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Partially out of curiosity and partially out of disappointment I'll pop this up.
I spend a LOT of time on the Dakka galleries. I'm more into the painting of figs than into the gaming itself and one of my favourit paers of Dakka is the huge number of photos that folk have put up of their finished works, their WIPs, thier armies and so on. A battle takes a few hours, producing a fine, proud to be fielded fig takes a fethload longer than that. Yeet, as I was firing through the randoms earlier and seeing some great work, some not so great stuff (which the artists, and yes, they are bloody artists as they have put brush to mini and I'm sure enjoyed that process as I do and put time and passion into it) and some odd things....whcih I still enjoyed - I realised......can, what seems like, the gross majority not be bothered to give a simpe vote on what they think of what someone has spent time, usually quite a few hours on, and then posted up for others to look at??? I came across a couple that stick in mind - really really well painted figs - and according to the page had hundreds of views but not a single vote>>??? come one folks - cant we give a little feedback to the budding artists are ar trying their best at what is a damnedtricky artform anf then posting their work on a very large and public forum?
I then went back to some of the thread that I'm intersted in....the non P&M threads. Loadsa lovely folk there tis true. Was surprised, actually bit shocked tbh - as I did a wee look through and folk with 100's if not 1000's of posts to their profile but zero votes in the gallery. I'm not having a go here, but it takes a few minutes to have a gander through some of the pics of people's figs and work and click click painting/coolness and leave an opinion. If you're really feeling excited; a wee wee constructive comment.....
Anyways..... that's my 2 pennies. Just something that's been bugging me so I reckoned I'd get it off my chest and throw it out there. Happy painting Daks and thanks for what is def the best forum site going

There is a gallery?

I jest, but in honesty I never go on the gallery anyway.

Not been on the galleries - I shall put it on my list of things to do

I spend a good amount of time going through random images and sending votes out. It's a great way to get inspired before you start a new project.

I occasionally kill some time flicking through the galleries and doing votes

 gunslingerpro wrote:
I spend a good amount of time going through random images and sending votes out. It's a great way to get inspired before you start a new project.

totally. Some of the stuff there has given me great ideas. I've just started doing a Mymeara ECW schemed army and my first stop was the galleries for some inspiration

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I occasionally kill some time flicking through the galleries and doing votes

...as the weight of your voting crushes my paltry efforts into dust

It would be great if images posted in the forum from the gallery had a rating box next to the forum image so people did not even have to click through to the gallery to vote. People (myself included) are lazy, so making voting easier is only a good thing.

Coding it on the other hand...

I must admit I don't tend to vote/comment on images in the gallery as readily as I do if I see some work displayed in a thread, and it's probably something I should do more of. There are a couple of reasons why I don't, though.

First is that if it's a thread, be it showcase, blog or just general P&M thread, I usually get some insight into the goals, abilities and methods of the painter, so it's easier to comment with that in mind. For example, if someone has put together an army to a good tabletop standard and posts a thread on it, I can see what they have set out to do and what they have achieved, whereas in a vacuum in the gallery I won't neccessarily judge it by those parameters, but instead judge it against the only metric available, the other images in the gallery. As such, the score I give it might not actually reflect the praise the mini/unit/army might deserve. A perfectly good tabletop quality army that deserves a ton of praise might get a low score in the gallery simply by being out of context.

Another is that in a thread, I know the OP is likely to be looking for feedback and able to respond to any questions, whereas a vote or comment in the gallery might go unnoticed for months. Again, on the other side of it, I would much rather have a comment n my blog or a showcase thread I make than a vote in my gallery (especially as until I get 5 votes I can't even see what that vote is).

 Paradigm wrote:
I must admit I don't tend to vote/comment on images in the gallery as readily as I do if I see some work displayed in a thread, and it's probably something I should do more of. There are a couple of reasons why I don't, though.

First is that if it's a thread, be it showcase, blog or just general P&M thread, I usually get some insight into the goals, abilities and methods of the painter, so it's easier to comment with that in mind. For example, if someone has put together an army to a good tabletop standard and posts a thread on it, I can see what they have set out to do and what they have achieved, whereas in a vacuum in the gallery I won't neccessarily judge it by those parameters, but instead judge it against the only metric available, the other images in the gallery. As such, the score I give it might not actually reflect the praise the mini/unit/army might deserve. A perfectly good tabletop quality army that deserves a ton of praise might get a low score in the gallery simply by being out of context.

