Indeed. What's the cause for this?

Sometimes it's very suspicious to me.

Ratings jump a lot before the SotD award is giving away.
And when I first won a contest it was so hard to bring a shot into FF after two weeks or so everything went normal.

If things like that wouldn't exist you wouldn't have to complain imo so that's just the logical reaction.

You can still visit profiles and see shots, so that wont be a problem.

So I like it. Good job. ^^

yes, yes hiding the rating is the only logical thing to do if you don't want people manipulating S0tDs or pushing shots to FF. hiding the uploader won't change that. it could only make people rate even lower than now. SotDs are awarded with as low as 7.30 now, we can't go any lower.
I think you generate opinions about people's taste trought their uploads, and through that you generate opinions about people. so I think we should be able to see who the uploader is.
and fungus is right, if you solve the snap, you won't go back to check out who posted it. huge social element of the game is lost now

@efji: http://forum.whatthemovie.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=960&page=2#Item_8

I'm kind of lost. You basically agreed with everything Fireball said at the time and now you think it's a very bad idea? We try stuff, when we don't people say WTM is dying, when we are, people are not happy even if this feature was kind of requested and discussed for a very long time. What are we supposed to do? Of course if nobody likes this, we will remove it. But let see how it goes first. And BTW yes, the uploader's name is hidden until the SotD is chosen..

You wanted at the time to make the game more difficult and that's exactly what we are doing : hide the uploader's name, display the title shots randomly on profiles, disable the "last" button on the overview (for title shots) etc.

Hi everybody,
as already commented with kinoute, the news about the implementation of the *hide the uploader's name until the SotD is chosen* procedure is, to me, the best news about WTM since I discovered this fantastic site!
I was sure that some users would not like it, but I really believe that this update is FUNDAMENTAL and will really give to WTM much more credibility: GOOD JOB! :)

Good feature !
Let's see if top solvers can still solve so much shots when they will not be able to invistigate in uploader's profiles...

About ratings, let's see if it has a good incidence... Anyway, I think no feature will bring a definitive and perfect improvement about it, since so much players are ready to give a kidney to be SotD...

And for all WTMers who are always complaining about everything in the site, or saying that WTM is dying :
- give a hand to Kinoute,
- become moderators yourself,
- or please just play and stop complain !

For me, on a personal note:

LePaposaure: Hearhear!

"It makes the game much more difficult, since after some time here, long time player begin to know the tastes of long time posters."
Doesn't that actually make the game equally fair for new players as older ones?

It seems like some people (I won't use names here) only use this place to complain.. complain about "the good old days" (when your shot was judged by 5 people on if it would go through? when there was no NS, awesome uploads, title shots...?), complain about the mods not working (or not pushing their shots..) or the mods abusing their power the week after (when people get warned/banned for cheating). Pity, if only these people showed the efforts and love for the game as some newer players.

"People keep leaving!"
Some people left, yes. This is what happens in virtually all online comunities: people get jobs, wives, children, parrots, ant-farms, tarantula towns or just find another place to hang out on the digital world: they move on. Some come back after a while, some don't, it's life. A lot of people left when WTM2 (the current system with NS/ratings) started, claiming it lost the spirit of the game, and the game was too easy. A lot of others (including me) started uploading, because the site was more accessible and you could see what happened, what the competiting shots were and why yours didn't make it. But give some people power, even a minute one such as to use one vote to determine which shots go through, and people start cheating, apparently due to some obsession with having the lowest number in front of their name (or the highest behind it), comparing themselves with people they never met on a list that only exist on some website that maybe 0,001% of the world has even heard of it. What happens? Two options:
- The staff can't/won't/doesn't stop it (fast enough): Some people get angry, "this is not what I pay for!" "the ratings are unfair!" "A rating of 9.9 should be average, not 6, that's too low so people cheat!" "Where did I put my toothbrush?" and instead of helping, they leave shouts on people's walls, saying that the game is unfair, saying that all the mods do is abuse their power to the ones they hate, but won't fix major problems. What happens then? Some new people who just got their first shot rejected (and in all honesty: who posted their first perfect accepted shot in one go?), get discouraged, think that this website isn't serious in its goal and leave. The complainer, though, stays behind, to complain some more. Some other users come up with good ideas, and help the staff out with ideas or tips (which is grealy appreciated!).
- The staff thinks of a way to fix the problem, but this is new and scary to some old-time players. They suddenly have to stick by some rules, meant for lesser people! We can't have that, let's start complaining about power abuse.

