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Location DB: Rating Guidelines
entry by IIVQ
9/4/2004 9:14 PM
| I have the feeling most of the locations in the LDB are overrated. I do not want to deny a location's coolness, but save the crappy 10%, every location seems to be rated with 8 or higher. That's ok, but there's not much difference between 8 and 10.
As this is in fact the Urban Exploring Location Database, most locations here will be deemed quite cool. I think therefore "average coolness" should be awarded a 6, not an 8 or 9. 8 Would be for a really really really cool location, and 10 should be Explorer's wet dream/heaven: something like a city that was abandoned at once and is not destroyed by graffitists or project developers.
Or, let me say that I don't think that a location of an average drain with no apparant history and 20 average photo's of similar RCP whithout descriptions does deserves an 8 - yet this is very often the rating such a location gets.
For that reason I set up a somewhat objective guideline to rating locations - mainly as a guide to myself - from which you can benefit if you have had the same concerns as I have (And I know there are some people who do).
Tijmen
P.S. I use the term site for the actual building, place or drain, while location is the representation of the site in the LDB of UER.ca.
Rating system
For every location, there are three points of rating. The average of these points will be taken as the location score, and the location score will count towards the location creator's location star. The three points of rating are "Photography", "Coolness" and "Content Quality". The rating for photography is sometimes a bit unfair as it counts toward the location creator, not the photographer, but apparently it's not a trivial programming task get the photo credit towards the one whom it belongs to, so it will stay like it is.
I will now define on what I base my ratings.
Photography
It's hard to measure this objectively, as some people will like a certain photo effect and some won't, and the trained photographer will look at different points than the newbie with a throw-away camera.
I designed a simple method to quickly tell how you should rate the photography.
Points that will give a gallery a high rating include, in no particular order:
+ Interesting viewpoints (like mouse vision),
+ Light painting / color painting,
+ Time exposures,
+ Good composition,
+ Interesting subjects.
A negative rating might be caused by:
- Generally flat, contrast-less pictures,
- Too dark pictures (or, rarer, too light ones),
- Pictures made with flash,
- Too many pictures of the same subject,
- Pictures of uninteresting subjects (like doors!)
View a gallery, then think which of these rules describe the gallery. Take 5, add 1 for each positive point and substract 1 for each negative point. That is your rating.
Coolness
This is a rating towards the coolness of the site *as pictured in the LDB* - not as you might know it IRL. Impossible to objectively measure, coolness of a site is largely determined by Experience times Atmosphere. Atmosphere is in turn determined by Social Impact times Environmental Impact (You're to decide which impact on what).
Coolness should *not* rate the pictures - you've done that in photography*. It should rate the impression it had on you while virtually visiting the location, viewing the pictures and reading the stories. A location that made you yawn has to be rated lower then a location that sent shivers down your spine or left you laughing on the floor. Also drool on your keyboard or a damp spot in your pants indicates a high coolness score should be given.
But due to the subjective nature of people, it is really hard to make a general scale. For me, danger will not enhance the coolness (of a site, that is), while for others that is one of the big reasons for exploring.. It's also very hard to put a detached scale towards excitement - I tried anyway:
A scale I was thinking about is:
1 - *snore*
2 - What's on TV? / *checks other random location.
3 - I don't want to go there even if you gave me money ... well it's free money ... OK.
4 - That place looks boring to me.
5 - I might check it out if I'm in the neigbourhood.
6 - I'd like to see that place one day!
7 - I *want* to go there!
8 - Sorry - have to clean my keyboard now, I seem to have drooled on it.
9 - I creamed / wet my pants
10 - I want to die because this must be UE heaven.
* Off course, a picture tells more than a thousand words, so pictures serve an important role in transmitting the coolness. Yet try to not rate the points given in the photography section as coolness.
Content Quality
This is the presence (and accuracy) of factual data and non-photographic information.
I will rate content quality somewhat objectively on a cumulative checklist-type scale:
Location Data - 5.5 points
Location Name
.5 points. It's the *name* of the location, or the last owner of the site, not a description. Don't say "Abandoned Silo" but say "WestFlour Grain Elevator No. 8". The name must not be too long though.
Basic information
.5 points if present and correct.
Physical Information
1 points if you can pinpoint the exact location of the site using this data.
Historical Dates
.5 points for (approximate) Date Built AND Date Closed or active site, or
0 otherwise.
History
1.5 points for a short history of the site, with some data we couldn't allready conclude from other facts in the location.
Future Plans
.5 points if there are some future plans.
Description
.5 points for a description of *what the building is*, not of what you did there.
Media Coverage/Web links
.25 points if some are present.
Correct spelling
.25 points if there's none or few spelling errors and no redneck slang or l33tspeak is used - Come on, this one is easy to earn!
Galleries - 3.5 Points
Photo Names
1 point when most of the photos have non-trivial names as header, or
0 points when the header is a filename.
Photo Description
2 points when there is a non-trivial description to most of the photos, or
1 point if descriptions are in the "comments" section instead of in the description section, or
0 points if descriptions are not present or trivial.
Photo Content Quality
.5 points if most of the photos are of something interesting and not a replication of the last photo with different lighting or view, and the gallery is a selection of good photos instead of a photo dump straight from the digital camera.
Effort Award - 1 point
This one is only for people who visibly put an extra effort in researching and describing the location. For example, a gallery with maps and/or historical photos is added, or the person made an extensive (longer than one screen) historical description of the site.
Now we're acting objectively anyway, I should define and support all the italic terms given in the QC part:
-Most: 75% or more. You can't think of a name or description for everything.
-Non-trivial: A photo of a giant piece of graffiti with "Graffiti" or some stairs with "stairs" as photo title is trivial. A better description would be "This graffiti reads 'Style'" or "The stairs leading up to the roof. Notice the pigeon-poo everywhere".
Conclusion
As I said, these are my personal guidelines. I created them because I had a problem correctly putting locations on a scale - should this be a 4 or a 6? I know there are others who have these problems as well, so they could use this, or an adapted version of this list as a guideline.
I don't expect anyone to use this list as a fixed checklist - but try so for the next five locations you rate and you'll get a general idea what scores to give.
I welcome suggestions, additions and constructive criticism.
Tijmen
P.S. This list was also discussed in the fora.
[last edit 9/4/2004 9:30 PM by IIVQ - edited 1 times]
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For the sake of interest, I rated my own locations with these guidelines:
Anciene Fosse No. 18 Dite Parent:
8/6/6.25 (now: 8/9/8)
Métro Léger de Charleroi (MLC):
8/8/8 (now: 8/8/8)
Charbonnage Le Hasard:
9/8/8.5 (With half a point awarded for Extra Effort) (now 9/8/9)
Tijmen
Posted by MapMan | 18/9/2005 19:25 | Hedy Lamarr made porn?
Posted by turbozutek | 20/9/2005 2:29 | Dude, educate us! | |
no offense intended but this idea completely defeats the purpose of a voting system
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Posted by The Village Idiot
no offense intended but this idea completely defeats the purpose of a voting system |
For Content Quality, yes, maybe. For coolness, certainly not, as you will wet your pants from other things than I will.
The reason I made this scheme is that *in my opinion* most locations are rated too high, as explained in detail in the main post. As stated twice, this list is only for personal use, with anyone which likes the system may benefit from it.
Posted by MapMan | 18/9/2005 19:25 | Hedy Lamarr made porn?
Posted by turbozutek | 20/9/2005 2:29 | Dude, educate us! |
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