Posting Photos Process
Thread started by
GarySe7en at 02.25.08 - 10:42 pm
I finally got around to posting a few of our ALC team training photo's to the official gallery. Then I quickly remembered why it is I post pics on flickr but rarely on the MR gallery, even though I invest so much time taking and processing photos, not to mention lugging my heavy camera equipment on steep hills.
The upload process is terrible, and an inefficient use of time. If there is a wish list being made for 2.0 features, at the top of what I'd personally like to see would be a better photo uploading system.
I would be willing to donate cash money toward the implantation of this feature. Short of that, I might possibly be willing to give someone a disc with my photos and pay them minimum wage to upload them for me. I'm not lazy, I just have better things to do with the little free time I have then clicking buttons repeatedly. You know, things like riding bikes, and photography.
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There is a cunning plan to make the photo upload process not suck.
ephemerae02.25.08 - 11:11 pm
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If it doesn't suck we'll have 2,000 pictures per ride instead of the usual 200.
marino02.25.08 - 11:57 pm
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Which should be able to be rated and sorted by user, date, rating, etc.
richtotheie02.26.08 - 12:08 am
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"If it doesn't suck we'll have 2,000 pictures per ride instead of the usual 200."
Making it suck for the sake of just making life more difficult is dumb. That's like saying we should have never invented graphic user interfaces for computers, that way we would only have hardcore DOS nerds typing in code instead of all these billions of people using the internet.
I understand the desire to weed out superfluous images, but there are ways to do that without punishing the people who would like to enrich the community with quality pictures.
GarySe7en02.26.08 - 12:36 am
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Guess I'm the only nerd who still uses CLI.
Just not DOS. heh
kyber02.26.08 - 1:27 am
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nah kyber, your just a dork
love,
cyper spiral
spiraldemon02.26.08 - 8:51 am
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"Making it suck for the sake of just making life more difficult is dumb."
assuming it was designed as such is also......
hey so some vry kind volunteers have offered assistance in upgrading the site. the code is 4 or 5 years old now and pre-dates flikr's amazing highly funded upload tool and bandwidth flow but we'll do the best we can! sorry for the hassle better days to come soon.
Roadblock02.26.08 - 10:36 am
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Personally, I don't find it that cumbersome. I use Firefox and when the time comes to upload photos, I usually open about 10 separate tabs for the task. It becomes sort of a 'assembly line' process. By the time you press upload on the last tab, the first tab is ready to go again.
/I hope that made sense.
SPOOK02.26.08 - 10:57 am
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RB brings up a good point.
The clumsy upload interface almost acts as a filter to prevent not-so-great pictures from being put on the site and taking up space/using bandwidth.
Granted, it's getting cheaper for these things, but we're still not paying for it personally.
Roadblock: Still think you should put a donate button on the site to help cover the costs of hosting. Whomever can throw a few bucks, will.
kyber02.26.08 - 11:11 am
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i've been having trouble posting photos recently, my browser ends up in a blank page after i press upload...
what's up G?
e-rock02.26.08 - 11:14 am
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it really is an interface in need of help.... I'm not denying it. it will be improved....
Roadblock02.26.08 - 11:17 am
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I wasn't trying to suggest it was designed to suck, I realize times change, technology gets better, and it's hard to upkeep these things.
I just felt like those defending the current interface were wanting to prolong an inefficient system for the sake of making life more difficult, which I feel is a bad idea.
I don't have web coding skills to help with this, but I am serious about money, if there becomes a paypal button, I'll put money where my mouth is.
GarySe7en02.26.08 - 11:43 am
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There should be a donation button for sure.
As far as the photo upload, I don't mind it. Maybe it should accept multiple uploads and maybe the form could be cleaner, but we should encouraging people to edit their photos, not post every single shot.
Maybe it will make the threads too long, but I'd get rid of the iframe too. Doesn't work on the iPhone, haha. Scrolling down is easy.
cabhauler02.26.08 - 11:54 am
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god damn it there is a sniffer in there that is supposed to pick up on the iphone browser and remove the scrolling div. for fucks sake I will try to remedy that....
Roadblock02.26.08 - 12:08 pm
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All issues aside, just know that you're appreciated in the work that you are able to do on the site, period. Don't spend any money on code, please. There are enough coders on MR that you should be able to get a volunteer to do anything you need. You SHOULD, though, put a paypal link for things like hosting fees, etc. Nothing should be coming out of your pocket. I would like to see MR.com ad free as long as possible too.
the reverend dak02.26.08 - 12:22 pm
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Yeah, don't stress about the iPhone thing, I hardly ever need to access the site on the road. It's cool that you had a sniffer in place though. And I agree with Dak, no ads please!
cabhauler02.26.08 - 1:15 pm
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ready when you are, Roadblock. Just saying, man.
