[kellyx]

I like the "like" hearts,
and attorney love your post, hahahahaha!!!!!!!

[arttorney]

It took some guts to post that. I could see somebody had to. Art is subjective. Derrrr!
I understand what Dave Palumbo says (about sorting and browsing). If only there was some way to separate the sincere from the insincere. My post was about how content can affect value judgments as well as quality can.

No matter what I may say about "art for art's sake" marketability will always be a major factor in commercial art. After all, "commercial" is right in the name. Unfortunately, artists competing for that last dollar might get petty even amongst themselves.

[oxpal]

Originally Posted by MikeCorriero

I think you missed the point. It's not exactly fear of "negative feedback" though that DOES defeat the purpose of getting any kind of feedback in the first place.

Well, I don't think I missed the point - but I understand, I could be more constructive.

You raise the question what the stars are good for - and that's exactly where my comment is coming from. I don't see the stars as proper art feedback (obviously useless for that), but as sorting mechanism what is good and what not. Now while that is always a tricky issue for art, I think the system made some sense, and if lots of people vote, then the page is able to find out whats popular.

The star system had one advantage: None-masterpieces could get a rating. What do you do now? Either people will click "like" on everything they see - then we have the view-count for it.
Or they will click "like" only on the real master-pieces. But that's just the same as the favorite button. So why have both?

The like-system doesn't add anything.

The point to get rid of the stars was that some people cant handle low ratings. And I think that should be ignored - as you say the stars are no proper art critique. And if some artists have an personality issue, that they even cant stand that - they should just turn it off.

It seems we are nearly on the same opinion then: If you can't do it right, then just get rid of it. Viewcount and the the favorite-button do the same thing (and are not as ugly). And maybe removing the rating will get people to comment more constructively.

[SCWatson]

I think Mike had some great points he brought up, and I appreciate the time you put into that, Mike -- thanks.

Arrtorney's post was spot on, and I think is probably the most accurate assessment of the star rating system I have ever seen. Thank you, sir.

My personal view is that the days of star rating system for individual threads is long past. I personally don't use the system at all -- excepting in the individual galleries where I can rate a single piece of artwork. To me, that seems to be the most effective and sensible use of a rating system such as this.

The only exception to this I can see is where the star rating system were reserved for the Mods, and a clear definition of what the ratings implied were posted -- this way, certain threads could still be rated and brought to public attention, without the worry of random asspats and vindictive downvotes. The idea here would be more focused and to use the system in a more objective manner.

I tend to agree with Mike in that the idea is to encourage meaningful feedback, not anonymous "Likes" or meaningless stars. If a thread is to be rated, I think that there needs to be a set criteria in order to earn that rating, and a clear reason for the rating.

~S

[Ankaris]

Either the stars or likes or whatever are there for a reason or they're not. If they're not, get rid of the the system all together. I'm sorry, but if the only reason for instituting a 'like' system was because the star system was upsetting people, then I'd say toughen up princesses!

It is assumed that most younger/inexperienced artists are here because they want to become PROFESSIONAL artists. If they cannot hack criticism of ANY kind, get out now. Trust me on this, you get out into the film/games/illustration industry, the vfx sups/producers hiring DON'T CARE about your feelings. If you can't handle a simple anonymous star rating then you will be in for a major shock outside.

The star system was not perfect but statistics alone would have weeded out the trolls in either direction. It's the trend that provides the right information. But it was a system without a purpose. I agree with Dave Palumbo's suggestion however - IF you're going to have a rating system of any kind, make it publicly open.

For eg. If young 'artist A' gets 10 ratings, 8 of which are 4/5's and 2 are 1's.. show who rated what. So young artist A looks at these lower ratings, and before collapsing in a teary heap, sees that Sparth and Donato rated him/her the 1's. The 4/5's are rated by other younger/inexperienced artists so he/she can ignore those (for the most part) and concentrate on those lower ratings. This is where the gold is, this is where young artist A embraces the opportunity to learn WHY that image was rated a 1. The onus is now upon Sparth and Donato to actually follow up with their reasons..

So the right to rate comes with responsibility and transparency. If you want to rate others work, then be prepared to follow through if asked by that artist. Otherwise don't rate.

Similarly if you see your image with 10 ratings, 8 are low and 2 are high, it might be that those that rated low don't know a good image when they see it and those two high ratings may actually be from Sparth or Donato who see real value and strength in the work.

I mean are we rating an artist's work against everyone else or are we rating against their own work? Without knowing what you're rating against and why, makes the system pointless and doesn't help anyone.

The other thing is, am I rating the image as a good matte painting or illustration? Very different animals. Might be a great illustration but crap MP.. Variables you either factor into the rating system or you don't. It HAS TO BE USEFUL to the artist being rated, it must provide relevant info for them to learn, change, implement and re-evaluate to show genuine progress.

All of this is just pissing in the wind otherwise and nothing more than a mutual backslapping club!

[DarronSmith]

I have to say, the change in the rating system is a great move for the cghub community. Cghub has already been a great place for me to come and get inspired on a daily bases. And when you don't think it can get any better, it does.

i have to thank all the mods who challenge themselves and listen to the community to make this place better everyday.

hats off to CGHUB!!

[JohnSilva]

This is a though discussion, everyone is right in some points, but i believe if Like VS Stars won't change anything, the only solution in my eyes that was brought out is transparency VS Non transparency when rating someone.