Another is that in a thread, I know the OP is likely to be looking for feedback and able to respond to any questions, whereas a vote or comment in the gallery might go unnoticed for months. Again, on the other side of it, I would much rather have a comment n my blog or a showcase thread I make than a vote in my gallery (especially as until I get 5 votes I can't even see what that vote is).

couple of tt points there. I know I've found myself more likely to skip on if there is no title or description going with the pic. A simple title gives you some sort of idea whatit is (even when blatantly obv) and a descritpion (even a brief one) adds a lot of what they're up to. There is the odd holy grail out there who even add a bit of background/fluff (love those bastards!!)
Any bit of xtra background detail to a pic really adds to it and def makes me take a 2nd, 3rd..look at it.An you're bag on the mark - context makes a difference. However, I think the designers have made it as easy as possible for members to quickly give their opinion (for bettr or worse) on an image. 2 clicks - painting & coolness (and if you want, add a comment) and I pretty much agree there - if you want any sort of group opinion it needs to be kept simple, easy and non-time consuming. Still (it seems..could be wrong) most folk cant be arsed to put a little opinion into what is a major part of, and to some, a really important ad personal part of the hobby. Another 2 pennies

It does seem that the majority of people don't bother to spend much time, if any, voting on gallery pics, but there is an upside to that coin, which is the P&M sections of the forum.

There are a great number of posters, some of them incredibly talented painters and modellers, who spend a great deal of time providing feedback and advice in a much more constructive manner than simply clicking 1-10 in the gallery.

It is nice to see votes too though.

Honestly, the gallery really only exists for me to host my own stuff. I never browse it.

Selfish, I know, but that's how it is.

Yeah, I did this maths a few months ago in a discussion in P+M but I've just done it again with the current figures.

92552 Users
640980 Images.
Each image needs 5 votes to get a score.
We need 3204900 votes total.
That's 34.6 votes each.

Now some users an no longer online and some won't be interested and some will vote more than others but I'd love to see the votes begin to tick up.

 hungryp wrote:
It does seem that the majority of people don't bother to spend much time, if any, voting on gallery pics, but there is an upside to that coin, which is the P&M sections of the forum.

There are a great number of posters, some of them incredibly talented painters and modellers, who spend a great deal of time providing feedback and advice in a much more constructive manner than simply clicking 1-10 in the gallery.

It is nice to see votes too though.

f'sure. there is some seriously awesome work out there.

ok, here is my reasoning for not voting in the gallery...
this may seem elitist, but keep in mind that i spend between 4-8 hours a day painting my butt off to become a better painter...

i don't vote, because i don't want to hurt anybody's feelings with low votes...
i look at painting from the perspective of my own abilities as a baseline...
my work is the lowest acceptable quality, while the ranks of those who paint better than me are where i aspire to be...

so, if we are taking a scale of 1-10, a 5 would be tabletop quality...
my idea of tabletop quality is the most basic quality i would apply to a paintjob...
others have a different definition of tabletop quality...
so while i would rate one of my Ultramarine vehicles a 5, others may rate it an 8...

now, one person's display quality may be what i would rank as tabletop...
they would rate their work an 8, while i would rate it a 5, and then the painter would be hurt that i gave them such a low score...

personally, i think a lot of the submissions here are scored way too high...
that is my personal opinion, and i would not vote someone's work down simply because it does not match my definitions of paint "levels"...
instead, i just won't vote...
the reasoning that i have read on here many times, is that most of the Dakka users are "hobbyists", not professionals, and should be held to a different standard...
unfortunately, i am a professional, so that is how i see mini painting...
i don't know what is acceptable, or outstanding, to a hobbyist, because i am not one...

i would rather not vote, than give someone a vote that they consider low and hurtful, even if i feel it is an honest appraisal of the paintjob from my perspective...
just my 2cents...

cheers
jah

The numbers do become somewhat arbitrary with such a wide range of talent. Perhaps someone super-knowledgeable could make a video carefully outlining what amount of paint, shades, and highlights need to be present for a model to be placed into each rank, from 0-10?

