To have a Critique feature in the blog, aside the Comment one, could be a great educational tool and a way to share our knowledge and techniques.

What do I mean for Critique

The comments already provide a form of critique, but most of the time are simple compliments, and that’s fine: guess no one would like being criticised if she (or he) hasn’t required it.

For critique I mean a much longer comment, that goes in-deep analysing the photos of the set, giving constructive advices on how those could be better [in our opinion], what we would have done different, what we think is good about the set and why.
Basically it would be an in-depth analysis which doesn’t have to be positive, but has to be always constructive.

Most of photography magazines have now some pages where critiques are given upon reader's photos, I personally find those pages extremely intresting. Our would be a DIY verson: anybody could partecipate leaving his critique, not only the 'pros'. It's like every critique starting with an un-written ''In my opinion...'' and everybody would have the same right to leave his own.

Advantages of the feature

Those critiques would be very useful and inspiring not only for newbie photographers and seasoned ones looking for a deep analysis of their works or an exchange of ideas, but also for any other viewer; making even more instructive and inspiring to check out others’ blogs, and making Photoblog more intresting to be visited by anyone who's not a member yet.

Aside any educational advantage, this feature would improve communication between bloggers drammatically; every set offering a little forum on the set itself; promoting thus the sense of community already characteristic of this blog and eventually leading us to better know eachother : )

How could it look like

Since not everybody is interested in receiving critiques, as much as not everybody is interested in comments:

At present, when posting a set, we can choose between
Comments: Open/Closed (default: open)

With the new feature we could have one more option
Critiques: Open/Closed (default: closed)

When watching someone’s set who has chosen both Comments and Critiques OPEN we would see the list of critiques first (because of much wider interest, including even non-members of Photoblog) and then the list of comments (more of personal interest for the photographer himself and his friends).
In this way after watching the set we'll see the critiques straightaway, without the need to scroll down and check if there's any after the comments' list.

Now there’s just the ‘Post comment’ space at the bottom of the page, with the new feature (in the set of who has chosen both options OPEN) there would be also ‘Post critique’.



Looking forward for your opinions,
many thanks for reading.

Alex 'iagho'

Perhaps a "poll" for technique, originality, composition, etc for each photo/set. Having a critique is an excellent idea however most users might find it easier to vote.

Just my 2c =)

I think this is a great idea. I would love some critique on my work and to offer critique, so to have it as a feature would let others know that you welcome it.

I second the idea, I personally welcome any critique to my photos but unfortunately I cannot make good critique (not having brilliant brain for critique I think, lol).

I agree with Iagho. I participate daily in the forums in dpreview.com and I have learned so much from the critique I have received there on my photos. It will help people learn how to make better pictures, if they want, and the ones simply posting for sharing with family will leave the critique option closed.

Well it could be interesting, I agree with this idea. Maybe we could make a try and see what's happenning then.

i completely agree with having critical anaylisis, as i want to improve my photos, but sometime i dont even know that something needs improving myself, and it would be good to learn. i enjoy getting the nice commpliments, but i also want to improve my work.

I like the idea!
For me personally it would be nice with constructive feedback on my pictures, I am a novice and want to learn photography.
I dont want the photoblog to change from what it is today, it is a very social photoblog and I really enjoy to communicate with people around the world. I also like that everything is not only about the technical quality, but also about travels, adventures, nature and landscapes, and so on. This is a blog for everyone, not only for the pro-photographer and I like to keep it that way. But a system where the bloggers can choose for themselves to have a critiquesection on their site sounds like a good idea.

Best regards

Chris

Glad many of you like the idea! : )

As Chris said, this is a very social blog, there is a lot of communication between bloggers, thus creating a great sense of community; with the Critiqe feature we would have even more opportunities to communicate, much more! It wouldn't be just an educational tool but moreover a boost to that uniqe spirit that already makes Photoblog so different and better than any other.

For a while, I tried adding "I would appreciate critical feedback" or something of that sort, at the end of every set, and it helped a little. The feature might be useful.

a way to do this in the meanwhile would be to put a line in your profile, at the end, saying that you welcome critical feedback. I think I'll do that right now!

