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I don't mean to offend but this seems to be the honest truth, that dakka dakka browsers are misusing the image scoring. Why is it that so many mediocre paint jobs have a score of 9/10? These people have lost all sense of standard where great pieces that take months to produce are about 9.7+ and mediocre singular coat paint jobs are ending up around 9.3. When voting you should keep in mind that you should be using the 1-10 scale as a bell curve for it to have any meaning, for those that don't know how one works most works should score around a 5 while only around half of 1% of pieces should receive a 10 same goes for a model scoring a 1. You aren't hurting anyone's feeling by giving and honest score. This is why dakka dakka seems to be the butt of the joke amongst other forums, there is no credibility here. I don't want to go to another webpage i started hobbing with dakka dakka and got a lot of inspiration from here but we need to change the way we vote so that it actually caries value. Please try to spread the word so we can make dakka dakka a respectable place.

I hope I'm not indulging your username but someone's vote is subjective. One person's 6 is another's 8 or 7 or 2.

I was afraid some one would take my username the wrong way, I picked that back when I was obsessed with my troll only WOC army and there is no way to change it >_>

And I just think we should have some form standard, I mean if everything is a 10 we might as well replace voting with likes or stickers or something

I agree with Brennus43. Also there have bene a lot of rather whiny threads in the past complaining that their models haven't been marked highly enough, so it spossible everyone basically bumps the numbers up a bit. Or we're all just all really easy to please

Also in my view this is more of a hobby site rather than a professional painting review site.

This sort of debate happens in nearly every artistic medium. We, as consumers, are sort of ingrained to look for a score. If you, instead, would just read a critique of what the product had you could make the decision for yourself. That would make the number irrelevant.

Where as in music you might hate death metal and therefore all music in that genre would score a 1 and you love hip hope and then your thoughts on hip hop music would have a more broad spectrum. A model is a little more quantitative as its almost a paint by numbers job. I don't want to diminish anyone's skill or creativity, but it's certainly a lot easier for the majority of people to discern what is bad and great.

Really in games where so many people bring grey models to the table, I'd give a bland, haphazardly applied paint job a 9 over someone who brings unpainted models for months or years.

Time wasn't really what I meant to focus, but when I see a model with a simple coat of a red compared to one that my have been blended or use technique being scored around the same that's where I see a problem. I guess I shouldn't really care, but I have always seen the scale as a kind of feedback to the creator to aspire to something greater, maybe now they are about a 5 but they know they can be better and improve. I feel that we are in such an age of instant gratification where people are so quick to give out 10's.

Ah, I see, you're not complaining about the scoring in general, as much as the fact that other people are getting scores nearly as high as yours, which are better?

 Troller wrote:
Time wasn't really what I meant to focus, but when I see a model with a simple coat of a red compared to one that my have been blended or use technique being scored around the same that's where I see a problem. I guess I shouldn't really care, but I have always seen the scale as a kind of feedback to the creator to aspire to something greater, maybe now they are about a 5 but they know they can be better and improve. I feel that we are in such an age of instant gratification where people are so quick to give out 10's.

That goes both ways as well. If someone is doing their best and consistently getting a 4/10 and even though they are enjoying it those scores may demotivate them. I totally agree with you about receiving constructive criticism but a number hardly tells them anything at all.

Really though, all of us should always be trying to improve.

@Hivefleet OblivionMade
No, what I don't even think any of mine deserve what they have they were from what i painted a while back, they are very much so sub par. I'm just trying to say that the voting system has lost its value because people are misusing it. The whole point of a voting system is to judge a work, and to give everything a high score is equivalent to a kids soccer game where everyone is a winner and there is no real value.


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 Brennus43 wrote:

 Troller wrote:
Time wasn't really what I meant to focus, but when I see a model with a simple coat of a red compared to one that my have been blended or use technique being scored around the same that's where I see a problem. I guess I shouldn't really care, but I have always seen the scale as a kind of feedback to the creator to aspire to something greater, maybe now they are about a 5 but they know they can be better and improve. I feel that we are in such an age of instant gratification where people are so quick to give out 10's.

That goes both ways as well. If someone is doing their best and consistently getting a 4/10 and even though they are enjoying it those scores may demotivate them. I totally agree with you about receiving constructive criticism but a number hardly tells them anything at all.

Really though, all of us should always be trying to improve.