Now that i re-read this thread topic it says "Rating System Feedback", right? the Feedback word is also there, so why not implementing a rating that when a user is rating, afterwards he must at least type in something, or else the rating wont be valid... I know that there is a problem against this because then this might make the users to rate less because either they have no time or their pasta is over cooking... if this is a Rating System FEEDBACK i/we should value much more someone who took the time even to say "Wow your values suck" or " Cool colors man" , rather than not voting... anyone agrees?

EDIT: In the end we might have less stars, but the main problem brough up was feedback no matter if its good or bad.

[AaronSmith]

I really like what people from both sides have to say. And, I too have to give Cghub kudos for trying to improve the site experience if this works or not kudos for the attempt. I really like what MikeC. and Arttorney had to say.

I personally like change but, what if there was a star system option that gave people the ability to rate only after giving feedback.

You could have both:

1. The like system which is currently in place.

2. A star system that would only submit the vote after a comment had been added. But of course these would be optional. You give us the users the ability to choose which system he or she wanted.

3. You could have a variety of options. But I am also not a programmer and not sure how this would all work together.

I am kind of thinking out loud. Anyhow this has been a great discussion and I am curious to see where it goes.

[Jowii]

Hard subject and probably the biggest issue on the internets.

Forcing people to comment in order to rate sounds good now, but will probably not last long. People either stop rating or copy paste "great work!". It's stupid, but that's the internet.

People always want to be rewarded for some reason :

For the gallery an option would be, comment "x amount of characters" on my image and you can download the high res version (even tho it's not guaranteed the user uploaded one), similar to animepaper.net, but then again, copy paste.

I like the idea of Davepalumbo, you can see who likes your image and be exposed to new people/work since you have their username.

As for the forum, there already is the "thank you" button wich is similar to a "like" button. It's better than a star system, but I don't really see anyone using stars anyway .

[MikeCorriero]

Again..to those mentioning "hurt feelings etc"..

To me it's not about thick skin, or hurt feelings, or an artist not being able to handle criticism. When you rate something good or bad, 1 star or 5 stars it's not helping anyone. So as has been mentioned I'm behind two options:

1: Dave's idea of making ratings public, and or making it mandatory that if you want to submit a rating that you MUST provide a comment/post to go with the rating and above your comment it shows what your rated.
Or..........
2: Get rid of stars, likes, everything so everyone is on equal grounds and if something needs to be said, it will be written. This again would help further the participation and interaction between members. I think that "stars, likes or ratings" of any kind prevent any interaction when a simple "clickable button" is an option.

I don't come on here to check and see if my rating has changed or to see if I got another 5 likes, I want to come here to see what type of feedback I received on my most recent forum (art) post.

Mike C -

[arttorney]

All right. Here is another approach that might let people do one click criticisms while at the same time actually conveying useful information. Supposing there is a pulldown menu or task bar of some sort that allows for a star rating within specified important fundamentals. I mean something like:

values/color scheme-> (1-5 possible)
anatomy-> (1-5 possible)
line/edges-> (1-5 possible)
content/meaning-> (1-5 possible)
composition/cropping-> (1-5 possible)

That sort of thing. That way if people want to express positive or negative sentiment with a single click, at least their click was channeled into a form that gives the artist something to go on.

[Ankaris]

@arttorney I'm not sure if it was Red Bubble or another gallery site, but they had something similar..

Composition
Colour/Lighting
Draftsmanship
Originality

... Can't remember the others but this is a list that could also get extensive!

This does at least impart some useful info. You might have strong composition and suck at colour or have great colour sense, strong values and crap composition. At least it can allow you to see that you're trending in a particular direction and as you say, give the artist 'something' to go on.

[MikeCorriero]

Arttorney - I don't think it's a "bad" idea per say, but it still leaves multiple disadvantages and not enough advantages.
Someone can still abuse the system - IE; say I just don't like your work, I'm not a fan or I am having a bad day and I feel like making someone else feel bad too... so I go rate 1 for everything on the list. That aside, even if someone was rating each category with good intentions it merely points out a broad generalized area of "what's wrong" with no real helpful information.

I think pointing out "what's wrong" with work can be helpful but only when it is described in a more detailed manner, not simply implying that the member's "color" is equivalent to a 2 or a 3. That lets them know there is something wrong with the way they use color but it doesn't let them know in what regard to color itself. Is it too saturated, not saturated enough, does it imply the use of color doesn't benefit the focal point, general color scheme not playing to the strength of an individual image, colors that don't work well together.....etc there are too many variants and it leaves the artist with questions and no answers.

[kellyx]

Personally I do use the system to gauge my own progress with past and new pieces, it helps to see what the GP and your peers think of your work, I work alone and in a non-competitive atmosphere (I do compete with myself, haha)
I have had a problem from day one with the fact that people take the time to download pieces and do not take the time to rate them, it seems pretty obvious that a piece of artwork is of some worth the time to down load it is surly worth the time to rate or comment on?? What are they doing with the piece, study, darts, ????? I have written about this before but if someone is allowed to "use" your piece of art, they should have to rate it or at least say I'm studying this piece of art in order to see what not to paint... something???
My point, I think the downloads should have to be rated, noted or given a like.

[natzuurjk]

I do like the idea of having to "like" before a download of the image, let's the artist know people aren't just taking an image for no reason.