Submitted Images - Queue, Process & More.

mclemore

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The queue of submitted images peaked at between 4,000 and 5,000, and currently sits about 2300. About 100 more images are in the hands of an image cropper to take out the background. Upon their return later this month they will go online.

As far as the images in the queue, some are:

- perfect, and just need to get sent to our image cropper
- imperfect (either too blury, or too obstructed--half the machine is blocked by something else)
- awaiting a policy decision (ie: if a videogame entry has 12 screen shots already, does it need another 7? Should there be a limit on the # of screen shots)
- needs verification (does the screen shot really belong to this game? Someone isn't so sure).
- submitted to the wrong game, and the game it really belongs to isn't in the database yet.

The largest category of photos that just sit and sit is probably 'imperfect'.

When a photo is so bad, it doesn't belong on the site, should it go up anyway if no other image is available? In sure cases, should we not bother to crop them but just stick them up (maybe with a subtitle 'temporary image, looking for better one')?

Should there be a minimal size for a submitted image? (We currently throw out a decent number of 5k cabinet gifs/jpgs that get submitted though usually they have some other problem anyway).

If a machine was available both as a dedicated and as a legit conversion, should we have a field to mark so we (and users visiting the site) know that a particular photo is of a conversion and not a dedicated? Or should we not even allow conversion photos online?

I'm writing this very quick this morning as my time is very limited, but in short, in order to 'solve' the perpetual purgatory image queue problem on this site we need to open up the image moderation process to more users. Before we can do that (and anyway needed) we are likely to need some more image policies (and additional image categories, especially for non-videogame machines, ie: 'mech/inside machine photos').

My time around here is extremely limited between now and April 16th, so my ability to participate in the decision will be limited. I at least wanted to get people thinking about it though.

As such, here is a peak at the image queue (for users logged into the main site):

http://www.arcade-museum.com/ir_main.php

It's basically the real admin interface minus most of the 'action' items that admins can do (ie: publish live immediately, approved but send to image editor first, delete, etc.), and minus some confidential info (ie: email address or phone number of submitter).

The one feature that is live is the ability to change the type of photo it is (ie: from 'cabinet' to 'pcb') if it happens to be wrong.

If you are interested, take a look, and then we all (all that want to at least) can be part of an intelligent conversation on same.

Thanks,

Greg
 
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I think we should crop the pictures to a standard size (ex. 400W x ???H) also to save bandwith and size of the picture.

The largest category of photos that just sit and sit is probably 'imperfect'.
A couple of weeks ago i had a sneak peak of some of the pictures uploaded, and there are MANY that dosen´t qualify

When a photo is so bad, it doesn't belong on the site, should it go up anyway if no other image is available? In sure cases, should we not bother to crop them but just stick them up (maybe with a subtitle 'temporary image, looking for better one')?
Ill say yes, with a suptitle saying "Temporary Image"

Should there be a minimal size for a submitted image? (We currently throw out a decent number of 5k cabinet gifs/jpgs that get submitted though usually they have some other problem anyway).
Yes, when an image is so small you hardly can see what it is, there´s no point uploading it.

If a machine was available both as a dedicated and as a legit conversion, should we have a field to mark so we (and users visiting the site) know that a particular photo is of a conversion and not a dedicated? Or should we not even allow conversion photos online?
I personally think there should be no conversion photos...
Though, what about Major Havoc in a Tempest....??
 
"I think we should crop the pictures to a standard size (ex. 400W x ???H) also to save bandwith and size of the picture."

I say "Be Careful Here". I agree on bandwidth saving but at the same time, It's pointless to resize a picture to a size you barely can't read what's written in its marquee and/or sideart. But I agree we should define a fixed size for each image type at the main game screen (summary screen), and making a 'link-type' for each image, such as some of the KLOV games have. If you have a larger image, the main page's picture will have a fixed 'standard' size (and smaller) and when you click over it, it will open a new window to display the full-sized image. This way we don't have to reduce pictures size and/or resolution.

Regarding cabinets, I'd quit the idea of editing each picture to remove its background. It's a HUGE work and will reduce dramatically the original image quality (from everything I've seen until now). It's noticeable the image loss. Even if you take a JPEG image and save it with 100% quality, it will have loss, it's a FACT! Unless you save it in a PNG format (will be quite larger), you will destroy the original pic. Leave it without retouching.

Screenshots are the less interesting type of pictures and should be limited to 4 per game (intro screen, title screen and 2 gameplay screens). I've seen a pointless flood of screenshots, just see MK, MK2, MK3 and UMK3 as examples - that's ridiculous!!

