Thoughts on Improving the Photography Forums
 

Had some thoughts recently, wanted to see what others think.

I feel the My City Photos section is vastly underutilized. The sheer volume of city photos and locales represented is not matched by many other places on the web. Additionally, the photography presented here is often of a higher quality than what can be found through random web searches. SSP photo threads do an excellent job showcasing places of interest. For example, when I travel somewhere or want to see what a place is like, the best way to do so is look at photo threads from that area. Doing a Google image search for Portland produces skyline or city results. These are ok, but if I want to see neighborhoods and don’t know much about the city, it is hard to know specifics to search for. This is where the photo threads here really shine. They often showcase particular neighborhoods, or display the native perspectives of cities. The problem I’ve found is that the search function and visibility of threads is limited and underpowered.

So this is my idea. Develop a map with each thread geotagged to its specific area. If I wanted to see neighborhoods of Portland, I could zoom the map to Portland and see all the Portland threads in the area. Each thread could be represented by a dot on the map. Maybe the dot could be sized by a thread’s view number so the more popular threads are more visible. The dots could be shaded by age, white are brand new, dark go back to the earliest threads. Filters could be used to see threads just by certain members, or maybe by keyword, thread age, etc. Tagging is pretty common place now; it would be nice to be able to tag threads with keywords. Maybe the keywords could pop up when user hover their mouse over the dot.
A global map with all these photo threads would be a huge asset to travelers that want to see places before they visit. Google earth has a feature like this but you literally have to click every photo which is a crapshoot of whether the image will be good, or even tagged correctly. As I mentioned before, unless you know what to search for, it is really hard to get an idea of ‘Place’ from the scattered images.

I think this format might provide greater exposure for the site. I suppose if anyone had issue with this format, they could opt out of geotagging. I imagine the coding wouldn’t be too difficult; most of the effort would be in retroactively tagging each thread. But if users just tagged their own old threads much of the effort could be crowd sourced.

I don't know if this is the best place to post this. Who runs the SSP photo section? How constrained is the site by BBC code? Just some thoughts...

We need a dedicated moderator for this section. Some who is active here and is an active photographer.

Well, I could volunteer for this...

The Glowrock. He is a supreme traveler.

But would the search capabilities available from the forum format allow for this type of map to be made?

I agree this section needs a dedicated mod. Someone that can manage the 'Getting to know' and Photo Contests.

I know very little about that type of web design. Was hoping to shoot the idea out and see if people liked it or if it is technically feasible.

Another area that could use improvement: posting images still feels like 1999. Trying to format a 100 image thread is a nightmare. I have to use Excel (Excel!?!!) to make it productive. There has to be an easier, more user friendly method. Something that allows for live previews, dragging and dropping, image size options, etc.

I have no idea how constrained the site is to BBC code, so maybe this isn't even possible.

I'd love to be the one to moderate this part of the forum, but I have no idea what changes can be made to the forum software to allow for some of the things we're thinking of... :(

Aaron (Glowrock)

Ditto.

I think Glow and I both frequent this forum a lot. I just don't usually say much. :P

Also, I don't think I have time to manage Getting to Know & Photo Contest stuff.

Completely agree with Porter, creating a photothread in vBulletin is incredibly cumbersome and time consuming.

I've always thought that there should be a monthly glossy mag based on the photo sections. A lot of the photos are really that good.

But barring that, what I'd like to see is some sort of reddit style vote up/down on either threads or individual photos. Then have a special section of the best photos of the months or best threads of the month (or two months or year or whatever). As much as I enjoy looking at them, I usually don't have the time or inclination to look at all of them. I'm sure I miss a lot of good stuff.

I think this is a good idea. I know I miss a lot and once a thread disappears from the front page it is really hard to find again.

In the past we've generally stayed away from any type of rankings or anything resembling competition in the photo forums (aside from the photo contest ;)) But it would be useful if there were some way to highlight the very best threads.

I also like the geotagging idea. It would be up to admins to implement something like that, if possible.

We should do something to spruce up the forum, it's been a bit dead in recent months compared to the old days (actually, I think threads get more views now, but fewer replies).

Also, make Glowrock the photo forum mod if he wants it. HIMS is MIA these days.

I'm really glad you brought this topic up, Okayyou! I was just thinking about this exact thing the other day while contemplating on what to do with my flickr stream.

I think it would be a very useful tool, if possible, to have this site include an image uploading host like Facebook, where we can have an Uploading Photos button in the Preview/Go Advanced option. That would be first and foremost. Currently The options in posting photos are limited to Flickr, Imgur, Imageshack, and the like, forcing you to either pay, sacrifice quality, or deal with any of the issues associated with Imageshack. Obviously linking photos using a bb code can remain an option, especially when quoting someone else's image in various other parts of the forum.

