Thanks for the comments!

Zorilla: What does that mean? Are you saying my shot doesn't work, or this is a rare exception?

Dennis: You contradict yourself. You can't begin to imagine how old these must be....but they don't quite say old to you??? Which is it?

The figures say old, the overall image doesn't quite so much. Maybe Andrew expressed it better. The age of the figures themselves loses impact due to the surroundings.

This was photographed in a museum...EVERYTHING is old in there...in fact ancient in this particular exhibit. It would not be possible to photograph these in any other setting unless I have a time machine or discovered them myself in Asia. The frustration continues....

Sorry Dave, I'm trying to explain my thinking at least, but I suppose I'm not doing a good enough job.

I understand the frustration in trying to interpret a theme, when others don't necessarily see what you see. Last theme I submitted a shot which garnered all positive comments, bar one, yet didn't feature and infact rated quite low, particularly on the relevance scale. I haven't got a clue why, and nobody attempted to explain. I hope at least I'm going a step beyond that by giving it a shot, even if I'm not having much success. I wish other people would too.

Join the conversation aboutg ratings and relevance on ChriZ's (most recent) featured image:

http://www.weeklyshot.org/theme/old/response/1/

...of course, I expressed my feelings about this very early. Relevance is fine.

For me, the context is not an issue. If I'm standing on a street in Lisboa, taking a photo of a 700-year-old building, and the building looks very old indeed, is it not, nevertheless, taken among modern buildings in 2007 on my new digital SLR and posted to the f*****g, brand new World Wide Web?

Thanks Dennis. I should clarify my frustration as well, since it has more to do with the scores I see and not people's comments because like you, I really want comments, good and bad.

I certainly respect anyone's point of view that the "impact" of this shot is affected by it's surroundings. That is a personal call. My "impact" score of 3.18 supports that. What bothers me is the "relevance" score of 3.7, which tells me that although 17 people have rated this, the majority think this is better than average, but not above average. When I look at the fron page, I see an infant's hand gripping an adult's finger. More relevant to "old" than something created by an ancient civilization? Based on the feature, I guess so! Dennis, I really do appreciate the feedback. Thanks for being patient and polite. Cheers!

Thanks King. Perfectly stated.

Dave_Mac...you are welcome.

A Relevance score of 3.7, along with about four more 3.7 average ratings, would get this shot featured. Nothing to complain about, in my opinion.

Also, don't get confused that "good" ratings of 3.7 don't reach "Above Average = 4." Aggregate scores are like that. What is more important, and what we never get to see, is the proportion of 5's you probably got vs. the lower scores.

A shot that gets all 3's and 4's, averaging 3.5, has had a different effect on raters than one that gets 2's, 3's, 4's and 5's, averaging 3.5.

Fair enough King and you're right. High hopes gets me everytime! :)

Dave, I'd kill for relevance ratings of 3.7, or any other rating of 3.7 really ;) Judging by my own efforts, I've clearly got very little idea of what I'm talking about. As long as you get that I'm trying to be at least a little constructive (and it seems you do), then I'm happy :)

Thanks Ana! These are ancient Asian temple statues at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. I don't recall the actual dates of these, but I believe they were around the Ming Dynasty.

Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback mtmartini