Folks, one of the first things we are gonna do with the image upload page is something really simple and obvious: make it show the last image you uploaded and the filename, to help avoid duplicates. More fancy solutions will evolve from there.
ephemerae02.26.08 - 8:46 pm
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Technicalities aside, it would be awesome to download an entire ride's album, at once. It will make it faster to brag to friends about Midnight Ridazz.
SKIDMARCUS02.27.08 - 1:11 am
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Fuck that!
Are we going to be able to see a list of the photo folders showing the latest activity on the left panel? Something like a list of latest gallery folders that will depict the latest activity? It seems redundant to list every photo on the left. Much better to see recent folder activity.
User102.27.08 - 12:44 pm
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While we're at it, can we have the option to ignore members? You know, like they aren't even on the screen?
User102.27.08 - 1:00 pm
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Yeah, the BRAG BUTTON can be next to the picture, and will automatically email the image to all your friends and family that never want to come out on rides because they don't think they are "bike people".
Please, Roadblock..!?
SKIDMARCUS02.27.08 - 1:01 pm
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Sorry for coming off kind of harsh in the initial post. Was feeling grumpy. It's all because I love this community, and want to see it enhanced.
In the spirit of contributing ideas, I got to thinking. The only point that is ever brought up to defend the current system, is that frustration forces a certain amount of choosiness in deciding what to post.
I absolutely believe in the guidelines written for posting images, and would not want to see the flood gates open for redundant images and scores of uninteresting "blurries". Bandwidth here is a privilege not a right.
So one idea I had is, what if you literally enforce a cap on image posting per ride. Contributers who post consistently with quality photos, which could be determined by a rating system, some other form of peer review, or the mighty hand of Roadblock, could be granted an increase to their cap. Only select individuals could earn their way to unlimited posting privileges, which could be revoked or downgraded at anytime for abusing such an ability.
A person could try to circumvent this by creating another account to post more pictures, but a low starting cap would make this an annoying process, and reveal quickly to the administrator what they were trying to do.
Should such a system be adopted, to avoid the frustration of current contributers suddenly having a small limit, there should be a higher starting cap for existing members who have demonstrated a dedication to providing images to the community, and who have for the most part kept true to the guidelines.
Then if someone new shows up and takes 300 point & shoot shots at their first ride, because they can't contain their excitement for discovering such a fine community of bicycle love, they will have no choice but to consider, which 10 (or what ever number we decide the starting cap would be) of those are really worth it for everyone to see.
GarySe7en02.27.08 - 9:30 pm
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its a good idea. believe it or not the system is alread y set up in a similar way. I can grant access to people to be able to post up to nine images at a time. I should let some people in. it is still a bit clumsy in the way the images are loaded to individual galleries but it makes it alot easier than one at a time. I just have never used that feature with this site, though I think studiodrome has this priviledge... it would be nice to have a vetted system , of course it would have to be modified to do so and it would also require some judgement on who gets to upload more and then people begin to wonder why they didnt get accepted.... I think if it becomes easier to upload photos but not completely easy we should be fine.
Roadblock02.27.08 - 9:42 pm
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yeah studiodrome has the ability to upload multiple photos... ha ok who else should I be giving this priviledge to?
Roadblock02.27.08 - 9:57 pm
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I'm obviously biased in saying I would like to be one of these people. But please pretty please!
There are probably a dozen rides I have some great photos for, but I kept putting it off because I either didn't have the time or didn't feel like individually posting them.
GarySe7en02.27.08 - 10:08 pm
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I can code php, so if you need any help with your own CMS or integrating others, I'm here to help.
vstipo at gmail dot com
XPC02.27.08 - 10:12 pm
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A few smaller things that would be nice.
The ability to add html links to the comments of photos. To link to other photos of the ride that are off site, or in the case of our AIDS Life Cycle training photo's I'd like to start linking to rider donation pages. HTML linking is allowed almost everywhere else in the site.
It would also be nice to change photo details in a similar manner to changing ride details. Like I have a photo that is accidentally set to the year 1901 because that was the first thing in the expansively large drop down menu.
GarySe7en02.29.08 - 11:39 am
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actually you can put links in the photo description box. you just need to use html.
updating this site is going to happen it's a matter of agreeing on how to do it.... which can be a cluster fuck. Vincent lets talk!
Roadblock02.29.08 - 11:44 am
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