Threadless T-Shirts - Profile for KEMMLER - There should be score weighting- consider it.

KEMMLER aka Alex Kemmler is a 23.62 year old boy, has been a member since January 24, 2005, has scored 2616 submissions, giving an average score of 2.00.

URL: http://www.kemmleraudio.com
AIM: Doctorkemmler

Jul 29 '05 by KEMMLER

39 Comments

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There should be score weighting- consider it.

what with all the complaining about all these n00bs and lame highschool kiddie types 'ruining' the scoring through sheer weight of numbers, I've got an idea that would probably help:

I realize that this whole thing sucks but I can't think of a good way to keep lots of idiots from messing up scoring without seriously changing the voting portion.My Idea: put heavier weight on someone's score based on:
[ length of membership + (#of designs submitted * avg score of designs submitted/overall average of scores on threadless) + (# of designs scored / 1000) + # of shirts owned by voter + # of gallery photos submitted - time since last activity ] = score weight

... etc. You see, like 'better' members would have more of an effect on the scores, and the hordes of chumps, idiots and losers wouldn't hurt the score much. However I don't think age should factor in. meeeehhhh what does everyone think? There are probably a lot of factors to consider. To threadlesss:
to make computation of weighted scores cheaper it would be similar if each member were assigned a voting tier based on some of those factors, which was calculated occasionally and constituted a rank which could be factored in as one number rather than having to calculate using several variables per score- so you could be a one, two... six star member or whatever, which would determine your vote rank.

TFMdesign on Jul 29 '05 at 8:54am

hm great idea but sounds a little to complex to pull off (scoring system)

iFDL on Jul 29 '05 at 9:00am

i don't think # of designs submitted or # of shirts owned should have anything to do with it.

xiv on Jul 29 '05 at 9:01am

yeah, sounds good, but it is prob to complex of a system. i like the star rank thing.

also, maybe seperating the designers who have one before, into their own group. So only the winning designers compete against each other, that gives the newer people, and the ones who arent that great yet, a better chance of winning.

TFMdesign on Jul 29 '05 at 9:03am

very true, but all those things show how much your committed to threadless and it also shows your used to makeing designs and you know what its like and how to (assumed) judge a piece of art or a piece of shit.

TFMdesign on Jul 29 '05 at 9:03am

RE: iFDL

iFDL on Jul 29 '05 at 9:05am

i disagree. i'm committed to bentley, but i don't own one. also, having good taste and being able to design are two different things.

PATRICKwMORGAN on Jul 29 '05 at 9:08am

Word iFDL.

finkenstein on Jul 29 '05 at 9:12am

what about if people who have submitted designs aren't allowed to vote? That way you factor out people who give everyone low scores but their own peice.
Or just let them only vote on their peice and no one else's.

KEMMLER on Jul 29 '05 at 9:17am

No, then what about the probably thousands of customers who like threadless and pay money for the shirts? Do you mean they shouldn't have a say? I looked at this froma business point of view and it makes sense to pay more attention to your best customers- hence the # of shirts owned. It may favor the 'rich' (or frivolous) but from threadless' point of view it might make sense to give their best customers more priority- if they're more likely to buy the shirt, it might be a good idea to listen when they say they want it.
I think the # of shirts submitted makes sense if it's given a fairly low weight- just because it's another indication of interest and involvement in threadless.

karena@magicjelly on Jul 29 '05 at 9:20am

I kinda like how the ruthlessness here reflects the actual marketplace. Most designers don't get to choose their market, they adapt to cater to it...& it is no exception here. And as mentioned, just because a person can't design themselves, doesn't make them incapable of critiquing others. And we're talking about teeshirts not fine art...it's natural that people aren't being judged on the finer points of technique, but the overall impact & likability of their work.

Other than that, I do see where you're coming from & think this is a situation worth some further thought.

tesko on Jul 29 '05 at 9:49am

If the shirt is cool, threadless will print it. Voting is'nt as important as people think.

