@naut

This is definitely not about winning!
Being frustrated because you can't solve a snap is not the same than being frustrated because ALL your snaps have been rejected in a row.

We're talking about the uploading situation.
You don't win anything. You can't even possibly reach the top uploaders 20 (which is not my goal anyway).

So why the frustration?
It's a quizz game. Not an uploading game!
If suddenly you decide each uploader of the SotD wins 5 awesome uploads, it would be some sort of uploading game…

We, the players, have to feed the quizz game.
So why do we spend time to upload shots?

To me, it's about contributing to the game.
To bring diversity. To introduce rare movies. To find a difficult snap from a famous movie. To get a beautiful shot. To feed the database. And so on…

I've made an experiment last month.
I exclusively uploaded well known Disney snaps.
Bingo! I was back in FF along with everybody!
A well known Disney snap worths an average 7:50 ratings.
A difficult Disney snap worths an average 6:90 ratings.

So what's the point?
If I really wanted to have many snaps reaching FF, all I have to do is to upload EASY snaps.
Like POC, LOTR, Harry Potter, all superheroes flicks and Hollywood blockbusters.

I say the frustration must come from the quizzing game NOT from the uploading process.
Uploading is about contribution and sharing.

Again: it's no problem for me to have snaps rejected as long as some make it on regular basis.
Then I don't work for nothing: there's some kind of natural selection.
But when ALL your snaps are rejected in a row, you suddenly feel very bad.

And it happens to most of us.

The problem here is more profound than a couple of technical adjustements.
You have to keep the uploaders happy without overfeeding the game.

There's 1000 ideas to change the voting system.
Like buying AUs with WTM bucks or giving one AU per uploader each week.

You guys know better than me since you're the creators but you have to clear the frustration, the anger, all bad feelings during the uploading process.
It will bring a positive mood to the community.

1. No more voting 1 debates.
Choosing a snap is subjective. Some like a shot, some don't. So what? It's about quizzing.

2. No more sense of being rejected.
Each player participate to the game without feeling out of the game.

I'm sure that clearing the judgmental aspect during the uploading process would bring to the game more diversity, more sense of sharing, more sense of contributing.
Hey! It's all about love right?

Are you kidding me?
You're kidding me!

The game became easier than last year.
I solve most of the shots without thinking now. And I'm sure you do too.

The point is not to let obscure movies flooding the game.
The point is to make sure uploaders don't feel frustrated during the uploading stage.

Here is another idea.
Say you keep the voting system as it is.
If 10 of your snaps have been rejected in a row you automatically get one awesome upload for your efforts.

It doesn't mean you're going to upload a shot from a 70's scandinavian movie.
It means you're going to upload a snap you like from a movie you like (and you own).
It also means you will not feel rejected from the uploading process.

And don't forget people will continue to upload snaps from famous movies.

I'm 100% with Chrisy on this.

These quotas solutions means we have to consider who posted the shot, I dont think this is a good thing, it should remain about the shot, I would even be more in favor to keep them anonymous for a period of time, because it is not about who posted it or the performance of that uploader. We have the possibility now to see how many shots already exists for a movie, and this is a good thing because we can concentrate as much as possible on the movies that dont have much shots yet. And this is something very good to improve the quality of the site and its diversity. It really wouldn't influence me to know if someone have had more shots going through than another, maybe there was a reason why they didn't make it.... (I'm not saying there always is). I'm looking at the shot, nothing else! And having this quota automatic would be worse, Imagine when someone always post shots from very famous movies and his shots still never make it or always bad quality stuff...
The problem about the risk of having more bad shots going through to FF is indeed a lot more maintenance from our side, and also a lot more complaints, because people would be pissed that we delete them without waiting for the 5 votes cause let's be clear, we would delete those. When I see all the bad ones in the new submission which remains without votes for deletion, I'm very happy that the system does the trick and that they will just go away on their own.

totally agree with you Theoffice911, if we look at the percentage of solving in the hall of fame, it is quite obvious that the game became harder, not easier, mainly because a lot more older and not so famous movies make it nowadays.