Voting only really works when a lot of people do it. You'll have people like jag-joshua who'll give you a 2 because you didn't properly blend your shades and other people who'll give you a 10 as long as it looks cool regardless of technical skill. I randomly have a picture in my gallery that is 9.5 for some reason, it's not terribly well painted, it's not based and I didn't set up a photo booth to photograph it but enough people liked it to vote it up, I'm flattered but I myself wouldn't have given it anywhere near that Other times you see pretty well painted models which are like 7 or 8 because of a few tiny flaws that people picked out of an otherwise awesome model.

To be meaningful, you really need maybe 50+ votes to balance out the extremes.

 Januine wrote:
Partially out of curiosity and partially out of disappointment I'll pop this up.
I spend a LOT of time on the Dakka galleries. I'm more into the painting of figs than into the gaming itself and one of my favourit paers of Dakka is the huge number of photos that folk have put up of their finished works, their WIPs, thier armies and so on. A battle takes a few hours, producing a fine, proud to be fielded fig takes a fethload longer than that. Yeet, as I was firing through the randoms earlier and seeing some great work, some not so great stuff (which the artists, and yes, they are bloody artists as they have put brush to mini and I'm sure enjoyed that process as I do and put time and passion into it) and some odd things....whcih I still enjoyed - I realised......can, what seems like, the gross majority not be bothered to give a simpe vote on what they think of what someone has spent time, usually quite a few hours on, and then posted up for others to look at??? I came across a couple that stick in mind - really really well painted figs - and according to the page had hundreds of views but not a single vote>>??? come one folks - cant we give a little feedback to the budding artists are ar trying their best at what is a damnedtricky artform anf then posting their work on a very large and public forum?
I then went back to some of the thread that I'm intersted in....the non P&M threads. Loadsa lovely folk there tis true. Was surprised, actually bit shocked tbh - as I did a wee look through and folk with 100's if not 1000's of posts to their profile but zero votes in the gallery. I'm not having a go here, but it takes a few minutes to have a gander through some of the pics of people's figs and work and click click painting/coolness and leave an opinion. If you're really feeling excited; a wee wee constructive comment.....
Anyways..... that's my 2 pennies. Just something that's been bugging me so I reckoned I'd get it off my chest and throw it out there. Happy painting Daks and thanks for what is def the best forum site going

I make it a point to vote on every figure that I actually form an opinion upon.

This means that if the figure rises to at least above a 6, or below a 4, then I will vote on it.

And if I vote on something lower than. 4, I make it a point to explain that vote (of whichI think there have been two) so that they can improve with their next attempt.

That people don't vote bugs the heck out of me as well.

MB


Automatically Appended Next Post:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Voting only really works when a lot of people do it. You'll have people like jag-joshua who'll give you a 2 because you didn't properly blend your shades and other people who'll give you a 10 as long as it looks cool regardless of technical skill. I randomly have a picture in my gallery that is 9.5 for some reason, it's not terribly well painted, it's not based and I didn't set up a photo booth to photograph it but enough people liked it to vote it up, I'm flattered but I myself wouldn't have given it anywhere near that Other times you see pretty well painted models which are like 7 or 8 because of a few tiny flaws that people picked out of an otherwise awesome model.

To be meaningful, you really need maybe 50+ votes to balance out the extremes.

This is very true in an environment where you have a lot of people who have never had to regularly critique a work of art.

They respond either emotionally, or reflexively (and often defensively).

This is true especially in the cases where people have a great amount of talent, but have not spent very much time in formal instruction, where critique was a part of the instruction.

I remember working as a lab tech in the sculpture lab at a junior college while I was a senior studying the arts when I was younger, and some of the more talented kids were just brutal and mean in their critiques, as if it was a popularity contest that they had to win at any cost.

Even though I try to vote on every mini I come across that deviates from the norm, my own vote (even though I think my vote to be fair and accurate) really does need to be normalized by a larger number of total votes,

MB

@AllSeeingSkink & BeAfraid: this is exactly why i don't vote and critique...
who the hell am i to tell someone that they are not doing it right, or well enough???
if someone is just trying to get their minis on the table, and wants to show their work, it isn't my place to tell them their work is not up to my standard...

cheers
jah

I vote occasionally, but not often. I prefer the banter and to see the development of projects and painters in the P&M blog section.