See where I'm going with this?

If you love this site, stop complaining about everything you see, but upload beautiful shots, add new movies to the database, write reviews, take character shots, replace bad shots, help out new users by explaining what you like in a shot and how to take them properly!

..and now I'm off to hunt some woodpeckers for a few hours, to be continued. Maybe.

I would like to add that, if you will also hide the ratings until the SotD are chosen, the modification would be perfect: please consider this seriously! :)

I am 100% sure that, if shots were published hiding both the uploader's name and the rating, until at least they are chosen for the FF archive and SotDs are promoted, results for both accepted snapshots and SotDs would be VERY different (and by different i mean fairer and more honest).

In any case, to me, hiding the uploader's name until SotDs are promoted is the most important improvement.
In fact, apart from who really cheats, changing ratings to first try and have his snapshot accepted and then to try and get some SotDs, I believe that everybody is, more ore less, somehow influenced by reading the uploader's name when rating an image.
This is because everybody has friends or at least "nearer" users, for many reasons.
But, if the pure spirit of WTM is to be respected, everybody should rate EVERY image ONLY according to the awesomeness of the shot, not only regardless of the movie where it was taken from, as already specified in the actual rating system, but also REGARDLESS OF EVERYTHING ELSE, including who uploaded it, its rating, etc.
We are all humans, it's a very simple and obvious statement: the only system to take all this out of the equation is to hide those informations, to make the rating system fairer and impartial.
For this reason, I don't really understand why somebody who loves WTM should be against hiding those information...

Also, answering to who objected that communication on shouts is interrupted, I believe that this is a false problem: after 48 hours at the maximum, the uploader's name will became visible, and everybody is then free to chat at will.
It's only two days in the worst case scenario, and then every information will be visible, and what we all have to gain from this modification in terms of credibility and equity of the rating system is much more important!

I openly and again apologize for having complained A LOT because of the fact that the uploader's name were not hidden until SotD's are promoted, but I am know applauding kinoute and the moderators for this important and also courageous decision. :)
And, if you'll take the decision to also hide the ratings until SotD's are chosen, I will be even happier and more enthusiast about WTM...

Thanks again, ciao! :)

I think it's a good idea. I can't understand the problem...
After 48 hours the uploader's name will be visible, so everyone can rate the images with no influence. :-)

That's a good idea, I think. Even if I still think that voting of the relevance and so the goodness of a shot if you don't know the movie is a bit lame but this is not the point here.

ranking hornyness is killing wtm if you ask me. but i do not give a fuck anymore.

Just my personal opinion:

Sorry, but I don't like this new change. New Submissions is my favorite playground :) I like to see lots of snapshots (most of them won't appear on Feature Films), who uploaded a beautiful shot (and see new users joining this site, a new uploader with excellent taste for shots and or movies), tag them, rate them, sometimes also leave a comment specifically to the uploader... I really enjoy it and, for me at least I will lose part of the fun. Why? Because, after NS I just rate/watch/etc. shots of current day (trying again to solve them and checking if somebody added a AU). I won't spend more time to see who uploaded them after 24 hours...

So, please, If you have to hide something, hide the rating until SotD is assigned. Or, if you want to have a really tough competition, hide everything else as well: flags, first solver, tags, number of solvers. But maybe this is an excessive, draconian action :)

Plus, IMHO, trying to solve a shot using LEGIT methods like looking for past/title/characters, same-tagged, same-flagged shots, or IMDb and other movie sites, etc. is part of the fun too for most of us, I think.

So, if people can not fair play, fair rate, etc. that's their fault, shame on them. They can still be punished/banned for a while (it is not enough as a deterrent?). Why ruining other's (honest) users WTM experience (as they do)?

I was like a desperate WTMer. Alone with my opinion (I like that anyway).
I was overwhelmed by a tsunami of players demanding always more and more tricky rules to avoid cheaters.
Treated as a permanent complainer and a reactionnary supporter of the "good ol' time"

And then @alex68 and @fungus came up. Thanks God!

May I give a constructive proposition : suppress SoTD !

I don't understand: Why hiding the uploader's name should change anything about social interactions? If you leave a shout, the poster will answer there or on your Profile if (s)he wants to talk about what you just shared with him/her. I just did it with Nezquivoque.