Yeah, I guess it does really all come down to what people are saying in the comments, although most of those are even just "very cool" and "awesome" which are usually right there are some really sick conversions on here and that's why I love dakka dakka. I don't know why maybe I'm just weird but I like to have a strong sense in the value of a number so that if I ever do produce something worthy of a 9 or a 10 I will know it will have meant something

Troller wrote:Yeah, I guess it does really all come down to what people are saying in the comments, although most of those are even just "very cool" and "awesome" which are usually right there are some really sick conversions on here and that's why I love dakka dakka. I don't know why maybe I'm just weird but I like to have a strong sense int he value of a number so that if I ever do produce something worthy of a 9 or a 10 I will know it will have meant something

Not to get too psychological about it but I wouldn't ever recommend judging your work by what other people think. I know it's impossible to try and say, "Don't compare your work to others." When I painted my first terminator I thought it was awesome. I look at it now and go, "2/10 at best." Last year I painted Death Guard Termies and think, "those are a solid 6!" In 3 or 4 years I might go, "Wow, what was I thinking?!" If you have a model your proud of, be proud of it whether people like it or not.

This is strictly a hobby side, if you're taking this approach as a professional painter, you're probably not going to do well.

Troller, I don't get why everyone is fighting you.

You are right. There is an obvious quality difference between many of the 9-10s and this shouldn't be the case. 9-10 should be reserved for models better than the quality produced by professionals, 4-6 for those painters who are average, and 1-3 for paintjobs which are simplistic or unskilled.

There is no subjectivity (or very little), in assessing the number and difficulty and success of various techniques used in the painting of a model. There aren't genres of painting as implied by the music analogy. Anything that is subjective (such as, I don't like the colours you used) is accounted for with a few points of flexibility.

Voting Discussions. Starting to feel like CMON around here.

 lunarman wrote:
Troller, I don't get why everyone is fighting you.

You are right. There is an obvious quality difference between many of the 9-10s and this shouldn't be the case. 9-10 should be reserved for models better than the quality produced by professionals, 4-6 for those painters who are average, and 1-3 for paintjobs which are simplistic or unskilled.

There is no subjectivity (or very little), in assessing the number and difficulty and success of various techniques used in the painting of a model. There aren't genres of painting as implied by the music analogy. Anything that is subjective (such as, I don't like the colours you used) is accounted for with a few points of flexibility.

That's what I'm trying to say. The numbers are irrelevant. The gallery doesn't need them at all. There really is no debate.

 lunarman wrote:
Troller, I don't get why everyone is fighting you.

You are right. There is an obvious quality difference between many of the 9-10s and this shouldn't be the case. 9-10 should be reserved for models better than the quality produced by professionals, 4-6 for those painters who are average, and 1-3 for paintjobs which are simplistic or unskilled.

There is no subjectivity (or very little), in assessing the number and difficulty and success of various techniques used in the painting of a model. There aren't genres of painting as implied by the music analogy. Anything that is subjective (such as, I don't like the colours you used) is accounted for with a few points of flexibility.

I'm glad to see some one shares my point of view, although Brennus34 has some great points, and when it come down to it all it really is all just about the love of the hobby. I just want the numbers to have meaning so when people earn them they know that they have earned them.


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I think the biggest problem I have is that there are two bars to vote one fro coolness and one for paint job, but rarely are the two number too different form each other. It seems when some one sees a cool conversion (about a 9) and its painted just painted in general it usually gets about the same score even if it is very simple and average. I guess I feel that the double vote system is misused the most.

Sorry if this sounds a little aggressive, but with only 19 gallery votes under your belt at the time of posting you don't really have a leg to stand on.
The more votes that models get the more these anomalies will be smoothed out.
The problem with the Dakka system is that there are an enormous number of images and relatively few people voting on them (or really caring about their votes). There's just so much other content to enjoy that it kind of gets a bit left behind and as mentioned before it's not a Painting website but a general hobby website.
Lead by example and get voting!

I think another problem (that is probably not as widespread as I think it may be) is people using dummy accounts to inflate their scores. I guess change would be a good idea but I have no idea what would work better.

 lunarman wrote:
Troller, I don't get why everyone is fighting you.

You are right. There is an obvious quality difference between many of the 9-10s and this shouldn't be the case. 9-10 should be reserved for models better than the quality produced by professionals, 4-6 for those painters who are average, and 1-3 for paintjobs which are simplistic or unskilled.

There is no subjectivity (or very little), in assessing the number and difficulty and success of various techniques used in the painting of a model. There aren't genres of painting as implied by the music analogy. Anything that is subjective (such as, I don't like the colours you used) is accounted for with a few points of flexibility.

But it depends on the people making the judgement. Are they scoring the skill and the techniques used, or are they simply putting a number to the feelings they get when they look at the model. It might be possible to get an objective score fo rthe first kind of review, but the second kind is totally subjective and based on the whim of the person at the time of voting.

