UKC

To the person who has just systematically voted 1 for the three most recent photos I have uploaded, can I suggest that, if you have some sort if grudge against me, you message me so that we can discuss your issue like adults rather than you doing your childish fun-spoiling in this cowardly and anonymous way. I'm guessing you are the one who goes out of their way to vote down all my half decent photos.

And to UKC, please, please could you change the voting system so that all votes count positively to a photo's score. The worst someone could then do would be not to vote at all (you may not realise just how damaging a single malicious vote is). With the problem eliminated at a simple stroke, the galleries would be a much nicer place and you may find that some of the keen photographers who have been driven away by malicious voting return to share their best photos with us.

Not me guv, but your post did make me look at your gallery.  That shot of a cloud-wreathed An Teallach is a belter.

T.

Big fan of your photos.

I uploaded a couple of my own that I thought were half good yesterday and thought this morning that they were voted a bit low, which prompted me to wonder if people down voted on purpose. But assumed there was just no real reason why anyone would. So was very interested to see this post. Sounds like a good suggestion.

It looks like you are not the first.. this is what it says on the Photo gallery help article so it will probably be dealt with in time 

Ignore the votes, Robert, your response just feeds the anonymous attention seeking trolls. As far as I'm concerned even a 5 discredits the quality of your pics. You are an amazing photographer.

Just for the record, I didn't down vote your pix, just in case you thought it might have been, after my 're-uploading' query on one of them!

Same here - just had a look and some cracking pics there.

Try not to let them get you down, hopefully a balanced view will appear over time.

I once gave some poor votes using my usual marking system and instantly regretted it, as I'd ignored some special circumstances surrounding the images and upset someone. I now only vote between 3 and 5, so that everyone saves face and I don't have to think too hard.

Once, around the end of the year I started voting everything 5 as I thought it would be a nice gift for everyone, spreading the love so to speak and went without punishment from UKC as it was within the rules. When I continued the habit into the New Year, lets just say it didn't go down so well.

I think that's probably fair comment. I gave both 3 stars though as whilst they are technically 'good', both lacked a subject focus. So in my personal opinion, they were 'average', so therefore got a middling vote to reflect this. 

I disagree in principle with only allowing votes for 'good' or above average photos. But I do disagree with malicious voting. 

I've deleted those 3 votes and the other 11 one star votes in other galleries they're made. The offending user is now banned from photo voting.

I think this would've been picked up by the malicious voting analysis that's run at the weekend anyway tbh.

I was going to suggest to Robert that UKC knows who give down votes both on photos and on the forums and if they suspect malicious intent can take action.

I wonder how great the sneaky down voter now feels, knowing that the UKC office know they are a sneak.

I hope they feel suitably ashamed.

Yeah fair enough, I was munro bagging and taking opportunistic shots when I had a chance, so you're right and I'm certainly not claiming to be a pro. Just thought this was the community to share them in and thought they'd be interesting viewing to some. I suppose in comparison I should have a lower rating expectation.

I wonder what happens on other photo sites? Is there the same strategic/malicious voting evident? Human nature I suppose. But with all these things, the cream generally comes to the top. 

Some of the same criticism that I received a while back. 

Though I would also aim criticism at clichéd shots as well. No more internally illuminated tents, please, etc. They may be quality but lack any originality. 

BTW I used to notice similar odd voting.

Yes, I am always reluctant to complain about malicious voting publicly for that reason, but it has got to a point where I really feel I have nothing to lose - I'm basically out of the running for POTW unless I produce a truly miraculous photo. I can't prove it in the way I could the initial malicious 1 votes making all three photos drop precipitously from an average of 4.8 after about 5 votes, but the pattern their averages have followed strongly suggests some subsequent down-voting.

As for the trolls being attention seeking, I can't see how that can be the case when they do it anonymously. Just sad idiots I think.

No problem, you weren't under suspicion!

In an ideal world where everyone voted in good faith that would be fine, but the whole system is skewed and people driven away by the idiots, so I think a change to an entirely positive system could only be a good thing.

Publicly acknowledging how much this hurt you was probably the worst thing you could do!  

Thanks. That's great.

It is good that the automated system exists, but I strongly suspect from the voting patterns on my own photos, that a lot of the damage is irreversible. Once a photo's displayed score drops to a four or off the top ranking page, fewer people will see it or click on it and a good photo will get fewer votes and the downward trend is reinforced. And I also suspect that a displayed four will make it less likely that voters will stick their neck out and give it a five. Those of us attracting malicious votes are stuck on an unlevel playing field.

I really do find it frustrating that there seems such a reluctance to change the voting system to an entirely positive one. Fewer keen photographers are posting photos and fewer people are voting than a few years ago; making the galleries a nicer place for people might help rejuvenate them.

Anyway, thanks very much to those who have said kind things about my photos in this thread

What do you suggest I do? Just contimue sucking it up? Stop posting photos like others have done? I've tried suggesting a change to the system to neutralise the idiots non-publicly before.

Truly exceptional photos will still end up as POTW, but with fewer voters meaning that a POTW will often only have 25 or so votes these days, a malicious vote or two could easily have knocked a better photo out of contention. 

Just had a look at your photo's and holy smokes! They are amazing

As to how to deal with the miscreant- my advice is just let karma deal with them.

And keep taking photos.

I do wonder whether things have been made worse by a 2 vote now being "not keen" and a 1 vote "dislike" rather than previously I think being "poor" and "rubbish", or something like that if I remember rightly. Personally I'm "not keen" on illuminated tents, long exposures of moving water, overexposed night skies, and moonlight bright as day, but I would never vote 2 for such photos just on such personal preferences when they are clearly good photos of those genres.

I think you are totally correct with this post. I very rarely see a photo worth 5 stars and would be unlikely to give 99% of the photo I see more than a 4 star rating. There are some top photographers on here.

Jon Griffith

Hamish Frost

James Rushforth

Ice Nine

Al Todd

All stick out for constantly good and interesting shots. But it takes more than a post sunset landscape to make a shot stick out. 

Saying that I probably wouldn't give a photo less than 3 as I don't think there's a need to vote for photos that are plainly not so good.

 This made me take a look at your gallery too, there’s some brilliant photos in there, thanks.

However, contrary to what others have said, I do think that there’s a place for the 1 vote (or even 0). Sometimes you come across a truly awful photo - a headless blurry bumshot of someone seconding an obscure crack in a grotty quarry and you think WTF is that wasting bandwidth, please don’t!

I’d like voter’s usernames to be visible, much like the ‘likes’ on FB. I see three advantages:

1. If someone with a grudge against you downvotes your photos it could lead to some entertaining bunfight threads;

2. Such people are much less likely to vote you down in the first place;

3. If someone whose opinion on photography you respect gives you an unexpected vote, you can ask them for criticism. 
 

Anonymously downvoting someone’s pics is really poor form. I’d actually rather they commented, “Total rubbish, composition that hurts and as pleasing to to the eye as a train crash.” At least then you could ask why.

