FSM FAQ

What's an Ultra Farktographer?

Active, Total, Elite, Ultra, these are all labels that the FSM applies to Farktographers to give some sort of idea of how involved a particular Farktog is. The actual number of votes a Farktog gets really doesn't come into play, but the FSM only counts entries that have at least one vote. That's sort of important. But that's the only place that votes come into this stuff.

I needed to put some thresholds in place when I calculate averages. Otherwise, the best average votes report turns simply into the one hit wonders report. I arbitrarily chose 10 entries as the original threshold. This worked for a while, but I noticed some people who had 10 entries, but they were way in the past and they hadn't participated for months. So I needed to add another threshold and finally decided that I'd figure out when a Farktographer's initial contest was and then set the 2nd threshold to the number of entries equal to 1/3 the total number of contests since that Farktographer's initial contest.

e.g. if I entered 12 contests ago, the 2nd threshold is "4 entries"

Both thresholds need to be met to be listed. The "10" threshold means that the Farktog has a demonstrated interest in Farktography and the 2nd threshold ensures that the Farktog keeps at it.

Then I started to think about Fark and Farktography. There are Farkers, Total Farkers and some super secret thing that no one is supposed to talk about. I wanted that for the FSM so I created:

Farktographer - anyone who entered any contest (and got a vote)

Active Farktographer - anyone who meets the 10 and (1/3*contests) since Boobies criteria

Total Farktographer - anyone who meets the 10 and (1/2 * contests)

Elite Farktographer - anyone who meets the 10 and (1 * contests)

Ultra Farktographer - 10 and (2* contests) criteria

For example, assume your boobies contest was "What's on My Horizon" and your weeners was "Bridges II". That's contest #41 and #127, respectively, for a spread of 86 contests - 86 contests you could have entered. To be an Active Farktographer, you need 86 / 3 entries, or 28 and 2/3s (I can't remember if I round or truncate the fractions). Here's a table (assuming truncation):

You have to be "active" to get into the average reports and all Total Farktographers are Active Farktographers. Every Ultra is also an Elite, &c. I shade the rows in the average listings based on your "level" and give you the label in your portfolio.

Posted at 01:46PM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in What  | 

Hey, what happened with the Standings?

mikemikeb pointed out that I was not really calculating them in a manner that would make sense to most people. Basically, I considered the third-highest vote total as third place, regardless of preceding ties. Now, if four people tied for 2nd place, then the next place finish available would be 6th (assuming only one person had first place). Something like this:

contestid	farktographer	standing
2274259	schnee	1
2274259	bobroberts	2
2274259	Darkbladedancer	2
2274259	redphive	2
2274259	Pwaully	5
2274259	CaptainJim	6
2274259	CaptainJim	7
2274259	BenzaiOhio	8
2274259	CaptainJim	9

Posted at 11:03AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in What  | 

I notice a lot of "Boobies"...what's up with that?

You're new to Fark, aren't you? "Boobies" as a term is what Fark calls a Farker's first post, or a first post in a comment thread. The reason is to reduce the number of jokers who will make the comment "First Post!" in a thread. Farktography has adopted "Boobies" as a Farktographer's first contest. "Weeners" is a Farktographer's last contest.

Posted at 11:03AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in What  | 

On-behalf-of? What's that

Farktographers are friendly, and they like to help each other out. Sometimes, someone is not able to make the contest and someone else posts the entries for them. Fark.com records those under the poster, but the FSM will override those with the actual photographer's Fark login. The FSM has to be told about that, however.

Posted at 11:02AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in What  | 

What's next?

You can always request a feature - that's how "On-behalf-of" processing got implemented. I'm also trying to figure out some sort of a ranking for Farktographers. Something that rewards participation and votes.

Posted at 11:01AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in What  | 

What did you write this in?

Java, HTML, Velocity Macros, SQL - the usual suspects

Posted at 11:01AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in What  | 

How does the FSM work?

There's the poetic answer. There's also an answer that is a bit more technical.

1. Every 24 hours (and once an hour on Thursdays), the FSM Loader runs. It looks for new Farktography contests listed on the main page, retrieves the contest page and the result page and extracts the entries that have received votes. This phase makes heavy use of HTML Parsers, XPath expressions, and various networking and file handling routines.
2. The raw entries and the contest are loaded into the FSM Database, which used to be served by Derby, but is now MySQL 4.1.?.
3. To pickup late votes (votes that come in after 24 hours), the past 4 contests are re-retrieved from Fark.com and reprocessed. Any vote that comes in after 4 weeks won't be counted until I feel like rebuilding the entire DB, if at all. Fark.com archives the threads and turns off voting sometime before the 4 week window closes
4. After all votes have been accounted for, summary tables are built to assist with the reporting
5. The static reports are then generated by BIRT, an open-source reporting tool.
6. The reports and the FSM main page are then assembled (using Velocity) and deployed onto Schneeworld.com

Posted at 10:58AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in How  | 

How fair is the data?

I can't really judge. I suspect that overall the voting is 'true', but votes for specific individual entries may be influenced by other factors.

Posted at 10:58AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in How  | 

Why did you do it?

Its not done yet, but after I entered a few contests, I became interested in analyzing the voting patterns. Basically, I wasn't getting the number of votes that my ego said I should so I wanted to determine what advantage early entrants in the contest received. I believe that the null hypothesis ("There is no advantage to early posting") has been refuted and that a somewhat weak positive correlation exists between the number of votes a photograph receives and how early in the contest it was posted. Eventually, I dropped that analysis (because (a) it was a little mean-spirited and (b) - well, there is no (b)) but realized that I could look at the data in a different way; a way that serves the greater good. And so the Farktography Statistics Manager was born.

Posted at 10:57AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in Why  | 

Who is responsible for the Farktography Statistics Manager?

Me, schnee, a Farker and a Farktographer. I'm also some guy with probably too much time on my hands

Posted at 10:55AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in Who  | 

What is Fark.com?

Just go there and figure it out

Posted at 10:54AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in What  | 

What is a Farker?

A Farker is someone who frequents Fark.com

Posted at 10:53AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in What  | 

What is a Farktographer?

A Farker who enters Farktography contests. Farktographers hang out on Fark.com, but they also have their own forum. Farktographers tend to shoot with lots of different cameras. Digital is well represented, but there are plenty of film shooters out there. I've seen mention of Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony and even Holga.

Posted at 10:53AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in What  | 

What is Farktography?

Farktography is the collective name of themed photography contests hosted by Fark.com. A new contest is started each Wednesday night.

Posted at 10:52AM Apr 23, 2007 by schnee in What  |