I also don't host any of my own work in the Gallery here, preferring to host it offsite as I'm sometimes rather abrasive in the forums, and don't want to see my work voted down by people who have pissed me off/I've pissed off. If people are interested enough in the painting I do, they can leave a comment in my P&M blog, or my WordPress blog where there's much more context and personality than a random photo.

I know that some are worried that their voting style could affect results but really what is the problem with that?
There's a reason that Miley Cyrus and all sorts of rubbish gets to the top of the charts despite being garbage whilst technically brilliant artist's albums sit in the bargain bin, Jazz section of second hand record stores.
People vote things highly because they like it.
If the voting went up we could actually see trends within the dakka voters and take results as just that, our opinions.
Painting for purpose is a big thing in wargaming, perhaps a way of labelling pictures as wip, showcase, tabletop and beginner would be a nice touch and voting would be adjusted accordingly?

I don't spend time browsing the gallery. Perhaps it would be really lucrative and constructive to do so, but I don't....so....

I second the idea of having the ability to vote directly below a picture shown in a thread. I don't know if it is even technically feasible, but it would certainly make it more likely that people vote.

Then again, why are votes important?
It's not like there is any valuable information in getting a low (or a high) vote. It is just as vapid as the number of Likes on my latest Cat-Plays-Piano video on Facebook.
On YouTube the number of Likes has an actual impact on monetization. This isn't the case when it comes to the Dakka Gallery.
I think seeking approval or validation of the work through votes in the galleries betray a deeper problem.

Steelmage99 wrote:
Then again, why are votes important?.

Some people want validating. Sure. It can be a very insular hobby when not at the games club or unable to get to one for whatever reason.
I see votes as being important as a standardisation process.
If a tournament, only wants level 5 or above painting then they could get that. Rather than the dodgy 3 colour minimum.
Commission painters and clients could easily judge and price their standards rather than Gold, Silver, Bronze self appointed levels.
Auction descriptions could make a bit more sense than Pro Painted. We'll save that for 9.5s
With enough votes going into each image people would actually be able to see and improvement in their work and learn to better themselves.

I don't vote on the galleries because I don't really feel like I know the criteria to judge them.

I vote regularly, but I dont use the coolness category.
Judging painting is subjective, painting "coolness" even more so.

 jah-joshua wrote:
@AllSeeingSkink & BeAfraid: this is exactly why i don't vote and critique...
who the hell am i to tell someone that they are not doing it right, or well enough???
if someone is just trying to get their minis on the table, and wants to show their work, it isn't my place to tell them their work is not up to my standard...

cheers
jah

Yeah, most the pictures in my gallery are either WIP shots or stuff I've speed painted. If someone is going to vote on the speed painted stuff I think they should take in to consideration I painted it in less than half an hour But most that stuff I would expect to be voted particularly lowly which in some ways isn't far given my goal was not a show piece, rather it's a demonstration of what you can do in a fraction of the time.

The handful of models I have uploaded that I really genuinely did put a lot of effort in to I'd kind of like more votes on them, but then again I more want constructive criticism than I want votes.

 jah-joshua wrote:
@AllSeeingSkink & BeAfraid: this is exactly why i don't vote and critique...
who the hell am i to tell someone that they are not doing it right, or well enough???
if someone is just trying to get their minis on the table, and wants to show their work, it isn't my place to tell them their work is not up to my standard...

cheers
jah

d

And you would be perfectly correct in doing so, but that isn't what I would be doing. Critique isn't about putting people's work down. It is about about helping them to achieve their goals more easily and effectively. Nothing about that has anything to do with either my, yours, or anyone else's subjective "standards."

MB


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pete Melvin wrote:
I vote regularly, but I dont use the coolness category.
Judging painting is subjective, painting "coolness" even more so.

Excellent point.

I have been using it, but there have been several times when I have used it, and it varied greatly from the technical skills of the painter.

I have found a lot of paint jobs that were done mediocrely at best, yet were incredibly cool, or paint jobs that were done by virtuoso painters, yet lacked any really captivating qualities beyond simply being well painted.

MB


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
I know that some are worried that their voting style could affect results but really what is the problem with that?
There's a reason that Miley Cyrus and all sorts of rubbish gets to the top of the charts despite being garbage whilst technically brilliant artist's albums sit in the bargain bin, Jazz section of second hand record stores.
People vote things highly because they like it.
If the voting went up we could actually see trends within the dakka voters and take results as just that, our opinions.
Painting for purpose is a big thing in wargaming, perhaps a way of labelling pictures as wip, showcase, tabletop and beginner would be a nice touch and voting would be adjusted accordingly?