As for Bezels, Instruction Stickers and Flyers I will ask permission to TAFA and Mr.DO's website owners, sice they have ultra high quality scans of these types of artwork, and would be pointless to redo everything from scratch or having inferior quality pictures at KLOV if these are already available. It's a matter of asking permission to them if KLOV could provide a link to their websites where people can see/download a game flyer/bezel/IC's when they are available at TAFA/Mr.DO's. In some rare cases where no Bezels/Flyers/IC's are available there, then we can place a picture of it at KLOV instead of a link.



"A couple of weeks ago i had a sneak peak of some of the pictures uploaded, and there are MANY that dosen´t qualify"

I just saw it and I have to agree. There are lots of good stuff, but the most part are pure junk we can trash right from the submission screen.


"Ill say yes, with a subtitle saying "Temporary Image""

I agree here with a complement saying: "Temporary image - If you have an image with better resolution, please consider submitting it"


Yes, when an image is so small you hardly can see what it is, there´s no point uploading it.

Indeed!


"I personally think there should be no conversion photos...
Though, what about Major Havoc in a Tempest....??"

I agree here too! A conversion picture is completely pointless if this site is for preservation of the arcade video games history. If a game came out as a conversion kit, no problem if it was installed into a generic cabinet or a Taito cab or a Stern cab. But if a game had a dedicated machine, this should be the image to be published, with its own original cabinet/artwork. Restored dedicated cabinets can be submitted here, as long as it has a faithful restoration.
 
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RColtrane said:
I say "Be Careful Here". I agree on bandwidth saving but at the same time, It's pointless to resize a picture to a size you barely can't read what's written in its marquee and/or sideart. But I agree we should define a fixed size for each image type at the main game screen (summary screen), and making a 'link-type' for each image, such as some of the KLOV games have. If you have a larger image, the main page's picture will have a fixed 'standard' size (and smaller) and when you click over it, it will open a new window to display the full-sized image. This way we don't have to reduce pictures size and/or resolution.

That may be a good solution with a "Thumbnail" photo in 400W X ???H (whatever we decide) and then a link to a Hi-Res picture, that could open in a new window, or be shown on top like the images in threads..

RColtrane said:
Screenshots are the less interesting type of pictures and should be limited to 4 per game (intro screen, title screen and 2 gameplay screens). I've seen a pointless flood of screenshots, just see MK, MK2, MK3 and UMK3 as examples - that's ridiculous!!

Hehe, just checked out the MKII, and it made me laugh, youre right about this, maby 5 or 6, but 20 is a bit to much

RColtrane said:
As for Bezels, Instruction Stickers and Flyers I will ask permission to TAFA and Mr.DO's website owners, sice they have ultra high quality scans of these types of artwork, and would be pointless to redo everything from scratch or having inferior quality pictures at KLOV if these are already available. It's a matter of asking permission to them if KLOV could provide a link to their websites where people can see/download a game flyer/bezel/IC's when they are available at TAFA/Mr.DO's. In some rare cases where no Bezels/Flyers/IC's are available there, then we can place a picture of it at KLOV instead of a link.

It would be a lot easier to do it this way, though, the information (pictures) will not be on KLOV, and i think that´s the point, collecting everything here so it´s not lost etc...
 
It would be a lot easier to do it this way, though, the information (pictures) will not be on KLOV, and i think that´s the point, collecting everything here so it´s not lost etc...

In fact, McLemore has already included links for flyers at the KLOV game's main screen, I didn't notice that. Kudos to you Mac!! ;)

I think links in these particular cases work better because we can't just leech other people work just to make KLOV better. The TAFA / Mr.DO's efforts were so big that it would be unfair (to say the least), and they wouldn't feel motivated to keep working with their own websites. However, if we keep their pages linked at KLOV, we will have their images and they will be pleased to continue working on new bezels/marquees/IC's/Flyers. Do you understand my point here?
 
Do we need more than one photo per cabinet type? It would be nice to have one cabinet shot per cabinet type and link the cabinet types available for a game to an image. Then do something like Amazon, where you have a large photo shown above, with thumb nails of the other cabinet types available, as as you hover over them, it brings up those pictures in the larger window.
 
When a photo is so bad, it doesn't belong on the site, should it go up anyway if no other image is available? In sure cases, should we not bother to crop them but just stick them up (maybe with a subtitle 'temporary image, looking for better one')?
I say no. I say 'quality over quantity'. I would rather there be NO image than a bad image, which, to me, makes the site look bad.
 
I say no. I say 'quality over quantity'. I would rather there be NO image than a bad image, which, to me, makes the site look bad.

I'm forced to agree with this opinion! Mobygames, TAFA, Mr.DO's websites are that great today because of people thinking just like this guy. A top quality site can't afford to have bad pics, otherwise people will feel unmotivated to keep going with it.
 
I say no. I say 'quality over quantity'. I would rather there be NO image than a bad image, which, to me, makes the site look bad.

