Again the screeners are doing their job well and the 4000 photos or so in the queue are waiting for my attention. I've always had the rather naive view that, any day now, there will be time for me to deal with them all and afterwards keep the queue to a minimum. That's just as unrealistic a view as me being able to reply to all the emails I get. So, here's what I've done. Those of you with more than 50 photos in the database knows that we're looking for additional screeners (as an email was sent out to you with the request). More screeners will be able to handle more photos once they are properly trained.

Furthermore, the present screeners have been given full decision power when it comes to "normal" photos. They may no more leave for me to screen photos that aren't considered rare (for instance, VH-OJB shot in Australia is not rare). They have to decide themselves if such a photo should be accepted or rejected. Rare shots (like a photo of an AA BAe146) can be left for me to screen if the screener is unsure (if the photo is of low quality or similar).

In time, the screeners will handle all the uploads. For that to happen, the screening scripts have to be improved however. Until then, I'll do my best with the photos waiting for my attention.

I'm not a big fan of limiting the number of photos uploaded, new photos is what makes this site popular and any limitations put on the photographers are a bad thing. We should increase our screening capabilities and be thankful for the uploads. However, the situation is becoming rather strained and as a temporary measure, I suggest the following: Photos are ordered in the queue by photographer and by the date their last photo were uploaded, not by the date their first photo were uploaded as is currently the case. By doing this, photographers would be encouraged to upload a few photos and then wait for the confirmation messages. If they would keep uploading photos every day, all their photos will constantly be moved to the back of the queue.

I want all photos by the same photographer to be listed together so that I can check for doubles or similar photos. There are also other technical reasons.

Your views are welcome.

Thanks,
Johan

My view:
 
Peter

Very good plan! I like it.

-Ken

As usual, the wise-one has spoken and come up with a very interesting proposal which should indeed go some way to encouraging those who upload very regularly to wait until the photographs they have in the queue are processed before uploading any more  

However, it would be a shame if those who have the skills to submit HQ pictures loose because of this, so I presume the "3-screeners agree" system for bypassing Johan is still going to be retained? If so, excellent all round in my humble opinion  

Andy

Sounds good to me  

Charles

I think this is good news for photographers, it means that when you upload to the website, you have total control on what you upload and don't upload (except for what gets rejected  ), I think this is a much better idea to get in more screeners and not regulate each person to a certain number of photos, because some people might start uploading under different names, or find ways around it anyway.

Keep up the good work  

Regards

Dan

Hi Johan--

Can you explain the following:

<< I suggest the following: Photos are ordered in the queue by photographer and by the date their last photo were uploaded, not by the date their first photo were uploaded as is currently the case.>>

-do you mean the last time their last photo was uploaded?

-and the way it is now, photos are ordered by date their first ever photo in the databse was uploaded?

I like your suggestion though!

No, I think the photos are uploaded to the last photo that they already have in the que (say if there are 2000, and you uploaded 400 ..... it doesn't make much difference does it?), at the moment, anything you upload when you already have photo's in the que join those photo's.

I'm confused

I think that this is reasonable alternative, and should be tried. Once it is working well (after the present backlog is dealt with), there should not be a problem uploading larger amounts of material, although it will require multiple submissions. This is not a high price to pay for a prompt decision, in my opinion.
George

Well,

I am looking at it this way......it can't get any worse so an alternative has to be found!
Overall I think it is a good idea to have the screeners do the screening job all the way. ( I still like the idea with the appeal button....where a rejected photo can be sent to Johan for a final review....)

....let's go forward with it and review it in a couple of weeks.

Vasco Garcia

Flpuck6 / EGGD,

In working out how the queue is ordered currently:

You need to think about each photographers oldest picture in the queue in terms of the date it was uploaded (in the queue, not the database). The queue is ordered by the upload date of each photographer's earliest photograph, and when a photographer gets to the front of the queue, all their photographs are processed, not just their early ones.

For example: Photographer one's oldest upload in the queue is from January 31st. This photographer will be ahead of a photographer two, who's oldest upload in the queue is February 1st. Thing is, if photographer one uploads more on February 2nd, because all pictures in the queue by the same photographer are processed together, those that were uploaded by photographer one on February 2nd will be ahead of those from photographer two that were uploaded on February 1st.

Effectively, what it means is that once you've got a place in the queue, you can keep adding and adding photographs, and they'll aways be ahead of pictures from other photographers who are further back in the queue, until all pictures from that photographer are processed.

------

What Johan is suggesting is that it shouldn't be a photographers oldest queued picture, but their most recent, that decides the order of the queue.

So in the new scenario, photographer one uploads on January 31st, then photographer two uploads on February 1st, then photographer two uploads again on February 2nd. This time, photographer two will be ahead because their newest upload (Feb 1) is older that photographer one (newest upload Feb 2) - unless of course photographer two adds more on February 3rd!

What this approach will do is it will discourage photographers from uploading day in, day out, as each time they upload more whilst they've still already got pictures in the queue, they'll slip to the back of the queue again. This process will encourage photographers to wait for their current uploads to be processed before they add more, thus discouraging photographers from adding to the queue repetitively.