KEMMLER on Jul 29 '05 at 10:02am

yeah but the whole debate is happening because good designs are getting chucked out before anyone who would be able to decide that gets to see then. The 1.5 cutoff has necessitated changes in the voting system I think...

xiv on Jul 29 '05 at 10:04am

well i think once school starts back up, the number of people who submit stuff, and score designs will drop. When school is in session, the computer usually gets neglected, unless its needed for homework or something of that sort. During the summer alot of people just sit around, destroying their eyes by looking at the computer screen all day.

kevindujour on Jul 29 '05 at 10:29am

I want the ability to rate other people's comments as helpful or unhelpful. Like on many other sites, click the little thumbs up or down next to their comment and have that make an effect on how that person scores.

samadhi46 on Jul 29 '05 at 10:34am

that could discourage people from commenting at all. And comments are better than faceless scores. Maybe just have a positive option (no negative) to encourage us to be helpful, not punish us for being unhelpful?

little_hobbit_feet on Jul 29 '05 at 10:48am

Weighted scoring is facist and unneccessary.
Let it sit the way it is now.
To be perfectly honest, I can't name one good design that's gotten kicked out that would likely have gotten printed, so what does it matter in the long run, other than making designers sad.

doublethinker on Jul 29 '05 at 11:13am

i was just gonna mention the fascist thing too.

i was under the impression that threadless already does give more weight to their paying customers. I could be wrong though.

kypade on Jul 29 '05 at 11:36am

not only that, but according to the owners (or someone similar) and the tests they've ran, a completed score is NEVER more than .2 higher than the score after 100 votes. So nothing with a chance to average a 3.4 is gonna be dropped. l'd just trust em to know what they're doing.

RaeKuusou on Jul 29 '05 at 11:47am

owning more shirts than someone else has nothing to do with ability to score a design, and frankly neither does actually submitting a design. just becasue someone lacks the physical talent (and yes, physical talent is different from the creative talent also needed) does not mean they are incapable of judging a design fairly and soundly. most book critics are not authors themselves, and most art critics are not artists themselves. weighted scoring isn't really a sound idea.

KEMMLER on Jul 29 '05 at 12:53pm

I don't understand your crticism. I didn't say anything about people's ability to score designs, I was thinking more of how you can measure a person's usefulness to threadless as a scorer... this isn't a measure of 'talent', or 'taste' or anything else. Just a measure of how active and involved the person is at threadless.

Also, FYI: I don't think that calling this a fascist idea is very useful, since the final decisions of what to print are dictatorial anyway. (or... oligarchical? is that a word?)

RockStarNeil on Jul 29 '05 at 12:59pm

I just posted something that also says that:
People who have not submitted any designs of their own, should NOT be able to vote on the designs of others.

go read it.

little_hobbit_feet on Jul 29 '05 at 1:02pm

Keeping the new people and non-designers in a lower bracket while adding more voting weight to the "established" team. How is that not facist? Also, applying a label to something is neither useful nor without use.
Regardless, I don't see this (the weighted scoring) happening. I think there are better solutions.

KEMMLER on Jul 29 '05 at 2:12pm

Please describe your solution, then. Fascist means dictatorial, I'd say that you'd have to take away voting altogether to make it fascist. Also, new people SHOULD be in a lower bracket, since they by definition don't really know what threadless is about, don't have a grasp of what the average design is like, etc. Non-designers shouldn't be penalized, but designers should be rewarded for their activity and being better able to comment on designs. This is just a suggested scheme- anything that places greater weight on genuine contribution and involvement in votes would SOLVE THE PROBLEMS EVERYONE IS COMPLAINING ABOUT. It's up to threadless for the specifics, I don't really care exactly how it works. Rockstar neil you are wrong simply because it'd be poor marketing to disenfranchise so many of their customers from the much-loved threadless voting process. "they don't know art, but they know what they like", so to speak.

little_hobbit_feet on Jul 29 '05 at 2:53pm

I'm 100% with you that new people should be in a lower bracket. My solution is a grace period, where you can't vote at all for a certain time (a week, a month) after you subscribe. That would eliminate people signing up simply to vote on a friend's shirt (and thanks to things like myspace and deviant art, that kind of thing is so easy to organize and - I've found - rampant.) Combine this with stricter initial entry judging - because even though we all get to judge, it's really the Threadless team that decides what they're going to print, so if it's something they wouldn't and would be a waste of time to have us all score, don't even bother putting it through - and I think that nearly all of the scoring issues would resolve themselves.

little_hobbit_feet on Jul 29 '05 at 2:54pm

(I've said this before in other blogs, so didn't want to harp on it, which was why I was initially rather vague.)

KatieTheMofo on Jul 29 '05 at 2:56pm

That's probably the best idea I've seen thus far.

And a lot more practical.