@theoffice911
I agree with you. I would lie if I don't.
Hell yeah! I'm frustrated.

@Chrisy
You're right again.
So the voting system is not a bad thing after all.

But still!
We're swimming into subjective zone here.
The snap Doooom is crazy about is not necessarily the snap Fnick is crazy about.
For many reasons: Fnick didn't see the movie (and he doesn't know it's a key shot), Fnick hates B/W stuff (which is not true), Fnick finds the shot uninteresting, etc…

And he's right. Like Doooom.
It's subjective.

Like the movies: some adore 2001, some don't. Movies (and the shots we're playing with) are a subjective experience.

Now.
To me, it's not about WHO posted the shot.
It's about keeping all uploaders happy.

If someone considers Jonah Hex the ultimate movie ever made, so be it!
Soon or later he'll see his beloved close-up shot of Megan Fox's feet reaching FF.

Seriously.
We know uploading a snap represents work.

I browsed many times through other uploader's rejected snaps and I saw great snaps.
I say it's not fair when someone sees his snaps rejected all the time (or in a 2 or 3 weeks row).

There should be a cool solution to ease that frustration and give some kind of recognition to the uploader.
This is what I feel and that's it! Only the creators and WTM staff can do something about it --- or not!

Now.

I'm going to talk about me because Office911 read me through. I'm a human being after all! I'm all emotional here!
I'm not going to upload anything for some times because I hate the frustration behind the rejecting process.
Having a snap accepted each week makes me happy. Having 3 snaps after 3 snaps rejected in a row makes me angry.
I'm no masochist! Why would I continue to work uploading snaps knowing that risk now?
I don't want to experience this feeling a second time even if it's an unlucky streak! I'm no fool!

:-)

@CHILI
You need to read this: http://forum.whatthemovie.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=528&page=1

FYI, right now, in NS, there are 66 shots rated higher than 7.26...

Animated movies in FF:
12/11 : 10 over 56
13/11 : 11 over 46
14/11 : 6 over 18 so far
Much more than in real life !
Btw I did not notice that the FF had reduced so much. It is a good point but it can explain the disapointments.
Only 22 shots pushed by the mods on 13/11 !

I globally agree with Pala: something has to be changed otherwise some regular uploaders may quit uploading (including me).
I think that reducing the input flow could be a good change: 1 upload every 2 days for regular users and 2 uploads for supporters.
Then add an alternative way of earning awesome uploads just being an active user without being in the top solvers could
encourage us.

Yup.

What Efji, Razzo, Chili and most of us say is this:
we need some independence with our choices.

See?

The quizz game only depends of the movies we know.
If we feel a little bit frustrated because we can't solve what seems an easy or familiar snap, it's okay (especially in The Vault).

It's just a game.

But the current uploading system is HIGHY frustrating.
Your work, your choices, are completely at the mercy of:

- Anonymous voters
- A bot (which terrorized me! Does he --- think?)
- And mods who actually possess a good taste but cannot possibly please everyone.

Plus you don't win anything: so uploading a snap is definitely not a game! It's only about feeding the game.
So the game has to be fed by the players but during this process the players feel bad.

That's a pretty much masochistic situation if you ask me!

So that's why we should have more independence.
As I said before, a snap is just a snap. Ultimately, they're all good when you can solve them…
As long as the snap is of good quality and don't show a head shot, what's the problem?

It's about movies right?
I don't mind POC, Bergman and Uncle Walt snaps!

Correct me if I'm wrong but I understood the problem of the WTM Team is to not overfeed the game.
I'm no mathematician but let me rebound on Efji's ideas.

If we drop the voting system and if we give an equal amount of AUs to every players, could it solve two problems at the same time?
The Frustration Problem + the Overfeeding Problem?

Could we gain total independency during this process?
The hell I know! It's just ideas.

It's actually a good idea.
I'm particularly seduce by the opportuny to upload the experimental b/w snap that made it in Cannes rather than uploading 3 Uncle Walt snaps for the sake to grab high ratings.