1: delete it

2: keep it but don’t show it to your mates

3: keep it and show your mates

4: print it for putting on your wall

5: print and put on your wall, even if someone else took it

When i was on photo groups the trend seemed to be “I like your photo, I’ll give it 5 stars if you agree to give this image of mine 5 stars”

Well to take the bag of buttered buns i've just seen my photo posted on UKC unacknowledged as rhe cover of a BBC book; see under Ron James below

Hi Paul, Look at my post just entered. Copyright?

Obviously different people have different standards for different numbers of stars and that is fine as long as they are voting in good faith. I personally very rarely vote other than 5 (basically a "like") and I use it rather sparingly. I know some people vote on every photo from 1 to 5.

Sadly I think three of those are no longer with us.

Yes, if people are genuinely posting their best photos I think it is a bit cruel to vote them down. If they feel encouraged they might be more inclined to persevere and improve their photography. 

Yes, there is the odd photo which is comically bad by any reasonable standards!

As my 2c, there is sometimes an issue that photos uploaded to be useful/comical to an individual routes page can get lumped in with the voting of well curated landscape shots from hobby and professional photographers. It's always seemed a bit harsh to me for the albeit poor quality bum shots but often helpful topo wise getting 1/2 stars especially when of long questy routes or things at obscure crags. 

I only ever use 5 stars. If a photo is anywhere below that (in my opinion) I don't vote at all, and see no reason whatsoever to give a fellow photographer an anonymous 1 - 4. 

Some of my own photo scores have been downvoted, maybe by the same people. It is baffling to me why someone would do that.

You may be right about someone with a misplaced grudge of some sort, who might have disagreed with you on another forum thread. You and I haven't always agreed on some topics, but that's no reason to downvote your consistently excellent photos. 

How about:

Outstanding
Good
Requires Improvement
Inadequate

Yep, long suspected that was going on...

I've always thought that the photo voting system is a great way of getting a perspective on what someone is like, given that everyone's voting percentage for each category is visible on their profile. 

My personal take on it is akin to the old adage, if you can't say anything nice, say nothing at all. 

I wonder if a solution is to ignore the outliers, eg ignore the top and bottom 5 votes when UKC does its classifications?

Yes, in principle I think that would go a long way to solving the problem, certainly ignoring the bottom votes anyway. However, as I said earlier, leaving the down votes in place till the end of the week and only discounting them when selecting the top ten, can significantly affect the exposure of a photo and therefore the number of votes it gets. If my downvote stalker gets in early enough, they sometimes knock a good photo off the front ranking page and in to virtual oblivion!

I simply don't see why anyone would object to an entirely positive system. This, in its simplest form could just be "likes" or, probably better, a 3 or 5 star system, where the total number of stars is just added up.

The only time I’ve voted one was quite a while back, at the time UKC were struggling with storage and had requested that people consider what photos they upload, whilst checking out that weeks uploads I came across a series of photos that looked like someone had accidentally pressed the shutter whilst walking past a rock I voted 1 for them all as it struck me as a malicious f£&@ you to the request that UKC had put out. Other wise I try and stick to 5* and 4*

Experimentally I've just voted 5 for one of my own previously uploaded photos and raised it from 3 to 4!

Can you point to the photo you're referring to please?

Walking up to Cloggy 1966. By vote second page line 2. Thanks

Just been browsing your gallery on here. What a wonderful alpine treasure trove!

Thanks. the original is from1966 . the date is when I had it scanned. I may have given a copy to Ron, not quite sure how pre wifi and I lost all contact with him after the start of the 70s. It is the first time I have seen or heard of this book. All I would have liked is a word to say could the BBC use it. 

Im going to have to post a illuminated tent photo for you Robert 😂maybe with some moonlight 

Can you make the illuminated tent photo a bit more interesting by having a tastefully blurred silhouette of people 'at it'?
Nothing gratuitous, just the suggestion so that people say "blimey, are those people shagging"?

If you can get all those elements I hate in to one photograph, I might give it a 5 for effort rather than just abstaining!

How about this? https://labs.openai.com/s/iDq5ecne9LsMpSiMtgcRIRps

How about...

Not half bad. You are obviously better at crafting prompts than Robert.

'Prompt crafter' - jobs for the early - mid 21st Century.

What does that mean?

It means that I lifted the text "illuminated tents, long exposures of moving water, overexposed night skies, and moonlight bright as day" from your comment earlier in the thread and used it as a prompt for an AI image generator.

I think it took the "moonlight bright as day" a bit too literally in yours.  Here's one without a moon..

I would be interested to see the "craftsmanship" of the prompts behind your image and that from Flinticus.

Lacks that horrible blurred water.

And the milky way brighter in a blue sky than you'd ever see it for real.

And these don't even look like photographs anyway (so would probably beat that awful Tryfan photo in a photographic competition though).

See I don't think of it as craftsmanship, yeah?  I see myself more as a self-facilitating media node.

"Long exposure mountain stream.  Milky way in a blue sky."

That's hideous. POTW material? 

Missing the tent and moon though.

What you might possibly call "productio ad absurdum" ...

I've been very close to deleting my gallery on a couple of occasions.  The only thing that's stopped me is the fact that I'd have to go through every photo to delete it.

I've then calmed down, reflected on things and decided to keep the gallery for personal and business reasons.  Personal because it's a mix of my adventures over the years, and business because I put my paintings up here and it helps spread the word and maybe boost my profile (and you never know, I might sell a painting or a print)

I don't comment negatively on anything (I don't think I do) and I don't vote low.  I used to occasionally though, but not since the early years.  I don't have a thick skin and I'm hurt when I'm rubbished either as a photographer or an artist.  It does however fuel my drive to be better.

Thank goodness you can only delete your gallery one photo at a time, Jamie.

I’m reporting you to the mods for malicious upvoting 😀

Only took one day for the phantom down voter to appear 🤨

Photo of the Week, I reckon Jethro...

As others have noted, Robert, your stuff is really top-notch and anything under 5 is just mean.

I'm nowhere near your league as a lensman: my shots are all on phone and only shared so they can be embedded in articles and routes cards. Rather hurtfully, the only one of mine to be voted (1) is a selfie, which makes me feel like the last man on the Tinder shelf. 😔 

Is this still the photo thread or the OFSTED one?

Yes.

The way I see it, the problem with a purely positive cumulative voting system, rather than an average votes system, would be it would skew further towards the individuals with a good reputation on the site, and make it harder for a great photo by someone who doesn't regularly post great pictures to come out on top.

People will go directly to certain poster's galleries to see what new photos they've put up, therefore their pictures are bound to get more views and more votes.

I suspect it would make the competition feel more cliquey.

That option exists.

The current system is a combination of average vote and number of votes (30 votes average 4.3 might beat 10 votes average 4.6 say).

Making it purely additive would skew it further in that direction.

Still love your stuff..The Matterhorn is still safely secured for th,e future.

Thanks John.  That's great to hear regarding The Matterhorn.  I will go back to the Alps, possibly next year.  These mountains don't paint themselves!

The problem with that is that, as well as the fun competition aspect, voting roughly ranks the photos so that good ones get lots of visibility on the front page by ranking (how many people look further down?). Without votes, even a great photo gets only a brief time in the limelight before disappearing into obscurity with all the dross.