I agree with the idea for a Critiques feauture. Sure would love to hear some tips how to improve my pics, i have some photoblogfriends that will give me some tips and critique on my work (thanks for that!!). I myself are a bit careful to give some advise because i think i'm not good enough(yet) to give good advise. Also i'm missing the exif info that would give me more info how he shot was taken and to see what camera was used.(already in request) I'm using this photoblog for some time now and i like it very much, also because the pictures don't always have to be perfect. Sometimes its enough just to share pics and comments just for the fun of it.

Jan

I am totally for this.
Sometimes, I spend so much time working on a photo that I come to not even knowing what's wrong and what's right about it anymore. There are some amazing photographers here from who I'd surely like to have some critique of my work. And I would also feel much more free to give a more elaborate and constructive comment on the photos of someone that would have activated that kind of feature.

And thanks to iagho for bringing up this important matter, and others.

Well done iagho
and we say well done because the idea is good but also because it was studied carefully before being presented!
we seem to remember you might have been involved in the past with another idea: voting...
and we remember, at that time, it just didn't add much to the blog.

this time it's a different and much better idea... and we know that there are other photoblogsites where critiques are the main feature of the comments... in fact, in some of them they are almost mandatory!

So we basicly agree with the way you presented the critiques feature: the main thing is that bloggers can choose to allow it: our blog and the ones of our team members will all go for allowing (in fact, welcoming) critiques but we have had lots of problems in the past with so many bloggers that had no sense of humor and that could not take some critical analysis (even when it was disguised with humor).
Also, the natural cultural differences can cause misunderstandings... so it's good to know someone will be up for it... and helpfull too that it will go in a different section than the comments.
Hopefully most misunderstandings will be dealt with in this fashion and people will know it's a critical analysis... and not an insult, as quite a few bloggers seem to feel if they get anything more than the lame "nice set" or "beautiful pics"...

If all goes well we predict that the comments section will become obsolete!

as a member of the FLIPADOS TEAM, and the one who has to do most of the writing I just want to had to my previous reply that any blogger should be grateful that anyone else should take some time off just to analyse his/her photos. So, unless it is a clear and deliberate insult (and we mentioned this word before) it should be respected. We don't have to agree...

and I would even dare say that these critiques might be most helpful to a third blogger...

let me explain this better: even more than "photographer 1" or "photographer/critiquer 2" i believe that all the other "photographers/readers 3" will get more out of it because they are not personally involved in the process.
So it's like reading a good book on photography:
- you get the original photo
- and then the analysis and opinions about it

It's a great way to learn and improve your skills, right?

so, well done, iagho

Best wishes at first!

I appreciate this suggestion too much!

It can be different "to talk about a photo" from "to talk about photography" in a friend´s posting. The first one can be a personal comment but the second concept must be founded on technical, artistic, or reasonable comments. I second Alex. It`s an interesting idea and a way to apreciate friend`s works and create a real critic culture in photography. bEst wIshEs fOr All!

Friendy,

david cardona
facebook AIM: davidcardona
dcardox@hotmail.com

I would go for that too. I think you'd have to include a description about what you were trying to achieve with the photo too in order for someone to give it a good critique. I like the idea though.

I think this is a great suggestion.
But I really agree with Artbug aswel. Unwanted critique might happen more often then and there are people who just don't want that critique and then you shouldn't bother them with that..
It be great if there could be an option that you can turn on or off so that other people know if you even like critical feedback or not. Then people might not fear to give you that critiques..
And to ask for critique at the end of a serie.. yeah it's an idea but not really convenient..

Well, I'm hoping that there will be some changes, would be really cool! we'll c.

@ Jan2plantje,
There won't be any unwanted critiques because of the option 'Critiques Open/Close (default: close)' ; )

As another mentioned about the exif info; it would be really useful to have that available as that is one place to start when giving and getting feedback on the technical side of critique.

I'm quite lazy about inputting it manually so I tend not to bother ;p

@ jenniferp:

Check the icons that appear with your pictures ;-) We'll be announcing this very soon.

You guys are great!! I like that it's unobtrusive - if you want the info it's there, not cluttering the blog.
Yay!! thanks

I totaly agree with iagho! I'm here to improve my work.

Contrary to what i thought when i began reading, you've all persuaded me the idea has merit. However, I have some qualifiers I would like to see added to the program.