As for the organization of the threads in the Photography Forum, I like how it shows newest to oldest, but I do have a couple of issues concerning the search engine. First, when I'm searching for a specific city, I think it would be a good idea to rank the threads from most views to least. Secondly, I noticed that SkyScraperCity has an option to Tag your threads much like how you would tag an individual photo on flickr, but this site does not have that option. Being able to add tags onto the actual thread may also help to circulate exposure when "googling" for city photography.

As for actually increasing this website's exposure, I think the idea of the map might be a good idea. Where exactly would the map be located and how would it differ from Google Maps' setup? If its possible to have kind of like a Facebook Like/Dislike option added to the threads where you can see, aside from comments and views, how many people really enjoyed each thread, that may become very useful. Also, for those of us that use flickr as our image host, could adding a "Skyscrapercity" tag to our photos help at all? I know that when I just type in a generic search term like ' seattle city streets ', usually what comes up are Wikipedia, that city's crappy website, and the occasional City-Data, but rarely, if ever, do I see a site like this show up on the first 2 pages.

I definitely would like for this site to be a lot more popular because I find the ignorance of cityscapes to be overwhelming even though there are extremely useful sites such as this lurking around on the internet.

Oh, and just a curious question I've always wondered about; why is SkyScraperCity constantly growing (mostly internationally), while SkyScraperPage seems to remain static? I started out on SSC sometime in 2010 and, since that time, the site has gained about 100,000 users. Unfortunately, after the US boom, most of the users in the Chicago and New York sections hollowed out which is when I transferred to here. When I became an active member on SSP, the amount of users was in the 30,000 range. Today its still in the 30,000 range sitting at 37,000.... why? And why is City-Data's forum also thriving? Whatever those sites are doing to attract new users, we need to do that also....

^i'd prefer quality over quantity, without assjack trolls.

one idea is more feedback/comments for photothreads. how to accomplish this, i have no idea.

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I wish I knew how to accomplish this as well, LSyd. It seems like the only threads that continue with comments for more than a couple of days are threads which are updated on a regular basis with more photos and those where some sort of "controversy" is brought into the discussion...

Aaron (Glowrock)

IKR! I tried to keep the getting to know thread going but Ive had changes happen at work and am much busier now, not getting paid more but busier, and have not been able to keep up with it.

ive become an incredibly infrequent poster but used to love to come look at the photo contests. what happened to those?

So far as I know, HomeInMyShoes isn't very active here, and therefore it's pretty much stopped. :( I guess I could start the contests back up again, though!

Aaron (Glowrock)

Do it!

yeah, aaron. feel free to take charge of this forum and if you have any ideas or suggestions, by all means...go for it.

Sounds like a plan...

Okay, I'll start up another photo contest starting this coming Monday, August 13th. Subject? Hmm, I'm open to suggestions, but I'm thinking we could start off doing something like macro photography. Could be plants, animals, shiny objects, whatever. Only requirement being it being shot in Macro...

Let me know if this works for you guys, and I'll set up the contest to start up on Monday!

Aaron (Glowrock)

I think a dedicated mod like Glowrock is a great first step. The contests will help drive activity but they need to be consistent and timely.

Another improvement I thought of: the color scheme for the photo forums could be changed. I like the blue but I think photos pop more on a dark background. Could be an issue regarding text readability and site consistentcy.

I can make sure that the photo contests are timely and regular, Okayyou. I'm thinking of having two per month, allowing for a week of voting, then with a little down time to come up with a new subject and to have people get their photos ready for the contest.

Sound good?

Aaron (Glowrock)

Citydata's forum is full of ridiculousness, but their threads to seem much more alive. That site has gotten better over the years.

When it comes to this site, this site has the best urban photography forum for sure that I have found. The comment thing is ridiculous though. Don't know if veteran forumers will not comment on newbie's threads, or if less quality amature photographers like myself don't deserve comments. The first issue seems to be the most true. Either way the hour minimum to just link your photos and not even counting the editing and uploading time is probably not worth it for a few comments.

Just use quickr pickr you'll have a photo thread up in 5 minutes,if you get only a few comments, so what I'm sure you won't lose any sleep over it (I don't)

What the heck is quickr pickr? For me it's not terrible making photothreads given the fact I just copy and paste the links right from my photobucket page, but it does take a lot of time to put together a reasonable number of photos for a thread, the editing efforts, comments, etc... I agree with CubicalRebel that sometimes it just doesn't seem to be worth it. Most of my threads don't get more than 10 or so comments, doesn't seem to justify the effort put into the thread creation. Not sure how to possibly encourage this to change though. Maybe just a sign of the times?