I wonder how many people do that? I hardly ever go to someone's gallery to vote.

I don't often vote on photos but when I do, I tend to be harsher on photos where the poster doesn't accept comments.

There is one photo "subject" that I do sometimes downvote because the photo titling always just winds me up, and they don't accept comments. The votes on these probably aren't an issue anyway because they're a photographic record rather than "here's a nice photo" anyway.

The things that I get frustrated about with your landscape photos:

1. Envy that you've managed another cracking day out in the mountains when I've not been able to go out.
2. Knowing that there's likely to be several more photos that you've not posted yet and being impatient.

Some of your "inversion" photos are just completely stunning.

Thankyou very much!

I actually post photos on here less often than I used to because I just can't be bothered with the downvoting (I know I shouldn't let it get to me but it does). I was about to post some final Wadi Rum ones last night but then decided I couldn't be bothered with the probable voting backlash from this thread. Maybe I need to find a nicer place to share my photos (only a tiny minority spoiling things of course).

When I checked the link to the your Napes Needle picture / painting I thought it was a photograph initially, even though I know you paint.  Sorry but I find it very jarring, and although I wouldn't have commented, I agree with the general gist of the comment I'm afraid as the lights wrong in my opinion and clouds very 2D and in an unusual position that doesn't match with rest of scene (even if this was actually the case). I also paint landscapes, maybe that doesn't mean anything I'm not sure. Or maybe it helps because I know most of my paintings work for me, but sadly some don't, and I have to accept the result and peoples response to them. 

But even though the above paragraph may be annoying, it isn't meant to be, just honest and I absolutely love your work generally and your painting of the dramatic N Face of Ben Nevis has to be one of my absolute favourite mt paintings of all time (genuinely think it is perfect in so many ways).

So I think my point is that everyone appreciates different things, and having a voting system, and submitting work into the voting system means that everyone gets a mix of votes. Generally a photo is quick(er) to take than a painting also, so you probably spent weeks on your painting so I imagine it almost feels worse to receive a negative comment because of your time investment in it, as opposed to being there in a day and 'clicking' a button. Hope the honesty of my post doesn't annoy. Their vote of 1 isn't any reflection of your skill, even though it may appear so, it just hasn't triggered the right emotion in an individual.

I occasionally vote 1 or 2 for old / historic climbing pictures in the top 10 because I genuinely think that a lot of them are rubbish photographs - poor composition, bad light, dull subject matter etc. I think this is were stuff gets confused on UKC. I totally accept that a lot of these images are historically important... but they 'ain't' necessarily good photographs so why are we voting on them!?

I am a bit baffled that you are so upset by downvoting when an extraordinarily high proportion of your photos have average scores of five (well-deserved IMO) and the rest fours. Do you regard anything less than a five as "malicious downvoting"? I think you are being over-sensitive.

No of course not. What prompted me to start this thread was when I posted three photos. After a while they had accumulated 4, 5 and 6 votes respectively. Each had one 4 and the rest 5. Somebody then came along and voted 1 for all of them. This is typical of what happens for all my half decent photos.

Have you ever tried  composing  a  photo of your mate with a rope in your hands, securing him on a serious alpine climb with only four frames left out of the 36? At least it tells a story as opposed to clicking away at them from the side on a safe stance which seems so often to get your five shot nowadays. There is simply no sense of involvement by the photographer in the event because they are not participating. Of course  modern cameras have changed but don't denigrate the photos climbers took in the past any  more than you would the boldness of climbing serious routes with the equipment of the past. Just don't vote, don't knock them or consign them to the historic waste paper basket. 

So it's a photograph of a painting that looks like a photograph that almost looks like a painting?

That's like voting 1 for a 1940s recording of Django Reinhardt because there are crackles and hisses on the tape.  I love the historic photos.  Just don't vote if you don't like them!

It's possible that we haven't got to the bottom of this 😁

Definitely one of the times when the comments were (almost!) as entertaining as the picture. Which was fantastic btw.

You just have commented.  Why not keep quiet if that's what you think of my work?

I have to admit that I don't vote for your photos of paintings, not because the paintings aren't superb (they obviously are even if the "photographic" style is not my cup of tea), but because Top Ten/POTW is, well, a photograph competition, not a painting competition. If they were ineligible for the Top Ten I would vote for many of them.

It is a bit like a few years ago when you couldn't vote for wildlife photos, so they got a bit of visibility on the front page and then disappeared without trace. I and others suggested that voting should be allowed but that they should be ineligible for the Top Ten and this was taken up. Good wildlife photos now get lots of visibility and give pleasure on the front page by rank. 

Simply because the categories as they stand are Climbing and Mountaineering Photos, and Mountain Photos. If there were a Wildlife or a Paintings category I would welcome that (though probably best done less frequently than weekly since far fewer of these are posted). Obviously the alternative would be to have a single open category (though even then I think it is stretching it to allow paintings in a photo competition!).

I wonder what has happened to the annual Marmot photo competition. It usually happens at the start of the year I think (there are quite a few categories in that).

Who says it's specifically a photograph competition, or a competition at all?  No wonder you get your pants in such a bunch about the voting if you only share your photos because you want to win.

It is self-evidently a competition and it is called Top Ten Photos. Therefore it is a photo competition.

I don't. I hope that people might sometimes get pleasure or interest from my photos in the same way I get pleasure and interest from other peoples' photos. 

There is no single top 10 as such - there's a UKC top ten (climbing pics), and a UKH top ten (hillwalking/mountain pics).  No doubt the photographers who contribute photos have their own opinions, but what they're actually for is a matter for UKC/H (branding, marketing, blah blah blah).  Presumably there are good reasons for UKC/H wanting them to be specific to climbing/hillwalking.

The photo categories for the galleries are probably due for a re-visit from the powers that be anyway, they seem a bit out of date.  (The description of the wildlife category still says there's no voting, and it's been quite a while since that wasn't the case.) 

But the bigger change more recently is that it's possible (for subscribers) to share their pics directly in forum posts now - most of the most impressive wildlife pics these days aren't in any gallery, they're generally on the forum.  Mick's pics, most obviously.  If there were a 'wildlife top 10', the majority of the very best wildlife photos on here wouldn't be eligible anyway.  (And under the current rules, they mostly wouldn't be eligible for inclusion in the 'wildlife' gallery.)

It's not quite as simple as that. On UKC all photos are shown, but UKH excludes the climbing and mountaineering ones (though both top tens are on each, but differently prioritised).  So there is not an actual UKC top ten and UKH top ten. This means that non-climbing photos are seen by more people (I think it is noticeable that they tend to accumulate more votes). It would also mean that if there were a single category of top ten, t would not, as things stand, be a level playing field.

A totally valid opinion, but your opinion nonetheless. 

Personally, I don't regard a 'top ten' chart thing as a competition as such, because it's a popularity contest.  It selects the most popular submissions according to a public vote filtered through an algorithm.  I reckon a competition has explicit rules and judges and seeks to identify the best, not the most popular.  But this is just my opinion.

