Oh that painful and addictive little “update” button. Should I push it? No I can’t take seeing my score drop again. Wait, maybe it will go up. Should I? Should I? Just do it! Crap.
Well, that is my DPC life, but I really can’t say about yours. For me, being able to settle down my angst just a little is well worth a little number crunching. Many of us have heard “just wait until about 150 votes and then you will have your score plus or minus about 2 tenths.” You know, there is some real truth to that. Why wait that long, however.
I have been tracking my scores with the hope of being able to validate that little rule of thumb. Given that there are lots and lots of variables including but not limited to: different results for different quality of photographer and different results for photos in which you are taking a risk or running in the mainstream. So for these next challenges I will be not only tracking my scores, but my predictions as well. For a numbers geek like me this is excellent entertainment.
For those of you that would like to test my numbers on your own results during the week, here you go:
If I'm reading this correctly, the "short form" tells me that my image, at 78 votes and 5.4744, is predicted to finish between roghly 5.9 and 5.8? Just to see if I'm reading this correctly?
Not exactly. (Please note that these are developed from my results and there is lots of varibility between photogrpahers so your results could be way different.)
The short version requires the use of the speific number of votes (within say 2 either way). So you cannot use the short version again until you hit 100 votes.
An appropriate equation can be used for any number of votes within a range. So using the equation for 51-100 votes, I predict that if you were me your final score will be 5.8110.
Some additional results are now available for me to play with and there is a distinct difference between latest results and previous results. I may be able to make a distinction between open and member challenges, but possibly this recent difference is due something else entirely. Interestingly, using the regresion equations, from 100 votes on, I was within 0.05 units of my final socre for the Holiday Catalog challenge.
One of mine was very close from 100 votes on and one was off nearly the exact same as yours. I shall recalculate with the additional data and for those interested.
Out of interest for you, when I read your post I checked out my projected score, at 148 votes, the projected score by your formula was 6.2273
Eventual score for my entry, Deferred, was 6.226
This was at 6.9xxx after 30 votes in the "Visual Puns" challenge - final score 6.476 a drop of nearly .5000 with 225 final votes.
This was at 6.7xxx after 120 in "Your corner of the World II" but drifted to 6.628 with 180 votes. I remember this because it is the first time I saw my score dropping like that.
But, that being said, the normal for most of my photos is to bounce up a bit at the end of the scoring, which is what your numbers would indicate.
In this formula, there is a distinct possiblity of failure when the votes are less than 150,
biggest failure would be fore less than 10 votes, the assumption that your score increases after 10 votes , could fail with high probablity.
after 150 votes the score is pretty much stablished and is seen that it increases little bit, 0.15 to 0.18 is fair judgement.
anyway good effort.
This was at 6.9xxx after 30 votes in the "Visual Puns" challenge - final score 6.476 a drop of nearly .5000 with 225 final votes.
I think what's happening here - and what's hard to account for in a predictive model - is the dropping of votes, at the end of the voting period, of people that didn't vote on at least 20% of images. You might notice that sometimes your final vote count is actually lower than the vote count shown right near the end of the voting phase. In my own experience, this can change scores (edit: up to) +/- ~.3.
You can not make every body happy, and this is true with whatever we do in life. So i make my self happy (mostly), i only care about people who care about me (if i change my descsion).
Originally posted by ShutterPug:
I have my own model.....take a photo, submit to DPC, get sucky score, try to learn not to repeat same mistake again.
