Closed Are you interested in becoming Gallery Moderator? Please let yourself be known

[Baldur]

Note: creating this thread is my initiative. I was not asked to by SIM or a moderator. No information has been issued by the site management as to the future of the photo gallery, including as to whether special Gallery Moderators will be appointed or not.

I am concerned about the state of the Internet's largest collection of zoo photos. The visual information contained in the photos themselves, not to mention the factual information contributed via thousands of comments, is of great value to us with interest in zoos and ex-situ conservation.

We have been through this time and time again. There are just too many blurred photos; just too many duplicates (from the same user from same or multiple visits) and too many broken thumbnails or photos that will not load.

Blurred or duplicate photos can be blamed on the respective user (they won't upload on their own) while broken thumbnails or photos are usually the result of bad connection and/or the computer. Advice to those who have just uploaded to some gallery is to look at it once you have uploaded everything. Refresh/reload the page once or twice and scroll down as I do. That way you can know if your photos have been uploaded successfully and if not, do something about it.

But what to do if there is a broken thumbnail/photo?

If it is your own photo:

Click on the blue 'Edit' button under the photo's EXIF data (resolution, aperture, etc) then you will be taken to an edit section for the respective image. Under the thumbnail are four options: Rotate CCW, Rotate CW, Flip Vertical, Flop Horizontal and finally Rebuild Thumbnail. Click on that and the thumbnail will be rebuilt.

It is usually a thumbnail issue. The photo itself usually works and then it is just rebuilding the thumbnail with mouse clicks. But if the photo will not load, you cannot fix it yourself, so click on 'Report Post' in the information box below the photo to report it to the administrator/moderators. They will look into it to try to fix it, or delete it if nessessary.

If it is NOT your photo:

The only option, apart from letting the owner know via a comment or a message, is to do the same, use 'Report Post'. I have done that for every single photo and thumbnail that I have noticed is not loading in the past few months, so that the site management be aware of it. With 80.000 photos, it is impossible for them to browse all the galleries. If we all start doing it, we can have the gallery cleaned up in no time.

The aim with this thread was to ask all those who might be interested in becoming Gallery Moderators to let themselves be known here, even if the site management has not released any information as to if appointing moderators will be one of the means used to improve the gallery. My idea is that, in the event that they would, they would know who would be interested from the beginning.

We should avoid nominating others, only ourselves, and only if we are truly interested and able to do the job. The reason is that, regardless of how qualified a fellow user may be (I have several qualified in mind myself) they might not be interested or have no time to do the job. Pressuring them to take on the job will not make it any easier.

I think we should keep the following in mind as three basic requirements for a Gallery Moderator:

A) At least 20 years old.

B) Having visited at least 50 zoos, ideally abroad as well as in his/her own country.

C) Be having at least one year of experience with photography.

Any comments, suggestions or whatever you'd like to say is welcome.

 

[CGSwans]

First of all, I'm not interested in doing it. I've said elsewhere that I think a simpler and better approach would be to use the rating system, but aside from that - I've been there and done that with moderating, and it ain't much fun.

Second, I think your second condition is a) unnecessary and b) hugely restrictive. Just my two cents.

 

[KCZooFan]

I'd like to become a moderater, not to do anything to others photos, as there are dozens of members on here much more qualified than me, but simply to delete my own crappy/duplicate photos.

 

[Chlidonias]

quote from Sim from this thread: http://www.zoochat.com/4/welcome-our-new-moderators-kiang-pertinax-136965/

Just for your reference, I choose moderators based on their contribution to the site and for their balanced personality as community members. I look for people who I believe will add value above and beyond what they already do and would be willing and able to help out.

I do not accept requests to be made a moderator, indeed, asking if you can become a moderator is likely to have just the opposite effect and make you unlikely to be considered. Someone who is overly keen to become a moderator is not likely to make a good choice in my opinion.

 

[Baldur]

This thread didn't become as hot as I had expected - maybe most got enough after the 'Missing Photos' thread. Maybe because Christmas is coming, who knows, but now it seems best for me to stop being so interested in the Gallery (call it obsession if you will) and just adopt the 'Que Sera Sera' thinking; that is, whatever will be will be. I will still continue to report broken thumbnails and photos though as that needs be done.