An analogy to the music genre in painting might just be not liking purple paint jobs, or chaos marines make them angry regardless of the quality of the paint job, or maybe they've reviewed a bunch of similar things and are sick of that particular model/army/colour combo.

I understand what your saying and it would be lovely to see a true reflection of what your paintjob/coolness was.... but that wont ever happen and Im not sure it should.

Firstly: The overall members on this site are not professionals. They range in skill, age and maturity. you cannot expect to achieve an overall and consistent scoring system when the people scoring have completely different ideas of what they consider good/bad. Your analysis of any data can only be as accurate as the inital source of data, and sadly you'll never have accurate data where anyone/everyone can have a say.

Secondly: Like you said there are other sites like CMON and tbh, I dont want dakka to become CMON, where any work you put up is instantly picked apart and thrown back at you. Yes that may be constructive for someone who is a professional and will take it on the chin (as they want to know what is wrong), but for someone improving/beginning -which we get a lot of on dakka, negative critism will most likely have a negative impact. Infact about a month ago I saw exactly that. A guy posted on CMON, got a 4/5, came back to dakka asking for help and recieved a thread load of comments on how he can improve. Which IMO is how dakka should be.

if you want a true rating of your paint job tbh even CMON will not give you a truely accurate result. the only way to achieve a true reflection would be to have it submitted to a panel of professionals and even then its still subject to THEIR opinion which is enivitably biased in someway.

Thirdly: Ive never really used the scoring system as a feedback, yeh its nice and all to get a good score, you feel good, but like you said the comments are normally just "cool" and "awesome". Hence we have the sub-forum for complete mini's, where you can recieve feedback and opinions, yes its not a score, but it is certainly a more evolved evaluation of your work - the only difference is you have to actually take the time to read it.

Well thats my two cents, was not trying to tell anyone they were wrong, simply my opinion on the matter

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
Sorry if this sounds a little aggressive, but with only 19 gallery votes under your belt at the time of posting you don't really have a leg to stand on.
The more votes that models get the more these anomalies will be smoothed out.
The problem with the Dakka system is that there are an enormous number of images and relatively few people voting on them (or really caring about their votes). There's just so much other content to enjoy that it kind of gets a bit left behind and as mentioned before it's not a Painting website but a general hobby website.
Lead by example and get voting!

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.


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Solar Shock wrote:
I understand what your saying and it would be lovely to see a true reflection of what your paintjob/coolness was.... but that wont ever happen and Im not sure it should.

Firstly: The overall members on this site are not professionals. They range in skill, age and maturity. you cannot expect to achieve an overall and consistent scoring system when the people scoring have completely different ideas of what they consider good/bad. Your analysis of any data can only be as accurate as the inital source of data, and sadly you'll never have accurate data where anyone/everyone can have a say.

Secondly: Like you said there are other sites like CMON and tbh, I dont want dakka to become CMON, where any work you put up is instantly picked apart and thrown back at you. Yes that may be constructive for someone who is a professional and will take it on the chin (as they want to know what is wrong), but for someone improving/beginning -which we get a lot of on dakka, negative critism will most likely have a negative impact. Infact about a month ago I saw exactly that. A guy posted on CMON, got a 4/5, came back to dakka asking for help and recieved a thread load of comments on how he can improve. Which IMO is how dakka should be.

if you want a true rating of your paint job tbh even CMON will not give you a truely accurate result. the only way to achieve a true reflection would be to have it submitted to a panel of professionals and even then its still subject to THEIR opinion which is enivitably biased in someway.

Thirdly: Ive never really used the scoring system as a feedback, yeh its nice and all to get a good score, you feel good, but like you said the comments are normally just "cool" and "awesome". Hence we have the sub-forum for complete mini's, where you can recieve feedback and opinions, yes its not a score, but it is certainly a more evolved evaluation of your work - the only difference is you have to actually take the time to read it.

Well thats my two cents, was not trying to tell anyone they were wrong, simply my opinion on the matter

Yeah, your pretty much right and there are other sites that would better fit the scale/environment I'm looking for, it's just dakka dakka feels like home for me and I just wanted it to be perfect to me, but I guess I can't ask for perfection, well at least my sense of perfection And true the scoring system may not be a good score of feed back but like you said "few people vote", but even fewer comment and even less are the critique I am looking for.

 Troller wrote:

Yeah, your pretty much right and there are other sites that would better fit the scale/environment I'm looking for, it's just dakka dakka feels like home for me and I just wanted it to be perfect to me, but I guess I can't ask for perfection, well at least my sense of perfection And true the scoring system may not be a good score of feed back but like you said "few people vote", but even fewer comment and even less are the critique I am looking for.

