front page.

Voting won't likely get "fixed" in such a way that I would find it useful (like being able to filter votes, leaving only the ratings of those who score models similarly to me, based on others' models we've both rated, thereby allowing me to get an accurate read - i.e. using my own scale - without being swayed by my personal level of satisfaction), so I would simply go elsewhere if I wanted more consistent numerical feedback. Here, I give verbal feedback in-thread and if I ever want it, myself, that's where I'll seek it.

TL,DR: If you don't like it, just ignore it - things won't change. [/curmudgeon]