Then you don't really regard it as a competition after all, and the odd vote you're not happy with shouldn't really matter that much.  They're generally fantastic photos, they'll still reach an audience and you know full well that lots of people on here really enjoy them, so perhaps you could afford to just chill out a bit.

Meh - that's a bit of a moot point I think. I see it like this:
Here's one: https://www.ukclimbing.com/photos/top10.php
Here's the other: https://www.ukhillwalking.com/photos/top10.php

And you can click directly between them. The fact is that people who only go on UKC can vote for both, but people who only go on UKH can't.

Good grief. You consider one of my opinions to be valid. That must be a first.

Ok, call it a popularity contest if you like. I really don't mind.

Yes I do. It is both; a competition/popularity contest embedded within a mechanism for sharing photos for pleasure.

Maybe I shouldn't have given my opinion or detail, and merely said something along the lines of, 'people have different likes/ dislikes and we all have to accept this', but I was trying to be honest as you drew attention to the comment on your photo and also suggested that people should only vote if they are giving a high vote, which makes the whole thing a bit ridiculous. And clearly you didn't really read my comment as I clearly stated I very much like your work apart from this one piece. 

I used to subscribe to a magazine of that name, until my wife sussed me out. 

Amazon used to allow downvotes on its reviews but this led to tactical voting in the competition for ranking. They have a positive only voting system only now. 

I have to agree that it is probably a better way for photo voting. The only issue I see is if a photographer builds up a fan following they might get more attention than newcomers so harder to get noticed, but if most voting is gathered on the top screen then that would hopefully not apply.

@Paul

What algorithm do you use in the photo voting?  Is it a rounded average or a rounded median of votes cast?  

Geeking out a little ... a mean/average is preferable when the votes are symmetrical with few/limited outliers.

A median is preferable when the distribution is skewed or there are outliers in the data.

My hunch is that the votes, certainly on the notably good or notably poor photos, will be skewed towards 1x end of the scale.  (Tbh .. i'd have actually thought that it would have been primarily skewed to the top end of the scale because people would simply not bother voting for photos they thought were poor in the first place - but the internet is a horrible place )  A rounded median ought to filter out random low balls on Robert's pics.

The score displayed on one's own photos is a mean rounded to one decimal place. The score displayed for other people is a sort of mean rounded to a whole number, but, because a mean score cannot be less than one, the interval from 1 to 5 is split into 5 intervals. So 4.2 - 5.0 gets 5, 3.4 to 4.2 gets 4 and so on.

The actual ranking score used for the top ten is some sort of combination of the average (I presume the mean) and the number of votes. I seem to remember someone at UKC once claiming that nobody now knew what the algorithm was because it was buried in the code somewhere and the person who devised it was long gone (whether is is plausible I have no idea!). I have considered noting the ranking scores of a largish number of my own photos when they appear in the top ten and trying to back engineer the algorithm from their mean score and number of votes but have never got around to it.

Obviously for the best photos competing for the top ten and POTW it can only be skewed to the lower end because most of the votes will be 5's. The problem with using the median would be that all the best photos would have a median of 5 and there would be no separation (ignoring downvotes, they are now effectively separated by the relative numbers of 4's and 5's they get). so I think the best way to neutralise the malicious voters (other than switching to an entirely positive system) would be to stick with the mean but discount low outliers in some way.

Offty ... a mystery for us all to solve!  Love it!

Going to be tricky though ... a quick look in DevTools tells me that UKC is wise enough not expose the original scores - only the overall score and total number of votes.

Tbh .. I had always thought, until now, that the 1-5 in UKC was positive ... I didn't realize until I went and looked that 1 was meant to represent dislike.  Feels somewhat harsh.  (I mean .. who would seriously take the time out of their day to waste a click of their life on a climbing website to tell an anonymous person that you thought their photo was sh1t!)

I had always used the stars similarly to how I process a batch in Photoshop:

1. No stars = ignore/not worthy of even looking at/out of focus/do not post process/consider deleting.
2. 1 star = Process if I have time.  (seldom get processed in practice)
3. 2 star = Worth processing/maybe not a perfect composition/process after the 3 star photos.
4. 3 star = Best of the bunch, best composition, process 1st.

Maybe I've been using stars wrong all along!!!

Almost every single photo I have taken has received one or a couple of 1s just after publishing. I assume that this is by other posters who want's to push their photos to the first page of recent photos by best voting to receive more votes on their own pictures.

It is nothing to worry about, about 10 precent of all humans are absolute scumbags, this is well known.

If I remember rightly (I might not), relatively recently the descriptors were made less unkind with 1 changing from "rubbish" to "dislike" and 2 from "poor" to "not keen". I actually wonder whether this has made people more likely to vote down photos since they might well "dislike" a photo though wouldn't describe it as "rubbish". Yet the down vote is just as destructive. As I said earlier I am certainly "not keen", for example, on long exposures of moving water but I wouldn't describe such photos as "poor"; it is just personal taste.

I doubt that, otherwise it would happen to everyone's best photos (just looked at your gallery and they are superb!). More likely some moron has a grudge against you I think.

Interesting thread but is it really important? The best photos on here are usually pretty average when compared to great sports or landscape photos. (with a few exceptions of course)

The photos on here are taken by Climbers and Walkers. Taking photos is what they do when they are out in the hills, they are not usually going into the hills with the purpose of taking a great photo. 

As a consequence photos in the weekly top 10s are usually fairly average. In UK hillwalking top 10 this week we got photos with blown highlights colours that are not believable, and photos with little foreground interest taken in locations where it probably exists in spades had the photographer spent the time to look. But the photographer was having an adventure in the hills thats the important thing so why would they be spending time composing a decent shot. 

I went to our local photo club about 3 weeks ago the first time I had ever been but it was interesting to see the judging. If you looked at this weeks top 10 in UKhillwalking none of the photos presented would have scored more than around a 12 /20 (the lowest score they awarded) 

So in the scheme of things it's not really worth bothering too much if you don't win photo of the week or your pic scores a 4 instead of a 5 because some nutter marks it down because your competing against the average not the good.  I can see from your gallery that you clearly have some great days out in the hills and your photos have recorded those memories so just keep on enjoying the mountains and using your camera to record some memorable days out. 

Best wishes I always find your posts interesting 

Phil 

Burn!

To summarize your post, you seem to be saying that the general standard of photography on UKC is pretty average compared to real photographers so don't take it to heart. Perhaps I'm reading it wrongly but I'm not entirely sure if this is the most condescending put down I've read on UKC? If that isn't your intention then I apologize.

If anything you've been generous in your summation.

It's also pretty ironic given his gallery here and personal webpage which has some over-processed landscape images which might do well in a local photo club but which don't do it for me (long exposure waterfalls, over-darkened skies, daft filters, cliche, trying to be arty but just coming up with a load of seen-it-all-before boring stuff).  Right back at ya!

His Assynt cliche is a particularly hideous worst of a bad bunch🙂.

But his post is worthy of a proper reply later.

I think this also means that the photos may be judged by different standards by different people. Some will vote based on photographic merit, others may have wider criteria and vote for a technically less than perfect pic which nevertheless recreates the emotional impact of an adventure in the hills.