Andy

I still suggest the thing I've said in some of my earlier messages: Stop accepting photos for a day or two or even a longer time if need (sure will with this many photos waiting) and those newsworthy pics could be uploaded only with some exceptions.

At least it works fine for me...

-Joge

I love this idea!!    

Sounds good to me!

/Robert

Skymonster, aka Andy--
Thanks a lot for your explanation. Makes sense now and has clarified that question of "how come other people's photos got ahead of mine?"

I second Vasco's wish for an 'appeal' button and that we try this for a few weeks and see what happens.

"...Photos are ordered in the queue by photographer and by the date their last photo were uploaded, not by the date their first photo were uploaded as is currently the case..."

Nice one Johan!  

This is probably the single most beneficial change to the upload process we have seen (with the exception of the introduction of screeners).

Self regulation is now in place. I applaud this action!

Regards,
Dean

Johan,

I agree with Dean on your suggestion gives the little guys a chance  

Hang on in there!

Cheers

Paul

thats what I was trying to get across, Andy  

Dan,

I had to write it out to sort it out in my own mind  

Now I have, I'm happy 

Andy

My good friend Johan!! That you are very good person on the airliners.net and can you do favor as for me and I need your helped about something with a scanner and this computer which is not had one with SCSI with other negative scanner were not fitted. So can you please helped it out as for me with my computer at home and I do use with USB or somelse like that. Well, please let me know!!! Thanks, Johan! You are welcomed as for my helped.

Regards,

Scott W.

OK...here some ideas:
In order to solve the queue issues:
Allow multiple queues pro phorographer and use the order of upload as the only criterium for the processing. Say, Photographer 1 has uploaded some photos on February 12th and Photgrapher 2 and 3 have uploaded on February 13th. At February 14th, photographer 1 uploads again, some time later the same is done by photographer 3 and 2 (in this order). So, in the screening timeline looks like: Photographer 1(photos from 12th Feb)-Photographer 2(Photos from 13th Feb)-Photographer 3(Photos from 13th Feb)-Photographer-1(Photos from 14th Feb)-Photographer3(Photos from 14th Feb)-Photographer2(Photos from 14th Feb).

For the screening:
Each photo is reviewed INDEPENDENTLY by TWO screeners who should rate it on some kind of scala. If there is a defined SIGNIFICANT difference between the two ratings, the Photo should be screened by a second pair of screeners. IF once again there is a difference in the ratings OR a difference between the average ratings of the two screener pairs, the Photo is given to Johan personally and he has to fall the final decision. Needless to say, that every screener must rate the photos he has to screen INDEPENDENTLY

Not that easy to implement, but it would be the most fair solution for me

I think the idea is okay Johan made.
If we had (much) more screeners, there would only be a very small queue so it wouldn't matter how the photos are ordered in the queue...  


 


Stephan

Good idea.  

Pierre

Thank you for your comments, the new queue order has now been implemented.

Regards,
Johan

Johan

The implemented process will hold photographers from uploading on a regular basis unless they are 100% sure their photos are "HQ" So the process is fair and should improve the overall quality. It also explains why I moved from 840 photographs and 81 photographers ahead of me to 3493 and 725 a few minutes ago when I loaded 3 photos

Neville Murphy

So is there any chance to implement the "I want my non HQ pics rejected immediatly instead of waiting for the Masters review" Button alos?
Peter

What !!! ???

Peter,

this should now be happening. We are now supposed to make decisions on ALL photos - either accept as HQ or reject, apart from rare subjects.

Of course, we could reject ALL your photos just to be on the safe side if you like...  

S4

Just a minute Screener4 i am searchig the smilie which shows the tounge
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Got it!
 
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Serious: Thanks for the answer! (The first part of course!!)
Peter

I'm serious as for you, Peter. You think abiout taking alots of the pictures at VIE airport for good spotter there. How you know did came to US as for before and how much times did coming to visits in California or somelse with a states. This is good place at the my FLL airport for spotter at viewing area near at the my home too. So well, had a good night.

Regards,

Scott

That sounds right Johan. How do your screeners operate? Do they come into your office? Or do they work at home and live all over the world?

Thanks, Dmitry.

I fly from the US to Sweden daily to screen photographs.

 

I live in Europe, so it's a shorter flight for me   We get a good deal on Lundgren Airways - gettin a lot of "reindeer miles" on their frequent flier program.

Screeners,

Are you still screening pictures as before as in you get to screen the latest uploads? Is it just the pictures that are waiting for Johan that get put to the back of the queue or are all the pictures put to the back of the queue?

Regards

Paul

I don't understand why changing the order of the queue is going to help us to upload only HQ photos.  

I used to upload one by one once the pictures were scanned or transferred from the digital camera, and only AFTER a process that I called "autoscreening" (Is this photo good enough, or has the subject interest for the database?). My rejection ratio has been low working like this.

I think that the new system will encourage to upload big batches no matter the quality of the pictures: if they are bad they will be rejected quickly.

Am I wrong? Please help me to see the good thing

Anyway the system will tell us if it's good or not...  

