Website update suggestions list for Blade... lets discuss before sending via email

Suren, we had a rating system here, but it was totally pointless IMHO.
Many people seemed to vote for their buddies, regardless of how poor the pics were and really good work by "less popular" people got low ratings.

Even now I find that someone will say "Stunning!" to pictures where the technical quailty is so poor — if it were mine, I would certainly have deleted it and never shown it to anybody.

If we somehow, could have an objective rating system, that would be tremendous.

Most of what I want to say about ratings has already been raised via CT's visit to Photo.net but firstly an observation:

I have one pic which was made POTW on Photo.net recently. It has been viewed over 28 000 times on that site alone since I posted it on 22 September. It is rated 6.46/7 for asthetics and 5.97/7 for originality - average 12.43 out of 14 from 37 ratings. However even within this one person rated it 7 out of 14 (proves that Modelbase is not alone in having oddballs). The same pic was rated POTW on another site and is presently rated second best portrait on the new website for Digital Photography and Practical Photography magazines in the UK. It has also got various other accolades - on Modelbase the same pic has been viewed 31 times in total since posting and recieved 2 ratings of 9. The pint of all this is to show that Modelbase is not the preferred site for photographic critique.....there are others that are far better equiped and skilled for such purposes.

Therefore one must ask the question - what does this site offer? I believe that it is a great platform for people of a like mind in South Africa to get in contact whether they be full time highly competant people in the industry or people starting out and trying to learn - and I believe that there is room for both on the site. However what should be recognised is that they have differing needs and things to offer. The site is also a great forum to exchange ideas and learn. However unless the best in each field/discipline participate on the site then it is possible that the knowledge that is exchanged may not be of the best quality or most accurate.

So - to add my 2 cents worth:

Firstly one should be able to join the site and offer pics for critique (as you will never stop it happening) under five distinctly seperate catagories - hair. make up, modelling, photographic and styling and the rating should be done according to the catagory under which it is submitted for critique. Most importantly - if a pic is not "offered for critique" then none should be forthcoming. Pics offered for critique should be limited to one per week per catagory per member to avoid flooding.

The critiques should be numeric in addition to verbal but with prior guidence and members should be advised not to offer a rating unless they have read the guidelines and are fully conversent with their meaning. i.e. do not rate the work of others unless you know what you are doing and can substantiate your position technically. There should be no anonymous critique as the purpose of critique is to add value to the recipient and therefore return communication should always be available to the recipient. The giver of the critique should be happy to prove their competancy by substantiating their position in an unemotional and objective way.

Ultimately forums should be available for each of the differing disciplines and an additional chat room for those who just want to socialise. (I would be very interested to see which one was the most active).

Such forums could then be divided into "professional" photographers looking for models, models looking for paid work, hobbyists looking for TFP models etc....to avoid time wasting and miscommunication. One would quickly learn not to go to the wrong place if you were not qualified but there would be space for all.

I have discovered that it is almost impossible to create a good shot without a team which includes a hair stylist and a stylist. These are seperate disciplines and the site should accomodate and encourage active participation for such people by making them sperate catagories. In essence by ignoring their importance the site is showing its ignorance of the industry and what is required for success in model/fashion/advertising photography.

Although I am an amateur photographer I would love to see the best professionals in the country as members of this site as it would raise the level in all aspects and make expertise and knowledge available to those that are learning. On all the international sites that I post many widely published international photographers participate with humility and assist those of us that are still learning the basics. That is what we need to see here. I would suggest that cognisence be taken of the input from those that are working full time in the fashion and advertising industry as to what they would like to see that would add value to them and thereby attract more experienced people to the site who in turn will hopefully share their knowledge and expertise with us all.

I would like to see this site prosper but it concerns me that so often I see knowledgeable people leaving because the site is not catering to their needs. My thoughts for the day.....

very good thought for the day ;-)

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im following this thread

Out of interest, Wayne assigns ratings to my pics on a simple mathematical basis. For each pic he divides number of views by days on the site to come with a ratio. Then he divides number of comments by number of views to get another ratio. Added together gives a "popularity" index for each pic. Sorted highest to lowest, we delete lowest periodically.

I know it might not sound exciting, but to us it removes subjectivity.

People are scared off paying sites, but what about a donation box for MB to cover some of Blades time and work spending on MB?

Just to comment (dont know if it has been commented on already - havent read all 4 pages), but this site is for sale and is a work-in-progress, so essentially he will be paid for his time when the site is sold. He's also getting invaluable assistance in building a site which is aimed at its users by having everyone suggest things to better the site.

I would like to see search catagories for photographers who work "in studio", "outdoor", "natural lighting", etc so if if a model is looking for a studio shoot, they can search for the relevant photographer. This would also mean giving the togs profiles a selection like the models get, only instead of shoe size, cup size, height, etc, you would get things like "studio", "outdoor", "gender" (some models prefer starting out with a particular gender), etc

I would also like to see a more compressed look to the inbox. To have only 5 emails on a page (for eg) and having 7+ pages of inbox messages makes for tedious searching. Lose the avatar next to the message and just have the username and the subject and have maybe 20-30 messages on one page.

bump*

im following this thread

Yay! :)

but this site is for sale

It is?!

I agree with QDP about the inbox. I like to keep many of my mail items for reference purposes, but the MB mail system is tedious.
An Outlook Express type of thing would be great

but this site is for sale

It is?!

So far as I know...

May I also add that when we get an email notification on a thread, that it takes us to the place we last left off in the thread. At the moment, it always takes me to the 1st page of a thread, and then I have to remember where I left off reading..."was it page 3? no...maybe page 2? no i definately remember reading past page 3 so it must be page 4!" get my drift :P

Ahh found it:

http://www.modelbase.co.za/forums/2_1771_0.html#ms g36088

Posted: 16 Jan 2008 09:08, TLVStudio said

Blade has told everyone via his response to various comments that the site does not belong to the members and is structured primarily for the owners benefit. Remember this site/program is being marketed as a product for sale. This is the "pilot" site as I undestand it.

So - look at it from an "owner's" point of view.....clearly the maximum number of members is good.....then activity levels of those members is also good. BUT....no ways would an owner of the site want to reduce membership unless it was absolutely necessary.

And so it continues about the whole "selling modelbase" concept and what is for sale, etc etc

seems to be only speculation... not really a sale, or for sale invite or options

lol, MB is not for sale. not for a very long while.

the inbox is definitely a problem im addressing with the new version.

there are some excellent suggestion in this thread a few that i actually already planned.

i think you all shall be pleasantly surprised at the improvements. ( both professional and serious hobbyists )

im taking my time planning before i event start writing a new line of code.

any more suggestions on what advanced features you would be willing to subscribe to or pay once off to have?

lol, MB is not for sale. not for a very long while.

From the horse's mouth :D Thanks for clearing that up! :)

Inbox suggestion:
* To be able to send mail to more than one person at a time.
* If possible, e-mail topics; to be able to sort the email under topics you created. This will work great if you planned a shoot and want to see all the responses quickly.
;)

And plsplsplspls take away the long string of re:'s that occur with every replied email ie re: "re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: re: shoot"