I already hear Office911 whining about the difficulty to solve this b/w snap: it can be Tetro or Antichrist's opening, you fool!

That's it!
Uploading a snap has to be about contribution, sharing and pleasure.
Uploading a snap shouldn't be about frustration!

If I wanna be frustrated, I just have to go to Cannes and watch all movies from the Official Competition.
And I've done that many times: I want to see you try to enjoy a Lucien Pintillie's flick at 8:30 in the morning!

@CHILI
You are too confident in the rating system. You can find many very good shots rated under 6, and many
not so good shots over 8. There is a strong correlation between the rating and the number of solvers.
Any Disney, Pixar, Mihazaki, LOTR, POC, is above 7.5 as soon as it is easy to solve.

i agree with everything you both said.
people rate easy shots better than hard snaps.
people rate beautiful shots 4 and bad shots 8.
i get it, i've seen it many times before.

all i wanted to say is:
don't completely abandon the competition (or the challenge) because it can actually help sorting out bad shots.

but of course the competition as it is has its flaws that need to be adressed.
and i agree that the current system doesn't work too well for the uploaders (the reason why i 'cried out' in this thread after all) and needs a change of some sort.

maybe you could make the ability to rate a privilege combined with a certain rank just like only rank 9 can post replacement shots.
but you would definitely need a harder restriction than the current "You are able to access this category with 50 Feature Film solves or more." which allows people to go to NS very early and also rate very early after signing up to WTM.

if you think about ratings on other sites (like IMDb) you would also need a way bigger number of ratings to get a more "objective" rating.
ratings on IMDb with just 50 votes don't tell you anything helpful because 50 votes are not nearly enough to get the opinion of a broad group of audiences.

but then you would still have ALL users being able to rate on what snapshot in the voting game is EASIEST to solve.
and since everybody gets AUs there will be a lot of crap in the FF.
i don't mind you getting AUs at all but remember there's also a large number of bad shots posted every day by other users.
users shouldn't get AUs just for signing up to WTM.

since there is subjective/unfair rating going on in the NS you should either restrict the access to NS or the ability to rate itself.

maybe like still letting everybody into NS (as it is) so all users can still play the game in FF and NS.
but at the same time restricting the ability to rate to all ranked LT or higher (or something like that).

I'm around since the early beginnings of WTM, when any uploaded shot would be checked by the creators manually. Back then there was some kind of "difficulty guideline" that had to be followed, if you wanted your shot to get through. It basically said that shots from not so well-known movies should feature iconic moments or at least little clues that could lead to a solution, while shots from better known films could also focus on more specific things or scenes. Like little sidegangs or something like that. I think it's about subtlety. That doesn't necessarily mean that there shouldn't be any more shots of the Black Pearl, Hogwarts or any random LOTR battle scene - but at least not in this quantity. What I consider an exception, though, are very iconic shots that kind of "define" a whole movie.

I really think the difficulty is kinda off-balanced lately. Every other shot is either from one of the big franchises or any random (computer-)animated movie. Some time ago somebody even uploaded 6 shots (or so) from the same movie in a row - I mean, what's the deal with that?

@fabster
You're completely right.

It would be cool to reach the level of subtlety you mention. It would be --- art.
I'm 100% with you.

But the game is a community game. Everybody wants to join the feast.
Everybody wants to see his snap reaching FF. Nobody wants to feel frustrated doing that.

That's basically my point here.

Whatever the team decides to do, we'll always have blockbusters snaps in majority and confidential or old movies in minority.
Like the movies people see in real life.

I say we can trust someone, anyone, to upload an interesting snap if he/she knows what is at stake.
And it does work very well inside The Vault (you know it because you're a Vault addict and you steal my AUs).

If everybody gets a certain amount of AUs each month, Feature Film would look like a huge Vault contest.
And NS would become a daily voting competiting game for SotD.

@CHILI
Yeah! Limit access to new players so they have the time to LEARN the game.
The voting game would be their tryouts for uploading.
Honestly? I don't know about THE EYE. I do understand what you mean but again, it's totally subjective.
Someone who just lost his grandpa might not like your rejected Coffin Snap. ;)

I don't know if unfair voting would get in the way if we transform NS into a voting game.
Look at the last Snaps of the Day: they're not particularly easy and quite interesting.

