h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Now we've all had a nice long break do we want to continue with submissions as we were before, but with less, say between 4 & 6 nominated Entries, but with more conversation and suggestions for improvement of photos before they go into the voting album or do we want to completely change what has been a mostly successful formula for submitting photos for Edited Entries?

Or any other suggestions for moving forward with the Photographers group? (I assume you've all read the recent emails at our Yahoo Group )

Emmily

I'm all for as we were. I for one should be able to do more hopefully as my PC troubles are sorted and I have a full uptodate version of Photoshop now as well. I'll be able to help out with cropping pics as necessary and able to do so without losing quality.

I think there are advantages to Rich's plan, it does seem like it would be easier once it is up and running.

The disadvantages as I see them are,

what happens when the current administrators wander on to pastures new? How do successive administrators take over the reins.?

It is worth thinking of the future, even if others may believe that it'll all dry up.

I like the current system but more time for suggestions and improvements are a good idea, I think.

all

Matt's concern can be easily be resolved. Natalie is currently a 'sleeping' member. If Natalie is agreeable, we could invite her to be a 'sleeping' moderator of Photographer's Group.

As for the amount of time for submissions we've already extended from 7 days to 10 days, happy to extend it further if that would help.

Though, we did notice that some members, myself included when I was busy, left it until the last day or two before closing before submitting photos. So how would we go about including discussions/suggestions for improving photos into our time? Have a week between closing submissions and submitting to voting album?

Some members may find almost a month between submissions too long, and lose interest in the Photographers Group. It's difficult to get the timing right, so members don't lose interest.

Then again, I suppose all the submissions don't need to end at the same time. It could be a running process, where by as one or two category submissions are voted on, they could be replaced with one or two more...hmm something else we could discuss/try...


Emmily

"Then again, I suppose all the submissions don't need to end at the same time. It could be a running process, where by as one or two category submissions are voted on, they could be replaced with one or two more...hmm something else we could discuss/try..."

I think that's definitely a good idea.

I think as long as the researcher submitting stays anonomous then it doesn't matter either way. If it's too much like hard work it wont take off.

Elentari

I don't think that's going to be possible anymore Opti. We're all adults, so we should all make our opinions on any photograph regardless of the photographer.

Okay, let's give this a shot, see how it works out

Emmily

Emmily, what you've done tonight in creating threads for each photo is exactly what I've suggested, except that if we were to build it ourselves, we could upload the photos onto the thread without having to reference the Yahoo group at all

And as for a 'running process', that is again exactly what I've proposed. You'd decide when to call each subject in for voting and when the photo was of good enough quality.

That was a good idea, and I don't mind about things being not anonymous (sp?) anymore.

Maybe I understood more of your email suggestions than I thought I did Rich.

Let's wait and see if this way works any better and iron out any problems that may arise before we think about relocating

Emmily

I think the bit that's missing on here is that the photos still aren't visible on the thread. That would be key, I think. If you took on suggestions and uploaded a new photo people would be able to see the improvements right away.

I'll see how difficult it would be to set up a prototype. It may be a lot simpler than I think

I'm not sure what the problem with anonymity is, it was hardly truly anonymous before (if you had time you could figure out who voted for what etc.), and I'm all for opening up the forum even more to further users. Stuck away in a member only yahoo group had it a little forgotten about. I believe anybody on the internet should be able to submit, that way you might get more people into h2g2 as a whole.

Yes, I know - perfect world an all that.

It's worth remembering that the reason we have email groups is that volunteer groups are not supposed to discuss their business in public fora. For that reason alone, I think the group would have to be closed, accessed by invitation only.

Other hootoo volunteer groups have a members only yahoo group, so IMO it's quite acceptable that the Photographers Group have that too. We may not be run by the Eds, but we are an official volunteer group, and the Mods try to act as responsibly as the Eds do, particularly when inviting new members.

I wouldn't be keen on a free-for-all Photographers Group if that it what you and Rich are suggesting.

Emmily

Sim-post

Though I should point out in Matt's defence that the whole idea is mine alone

I've thought about it some more, and I think the page TRiG set up for me to update feeds works very similarly to the way a forum would. It might not be very hard to do. If I'm right in thinking that, we could have a working prototype sooner than I thought. I'll keep you posted

I've not been out of bed long, not had my second thought I was replying to TRiG


There's no rush Rich, we need to see if this way works any better than what we were doing, before we even think about relocating.

Emmily

There'd be no need to relocate - just think of it as a second home

Just had word from TRiG, who is ripping the site to bits and rebuilding it anyway. And he'd have to write a few scripts to make an uploader and sign-in system work. It's going to take some time, anyway!

I think I'll take the matches thread and when it's finished and see if I can write a static page showing you how it would look. That's probably the simplest way of letting you see what I mean.