I have just finished uploading several thousand photos from my recent USA tour, partly because I wanted to share them and partly because I wanted to inject life into the Gallery. If you look at the 'Galleries' page under 'Stats' you see that in September we uploaded 9416 photos but only 2939 in October. Possibly it is because both that the 'season' finished in September and that in early October the purging took place; which left at least two major uploaders so angry that one left Zoochat and the other stopped uploading for good. No doubt have more stopped without stating it out loud.

As to a rating system; which and how many options? Would it be ten options ranging from 'Miserable' to 'Outstanding'? How many votes for 'Miserable' does it take to have a photo removed? And how many people who are mostly interested in seeing as many photos as they can in their limited spare time will take time to properly assess each?

eBay implemented a rating system some years ago in the feedback section. There are options that I can't be bothered with every time. Unless there was an argument or the goods arrived damaged, I'll give the top grade. The HR Manager at my workplace had us take an anonymous survey last month, in which I was asked to rate my manager and given so many options in so many questions that I just couldn't be bothered so I just decided to give her the top grade (which she deserved totally anyhow).

The figure 50 may have been too high, especially for those in Australia, where wildlife attractions are often far between and it is costly to leave the country to see others. It usually also takes a car. But over in Europe it is often different. In some areas in some countries there are many collections close to each other and getting up to 50 is easy and usually done early in life. Countries as small as Belgium and Holland have together dozens of various animal collections and you can get to most with public transportation. I have 'only' been to 138 despite being 29 years old but I grew up in Iceland. Crossing the borders within the European Union is also easy. I know some who have been to 500-800 zoos and a German who said that he had been to over a 1000 wildlife attractions some years ago (but I think he counts even large pet stores into his figures)

The reason why I used this figure was to insist on deep knowledge and understanding of zoos and ex-situ conservation for the moderator; the best way to get this is by frequent visits to various collections close to and far away from home.

If almost all your visits are to your local zoo and/or those in the nearest area and in your home country, you may start comparing everything to them. Everything becomes either better or worse than that at home. With hundreds of countries in the world, we have thousands of wildlife attractions of all shapes and sizes and standards may vary greatly even within a small area. It takes understanding and knowledge to assess these.

Chilidonias did well by citing the thread in which Kiang and Pertinax were nominated. This means of course that I have no chance of becoming a moderator myself, but in a way it is for the best as I'm starting my Master's in January so the next year I will only have a portion of the time I have at present for Zoochat. I just hope that this matter will be sorted out somehow sometime.

 

[OrangePerson]

I have just finished uploading several thousand photos from my recent USA tour, partly because I wanted to share them and partly because I wanted to inject life into the Gallery.

Isn't this kind of excess why the gallery got into trouble. The problem with the digital age is it's too easy for people to produce hundreds of pictures, but we don't have the corresponding time to look at them.

The figure 50 may have been too high, especially for those in Australia, where wildlife attractions are often far between and it is costly to leave the country to see others.
The reason why I used this figure was to insist on deep knowledge and understanding of zoos and ex-situ conservation for the moderator;
the best way to get this is by frequent visits to various collections close to and far away from home.

I don't think number of zoos visited is any measure of a person's abilities to judge the worth of gallery photographs, there are people on here I would
trust to have the judgement (although not necessarily the inclination) to moderate a gallery using crieria to be established in advance who may well not have visited anything like this number of zoos. Some people have good judgment, some don't!

It's academic any way, no one in a position of authority/responsibility has even asked for this process!

 

[Baldur]

Isn't this kind of excess why the gallery got into trouble. The problem with the digital age is it's too easy for people to produce hundreds of pictures, but we don't have the corresponding time to look at them.

I select carefully and also make sure to write what is on the photos; I don't just upload without thought, which is what got the gallery into trouble, not selective uploading.

 

[reduakari]

Isn't this kind of excess why the gallery got into trouble. The problem with the digital age is it's too easy for people to produce hundreds of pictures, but we don't have the corresponding time to look at them.

The photographs uploaded by Baldur are well-composed, non-repetitive and are of far greater interest and usefulness than 99% of the junk that has cluttered the Gallery over the past few years. I would certainly not characterize his contributions--as voluminous and comprehensive as they have been--as "excess."