1. Its a great idea for bloggers to have the option of receiving critique or not. And they should feel free to argue back and defend their work if someone makes a dumb suggestion. BUT. If i were to have this feature on, I would like the option of being able to describe what type of critique I want, so this would mean that the formatting off the critiques feature button should be different to that proposed by the OP. I think, have the button to turn the feature on, and then a little window (not buried in the profile) displaying what the photographer wants. It should be variable for each blog, as should the critique on/ off button. In my case, there would be times when I welcome critique and times when I would not.

Apart from lots of genuine praise.... Ok, seriously, I consider myself a good critic of my own work already, so the last thing i want is someone telling me what i already know. Eg. I don't want to be told my pictures are not sharp enough. I know it already. I don't want to be told what f-stop I should have used to make the picture better. I can work that out for myself already, there may be another reason why I am using a bad choice of f-stop. I am interested in feedback of a more discursive kind, if anyone were to be inspired that way by any of my pictures. Sorry to sound a bit snobby but I much prefer the simple positive comments on my blog and others to a whole lot of technical blurb which can make for very boring reading.

2. So as a blog viewer, I would also like the option to view or not to view critiques on other people's blogs. Before I found photoblog, I saw a site that had technical critiques and I found it very boring. I disagreed with a lot of the points and in the main, thought everyone was missing the bigger point. There is not much merit in taking a technically perfect picture of something as boring as a cup for instance, unless you are trying to communicate something or UNLESS, you are doing it for an exercise to learn the techniques so that you can then apply your technique to something that actually expresses something.

This sight has a lot of charm being mainly about families and personal stories and self-development but also private documentaries and a way to improve their photography. I would hate to see it become a commercial site, though I have nothing against the odd professional showing their work here either. I like the diversity that everyone brings, diversity of purpose and intention that is.

Finally, I would say that if people want critique, the easiest way to achieve it would be to say so in your own comments window. If people don't respond appropriately, its either because they have nothing to say or they are inhibited by the no-critique-culture that we've got here at the moment. If you want critique, say what sort of critique you want. Give your viewers a few tips.

Here's an example of what you could say.
People, if you don't like my picture, please tell me why and I would be grateful for any suggestions to improve it. But please don't be nasty or rude because I am a sensitive soul. If you do love it, leave me some gold stars or say whatever is in your heart. One can never have enough adulation.

Now how could anyone with something to say, resist that?

And if the critiques get too numerous or too anything undesirable, the blogger should be able to delete them or stop more critique. In other words, they should have a lot of control over it.

Lastly, I would like to comment that i find some things are getting harder on the blog. I liked it how your comments always showed. I don't like it how there is a comment link. It means a lot of toing and froing to read them. Its the same with the show more options link. I don't like it. I would prefer to have the full lists showing all the time. Likewise the edit this post link. I wish that that was always on show.

The reason for all this is because it takes too much time to change pages and I have to changes pages a lot more often than I used to. At least have them as drop down menus rather than links. ie for show more options. If it was a drop down menu that could be qutie good. But i would make a drop down menu for each of the sections - posts, months and categories.

also I notice that we can no longer see the views on every post. Sometimes it doesn't show for some reason.

Apologies for writing so much.

Oh, dear lots of errors in the above. Maybe a bigger window to write in or an editing option would help.

I need to clarify what i wrote in the first paragraph as its not clear at all. So I'm rewriting it here.

Its a great idea for bloggers to have the option of receiving critique or not. And they should feel free to argue back and defend their work if someone makes a dumb suggestion. BUT. If i were to have this feature on, I would like the option of being able to describe what type of critique I want. For this, It would mean that the critiques feature button should be different to that proposed by the OP or an extra feature be added to provide the extra information. Have it so the button to turns the feature on, and then a little window (not buried in the profile) displaying what the photographer wants from the critique. It should be variable for each entry, as should the critique on/ off button. In my case, there would be times when I would welcome critique and times when I would not. I would like the option of thatt choice.

I appreciate your idea of Having a Critique feature in the blog,
feedbacks are important to understand if your job is welldone or if there's something you can improve...
I would be happy if a feature like this it is going to be realized!

Just another way to make this more professional and serious, rather than just "another social networking" tool or blog. This site has been improving greatly - started from just a place to store and share photos, to a place where people talk seriously about photo, newbies learn and pros share thoughts - let's go another step with this idea. Thanks @ iagho , and mike + mike,.. glad to be back, sorry for missing quite a while

Oi, Fing your hook!

Oi, Fing your hook!

Oi, Fing your hook!

Oi, Fing your hook!

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