This morning when I checked my Home Sweet Home entry, to my delight, I was at approx. 6. I maintained this score (+/- 0.1)for several hours. Then in less than one hour it dropped a full half a point. The perplexing thing is, all the comments were positive and a couple stated 9 and 10 votes. I watch the stats very closely and it's beenmyexperience that the first 20 - 30 votes are indicative of the final score within 0.2 or 0.3. I'm not complaining about the score as such, I am here to learn afterall. But statistically it doesn't make much sense to me. And why not one bad comment, constructive or otherwise? Did anyone else experience a sudden down-spike over a short period?
associating votes with comments is probably not a good practice. i vote on all the photos and then go back and add comments later... you could get a low score at the same time i give you a comment with an = 10 on the end... does it make me look like a liar if that happens? :)
I think that your statistical prediction parameter is not correct. I used to have the same idea, to be proven wrong with my last entry (contrasting colors) where the score dropped over the first day by a whole point, to drop another half point over the next day, to stay there until the end of the challenge. Why? The comments did not really tally with the ongoing votes. From my analysis it took about 60 voters to reach a value that was within 0.1 points of the final value. My present entry seems to hold to the 30 voters rule again (at least until now).
SO, be proud of it: you raised controversy, people are either touched or repulsed. Better than the middle of the road where it really doesn't matter.
Thanks to all who replied to this thread. Didn't want to stir up a controversy, was just perplexed. Like everyone, I enjoy getting "good" comments on my stuff but think I'd be better served getting "constructive" comments on the negative aspects of my shots. I've learned so much since I got a membership and became serious and I want to continue.
I don't have time to comment on every shot - and I like to comment in a good deal of depth whenever I do say something. I find there are a lot of shots that are too plain dull to exercise the old brain enough to comment just for the sake of it - enough of those crop up through CC.
Scores? By the time I see the voting there's usually 20/30 votes up, and that's usually a pretty good indication: though the Matrix shot leapt whole .25 in the last hours of voting - I guess that's a function of the dodgy votes algorithm cutting in. It was never as high during the week as it ended up.