First of all:
I was confronted with the new system today. I swear, I never went through any disscussion about this topic before ;-)
In general:
I think ,the reactions in either way, posted by some members here, are mostly based on the way they play this game. What is my fav. "playground", NS, or FF? Do I upload myself? Do I just enjoy other uploads? Do I communicate a lot with other players? Do I want to see myself on top of as many Hall of Fame lists as possible? Etc., ect, .... In the way, one is answering all these questions, there is aleady the individual answer for the new poll. Naturally, as the focus of everyone is at least a bit different, there can be neither a 99% hurray, nor a 99% boooh for the new system. That's democracy!
Personally, two hearts beat within my chest:
On one hand, it's a question of morale: Did I always rate as objective as possible in the old system? Honestly? No! Never in a way of voting down, but sometimes I added an extra * to a shot from someone, I am familiar with (I never told anyone my rating). Do I blame myself for doing so? Well, it was said often before here: We're all humans!
On the other hand, it's a question about the social aspect of WTM. Some 80% (thats my subjetive impression) of all comments are written in the NS, when the shots are "fresh". I often don't get any reaction, when I leave a shout in the FF area. Will this change with the new system?
Well, let's talk again about this after another one, or two weeks. Personally, I would be really unhappy about a loss of serious discussions, stupid chats and funny links. But if it turns out, that most - and yes - even older WTM-members (The rise of the silver surfers :-)))) accept the new system and just replace their shouts into the FF area, I will problaby become a friend of the new system as well.

Nevertheless: A big thx for the creators and the mods for spending so much time and passion in keeping this baby alive!

Hello to everybody,
I would like to join the discussion saying that hiding the snapshot author's name at least until the SotD is chosen is a very good idea to me.
That's because I think it's in the human nature to look with different eyes at something done by people we know
So...welcome the new feature :)

Hi everyone,
Hiding the uploader's name is a good first step to prevent unfair votings. It gives more importance to the shot itself but unfair votings are still possible and the identity of the uploader can be revealed by :
- going to the player/fellow profile, looking at his/her NS and voting poorly or nicely : it should be impossible for others players to see the NS on the profiles.
- shouting under the shots : "black bars..." "first shot of this movie" and so on. These kind of shots should be anonymous until the SotD is chosen.
- answering to shouts from others players : answers should be delayed until the uploader's name is known or should be anonymous too.

I think the next step is to hide the ratings as well. In this case the shot is evaluated only for itself and maybe we won't see the ratings going down weirdly...

With the new system WTM is for me still very enjoyable and stays what it is : a very good idea and a very funny game !

It's strange, I always thought the main problem was in most cases: few solves = low rating and lots of solves = high rating (with obvious exceptions for those really and very beautiful, funny, unusual, odd, etc, shots). Or at least, this seemed to me to be the norm. Probably because people are also concerned by their position/rank in the "Top Solver" classification, and not only by the rating of their "rival shots". So, the reasons why some users give low or unfair rating are not related to the uploader's identity, IMHO. But maybe I'm wrong.

Also, if someone is so obsessed to win the SotD he just need to give an average rating to those shots he thinks can defeat his own snapshot... Again, a hidden rating is a lot better solution to prevent this kind of behavior (or to make them more difficult to realize).

Plus, you see only the negative aspect: sometimes you can give an encouraging and comforting comment/rating to a new user who has maybe uploaded a shot from a movie which, again maybe, still has not a snaps on WTM. I think it must be sad for them when they noticed such a low rating. How can somebody help them, if they want? how will they know if he is a new user? Or as already said by @fungus, how can I properly communicate with someone if I don't know if is he a long time WTM friend or a total stranger? Maybe we can make a new game of this, not only WhatTheMovie, but also WhatTheUser, lol! :)

Sorry, if I complain again (I don't want to look too dramatic, polemic or egotist) about this change since a lot of people seems, au contraire, to like this idea, but for me this means that NS will be (is) just an empty room: every uploader, friends or not, is going to disappear. I won't see the most known names, no new user, no friends, no one: I cannot smile seeing an impossible shot from good ol' @RDPL55 and his obscure gems from the past, I cannot remain astonished anymore thinking "Damn, where do you find all these great b/w movie @doooom/@Nezquivoque/etc.?", or laughing for the usual funny or sexy shot from mister or miss X, Y, Z, ... or the scary ones from the gore aficionados, or finding a new user with a great photographic eye, taste, and so on. With this change I'd never have discovered @Tienlee, for example! Now, it's like they're all uploaded from HAL 9000... :(

As I already said, I won't spend more time watching again all the shots (!) from a day after 24 hours just to know who uploaded them (even though I really want it) and I won't check dozens of users' pages to see what they've uploaded today... It's absurd and ridiculous.