I am reminded of the time my climbing club held a photo competition and brought in some "real" photographers from a camera club to judge it.  The judges' views on what were good photos differed considerably from the audience's.  Some of the shots they praised seemed cliched to us, and ones we liked were overlooked. They awarded top prize to a photo of the club president which had been carefully angled to suggest the sun was shining out of his arse, and it was clear from their comments that they had completely missed the joke.

I quite understand why keen photographers want to see their shots appear in the Top 10, and I agree that voting 1 for a photo which most agree is 5 seems at best perverse and and worst malicious. However to see it as a competition overlooks that the judging standards may not be consistent.

I totally disagree. I am constantly amazed at how high the quality of photos is on UKC, very often beating national competitions, IMO.

BTW, I judge the photos on UKC (when I am scoring) purely on photographic merit and not whether the climbs looks worthy from a climber's perspective. The only exception I make to that is for photos that have historical interest (e.g. photos that give us insights into how people used to climb in the past): my judging is a bit biased upwards in those cases. Also, any photo that makes me feel as though I am in the scene I view favourably.

If offence was caused it wasn’t intended. Yes you more or less understood me correctly what I should have said was “The overall standard particularly on UKH is not that high with some obvious exceptions. Just keep going in the hills and use photos to record your days out and don’t be too upset if the voting system brings your photo score down” Once again apologies to all who took offence at my comments I should have been a lot more careful in what I wrote.😀

i know it shouldnt matter if someone votes a 1, but it does make you think why.

ive posted pics that are certainly not a 1 and you can work out thats what someone has given.

i dont post them anymore

the system needs an overhaul.

Something I find remarkable is that there are 168,000 people registered to UKC and UKH and an average of 19,000 people visit every day - yet photos only get a tiny number of votes, often in single figures.  Even a superb photo rarely gets more than 50 votes.

You are far from alone and I don't blame you.

It so clearly does for a lot of us - a simple change would eliminate the malicious voting. I don't want to give in to the arseholes, but posting photos on here now holds little pleasure for me.

Judging by the way the average score on my four most recent photos dropped with about 3 additional votes overnight Mon/Tues, I think it highly likely they got systematically voted 1 again. And quite likely the ones I had in last week's top ten which prompted this thread got downvoted again too. I've really had enough if it. 

Good reason to get rid of the voting altogether. Just have a view counter to stroke the egos of those that need it

Exactly, I think if you upset someone in the forum their only petty way to redeem some pride is to down vote your images. 

It's not about people getting Thier ego stroked as you put it, it's when people vote a 1 to a photo that is clearly not deserving. Its not subjective at all when a clearly well taken photo gets a poor rating.

Making the voting non anon might change things for the better, or just change the whole system to be a bit more positive 

Yes, just nasty, anonymous, cowardly, petty vindictiveness. And a system which lets them largely get away with it.

The galleries are slowly dying; the number of photos being submitted and the number of people voting has steadily declined. There may be various reasons for this but the feeling of unpleasantness created by the malicious voters which has driven away quite a few keen photographers undoubtedly contributes. And of course the effect of each malicious vote is greater when there are fewer good faith votes. These days a photo might get POTW with as few as around 20 votes and a single malicious vote of 1 can easily knock it out of contention.

It obviously is about ego, why else would people get so worked up about it, and only want positive ones at that.

If you take pics for pleasure/fun/interest then take the pleasure in that, not some random vote from a stranger on the forum. Critical appraisals are maybe useful, but random ticks in boxes are not.

I've been following this thread with interest. The above points are almost certainly correct, and sad. The site really ought to be a supportive common interest forum where the anger and exasperation of the political bunfights don't become personal and spill over into other aspects of the forums, such as disliking posts on climbing or photos.

It occasionally occurs to me to share photos on here but I never bother to, partly as the critical environment comes across as being sufficiently tainted by thoughtless mud slingers and phantom disliker types. If anonymity was removed from the star ratings, or if they could be opted out of while still retaining comments I might be more interested. It would be easy to dismiss your concerns by saying "it's just a climbing/walking site" but there are many people for whom photography is a profound and integral aspect of their outdoor life (you and me both for starters) and there are several very knowledgeable people on here with a lot to say, which would be beneficial to me at least.

In your case it's almost certainly a further petty act from your phantom disliker/s (I'm sure you've had some, I don't know now as I've had the buttons switched off for a while now and I recommend it). Giving someone one star without qualification is like an anonymous posting of a middle finger emoji or a noisy boring drunk shouting insults over a discussion and wastes everyone's energy and bandwidth. 

My few thoughts…..

I’ve found the photos galleries and discussions to be hugely helpful in my journey to taking better photos. It would be a shame if they disappeared. That said there is much content that is instantly forgettable, the kind of photos more akin to “me and my mates on a day out”. Not really of interest to many other than the poster and their mates. 

I’ve never posted any photos as I don’t believe anything I have is worth sharing, yet. I’m now much more aware (partly because of this thread) that there are ‘cliched’ shots. So not only do I need to take better photos, I need to be original as well. I’m not convinced I want to open myself up to that level of scrutiny.

Perhaps photos could be rated according to views as well as votes?

The top 200 never changes, and never will due to the age of the top posts. Maybe an auto refresh every year?

Creativity (such as photography, writing, art etc) is a mercurial thing because it seems to be buffeted by the unstable whims of ego, more so than other forms of expression. A creative person willingly puts him/herself in the public spotlight, and is therefore open to praise, criticism - or even visceral hatred - especially if their work pushes boundaries of expression.

It seems that for many arty farty people (like me), praise appears to quieten the ego (which, like it or not, is present in everybody), so creativity feels momentarily less tethered to it and is therefore encouraged into producing better things.

I think criticism is similarly beneficial if it is constructive and done with the best intentions; but I agree, quite the opposite if low scoring is done with a darker, hidden purpose.

The way I see it is that all scores on the photo gallery below 5 should be forced to have an accompanying comment, saying what it is the person scoring doesn't like, or what they think needs to be improved. If there is no comment, they can't score. Only a score of 5 can stand alone with or without comment.

Hard for UKC to implement, but it might help in filtering out the habitual low-scoring non-commenters.

I've just had a look at your gallery.  Some excellent shots several of which I've 4 or 5 starred. Nice work!

Lack of voting would appear, to me, to be half the problem. Top photos used to get >50 votes in 'the good old days' so would very much be a consensus vote and any maliciousness by a few individuals would wash out. It's therefore incumbent upon everyone on this thread (and who view the galleries) to vote as much as possible. 

That is a good idea, I was wondering how you could filter out malicious votes of any grading system.

Obviously you can remove outliers, but they might be genuine rather than malicious, and do you also remove positive outliers (are they genuine or someone getting their mates to vote).

Please don't stop posting your photos - ignore the rubbish votes.

Some of your shots are not as good as others, but that's usually because you've posted the "stunner" next to it; virtually all are worth looking at in isolation. I don't remember you ever putting any duds up to be viewed.

