Lost Video Island

[thefilmchick]

(Disclaimer: This is just my opinion and a suggestion, not OMG CHANGE THIS OR ELSE. Also, if this belongs in a different forum, please move it.)

OK, so I've been chatting about this with several people, and we've come to the conclusion that anonymous voting is having a disproportionately negative impact.

Arguments in favor of anonymous voting: People can give the video the rating that they believe it deserves without fear of being asked about it.

Arguments against anonymous voting: People tend to just anony-bronze and not post comments. That is not helpful, and detrimental to videos that otherwise receive good scores, and the vidder is left staring at the anony-bronze, not knowing why it is there, not knowing what is wrong with the video, and not being able to improve upon the score.

Recommendation: Anonymous voting, IMO, should be disabled. Again, I stress this is just my opinion. However, I think the anonymous votes don't help anything and are problematic.

I know that anonymous voting will not be disabled, however, so I suggest that if people are going to anonymous vote, they should be required to give a reason/post comments (whereas voting under your own name shouldn't require comments? or should it as well?) Otherwise, it does not help foster a community, and it does not help anyone improve.

In fact, in my own case, it takes away my desire to try to make a vid and to take chances in the video, because I know that taking chances will bring out the anonymous bronzes. How can I hope to improve or make better videos in that circumstance? Having found myself on the bad side of several anonymous bronze votes that came without explanation on videos that were otherwise all-gold or all-silver, all that's telling me is, 'Well, this is nice, but I'm not going to bother to explain to you why it's just nice and no better than that, despite being different than all the other votes.' And that doesn't help anything.

Thoughts? I look forward to hearing people's opinions, be they in agreement or disagreement.
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I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect.

[Aislynn]

Heya Kate! Let me start with the bottom line: no matter what we do, disable anonymous voting, write up more rules, etc. we can't make somebody give concrit on a vid.

As much as we'd all like people to leave at least some idea of why they voted what they did, either good or bad, there's just no practical way to enforce that. By taking away the anonymous vote, all you'd end up doing is drastically cutting down the number of votes because, honestly, then most people wouldn't vote, rather than have to do it publicly.

The option to NOT vote anonymously is there, of course, and I think people certainly know to go to the vid's main thread when they want to leave some sort of feedback. But, truthfully, there's no practical way to make everyone who watches a vid stop and analyze what they liked and didn't like about it and offer suggestions for improvement. People HAVE the option but it's not something that can be enforced by any sort of rule.

You might notice that a warning to vote fairly etc. pops every so often. Also included in that is the reminder that, while anonymous votes are hidden from the general public, they're NOT hidden from the Council Members. We don't watch them to see what people are voting just for kicks (and, if you're wondering, CMs can't see the anonymous votes on their own vids to try and keep it fair ) but we certainly can monitor patterns of votes.

However, we can't tell people that they're just not allowed to vote Bronze unless they give a reason for it. If that's what they feel a vid deserves, there's no way we can't censor that. And we can't make them tell the vidder why they thought that vid deserved Bronze or whatever. If we set that as a condition, that they HAVE to give a detailed reason as to why they're voting what they're voting, then again, people simply wouldn't vote.

The best we can do is what we've already done: you have to be a member of LVI and logged in to vote (to discourage prank voting) and you're reminded that you're not truly anonymous. But we can't force people to leave concrit, all we can do is suggest it.

Anyway, I'm certainly sorry to hear that this has been causing some stress for you and other vidders. One of our main concerns when we made the LVI 5.0 upgrade was to put the power of the vote into the hands of the membership, not just the Council as it had been since LVI's inception. But all we can do is to remind people to vote responsibly. We can't force them to leave mature, thoughtful concrit.

If it's any consolation, I have anonymous Bronze votes on some of my vids, too. Hey, everybody's allowed to have an opinion, after all. And I'd rather they just left their Bronze vote anonymous than fill in "THIS VID SUXXXXX!!!" in a required field.

[thefilmchick]

But the problem is that these anonymous, unhelpful votes hobble videos without having any sort of positive impact.

