Submitted Images - Queue, Process & More. - Part 2 (2013)
Submitted Images - Queue, Process & More. - Part 2 (2013)
[This thread is just temporarily in the General section, and will move to Admin and Mod Initiated Topics within a few days.]
A year, ago, I posted a 'Submitted Images - Queue, Process & More Thread. It's been dormant for a year so I'm just creating a new one now.
We have 3 immediate image goals: (1) to improve the quality of image submissions, measured by the percentage of submissions deemed usable (2) to increase the number of submissions, (3) to basically eliminate the image queue, and (4) to increase communications with image submitters about their submissions.
For a background, see the previous thread: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=230021
Most of the questions and comments in the original post stand, and I encourage everyone to read it.
#1. In short, the image queue background currently hovers at around 3200 images. A huge portion of those images aren't bad enough to be deleted (or are too rare to be deleted), but not good enough to put online. A few are simply redundant. Most are of poor quality--sometimes poor lighting, but often blocked in part by other items (other machines, rags, soda cans on the control panel, etc.!). Today I added some additional 'please read' guidelines to the image submission page, though the more I add, often the less people read.
#2. A magic question is...do we put up some of these poor quality photos online (and mark them somehow as temporary?) In short, I'm inclined too in cases for which we have no better alternative. Some people have commented that marginal photos wouldn't reflect well on the site. While that may be the case, I think it looks worse to have no images at all. Especially for older (pre-1970s) non-videogame machines, images may be scarce.
#3 In addition to taking some images as in essence 'temporary', I'm inclined to create a 3rd category that can be selected by mods: 'archive'. That is, an image that we choose not to delete, but don't want to put online. For pre-1950s machines, there is a problem with people uploading an image to the wrong game entry. By having 'temporary (public) and 'archive' (private) images up, it may make it easier for the public and moderators to determine whether a new image belongs on a game.
#4 The biggest problem right now as mentioned above is poor quality image submissions. The second biggest problem is lack of feedback to submitters. Lots of people get frustrated that images take so long to process. This isn't helped by images sitting in purgatory. Occasionally forum members scream enough that I look into the members' individual contributions. Usually (but not always) the issue has been that their submissions are of marginal quality.
#5. We will continue to crop the background out of images. Someone expressed concern about quality loss on reprocessing a JPG. In short, we take steps to minimize issues related to JPG reprocessing. it's also the lesser of evils. If we didn't crop out the backgrounds we would likely reject over 90% of all images. BTW: I'm inclined not to take the trouble to crop the background out of a temporary image.
#6. Reacting to comments on the last thread, display of images online is different than image submission and processing. One of these days we are going to redo the standard game presentation page. When we do, screen shots for example will probably be clumped in a section for screen shots, for example, which should provide a better look, especially for games that have run-on screen shots (ie: the mentioned MK II). Additionally, some other images now like PCBs that online get a link, may end up getting a small thumbnail. Also, the system will continue to auto-keep the original versions as it has in recent years so it would be easy to reprocess all images if there was a need to for site redesign or special users (ie: tablet display).
#7. I intend to make it a little easier to tag images with short titles (ie: "European cabinet version"), in changing image types, and in adding a priority to images (so that the rare alternative cabinet type or cocktail table doesn't show up as the first image).
Thoughts and comments welcome...
Submitted Images - Queue, Process & More. - Part 2 (2013)
[This thread is just temporarily in the General section, and will move to Admin and Mod Initiated Topics within a few days.]
A year, ago, I posted a 'Submitted Images - Queue, Process & More Thread. It's been dormant for a year so I'm just creating a new one now.
We have 3 immediate image goals: (1) to improve the quality of image submissions, measured by the percentage of submissions deemed usable (2) to increase the number of submissions, (3) to basically eliminate the image queue, and (4) to increase communications with image submitters about their submissions.
For a background, see the previous thread: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=230021
Most of the questions and comments in the original post stand, and I encourage everyone to read it.
#1. In short, the image queue background currently hovers at around 3200 images. A huge portion of those images aren't bad enough to be deleted (or are too rare to be deleted), but not good enough to put online. A few are simply redundant. Most are of poor quality--sometimes poor lighting, but often blocked in part by other items (other machines, rags, soda cans on the control panel, etc.!). Today I added some additional 'please read' guidelines to the image submission page, though the more I add, often the less people read.
#2. A magic question is...do we put up some of these poor quality photos online (and mark them somehow as temporary?) In short, I'm inclined too in cases for which we have no better alternative. Some people have commented that marginal photos wouldn't reflect well on the site. While that may be the case, I think it looks worse to have no images at all. Especially for older (pre-1970s) non-videogame machines, images may be scarce.
#3 In addition to taking some images as in essence 'temporary', I'm inclined to create a 3rd category that can be selected by mods: 'archive'. That is, an image that we choose not to delete, but don't want to put online. For pre-1950s machines, there is a problem with people uploading an image to the wrong game entry. By having 'temporary (public) and 'archive' (private) images up, it may make it easier for the public and moderators to determine whether a new image belongs on a game.
#4 The biggest problem right now as mentioned above is poor quality image submissions. The second biggest problem is lack of feedback to submitters. Lots of people get frustrated that images take so long to process. This isn't helped by images sitting in purgatory. Occasionally forum members scream enough that I look into the members' individual contributions. Usually (but not always) the issue has been that their submissions are of marginal quality.
#5. We will continue to crop the background out of images. Someone expressed concern about quality loss on reprocessing a JPG. In short, we take steps to minimize issues related to JPG reprocessing. it's also the lesser of evils. If we didn't crop out the backgrounds we would likely reject over 90% of all images. BTW: I'm inclined not to take the trouble to crop the background out of a temporary image.
#6. Reacting to comments on the last thread, display of images online is different than image submission and processing. One of these days we are going to redo the standard game presentation page. When we do, screen shots for example will probably be clumped in a section for screen shots, for example, which should provide a better look, especially for games that have run-on screen shots (ie: the mentioned MK II). Additionally, some other images now like PCBs that online get a link, may end up getting a small thumbnail. Also, the system will continue to auto-keep the original versions as it has in recent years so it would be easy to reprocess all images if there was a need to for site redesign or special users (ie: tablet display).
#7. I intend to make it a little easier to tag images with short titles (ie: "European cabinet version"), in changing image types, and in adding a priority to images (so that the rare alternative cabinet type or cocktail table doesn't show up as the first image).
Thoughts and comments welcome...
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