And all this why? Because we all want a SotD everyday? Because we all want that every shot of us reach FF? It's seems unreasonable to me. SotD must be a nice surprise and not an obsession. And what we really deserved is just to have a fair rating based on the shot's awesomeness and not on shot's difficulty, movie popularity, etc. And this is not the right way to do it, IMHO. If you want to make the game harder, maybe it's a good solution to hide every info, as I already said :)

But it seems I'm in the minority here, and this is going to be accepted...

This is my last desperate hope: why not make it optional? Every user choose which info they want to hide: uploader's name in NS? Title/characters folders on their page?

Still not what I want WTM to be, for me, but if this is what others want...

Hello everyone

Hiding the uploader’s name was a good try but imo hiding votes will be better. And maybe you should block the possibility of changing votes.
Agreed with @fungus that all rejected shots are lost for interacting with the uploader, it’s also true that people comment shot just because they know who posted it. Hiding the uploader’s name will reduce relations between users, especially regarding Rejected Snapshots. Finding person who added a shot which didn’t make it to FF is now nearly impossible if s/he is not your fellow… I mean, who would go back to check out who the uploader of rejected snapshot was?
You tried to make game more fair and impartial, I understand and support it! But you should be more concerned about votes.

The poll is missing one important answer such as “cool but vote hiding is more necessary” (that’s actually my opinion)

Anyway, big thanks to mods and creators for your efforts to make this game better :)

I, too, have read the above comments. I realize that the mods/creators/powers-that-be have a thankless, and challenging, job to keep the game both fair and fun. I applaud the attempt to reduce some of the "odd" voting fluctuations that have sadly become commonplace. A good number of the above discussions seem to focus on the SotD, but I have witnessed them simply getting a movie accepted. I agree with many of the above users that hiding the rank is a really good idea. I'd also like to suggest hiding the "First solved by" name. It is yet another reason for voting bias.

I'd like to second MacMono's suggestion of locking votes. I am ignorant of what programming is available to make it a possibility. But if it is possible, I think that it could be a happy compromise for the above users who are concerned with the impact on the social aspects of the game.

Thank you mods and creators for the time you spend making WTM such an enjoyable game.

Cheers,

Gary

The mods & I are taking everything in consideration. To be honest (this is my personal opinion) I really like the idea of making the uploader's name optional in the preferences for everybody who wants to upload a shot. I think hiding the ratings with this option could be the perfect combinaison for everybody: people whining about unfair votes could choose to hide their name, and people who like social interactions and don't care that much about ratings could let their nickname on the shot page.

I was halfway reading everything and though about what MacMono's suggested and then saw he did :)
I think it's a good idea, and if the hidden uploader thing stays I'd very much like to see it. Or maybe let the user chose, e.g. make the "uploaded by: Hidden" clickable and when clicked it shows the uploader and freezes the vote. But IMO freezing the vote is fine, people could always take a little more care before voting if they are concerned about not being able to change the vote later on.

I personally don't look for appearing in the HF (luckily, because I probably can't get into it ^^), although I like trying to get higher as a personal challenge; But one aspect of the game I like is searching for clues. When I see a snapshot, most of the time I can almost immediately solve it or I won't be able to do so without heavy searching. Solving shots you know is nice, but not really challenging, and I very much like the possibility of investigating a shot, searching for clues. And being able to see who uploaded it may be an interesting clue, it being because you can browse the profile an see the interests of the person or simply it being knowing her (which is the same as browsing the profile, just with cache ;).
On that subject, I think shuffling the title and character uploads is a good thing: I don't find it funny to search for a clue if the answer is straight there at a very expectable location.

And finally, I second a part of alex68's concerns: seeing who uploaded a shot adds nice interactions and alike, e.g. often I smile at at seeing who uploaded a shot just because I knew it at first glance, this kinda things.