If a video is gold, gold, gold at average-vidder status, and then an expert-vidder comes along and bronzes, the video goes down to silver. If the bronze is anonymous, then there is no way that the person receiving the bronze (and, thus, a person who now has a silver pick that was otherwise a gold, or a bronze pick that was otherwise a silver, or, in the extreme circumstance, a video with no pick that should have gotten some form of notice) can get any sort of constructive criticism from that. So they get a gold pick changed to a silver, and no reason why. That's a disproportionately negative, unhelpful impact.

To use you as an example (sorry, but heck), it may not be so for you, because that one anonymous bronze is amongst twenty or so other votes. To people that receive only five or six votes on a video, however, that anonymous bronze negatively impacts, and an anonymous bronze has a very disproportionate impact for very little reward or hope for improvement.

Hopefully you see my point there. I know it's been impacting my scores, and I have heard from other folks who receive less votes than super-popular vidders that it impacts theirs as well.
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I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect.

[Aislynn]

[thefilmchick]

Or a lower pick, mind you - I've had two gold viewer picks drop to silver thanks to lowered ratings from more recent people, which is a bad feeling. (Would it be possible to keep gold picks static once they were attained?)

As far as making the vote not anonymous to solve the problem: People would be more willing to leave constructive criticism if they had their name on the vote, I believe. It's too easy to vote and dash, and holding people to some overt level of responsibility would alleviate that, especially if it were obvious that the vote was being swayed by a particular bronze vote. It would foster a greater sense of reciprocal responsibility, which at the moment doesn't really exist.

(Sorry, I sound like a lawyer in this; too many classes today including a three-hour seminar, blech. But take my point as it stands, despite the stilted writing.)

I would rather get a bronze with concrit than just a bronze, personally. A bronze tells me nothing. A bronze with, 'You should have had more beat use' or 'Your video was fuzzy-looking in the bridge' or whatever would help me know where to improve next time. At this point, with the bronze amidst the golds that I do have, all I know is that someone, somewhere, doesn't agree with everyone else that the video deserves a gold. Well, gee, thanks. But why? I have no idea.

I'd honestly rather not have a vote up there than have someone vote bronze and have that affect the rating, with no help in the process.

As far as your final point: The end result in any given vote would still be swayed by the rank/power of the voters, BUT the rank/power of 3 Expert vidders is much less when put 'against' 20 Advanced vidders than it is if there are 3 Expert vidders and 3 Advanced vidders. As it stands, the anonymous bronze votes hit those who receive less votes in a far worse fashion than those who receive more votes, and that shouldn't be.
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I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect.

[littleton_pace]

To add my two sense an annoyance at the same time, I think you shouldn't be able to leave a comment in the vote field without giving it an actual vote. For my latest vid, i have five votes, most are annoymus but that doesnt really bother me. This one does. its anonymus with no gold/silver/bronze and all it says is 'I hate this song' Why should I be targeted for song choice? if you dont like it, dont watch it. sos, its a lil off topic, but it just irriates me everytime i read it.
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[rbexter93]

[Polarbear]

Heya everybody!

The impact that votes have on vids is based fairly. It all depends on your status. If you are an Expert Vidder and you vote you have more of an impact on the rating of a vid as do the Council Member's vote so people who just write "I don't like the song.." who are novice vidders will not have much of an impact on the final rating.
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[Jinlovessunxx]

[Charmed_Charlee]

[KajaM]

[thefilmchick]

[cylune]

[thefilmchick]

[Charmed_Charlee]

yeah like i have nothing against voting anonymusly because i do it too, but in a way i think if there wasn't that option and if someone didn't like the video and they wanted to vote a bronze they might not want the vidder to know who it was, or i know this would probably never happen on here, if someone voted a great video bronze for the simple fact they didn't like it, the person who's video that was might start doing the same to the person who voted the bronze on their video just put of sheer pettiness.

if you understand that cause i have a feeling it's jibberish cause i'm singing out loud and keep typing what i'm singing lol you get a cookie