While this is a great attitude to have in an ideal world where you can just go back and get another picture of that cabinet, in some situations, what about games that only show up once in a blue moon, and the best they could do is snap a photo of it at an auction with their cellphone camera (which is exactly what Brian Johnson, original KLOV owner, did at auctions).

Beggars can't always be choosers.

There's still some benefit in getting an idea of what a cabinet looked like for recognition purposes.
 
While this is a great attitude to have in an ideal world where you can just go back and get another picture of that cabinet, in some situations, what about games that only show up once in a blue moon, and the best they could do is snap a photo of it at an auction with their cellphone camera (which is exactly what Brian Johnson, original KLOV owner, did at auctions).

Beggars can't always be choosers.

There's still some benefit in getting an idea of what a cabinet looked like for recognition purposes.
To repeat: I would rather there be NO image than a bad image.
 
I'm forced to agree with this opinion! Mobygames, TAFA, Mr.DO's websites are that great today because of people thinking just like this guy. A top quality site can't afford to have bad pics, otherwise people will feel unmotivated to keep going with it.
I don't know about TAFA or Mr. Do's website but MobyGames has several games for which they have no cover image because a good cover does not exist to take the image from. They'll wait, if needed, rather than compromise quality.
 
While this is a great attitude to have in an ideal world where you can just go back and get another picture of that cabinet, in some situations, what about games that only show up once in a blue moon, and the best they could do is snap a photo of it at an auction with their cellphone camera (which is exactly what Brian Johnson, original KLOV owner, did at auctions).

Beggars can't always be choosers.

There's still some benefit in getting an idea of what a cabinet looked like for recognition purposes.

I have the same opinion, rather a bad single picture than no picture, so if someone sees the bad picture, he/she upload a better one right away, that is put on in a matter of hours....

Isn't that the whole point of this discussion - to end up with a minimal image queue, and images that is submitted goes on the website in a matter of hours??

- A middle road could be to post a link to a bad picture, that people can chose to click..
 
Ok, looking at some of the queue entries...yikes, what a mess. Anyone know how to run a camera? Now I see what you mean about NO picture vs a bad picture...

Ok, so here's my thoughts:

There should have one picture that can be tagged to each cabinet type. So one picture tagged as upright, one as cocktail, etc. The picture should have the entire cabinet in the shot (no top, bottom, or sides cut off). Until that submission is met, we could put up a generic photo, like a shadow outline of a generic upright, with a question mark over it, indicating we are looking for a submission for it.

There should have a place to put "extra" pictures. Closeup of control panels, playfields, etc. This stuff doesn't really be on the main page, but that depends on your page philosophy. I see the main page as sort of "browsing" page, with additional links if you want to dive into more details, such as detailed photos of certain parts, etc.

There should be incentives for uploading pictures that get selected. User credits attached? Maybe a photo submission level award ranking is displayed on your KLOV profile (kind of like they were doing for post counts)?

There should be a way to lock a photo submission type. For example, we don't need 50 uploads of an Asteroids upright cabinet or 20 UMK screen shots (don't want the queue filled with photos rejected as redundant), but yet we need a way for that rare submitter to get a photo of his Golden Asteroids to us. Maybe the submission process should allow you to select what you're uploading (one of the cabinet types, "unique", "screen shot", "control panel") and we remove types of entries for games where we feel those have been accomplished. So an entry considered complete would only have the "unique" entry left for photo submission.

Anything else or comments?
 
While this is a great attitude to have in an ideal world where you can just go back and get another picture of that cabinet, in some situations, what about games that only show up once in a blue moon, and the best they could do is snap a photo of it at an auction with their cellphone camera (which is exactly what Brian Johnson, original KLOV owner, did at auctions).

Beggars can't always be choosers.

There's still some benefit in getting an idea of what a cabinet looked like for recognition purposes.

Believe me, sooner or later they will show up. I'm a Mobygames contributor since its beggining, and I've seen LOTS and LOTS of 'slightly good' images trashed immediately and LOTS of games had no images at first because of that. But as time goes on, one image here, one image there were popping up from different members with greater resolution than that earlier ones. ANd guess what: now Mobygames is THE BEST computer and console source.

We really can't allow bad images to be in KLOV only because they are on handy today. If a collector see that a game he owns doesn't have a picture at KLOV, he will provide one. Or someone else who owns that game will do it. It's just a matter of time.
 
Ok, looking at some of the queue entries...yikes, what a mess. Anyone know how to run a camera? Now I see what you mean about NO picture vs a bad picture...

Ok, so here's my thoughts:

There should have one picture that can be tagged to each cabinet type. So one picture tagged as upright, one as cocktail, etc. The picture should have the entire cabinet in the shot (no top, bottom, or sides cut off). Until that submission is met, we could put up a generic photo, like a shadow outline of a generic upright, with a question mark over it, indicating we are looking for a submission for it.