Yes, I think that, if one were to be tactical, one would drip feed a set of good photos one per day. I get the impression that if posted together some people vote 5 for their favourite and 4 for the others. 

I don't think anyone should feel intimidated out of sharing their favourite or interesting photos. You must have loads of fascinating ones! You rarely post in the forums so I doubt you would attract a malicious voting stalker and so would only get good faith votes.

I have wondered whether UKC's reluctance to change the voting system to eliminate malicious voting is because they want to preserve the top 200 ranking. But, as you say, the top 200 hardly ever changes because there is so much less voting these days. I actually looked to see where last year's Marmot prizewinners ended up in the top 200. Many didn't register and only one, if I remember rightly, made the top 100 even though many should, by any reasonable standards, have been way up the rankings. Time to archive the top 200 and introduce a moron-proof voting system.

That is without doubt one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read on here. Anything judged lower than perfection needs written justification? What complete nonsense! 

I've held back reposting on here but felt compelled to when I read your comment. I think people need to ask themselves why they post photos on this site, indeed this climbing site. I really can't help feeling that some are being way too precious about their photos and get all bent out of shape when other people vote them low, for whatever reason. And then criticising others' galleries for being clichéd when they have clichéd shots in theirs?! I used to post a lot of photos on here, not to garner high votes but rather to share memories with friends or give others some visual information about climbing destinations or routes. Some of them are clearly not good photos but they're hopefully of interest or use to others. I couldn't care less who gives me what vote, I genuinely couldn't. The reason I've not got round to uploading more recently is that I've simply not made the time to do so,  not for fear of getting low scores. Honestly, I think we all need to get outside more and stop all this naval-gazing and hand-wringing. Jeez, talk about first world problems.

Mostly involving bothies, whisky and Santa suits. Def not for the general public!

Have a +1 for that.  It's more attributable than a 'like'.

T.

I wouldn't disagree with that! Though I doubt many people see 5 as "perfection"!

However, with an entirely positive system where any vote at all increases photo's ranking score I doubt many people would object to useful constructive criticism along the lines of "I gave this * but it might have been ** or *** if........ ". 

I was more thinking of old climbing shots!

Yes, if I'm not actually climbing, photography is now the most important factor for me when planning a hill day. As well as, hopefully, getting some decent photos, It is a brilliant motivator to make the effort to see the hills at their best and in the best light. A few weeks ago I dossed in my car with the alarm set for about 3.30am seven days in a row so that I could be on a summit at first light (these days I only rarely have a conventional "9 till 5" hill day!). Some of the days I ended up shivering in the dark and the clag but others were stunning and I got some photos I am really pleased with. But I've not yet put any of them on here; I probably will do but just waiting for those malicious votes to kick my efforts in the teeth feels, whether it should do or not, pretty shit.

I'm not sure what I think about photo voting, but I do think the galleries are worthwhile and valuable.

Personally, I don't care about what 'score' someone gives my photo - it's an opinion and some opinions I value, others I don't. If someone likes my photo or they get something from it and leave a comment, that's great and I always appreciate it. On the other hand, I feel mostly indifferent to anonymous votes.

I enjoy taking photos and I enjoy viewing others' photos. They can be valuable for different reasons. Some far from perfect photos on UKC have inspired me to visit a place I might not have otherwise. Equally, there are some excellent photos posted on UKC regularly which are often the main reason I will have a look on the site. I also look up photos of routes I want to do or have done, just because.

I don't view the UKC galleries as a 'photographer's  photography' orientated space. I don't think it should be. I don't care what a camera club judge would think of my or any other photo on UKC. UKC isn't a camera club. 

I find it sad to hear that people who take an interest in photography don't post their photos because they don't think they're good enough. Perhaps that's a product of the voting system or throwaway comments from armchair critics. Or maybe they're just overthinking it. If that applies to you and you read this I'd say go ahead an post what you like. Ability in photography is a moving target the same as in everything else.

I do think the galleries could do with an overhaul. Maybe an opt in function for voting or inclusion in photo of the week or some other 'competition' if people are after feedback. 

Anyway, a round about way of saying the galleries are a bit shabby but worthwhile. Also, not immune from the influence of numpties, much like the forums and everything else online.

While out on the hill yesterday I had planned a scathing reply to you, but since I see you have already apologised for offence caused, I shall try to keep it civil and constructive.

See my last post. I am definitely not alone. 

You may have looked at a less strong week. Sometimes there are ten superb shots,

Well there are a few looking directly into the sun (not a type of photo I am usually keen on) but perfectly normal). I don't see any others.

Really? That is very rare on here these days and I see none. Care to say which?

Yes, there are one or two like this. One of them is from a set from someone who I don't think usually posts photos. The others were, I thought, overexposed but this one was pretty pleasing. I voted 5 for it because I thought it was a nice encouraging thing to do. The galleries should be a welcoming and encouraging place.

Judging from your own gallery and web page with its sometimes overprocessed shots (particularly the cliche "Mordor" skies) I'm guessing that this is a style favoured in you local photo club. Of course this is a style which now, sadly, seems all too often to be favoured in "serious" photographic competitions (remember that Tryfan photo discussed at great length on here recently?}. Thankfully this sort of nonsense is rare on UKC; I imagine most people on here have a deep love of the mountains and their landscape and do their best to record it authentically in their photos. I think that is why the top ten so often has great photos which resonate with people on here. Indeed, a common response when someone links to competition short-listed or whatever photos elsewhere is that they wouldn't even make the top ten on UKC; they just don't ring true or are downright absurd.

I've never entered any photo competition other than vying for POTW on UKC. The only one I might consider entering if I thought I had a worthy photo is The Natural Landscape Awards which was set up as an antidote to all the nonsense. In the meantime I'd really like to be able to go on enjoying the fun which is POTW on here.

Thankyou

Sadly no 

What I personally find is missing in the system is that I can't find a means of posting a photo in say Alpine that I think interesting without it requiring a vote and pulling my average down. I too am proud of my gallery and the relatively high average for its size, but have a lot of worthwhile photos I think of interest for out of the way places. I put up a flyer a few days ago to see how it fared but it was quickly knocked down from the initial votes and so have removed it. And will not post again 

Maybe we need a an egrading calculator for photo rankings to ensure linear consistency 😀 if it is so important, as it seems it is, then Ukc should maybe set up a panel of judges to assign votes … to give a technical rating and a popularity vote from the great unwashed rest of us .. so we could end up with technically brilliant but no interest from general public to technically rubbish but brilliantly popular. .. which actually highlights that a photo can be brilliant for all sorts of reasons whilst being technically shit and the converse is also true. I’m leaning towards only allowing positive votes and the top one is the highest sum of all the votes rather than the highest average… which would mean that the malicious one actually helps you up the hill 😀

Why does it bother you? You're obviously a competent photographer of landscape.

I don't look at ukc/h photos at all, unless something unrelated about the person on here has piqued my interest, and the random times I've voted on anything it's only ever been a 5. Don't take it so seriously.

I'm not a fan of 'landscape' - though much of say, Nick Livesey for example can raise my spirits. It's all Poucher at the end of the day.

