I wrote this Entry for thoughts about Volunteers in NooHootoo. In this case mostly Photographers and Artists.

I write this simply out of the perspective of my own experiences so please comment.

At the moment the concept for NooHootoo in the Great Big Document wants to fuse all three of these Volunteer Groups to one, and I think that is a good idea in the case of Photographers and Artists. People who want to submit only photos or only graphics can of course do that, but for those who want to do one thing one week and a different one another week this offers better possibilities. And there's of course always the chance to learn from each other, look outside the box.

In a 'perfect hootoo world' we would be possible to do everything on site and would not have to move to a yahoo group or anywhere else to do our 'jobs'. Let me just play with that thought.

What do we need?

We need a place where the Volunteers (I will just go calling them all Artists from now on) can upload their pictures, discuss them, choose what should go to the Guide and then hand them on to the people who attach them to Entries.

Should this place be all public or should we have a 'secured area' that only group members can enter? I don't know.

In a closed group members would maybe feel more open to comment and not shy about posting unfinished work. An open group on the other hand would maybe attract more new members because they can see how things work. But I'm not sure about that.

Possible structure

A posted piece of media should always have a thread attached.

A very nice thing to have would be a list of all Entries that are pulled out of Review and should go to the Edited Guide and still need pictures. The people who update this list should be the ones who work in the Review Forums.

The easiest way would probably be a Guide Entry where everyone of the group can upload their pictures with a thread at the bottom of the page. If there are more pictures for one topic they are put into one section of the Entry together and also share one thread. Information that is given next to the picture would have to be the name and link of the Guide Entry the picture belongs to and a link to the thread.

Once an Entry has its picture(s) attached the relevant pictures should be removed from the Volunteer page.

How does a file get to its Entry

There are two possible ways that I can see:

a) When the volunteer group has decided on something that should go to the Guide the Editors are alerted, they pick up the file and attach it to the Entry. This could happen by first moving the file to a page that Artists and Editors are both subscribed to.

b) The Artists themselves could be given editorial rights to attach a file to an Entry.

Depending on the size of the group there have to be a few people who check that the right pictures get attached to the Entries.

Writers submitting pictures

It is discussed that writers can attach their own pictures (and audio files?) to Entries if they want to do that. This would be a way to get many pictures quickly.

I imagine that the time to hand in a picture would be when the Entry leaves review or shortly before that. If images can be attached at any time this would mean that everybody can attach anything and we would certainly things on h2g2 that we do not want to see and would end up in moderation issues.

When somebody submits pictures for their Entry the picture would have to be checked on copyright issues, house rules and quality. An then the picture would probably have to be cropped to the right size. Who would do that? I guess the first people to see the picture would be the Volunteers in PR so they could do the first check. Some things can be spotted immediately.

And then? Then somebody would have to check it again. Probably type in a few things in google to see whether the pictures are stolen from other pages. And get the pictures to the right size (because I think we should still have a defined pictures size unless there's a good reason why a picture should be different).

All that would have to be done by the Artists I think. The amount of work this would be depends on the number of Entries.

What if a submitted picture is not acceptable? Talk to the writer I guess, ask him to submit something else or leave it to the Artists.

The Post

Now things get more tricky I guess. The Post has its own pictures and people who submit them. Comics are part of that.

So what do we do? Leave things at the Post as they are?

Give The Post its own page to submit pictures that shall be attached to Post articles?

Make a page where both Artists and Post staff have access for the case that The Post needs something from the Artists? At the moment this is my favorite option because it allows more interaction and collaborative work.

Pages needed

1)Group page/introduction page for the Volunteer group (also place for Researchers who want to join this group)

2) list of new Entries that need pictures and a list of Entries with pictures the writer attached which need an 'ok' or cropping

3) page to submit pictures and discuss them

4) page for collaboration with The Post and the Aviators

Aviators

For films it needs a (non-public) place where the people who work on it can upload their work and download other people's work to put things together. And of course a place for discussions.

The more I think about it the more I am convinced that the current Aviators should stay a separate group and we should just put together Photographers and Artists.

The Aviators should also join the collaborative page with the Post.

Audio files

What do we do about audio files for the Guide? Is that the job of the Aviators?

Media library

Every piece of media that goes into the Guide *must* be filed in a media library. We already have too many pictures that nobody knows of. If nothing else it at least gives people the chance to add stuff to their PS or unedited Entries.