There should have a place to put "extra" pictures. Closeup of control panels, playfields, etc. This stuff doesn't really be on the main page, but that depends on your page philosophy. I see the main page as sort of "browsing" page, with additional links if you want to dive into more details, such as detailed photos of certain parts, etc.

There should be incentives for uploading pictures that get selected. User credits attached? Maybe a photo submission level award ranking is displayed on your KLOV profile (kind of like they were doing for post counts)?

There should be a way to lock a photo submission type. For example, we don't need 50 uploads of an Asteroids upright cabinet or 20 UMK screen shots (don't want the queue filled with photos rejected as redundant), but yet we need a way for that rare submitter to get a photo of his Golden Asteroids to us. Maybe the submission process should allow you to select what you're uploading (one of the cabinet types, "unique", "screen shot", "control panel") and we remove types of entries for games where we feel those have been accomplished. So an entry considered complete would only have the "unique" entry left for photo submission.

Anything else or comments?

Yes :D

I agree with your opinions above and would like to add something else...

To me, the 'perfect' cabinet picture is a 30º or 45º angled picture of the cabinet, that will show both front/side of it, without flashing (increase the ambient light before taking a picture!!!) and it must has no crops at all. The picture must show the entire cabinet!

Great cabinet pictures were done by professional photographers, as we can see on a vast majority of flyers. To me, the best cabinet pictures taken were the ones from the games flyers!! All people who want to contribute with cabinet pictures should take a look at some flyers before shooting your own pictures.

And finally, I'm going to do a '3D' angled cabinet picture showing the desired position to take a picture from a cabinet. So games that doesn't have a cab picture yet will display this 3D static 'sample' model, so the game owners will have to take a pic that matches the 3D positioning. I'll submit this picture here later.
 
mjenison said:
There should have one picture that can be tagged to each cabinet type. So one picture tagged as upright, one as cocktail, etc. The picture should have the entire cabinet in the shot (no top, bottom, or sides cut off). Until that submission is met, we could put up a generic photo, like a shadow outline of a generic upright, with a question mark over it, indicating we are looking for a submission for it.

Agree, Upright, Cockpit, Caberet and Cocktail table.
But, when there´s an US and a EU version of the same game, i think both cabs should be there with text underneath saying what´s what. (fi. Centipede - there´s actually 3 slightly similar UR of this game)

RColfrane said:
Believe me, sooner or later they will show up. I'm a Mobygames contributor since its beggining, and I've seen LOTS and LOTS of 'slightly good' images trashed immediately and LOTS of games had no images at first because of that. But as time goes on, one image here, one image there were popping up from different members with greater resolution than that earlier ones. ANd guess what: now Mobygames is THE BEST computer and console source.

We really can't allow bad images to be in KLOV only because they are on handy today. If a collector see that a game he owns doesn't have a picture at KLOV, he will provide one. Or someone else who owns that game will do it. It's just a matter of time.

I can see what you mean by this, and though i have a different view, this might be the way to proceed - it worked on MobyGames, why won´t it work here??

RColfrane said:
To me, the 'perfect' cabinet picture is a 30º or 45º angled picture of the cabinet, that will show both front/side of it, without flashing (increase the ambient light before taking a picture!!!) and it must has no crops at all. The picture must show the entire cabinet!

It´s not only a perfect picture, it´s a must! - like you say, you can see both the side and the front of the cab.

RColfrane said:
And finally, I'm going to do a '3D' angled cabinet picture showing the desired position to take a picture from a cabinet. So games that doesn't have a cab picture yet will display this 3D static 'sample' model, so the game owners will have to take a pic that matches the 3D positioning. I'll submit this picture here later.

TU!
Isent this easy done in Google Sketch - with a drizzle of Photo Shop?, the question is now, which shape to go with, but that´s another story ;)
 
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Agree, Upright, Cockpit, Caberet and Cocktail table.
But, when there´s an US and a EU version of the same game, i think both cabs should be there with text underneath saying what´s what. (fi. Centipede - there´s actually 3 slightly similar UR of this game)

Right, that's the beauty of it; the cabinet types for a cabinet are configurable, so you could have a different picture for each of those, since each would be a different cabinet type. The standard types (upright, cocktail, etc) could have the "3D" picture of that cabinet type (which is a great idea; give the user an idea of how the game should look in the photo beforehand), but for the other custom types that are user definable I guess we'd just show a "?", since the custom cabinet type could be anything.
 
Ok, since I have no sketchup/ 3D programs installed here yet, I'll show below one example of what a cabinet picture should look like at KLOV game main page. This picture has been very compressed because I'm only showing it here as an example, but the idea is to show both front/side of it with much better resolution than this and without crops:

pf.png


As a side note, I took this cabinet as an example because it's my favorite arcade game :D
 
Any news regarding KLOV image updates? I'm excited to be one of the moderators to help this great site!!!!
 
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