Don't you think?

133 solves: http://whatthemovie.com/shot/121360
45 solves: http://whatthemovie.com/shot/121117
24 solves: http://whatthemovie.com/shot/120857

Just did a bit of linear regression and came up with this:



The correlation coefficient is +0,46 (on a scale from -1,00 to +1,00, 0,00 meaning that there is no correlation), which implies that the number of solves and the ratings are at least correlated noticeably. I only used a sample of size n=140 (the shots that have been in the new submissions for at least 24h hours), though. And of course, this data doesn't prove that there is a causal connection between solves and ratings. Nonetheless, it still holds a certain implication.

A thing I would especially like to point out: It seems that well-known shots almost never get poor ratings. On the other hand, not so well-known shots sometimes manage to score high.

shots with boobs gets to FF..ofc..

Fabster! Now I understand why you're a Vault Wiz! :-)
Your wonderful graph confirms what we're talking about:

- Most of the time, a high rated snap translates its solving easiness.

What does it mean?

It's a human reaction. It's a survival thing.

1. The uploader doesn't want to feel frustration.
He doesn't want to be rejected from the community.
So he uploads a snap from a well known movie and increases his chances to be accepted by the community.

I did it last month flooding NS with Disney snaps and it worked.

2. The solver wants to collect points.
He doesn't want to be the weaker element of the community.
So he rates high a snap he can solve.

He also rates it high because he felt a tiny pleasure to solve the snap.

I mean if we could possibly do the same experience with rats laboratory, we'll end up with the same results!

What I'm saying is this:

IT'S ALL ABOUT SURVIVAL AND EMOTIONS.
And it's all about being part of a community.

Nothing abnormal so far.
But what I don't understand is this: to stay with the community, you have to go through a frustration process --- on regular basis.

So let's say THE COMMUNITY IS A TRIBE.
Beware: the WTM TRIBE has very strange customs!

The tribe has to be fed.
So you have to bring food.
And when you bring food, you say to yourself: if I can eat this thing, they can eat it. It's delicious: they're gonna like it.

The tribe selects what can be eaten and what cannot (now it's confusing because your food is eatable! You tasted it yourself!).
Then a robot without soul comes out from a cave and choose what the community considers the best dish (usually cheeseburgers over sushis but not all the time because there's the Chaos Theory).
And the tribe throws out the food the robot didn't choose!!!

And you --- yes: you! who wanted to feed the tribe --- you're out of the feast!

ISN'T IT A CRAZY BEHAVIOUR?
Thank God this tribe is not a cannibal tribe!
Because the robot will be left all alone inside his cave at the end of the game.

Now.

Say the tribe suddenly wakes up and says: we throw food away for nothing, everybody is unhappy and the robot is senseless.
The tribe comes up with a new concept: the sharing.

The sharing!?!
Was it the black monolith they spotted one morning next to the firecamp who tossed them the idea?
We will never know.

Anyway.
The tribe says: each one of us is going to bring his OWN food and we're going to share it.
Everybody will be happy. And yes! We'll still have cheeseburgers in profusion.
We keep important rules like: the food has to be of good quality.
Rules drawn on a rock: little images showing what food we don't like for the new comers.

And the good news is this: we keep the robot to PLAY WITH!
Each day, each one of us, can show his best dish to the community and the robot will select the very best one.
The best dish will be praised during the feast at sunset.

Because somehow (as Chili pointed out) we want to keep the frustration emotion BUT ONLY for the sake of competitiveness.
Which is not the case at the moment: uploading a snap is not about competition (nothing to win), it's a RANDOM SELECTION BRINGING FRUSTRATION FOR NOTHING (see how @torqu3 feels bad?).

@icemotion
The Yes/No system is cruel to me.
Plus I don't know if it will not overfeed the game.
Saying no is far more difficult to say yes. Especially to a friend of yours. ;-)

Sharing is the key element.
A community who doesn't share between itself is a community who's going to lose members.