Do what makes you happy, secure in the knowledge it makes other people happy too. Why care about stars, status, competition? 

Atb D

Oops, Sorry! I got all confused and replied to you as though I was replying to Grahame N!

Because it's a bit of fun which is being spoiled for me, and I don't think that spoiling peoples' fun is a nice thing to do, so I would like it stopped.

Your old photos are a fantastic archive. It is really a shame that you feel unable to post them.

The option of not allowing voting would be a really good idea.

When you say "And will not post again", I do hope you're just referring to that particular photo. Your gallery is one of the jewels of UKC and would be much, much poorer if you stopped posting.

Can you put them on a Flickr page and post a link on your profile? I'd certainly like to see them and there is no storage of photo hosting sites free from petty downscore bombing.

Slow handclap for those people hunched over the vote button, refreshing 'Latest Photos'.

Go away. Big babies.

It does sound a bit like though that it is only fun for you if the system tells you that you are 'winning' or better than others in some way. You clearly 'know' you are taking good photos because otherwise why would you be bothered about someone for whatever reason giving you a 1 out of 5? If it's not about winning, why not just get rid of votes on photos completely?

I may have got this wrong, but from what I can see, you cannot vote for photos posted in the "Historical" category. Can anybody confirm this? It might be an option for sharing your gems. 

Not sure if UKC allows that sort of photo... 

Brilliant! 🤦‍♂️

Robert saves those for Facebook 😱

Of course not. What on earth makes you think that?

I am very happy to be outranked by photos which people consider better than mine; in fact this is often actually inspiring.

Top Ten/POTW can be a bit of fun. You know, a bit like people play a board game for fun or have a fun game of football. If someone  came along and tipped over the board whenever you were in with a chance of winning or kicked the ball away whenever it looked like you might score a goal they would be spoiling the fun. The malicious voting on here is not really any different.

Is that really so hard to understand?

My 89 year old jewels are not for exposure

They are always taken from a tasteful angle with no actual gems visible!

Different people take board games or kick arounds on the park with very levels of seriousness though. 

I totally get why people giving one star votes is annoying, but only if you want to get high scores or be photo of the week: as I perhaps cheekily called it, wanting to 'win'. If you don't care about having the quality of your photos affirmed by others, surely it's water off a duck's back?

There are two types of photographer: those who can make a great shot of just about anything, and those who need a fabulous subject for their great shot. I'm very much in the second camp, and the only times I've ever got 5*s on here are when I've made the effort to get somewhere at a possibly difficult time.

What's being "affirmed" there is not so much the quality of my photography as the quality of my early starts -- or the quality, if you will, of my luck.

So perhaps as people approach their twilight years it's their ever more painful early starts and their considerable efforts to get to the right place at the right time that they don't appreciate being voted down. I'm sure it's just as you say: in their heart of hearts they must know that they're a decent snapper, so it can't be that.

Calm down dear, it was only a suggestion.

Would it even be possible to address the preciousness of which you speak, using only anonymous numerical scores?

What are your own suggestions to pacify Robert?

The simple solution to my mind is that votes should cease to be anonymous.

Yes, agree - which might also encourage useful written criticism as a by-product of ownership and responsibility. 

Sorry, can't agree with you. There are some really poor shots in the UKC galleries and if I give a (deserved IMO) low score to one I really don't want to get into a tedious online confrontation with the outraged owner to 'justify' myself. Why do you think voting in lots of situations in real life is anonymous?

Isn't this problem analogous with the very worst of social media, where anybody can hurl out any old crap anonymously from the safety of their own keyboard without ownership and responsibility?

Agree voting anonymously is fine in situations like elections because that is less influenced by subjective judgement, whereas photos often are.

'Subjective' is more personal to its author than 'objective' because, like it or not, feelings are involved. Photos merely cataloguing stuff can be downvoted without comment, without upsetting anybody - unlike those that actually have (or tries to achieve) artistic merit.

Well, let's face it, it was a really bad one, hence my comment.

The 'preciousness' is felt by those uploading the photos, not by those ascribing the votes.

Why does he need to be pacified? I know Robert in person and feel he has a thick enough skin to take the low votes, but it appears that he also has an agenda that he wants to either get POTW or in the weekly Top 10 or whatever, that most others on here uploading photos couldn't give a hoot about. If he's that concerned about getting the votes he feels his photos merit, he could upload them to any number of photo-hosting websites rather than a climbing website.

I've voted on more than 41k photos in the UKC galleries and only given 1* to 3% of them and let's face it, there are plenty of rubbish photos on here. Now I'm not necessarily saying some of Robert's only deserve 1* but I'd equally not discount the fact that some other might felt they did, for whatever reason. And if it's just someone being petty or nasty, so be it. Life's too short - get over it, there are far more serious issues to worry about.

The very worst of social media is a hell of a lot more toxic and abusive than someone temporarily giving someone an anomalous 1* vote on a photo.  (Which will probably get removed automatically within a few days anyway.)  So, y'know - sense of perspective. 

Also, the worst of social media is not anonymous, at least in the sense that usernames are clearly visible on reactions and comments - Faceache, Twitter, what have you.  The last thing the forum needs is aggrieved photographers starting threads to call out people by name and have a pop at them over photo votes.

Nah.  Someone is deliberately trolling him, and unfortunately he's chosen (not for the first time) to make it wildly successful for them.  Streisand Effect innit.

Almost certainly but as you say,  the more he reacts, the more they 'poke'.

Like I said upthread, I only vote 5 or not at all. (It's there in my profile for all to see). 

Many of those 5s have been for Robert's photos over the years.

I hope you're not implying I'm the one doing the 'poking'..?

It can't have been that "many", you've only voted on 5 photos in 14 years!

I'm not sure if that was a statement or a question or but if it was a question then no, I wasn't. I'm not sure why you would think I was implying that. That wasn't my dislike either incidentally, just in case you'd thought that too!

Well, Inspector Clouseau, your evidence is flawed.

My '5' votes number in the hundreds, if not thousands. What you saw are my votes for the week, including one for Robert's Wadi Rum photo.

If the vote count on profiles is just for the week then Fraser has voted for over 41,000 in the last 5 days! That seems less plausible than you only voting 5 times in 14 years, so I think we can safely say the tally on profiles is an all time total. Fraser would have to be voting about once every 10 seconds, 24/7, otherwise.  

If that's the case then I apologise unreservedly. But I don't think it is the figures for just the last week, for the reason Stuart Williams notes above, it can surely only be your all time total. Robert himself has apparently voted for 1878 photos, but that is unlikely to be in just the last week. What makes you think the tally is only for the last week?

Because I know for certain that I've voted 1000's of times on photos I have liked. I have no idea why my profile is showing only one week's voting. It is NOT my all time total!

Perhaps the good folk at UKC can figure that one out..?

Until then, guilty until proven innocent, I suppose.

Or maybe I've lost a lot more marbles than I thought

Edit for emphasis!!!!