I know exactly how you feel, I love dakka since joniing its a daily romp. I have posted gallery images but have found for good feedback I just have to make the effort to make a post and ask for it Tbh if you snuck a few pics in this thread im sure you'd get plenty of feedback (even with this being a completely different topic )

Solar Shock wrote:

 Troller wrote:

Yeah, your pretty much right and there are other sites that would better fit the scale/environment I'm looking for, it's just dakka dakka feels like home for me and I just wanted it to be perfect to me, but I guess I can't ask for perfection, well at least my sense of perfection And true the scoring system may not be a good score of feed back but like you said "few people vote", but even fewer comment and even less are the critique I am looking for.

I know exactly how you feel, I love dakka since joniing its a daily romp. I have posted gallery images but have found for good feedback I just have to make the effort to make a post and ask for it Tbh if you snuck a few pics in this thread im sure you'd get plenty of feedback (even with this being a completely different topic )

I might just have to give the WIP forum another go and hope for better luck and try harder to keep updating it, how ever I think I would create a new account because this name doesn't suit me anymore, due to it's new sense of negative connotation, that and I have been long since done with my troll army. Unless anyone else knows how to change an account username because I haven't got a clue.

i get where troller is coming from here and i dont know why people are so defensive about the system being abused.
go over to CMON and it is just as bad with the 'popular' and more regualar posters getting higher scores than they deserve.
although there are some genuine awesome paint jobs that get great feedback there is definately a tendancy to rate up people you like.

if this happens on dakka or not im not sure as i really have not paid much attention to the gallery, but what troller says is completely justified in my opinion.

if a 1 - 10 vote is implemented then really it should be used properly, and i understand it subjective but i can see some very unreasonable score being given to 'friends'

 Troller wrote:
Due to the problem with voting I never really bother unless I see something really awesome. I browse a lot of forums to see what other people are doing ...........there is no real point in posting. ANd I tried to do my own WIP forum but got to lazy to keep updating.

You get out what you put in really, as I said lead by example. Dakka is a free site and a community, you can't expect these improvements without working towards improving them.
It's a two way street.

It'd even out as the number of votes increases obviously. I've seen some rather mediocre things on the front page only to be unsurprised to find they had a handful of votes and one of them belonged to the owner. It's not some competition, but I think it'd be better off if people could not vote on their own stuff because of these few.

 Troller wrote:
I never really bother unless I see something really awesome.

So you only vote when you see a model that you consider as great. Then I guess you only give high scores when you rate an image (since you only do that on awesome ones).

And you wonder why ratings are high on the Dakka gallery ? Isn't that a bit... contradictory ?



Plus, as many people said above, we are talking about painting there, it's 100% subjective. Maybe you hate models that I love. Maybe there are models that you see as awesome and that are at best mediocre to me. And that's a good thing. When a model here on dakka has a 9/9 score with 5 votes, it doesn't mean much. When it has 9/9 with 50, or 200 votes, it doesn't prove that it is the best paintjob in the world but it shows that a lot of people appreciate it. And that's what matters.

I can't see why when someone votes on a picture that they leave a comment (doesn't have to be a long one) on why they gave the vote they did. 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. My 2 pennies worth. Now, if you could all go look at my galleries please

The votes do have an effect because models with high scores are featured more often in the splash page at the start of the site.

However it's hard to believe that a really average model would get a few 10 votes and manage to keep it up. As more and more people see it and vote lower, it would drop down the rankings.

Go to the Gallery now and look at the splash page and the "top images this week" page.

I don't think any of them are just average.

I will admit, I might score models a little too high. Because of school marking, I'm used to anything being below a 6/10 being a bad mark and 7/10 being average.

I have to admit that the votes in my gallery is very inconsistent: the same model will have a 9 or higher while on another photo it'll have 7. But it doesn't bother me one bit, because I don't see the score as a direct representation of how good my work is. Sure it's nice to have a high score so that other people will see my works more (hello splash page!) but I don't see how a group of different users with different backgrounds with different painting and modelling skills judging my work objectively (not to mention that most users will also score how you present your work: it doesn't matter if you have the greatest paintjob on earth if you have a gakky photo). If you view it like that, the score won't matter anymore.

Just don't let it bother you. If you want constructive criticism, go to CMON or in Painting Showcase here on Dakka and ask for ways on how to improve your work. Or just ask a friend who'll tell you honestly. Looking at scores made by a bunch of random strangers won't really help.

If you look in my gallery I have the same model taken from different angles with completely different scores - it happens.
I only pay attension to comments now.