Toni

Toni, I think the idea with this new procedure was to encourage uploaders to upload their shots at once to avoid people getting upset when photographers ahead of them in the queue uploaded more shots.
In this new way, the amount of photos ahead of you in the queue won't increase, unless you upload yourself, then you get kicked to the back of the queue.

I think it's a good idea, tried it out yesterday when I uploaded a shot and kicked my other two shots to the back of the queue  

Staffan

OK, I have a question. I just uploaded these 2 https://www.airliners.net/addphotos/big/hawks.jpg

and

https://www.airliners.net/addphotos/big/formation.jpg

Now. these will have no problem getting onto the HQ list. If they don't then maybe there are some serious problems, although HQ is fairly subjective these days as we have all seen.

Now my question is, If these are uploaded as HQ, then the photos that I have in the queue already say 100 down the queue have now been pushed back to 1800 or whatever it is, (I Haven't checked)

With this new procedure am I being penalised for uploading Current shots which by Australian Standards anyway was a very special event by having my photos that were just about to be uploaded pushed back another 2 weeks.

Now there is another argument that these wont make the HQ list and then I have to suffer the wait like everyone else but that is not really the problem here as I am now aware of those rules and it is the risk I take.

I However, I would be dissapointed to see that I and others in the same situation are punished becasue the site can't keep up with the clients. And yes I know that if you suggest to Johan that there are special reasons to upload the photos quicker like special liveries/crashes etc, you still go to the back of the queue with the rest of the photos and there is no real garantee that Johan will upload them anyway.

Glenn

Nice shots Glenn, but I think you have some green stuff growing in one of your lenses  

Glen, just make sure you upload only HQ stuff. That way nothing gets stuck in the queue  
As you seem to know so well what is HQ, you should have no problem with doing so  

OK, I note your sarcasim   but I was only pointing out, even if it was HQ, you don't know as it really depends on how much ALE the screeners have drunk before hand. Flame away if you like. The point in question (read around the other stuff as that was there to say I can live with that), you upload HQ stuff and the photos you already have go to the back of the queue. I might point out that I aint gonna commit suicide as I am quite happilly uploading right now, pushing those ones passed onto to Johan to the back of the queue. I know in time they will get uploaded and any urgent photos go to other places before they ever end up here (more often than not) All in all, there is probably a discrepancy in the procedure but as a large amount of my time in the next 2 months will be attending bases and places to take photos I won't be around too much to worry. I just wanted some clarification,

Cheers

Just for your info, there are only some 30 or so pictures in the HQ queue right now, with either 1 or 2 votes for each (they need 3).

S2

Screener 2,
i have 31 pics in the que and i think many of them are hq- so out of the 3000+ pictures theres only 30 hq's? can that be right?

Joe

Hello!

Same here, Joe. I also think that most of my latest uploads are hq...

But ok, the screeners are more experienced and maybe they aren´t, even if I think that they are?

Hang on a few days/weeks, there´s not pretty much we can do. They have probably passed the first screening, haven´t been marked as hq, and are now waiting for Johan.

Regards from rainy FRA (somehow the bad weather makes me more patient  )
Ivi

Considering that it sounded like Johan gave the screeners full authority to make upload/rejection decisions is HQ still an issue? If I recall correctly the HQ option was introduced so that photographs that are obviously good enough can be uploaded without Johan's review if at least 3 screeners agree. The way I understood Johan's post at the beginning of this topic is that from now on a screener can look at a brand new photo and is required to make the decision to upload it or reject it unless it is a rare photo and he would prefer to have Johan make the decision. If that's the case then is there still any need for the HQ path? I would imagine that once the photos that were marked HQ before Johan made this policy decision have been dealt with then there won't be a HQ designation. They will only be accepted or rejected. Is that correct?

Felix

Felix,
this is why i started the other thread- cause its a bit confusing. i have not received any notification at all- not a rejection, not "you passed the first screening"- nothing so i dont know exactly how its working with or without hq.

Joe

Correction - There may be more. Those that I already signed off on, but are still waiting for other votes of agreement, cannot be seen by me again.

S2

Hi Joe,
I think that every photo is screened after 2 days (please correct me if I´m wrong), so if you did not get any mail from the screeners, all of them have passed the screening, no rejections and no hq-shots, and all are waiting for Johan (or maybe there are some hq shots that do not have 3 votes so far).

That´s it, I guess.

Regards,
Ivi

Hi Joe,

I guess quite a few of us are finding it confusing. After all the photos that were in limbo (HQ or non-HQ that passed screening but were waiting for Johan) when the screening policy was changed are finally cleared out of the queue then everything should be quite simple...hopefully. Does anyone know if the photos that had passed screening but weren't marked as HQ before the policy change have to still wait for Johan or can they be rerouted back to a screener who will make the final decision. Maybe there's also a way to upload all the ones in the existing HQ queue since they have already had the seal of approval from at least one screener. Just wondering.

Cheers,
Felix

Right now, Felix, those pictures are waiting for Johan. He hasn't mentioned whether he will re-release them to us or not.

S2

Thanks for the update.

Felix