KEMMLER on Jul 29 '05 at 3:18pm

I guess you're right in a lot of ways, but you must admit that my idea involves less work in the long term for the threadless staff, as well as an added incentive for people to be active in the community.

xiv on Jul 29 '05 at 3:49pm

^i agree

Rock Deputy on Jul 29 '05 at 4:11pm

I agree that there should be a weighted system, and wrote a similar idea earlier. What I suggested was more of a videogame character way of building up your account, where once someone has been here for a set period of time and has scored over 2000 submissions then they should get a -2, -1, 6, 7 as available scores for subs, to counter balance what I like to call "The Newbie Factor".

Also, fives and zeros coming from people who've scored less than 250 submissions are immediately discarded. These newbies would also have commenting turned off until they've hit the 250 mark.

Rock Deputy on Jul 29 '05 at 4:12pm

make em earn their keep!

little_hobbit_feet on Jul 29 '05 at 4:26pm

Kind of like figure-skating judges.
The highest and lowest are clearly retarded, so don't worry about what they said. ;)

KEMMLER on Jul 29 '05 at 4:48pm

Rock dept. I like your idea too... I think the real issue is to cut down on the influence of n00bs, somehow, and there are a lot of ways to do that, which also encourage more participation! Threadless guys, you reading this?

Iwouldbejosh on Jul 29 '05 at 5:03pm

My two cents:
First of all, since Threadless sells these shirts to various retailers, I think we need to realize that it isn't just people who come to this site who buy and wear Threadless shirts. Most of he shirts are bought here, but not all of them, so I don't think that someone's commitment to Threadless should be a factor in deciding how important their vote is.

Second of all, I think that everyone probably agrees that there are definitely people on here who give lots of 0's, not because they think it's a terrible design, but for many other reasons altogether. I think that a weighted vote is a great idea, because, if you think about it, if someone gives out all 0's and then one day gives out a 1 to someone other than themself, that's a really good score for that design, right?

I also like my idea that criticism should be part of the voting process. I feel like someone should have to leave a real comment if they want to score a 0 or 5. If they feel so strongly about the design, if they think it is SO genius, or SO completely horrible, they should have to explain why.

Iwouldbejosh on Jul 29 '05 at 5:09pm

Oh....and while I am at it....

I believe that people should be able to click the "I'd buy it!" button at any time, irregardless of whether or not it dropped out of the running. There are more and more designs everyday that are getting 1.5's when they don't deserve it. I'm not talking about myself. Really...

little_hobbit_feet on Jul 29 '05 at 5:26pm

That's an excellent idea, josh.

Also, irregardless isn't a word. It's like unthaw.

pokermonk on Jul 29 '05 at 5:31pm

i'm guessing the general problem designers have w/ the scoring is scores that are unjustifiably low being thrown around rather than other items getting higher scores. so, preventing people from being able to vote to weed out "friends" votes isn't really helping.

plus, friend votes for anyone w/o some kind of ridiculous net-presence (they keep their distance as far as i can tell) aren't going to affect a score more than a few tenths of a point.... maybe if they're quick save someone from the 1.5 axe, but they aren't going to make the difference between a shirt being printed or not.

the formula that kemmler started this thread with is interesting but way too complicated.

honestly, a good way to make a more powerful vote is to post about designs you like on the blog. this gives those designs more hits from more serious members, which theoretically would help overcome the hot-or-not crowd.

Iwouldbejosh on Jul 29 '05 at 5:32pm

yeah, you're right. haha I also said, "Most of he shirts"

*the shirts
**regardless

schaghticoke_ndn on Jul 29 '05 at 5:47pm

I agree with the fact that high schoolers vote oddly... however, I do not agree with the comment about "noobs" and how many designs you posted... lets face it everybody is a critic about movies but can you make one? It falls into the same line.

How I vote (being in the sports apparel business for 5 years) is I look at a design, look at the skill level used, consider the message (I'm really tired of the cliche designs... it really portrays a lack of thought put into the art), and I also look at the colors used and how they are placed on the product. Most of my votes sway towards a 0 or a 1... if you do receive a 5 from me, chances are it is a design that is worthy of the mark and would make it on the market. A lot of people are often hurt by how their "baby" is graded... too bad. I have worked for Art Directors for major corporations and sports venues who have declined 75% of my art... this is life. Stop getting hurt feelings about it or find another career... like sales for instance.

KEMMLER on Jul 30 '05 at 11:11am

i agree that designing should not be a huge criteria- but if they want to give 'those who know' a bigger say, it would make sense to me. A designer could be expected to give a more accurate appraisal of a design's quality and understand more fully the process and creation of a design.

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