Aaron (Glowrock)

That was the idea behind this thread, to improve the photo forums so activity is increased. It's pretty dead around here most days. As far as the suggestions, do they need to be PM'd to the site Admins? Do they want to improve this area of the site or are they happy with the way it is?

I think the photocontest revamp was helpful and has seen good participation. The getting to know the SSP photographers was good to get going again but it stalls out pretty easily. There doesn't seem to be much discussion after an interview is posted. As mentioned previously, I think the question format could change.

Quickrpickr is a web app that generates BB code from your flickr photos. It saves a lot of time. For instance you can search for all the photos with a certain tag and it will output bb code based on the parameters you specify. It works ok, but I still have to use Excel to mass edit the generated code because there are no dynamic thread editing features here on the site.

That's a great idea. One simple way to achieve most of the things you've suggested is to have a link to Google Maps, with an SSP map that has pins for different threads.

You can change the collaboration settings so that anyone can edit the map, and then people can post links to their own threads, or people can post links to threads by other forumers.

Posting a link is pretty easy - just:
- click edit on the map,
- click on the pin icon to generate a placemark
- drag and drop the placemark onto the relevant place on the map
- the map automatically generates a call out box for the pin. In the space provided, give the pin a name (eg name of forumer and city covered by the thread),
- click on 'rich text' in the pin's callout box,
- post some link text in the callout box
- highlight the link text in the callout box
- click on the link icon and post the thread URL into the box
- add any other comments you like into the call out box
- bob's your uncle

There could be a sticky with a link to the map in the photography section, plus people could link to it in their signatures. I'm sure it would also be possible to embed the map itself into a post as well.

Here is an example, with links to a couple of threads:

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msid=203406978152641034248.0004cae63ab9990b98931&msa=0&ll=54.775346,-41.660156&spn=84.794655,158.027344

Nice work bedhead. I think that is a great start. I added some of my threads but wanted to make sure we get an agreed upon format. Do we want the pin title to be forum member name and a general place name? Or should it be the title of the thread? What I did for mine:

Pin title: Memeber Name - General title (Do we want member name in the title?)
Call out text: Linked title of the thread and image thumbnail.

Now what about the pin icon? Should each member have their own to help distinguish thread authors or should we keep them all the same for consistency?

Yes, agree with that format - those images in your pins look friggin amazing!

I'm happy to go with the majority on pins - I can't see any harm in having different pin icons - we could let members chose their own.

Took a little bit of time but I got my threads geotagged. Any chance we can get the mods to put the map in a more prominent place so others can see and add their threads?

"The comment thing is ridiculous though. Don't know if veteran forumers will not comment on newbie's threads, or if less quality amature photographers like myself don't deserve comments. The first issue seems to be the most true. Either way the hour minimum to just link your photos and not even counting the editing and uploading time is probably not worth it for a few comments."

My take on comments - while they're always nice to see, they're not *the* reason I post photos on the forum. Besides, I'm guessing most people don't feel the need to add another "Nice pics!" to the chorus? :shrug:

hey, don't feel bad if you've experienced this. last January I posted a photothread on the Brooklyn Bridge that apparently wasn't even worthy of one comment! Not even a "wow, those pictures suck!" I know I'm not using the highest quality camera but I didn't think they were that crappy. Not that I developed a complex over this--LOL In the meantime people have been more kind :)

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=196865

I can't contribute much in terms of how to implement it... but the map is an EXCELLENT idea. With some quality control, maybe, so only the best threads get featured. But I know that is 5 seconds of looking at it I saw half a dozen Okayyou threads that I have missed completely over the years.

Thanks Bunt. I'd still like to try and get the map implemented but also have no idea how to do so properly. Mods, can anyone pass this up to the SSP management? Is that how things work here?

I've had some more ideas about improving the photo forums. I'm not sure why the photo forums are divided into A-M and N-Z. I think when more people were on the site it was to help new threads from being pushed off the main page and vanishing into oblivion. Now I don't think that would happen so much. What I have noticed is that there are really two types of threads that people post. Packaged sets that represent a city or neighborhood and city threads that are continuously updated. Maybe it would make more sense to separate the city threads based on whether they are updated continuously or not. Anyone else have input on this?

Also, I was thinking about starting a Critique thread. Is there any interest in posting photos and letting other people critique them?

Good idea, Okayyou! Not sure the best way to go about doing this, but I'll give it some thought this week and try to come up with something.

Aaron (Glowrock)

I'm definitely in favor of a critique thread. Giving useful advice to help people improve and develop their skills is always a good thing...

Splitting the city photo forums was controversial back in the day. I always hated the idea. Originally it was split into North America and Rest of the World, then they did the alphabetical thing because the World forum was dead.

This site is definitely not busy enough to warrant the split forum. Even threads with very little activity can stay on the first page for two or three weeks.