So again, I think that if hiding the uploader has a beneficial impact on ratings (e.g. make them fairer) I'd really like the possibility to still see the uploader straight away, e.g. by giving up my possibility to vote (or change my vote, if I already voted).
Also I think hiding votes for NS shots would probably help to get more honest ratings (or simply disallowing changing the vote, since we already don't see the rating before voting).

Some additional considerations, after the first days with the uploader names hidden and after reading some comments:

1) It seems to me that something is already changing, in the ratings, in snapshots accepted in the FF archive, etc.: this is definitively the way to go, imho.
I hope that, who was originally in agreement to hide the uploader names, is not changing his mind because is now getting lower ratings and has more difficulties to have his snapshot approved: this comes with the increased impartiality of the rating process.
Sometimes this helps, sometimes not, for everybody: it comes with the new system... :)

2) I don't believe that interactions between users (ie shouts) are going to disappear hiding the name of the uploader until SotDs are promoted, and now there are concrete examples, such as http://whatthemovie.com/shot/261100: this (and other examples) shows that there's no need to know who the uploader is, at the beginning, to start chatting about an image, and after 48 hours at the latest you'll discover it in any case... To me, this is therefore not a good reason to go back to the previous system.

3) I think that the possibility to change votes should be eliminated in any case.
This would only improve the system, with all pros and no cons: please seriously consider to implement this soon;

4) Same considerations are valid for hiding the ratings untils SotDs are promoted: what interest should a player have in knowing an image's rating?
This information can only have a negative influence on the voting process...
Again, please seriously consider to implement this soon;

5) The poll clearly shows that the "silent majority" of WTM users is in favour of hiding the uploader names and/or the ratings: this again shows that we are going in the right direction... :)

6) My opinion, considering all of the above, is that the "purest", most perfect and objective system would be not to give ANY information about a snapshot until SotDs are promoted, but again this is just my opinion and I understand that some forms of compromise are also being considered.

what do we want? Want a 100% fair game, which restrictions lower the fun of most players, maybe down to 0% fun for some people, for me its that to have a game like the World it is in "Equilibrium" No emotions wanted, because this is the cause of everything bad. And the other extreme is anarchy. I think both extremes will be for most people the end of playing wtm.

I think there should be a good middle way, in that both sides get an acceptable solution. I read all posts here in this threat and there at the moment 2 factions. Who think its a bad idea, which costs a lot of fun (fungus, alex68, efji etc.) and many who are happy about it or demand more restrictions. I can really understand both factions. I agree, that i had more fun before, just because i can tingle a friend or can talk about the shot immediately to someone i know already. For @JakeBlues point 2 in his last post: yes i still write under unknown uploader something too, but this is just neutral text. Thats not the same as before. Its just like to talk with your best friend and you talk with someone foreign - this conversation will be very different. Same here! The big (bad) example here on wtm is Palahniuk007. His messages will be for friends and people who know and like him a pleasure and fun. But his bad jokes are for foreign people, which don't know him or don't like him, just a big annoyance. This kind of conversation you only make to friends will be lost by hidding uploaders name a lot. I agree the writher before (forgot name), i don't look after 2 days, who uploaded the shot i already solved 2 days ago. There are too many of them interesting me, to look for it all later...

On the other side, i play the game for a long time, seen last months/years many other peoples profile. Read many messages of mods, they warn or ban people for cheating. So if the staff now decide to make something radical like hide uploaders name, it must be really worse in the last time. So its clear, something must be happen. Crying and protest against every change is not useful. My proposal to this here, listen the advantage and disadvantage of every possible change and look after that: is very helpful, but cost also to much fun, better forget it. Or at the first moment not very helpful, but have no disadvantage, also done it.

Another point: we have mods, who are the police here. If only some less people making trouble, there is no reason for me, to tingle the whole community for the doing of some black sheeps. They can warn and ban people, if they make shit here. So its really necessary to hide everything? I think not. I know mods are volunteers and not able to watch 24/7. But if its too much work for the 2 mods, maybe its better to nominate a 3rd mod or 4. Maybe its the best solution to have 3 or 4 mods (as i beginned playing WTM there are 5 more active mods watched for the people, why we now have only 2?)
and any of the restrictions are not longer necessary. Should be not a problem to promote some people like Fungus etc.

Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn (anymore)