I completely agree.

If I know that it is a beginner, I will approach the work and any critique completely differently than if I know it is a painter who regularly enters competitions.

Same thing with a WIP.

Not knowing these things makes voting difficult to do much of the time.

But then I can't think of voting on a WIP unless I have seen all stages of the project to completion, to have a context.

MB

Platuan4th wrote:Honestly, the gallery really only exists for me to host my own stuff. I never browse it.

Selfish, I know, but that's how it is.

Ditto. Also, thinking about this topic, I started thinking about X-Factor/American Idol style voting, and that turned me right off.

As also mentioned, I prefer to get an insight into the particular hobbyist's ideas, enthusiasm and aspirations, and leave a more personalised compliment or, like BeAfraid, constructive criticism if the case allows it. (I'm fond of CC meself, but to be blunt, in this hobby it can largely boil down to 'stop slappng on the paint like a bricklayer with a trowelful of mortar'. Which can then make it kind of superfluous at times.)

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
Then again, why are votes important?.

Some people want validating. Sure. It can be a very insular hobby when not at the games club or unable to get to one for whatever reason.
I see votes as being important as a standardisation process.
If a tournament, only wants level 5 or above painting then they could get that. Rather than the dodgy 3 colour minimum.
Commission painters and clients could easily judge and price their standards rather than Gold, Silver, Bronze self appointed levels.
Auction descriptions could make a bit more sense than Pro Painted. We'll save that for 9.5s
With enough votes going into each image people would actually be able to see and improvement in their work and learn to better themselves.

That is of course only relevant if there is a standard (that everybody uses) by which we vote, and a guide on how to judge those standards.
Assuming that people would then actually use such a standard and follow the guidelines, then you might have a point......but no such standard exists, so.....

 Pete Melvin wrote:
I vote regularly, but I dont use the coolness category.
Judging painting is subjective, painting "coolness" even more so.

I don't really agree with this (rather common) view, which is a large part of the reason why I stopped voting (which I used to make a point of doing). Coolness is entirely subjective, yes, but there are a number of consistent, quantifiable metrics voters can use for rating paintjobs. Individual scales would vary, somewhat, but that's what averages are for. The fact that there are TWO categories for voting should be telling, but the scores I see seem to point to an inability of voters to separate generalized likeability and technical skill.

Ever see a really creative and characterful conversion that looked like it was 'painted' by an epileptic ape using melted crayons? Somehow, the painting and coolness ratings always seem to balance out. What about a 'yet another boring tac marine' image? All other things being equal (image quality, sculpt, etc.), the coolness rating generally follows the painting score quite closely. There seems to be little point to the two categories if people don't treat them as two categories.

There are also the (related, I'd argue) issues of benchmarks and coddling. Past suggestions of any sort of instruction/standardization of scoring were shouted down rather violently. Nearly everyone wanted to have their own scale (e.g. 5 isn't the universal average - 5 is what I can do (I have no arms or brushes btw lol) and everything better sits between 8 and 9, since you can only get a 10 if a Golden Daemon trophy is also in the frame) and some simply thought less than positive feedback was mean. I've had two images receive wildly different scores... which were two shots of the same model from slightly different angles. Same camera, same lighting, same distance - just rotated the mini, a bit. What the hell is that supposed to tell me? Everyone needn't have a universal, completely rigid scale - we'd only need one vote per image, then. It'd help, though, if we were all on the same page. Same book, even.

A score is informative if the range is relatively small (barring the odd outlier, if we can assume sufficient votes) and the median and mode line up with the mean. A score is not informative if it's the average of one half honest ('harsh' to the feel-gooders) feedback and one half back-patting with a gold star sticker, for good measure. For scores to have meaning, 5 should be average work, not the average of 0s and 10s.

For me, a useful voting system means training up the critical eye of the 'average user'. That won't happen, so the system fails. Why pour time and effort into a failed system? Words carry context and nuance that numbers lack, so I see threads as a more useful avenue for feedback. If all the uploader wants is validation of his effort, making a thread will get him more and better.



TLDR: YOU consider voting important. You're wrong.