I rarely post neighbourhoods or small towns anymore. Just isn't worth it.

I know one thing I plan on doing to hopefully get some buzz in the photography section is to promote my sets on my facebook page whenever I start to do photothreads again. If we all did this that could possibly help generate some activity...

Agreed. I would like to see us do away with the breakdown in the alphabetization thing as well.

Photo section should just be broken down into original photos/ found photos/ general photo forum and nothing else. the fragmentation of the forum was a bad experiment.

http://img.timeinc.net/time/photoess...s/new_coke.jpg

I actually like the alphabetization. It helps keep it organized and makes finding certain city threads much easier, in my opinion...

i agree. and then the same cities don't clog the forum as much (NYC, Chicago, San Fran)

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There's not really that many threads on those cities (except maybe Chicago).

The problem with the split as I see it is that it takes more clicks to get to both forums, in these days of quickly browsing forums, many people just click one of them and miss everything in the other.

If we are trying to make browsing more effective I think combining the A-M and N-Z would be helpful. I think the continuously updated threads do more to clog the system than any city. Make a separate section for people that want to update their photo threads continuously. I find those threads more distracting than the occasional multiple threads on the same city. Due to their nature of constantly being updated they are always at the top. If people aren't interested in the subject matter the thread never really drops out of sight.

I know the forum has to have the found city photos for linking and terms of service with image sharing sites but that section is really dead. Oldest thread on the front page goes back to May 8th.

I wasn't following SSP on facebook until a few months ago and didn't realize they promote certain images and threads. I think this is a great way to attract more attention to the site. Along the same lines of the other ideas I've been bouncing around, I think featuring certain threads, again possibly on a map, could help generate interest.

I think the photo contests have seen increased participation, thanks again to Glowrock for organizing them. However, it looks like he is busy in real life and recently has had issues getting the theme and images posted in a regular manner. Maybe someone can step up to help, it might be a job that requires more than one person. Additionally, the getting to know your SSP photographers always seems to generate a lot of interest but the thread dies as we wait for responses from other forum members. Do people need to be badgered more for a response or maybe given a hard two week notice and then skipped until a new person is found. Again, I think this requires a dedicated individual to take charge and stick to deadlines. I'd be happy to assist but would be hit or miss when I am on the road.

To hit another point I brought up before, is there any way the site could make posting images easier? Quickpickr is a real POS as of late and usually misses 10% of the tagged images I search for. No way to determine what images it glossed over other than to heck and peck my flickr account which kind of defeats the purpose of using quickrpickr. Is it possible to have dynamic thread editing and previewing? Can anyone answer this? Who runs the coding aspect of the site? It seems like a lot of people are frustrated with the effort required to post yet no one knows who to turn to for help.

Sounds like there is interest in a critique thread. I will try to get something posted soon.

i like the alphabetical division, although A-M seems to get a lot more action. it's not that difficult to check out both.

this 100% :tup:

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Im not sure about the critique thread,it will only be a matter of time before people lose interest.Random photos,photo tennis,chat and comps seem to be the most active threads here in this section at the moment and the rest of general photography seems lost.I would scrap" Found City Photos" and the "General Photography" and create one section for photography ....making it an A-Z and putting the comps,random photos etc into stickies at the top.Sometimes the General Photography section can go a day or two without a post and I think its best days are gone.

As much as it pains me to say this SSP is dying a very slow death, all the above ideas are excellent but without a site admin who is interested and some decent mods none of them will work.Just look at the picture forum it's filled with 4 year old threads some muppet keeps bumping and then you have the post 3 pictures a day guys :koko: everyday.Rant over it's just sad to see the site I love going down hill like this.

It will be interesting to see how long this thread will go on for and when a site admin will get in touch.The comp is also overunning a(wee) bit.

There should be some way to discourage those. It is those types of threads that have killed the photoforum at SSC. I would hate for us to get to the point where we have the same 20 crappy threads on the first page every day like they have over there.

Overrunning? In what way? Should I do less of them? By all means, let me know. I haven't necessarily taken over all of the photography forums as mod, but I definitely want to make sure I can make the changes you guys feel would make things better over here.

I disagree with fern that SSP is dying a slow death, though. Sure, sometimes the general photography forums are a bit slow other than a few threads, but that's to be expected on occasion...

I do agree with Chef that something needs to be done concerning the post three photos a day in your thread situations... Let me think about that for a while and I'll see what I can come up with
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Aaron (Glowrock)

I agree 100%,I've added photos to many of my threads but mostly to the original, in other words edit them, which doesn't bump the thread to the top of the page. On occasion I will add 75-100 photos only if it's on the same subject (theme) adding 4 or 5 photos is bullshit and disrespectful