It starts with wars (cheaters out there! bad attitude! unfair votings! I'm gonna crap this guy!), then the decline (too much frustration) and the quitting (I'm out of here!).

Right now this is how I feel.

Look. I wanted to organize a CHRISTMAS CONTEST in Palahniuk's Play-Zone right after the Draw The Movie 2 contest.
I mean I prepared everything: the announcement, the rules, the examples… Everything.

Even a phony snap for FF!

Since it was a Christmas Contest, I wanted to be as generous as Father Christmas: 8 WINNERS for a full 12 months resident status!
Why 8? Because the white bearded guy has 8 reindeers. It's petty cash for the team but a good thing to secure non resident players and develop alternate exchanges between us.

But suddenly, during two weeks, I saw all my snaps rejected.
Even if I know it's NOT personal, I'm taking it personally.
Because I'm from planet Earth.
I come from a species who feel what they call emotions.
And you can't control your emotions.

So here I was.
Wondering why the hell I would be generous if the game itself is not generous to anyone.

Again, this is not about me, myself and I.
I don't ask NOTHING in return: I like to give away my money! It feels good.

The problem is more profound: it's a PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM.
It's more about CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY if you're still with me.

Here is a well-conceived game with a flaw.
The Mighty Creators didn't see it coming. Of course every system has its flaws.

But the flaw is a major one: FRUSTRATION.
A frustration you feel for nothing.

I can't compute that.
Even a monkey would quit!
But still, we keep the system going.
Are we insane?

So I said to myself: do I really need this?
Do I really want to encourage a system based on bad emotions?
Giving away AUs like I wanted to do in PPZ was it a good move to make?
Was I promoting something I'm against? Competitiveness for nothing, biased judgments, frustration?

THIS IS AN EXISTENTIAL QUESTION!
And I'm not kidding.

I want to encourage positive emotions:

- Sharing
- Sense Of Contribution
- Pleasure
- Feeling Integrated
- Creativity

I'm a positive guy.
I believe in Human Being.

Hell! I believe in Love!

So that's why I droped my Christmas Contest.
That's why I stopped uploading.

And when you start doing that, you see yourself in FF solving snaps and you wonder: "why am I still solving snaps here?".
"You're playing half the game". "What's the point of all this?".

Now read me clearly: I'M NOT CRITICIZING the work of the WTM team and the wonderful site the CREATORS made.
They have my TOTAL RESPECT and they know it.

I just realized (and made the experience) there was too much frustration going on.
Too much judgment. Too much negativity.

For what exactly?
Uploading a movie snap for other people to solve it!

Is it worth it?

Read my words: you WILL quit uploading.
Soon or later.

Otherwise we will not be sitting in our comfortable chairs talking about it.

And when you quit uploading, you automatically quit solving a few days after.
It's a chain reaction: and I'm living it as we speak!

But who cares?
If one Palahniuk is out, maybe 10 new players come in!

I'm expandable!
And it's fair enough.

So why the WTM team would do anything about it?
If I were them (and knowing the work it represents) I'm not sure I'll revolutionize the game I invented because some guys are frustrated!

Read what Naut wrote a few days ago in this very thread: "there’s always gonna be frustration—if everybody would win, it wouldn’t be a game".
I'm okay with him if he's talking about the Quizz. I don't agree if he's talking about NS.

Philosophical questions are great but it doesn't pay the bills. ;-)

another thing i noticed: my awesome uploads (and those are quite a few, about ~18 of my last 20 shots) usually get higher ratings than most shots, that went through the new submissions. most of the time they'll end up with >8.00 ratings. what does that tell us? probably, that people tend to give higher and more honest ratings, when they're not corrupted by the possibility to vote down a shot they can't solve.

* you solved RDPL55's shots, you will get 1 AU

one players shots can't reach FF in 2 weeks..and other get 3 magically accepted shots in one day..wouldn't it have been better if only one shot from 3 different players was magically accepted?

* you wrote 10 reviews, you will get 1 AU

oh I'm behind that idea:D