That's very strange then, I wonder why it's only listing 5. You're not 'guilty' of anything, I was just querying the statement about having voted 5 for "many" of Robert's photos when the figure in your profile seemed to indicate otherwise. And in true UKC fashion, the OP's thread has been hijacked and we've gone way off-piste with the discussion. But it would be interesting to find out why your profile lists such a low figure. Do you think it's correct if it were only for the last week? Why don't you try an experiment and vote 1 on a few of my own photos and see if the figure changes for your total and average? I'm now really intrigued to find out what's happened here!

Not at all cheeky; of course I want to win. People trying to win is kind of what drives good competition.

But I'd much rather win only rarely in friendly competition with a lot more people, including those who have been driven away by the toxicity of malicious voting, posting great photos again; as I said earlier, the galleries seem to be slowly dying at the moment and eliminating the unpleasantness could only be a good thing.

Along with others, I disagree with this. I think it would only discourage people from voting. Much better to have, as I have proposed, an entirely positive voting system where the worst anyone can do is not vote at all.

Well I could do that and I have considered it. But what I don't get is why you and others seem to consider it ok that people should feel driven off the UKC galleries. I actually really like the idea that I am sharing my photos and having them voted on by like minded people with a genuine love of the mountains and climbing. I want to see the galleries healthy.

Maybe so, but, as I said earlier, the alternative was to keep just sucking it up as I have done for ages, but there comes a point where one has nothing to lose really and say something in the hope that changes might be made for the better. No regrets.

With the replies in this thread or in the negative voting my more recent photos are attracting no doubt because of it?

I don't consider it okay at all but equally, I don't consider the uploading of photos a competition and I'm not driven to 'win' it. Photography is, to me, predominantly an art not a science, it's totally subjective so there's no empirical way of consistently scoring a photo that everyone will agree with. I'm often surprised at some photos that make it into the weekly Top 10, but that doesn't make them bad photos, they're just not to my taste. Nor does achieving POTW mean that's the 'best' photo that week - there's no such thing as the 'best' photo, it only means that's the one which achieved the highest score, using whatever formula this site uses, from the votes that people have actually given.

Thankyou🙂

So would you support simple changes which might stop it happening?

That, of course is fine, but the fact is that there is a weekly competition on here and it ought to be a healthy and fun one.

I agree and I find that it interesting. There has been POTW's which I would have deleted straight from my camera, but if they have won with honest votes I don't have a problem with it.

I agee with this too. It is, in the end, a bit of fun. But I just want the voting to be honest.

I would, but I suspect I know where you're going with this and suggest the simplest thing all round is for you to ignore the troll(s) rather than change the voting system, just in order to make you feel better.

As far as I'm aware, there is no photo "competition" on here, just voting. The highest voted pic gets POTW.

We're very much in agreement. And with that, I'm off. Outside. To climb! Have a good one.

I really don't get why this could possibly be the preferred solution. The bad guys here are the malicious voters, not me, and they should not be the winners in all this. 

That seems very much like a form of competition to me. Or, at least, it can be taken as one.

So am I! You too. Lovely morning here in the NW as I sit with my coffee looking out to Skye and Harris☀️🙂

Have you considered that people may not like your photography? I find them often formulayic and lacking in passion, while I wouldn't say they are ever worth "1" and also, personally,  would not say they worth "5". This is not malicious just taste.  If we all thought the same how dull life would be.

Of course, if my photos get the odd honest low vote that is fine. But it is obviously often systematic. 

And I can assure you that there is no lack of passion on my part!

Yes, agree - apologies to the OP for the hijack.

One last thing: It should be obvious something is wrong, that a UKC user of 14 years with an interest in photography, should be showing only 5 votes. I've emailed the mods to find out what's going on.

It's not in my nature to downvote photos, but yes I'll try that experiment on two of your photos that were low scoring in the first place.

Interesting. the two '1' votes are now showing up on my profile. 

'1' vote now 28%

Average now 3.9

Obviously calculated on my incorrect total.

No need to apologise. Keeps the thread alive and probably the downvotes flowing!

Yes, that is interesting - the case evolves! Hopefully the mods can get to the bottom of the error and get it rectified. I'd seen that you'd commented on plenty of photos so in retrospect it does seem odd that you had apparently only voted on 5.

So my latest photo on here came 2nd in the top ten with a displayed average of only 4, which must be pretty much unheard of. Actually currently 4.2 with 31 votes. So, I think that as a result of this thread it has got a lot more votes but a lower average than it would normally have got due to some downvoting (my guess is that it would normally have averaged about 4.5 and 20 votes).

Still trying to decide whether to continue posting photos on here or not.

Its tricky .. cos I suspect if someone votes on your photos , cos you are a prolific photo poster then the stars may be in reference to your standard rather than UKC standard so a good photo from you may get a 4 whereas from a random UKC poster it would get a 5 otherwise you'd just be getting 5's for everything whereas people tend to reserve the highest marks for the very best  .. if that makes sense. So basically I think you've set yourself a high standard and the bar will only increase ... unless you make a strategic move and fling in a few sh!te yins to bring your standards down

I don't think I see any evidence of that happening, except, as I said earlier, I suspect that if I post several photos together then some people will only give a 5 to the one they like best.

I expect I am now getting downvotes in this thread for the geeky amusement I get from estimating individual votes from evolving rounded averages. It's actually mathematically quite interesting.

If I see a series of similar photos in "Latest Photos", I usually only give a 5 to one of them.

maybe a technical grade combined with an effort grade is the answer

I only vote if I like a photo.

surprised to see your name on the SMC Munros cover. how did that come about?

Maybe UKC should make all photos Anonymous for a period of voting, and then freeze the votes after said period where the owners are then declared.

It would make this whole thread irrelevant.

I can't see that being popular or desirable. It would put too much emphasis on the competition side of things for most people.

It's not the most spectacular of your shots but it might have been the most appropriate with respect to the book - different criteria.

It's a brilliant photo and a superb Munros book cover.  

I was hoping to get more photos in the book but they didn't want any of my Winter shots (which I think is a great shame as I have found the previous editions of the book with plenty of Winter shots to be very inspirational in my early years as a mountain lover).  

Odd as Tom used one of my winter ones that I didn’t even think was that good.

oooh, which one was that Mike?

Thanks!

I hope you are sending in possible photos for the forthcoming Corbett book. I spoke to Rab a few days ago and he said they were particularly in need of new photos of the obscure and "dull" ones, even if it is a shot of the summit area and cairn with an interesting view. So worth bearing in mind when out and about.

Yes, I've sent them a few.  

My favourite photo in the new Munros book is Rab's picture of Meall Garbh on the Tarmachan Ridge - beautiful!

...with your photo of the Cuillin from Sgurr Dearg a close second

Sgairneach Mor. I guess it’s an interesting angle.

Ah yes, very nice Mike

I see there is a photo taken by Hugh Munro himself on the opposite page!

Not really noticed it?!!!  It leapt out at me and my heart skipped a beat or three.  I'm drawn to mountains that look like that.

I can see you had only minutes of sun from that photo.  A great moment indeed.

Just leafing through, most of the double spreads are great. Your one of Creagh Meagaidh and Rab's of Slioch really stand out for me.

Guaranteed success if you get a usable shot of the less photogenic hills.