Is it possible to limit uploads to 10 per person per walk? We have a lot of members now and it would be nice to give fair exposure to all photographers
# by Marcus on on 2011-Apr-12
Hi Chris,
In answer to your question.
We deliberately didn't implement a limitation on number of photos that can be added to a group. The main reason is that from experience we have discovered that a photographer is not always the best judge of their own photos. They would choose what they think is the best 10 shots, leaving out what others might consider to be superior photos.
If every shot is uploaded, the system which measures attention given to each photo via views, votes, comments and reputation etc will determine the best shots automatically. It doesn't always work perfectly, but it's pretty accurate given that it's completley automated. Where it does fall down is when a newcomer uploads shots and they are missed by the regulars. In this case the shots don't get on the attention ladder and may be lost in the crowd.
Moral of the story is, when building a community, always try to promote the new people. They will in turn promote the new people and you'll end up with a self supporting system which powers the automated photo rating engine.
Marcus
# by Dave66 on on 2011-Apr-12
Marcus,
I don't participate in many groups, but as you posed the question on Twitter I guess you are looking for input. If there is a desire to have some form of limiting so as to give all members of a group an equal chance, how about a daily upload limit. This would mean that both new and existing members of a group might have a more equal chance of being noticed, whereas with no limits, a person new person (or evening existing members) a few select shots could be swamped by another member uploading a huge amount of images.
The other option, would be if organisers/managers of groups want to restrict the number of downloads, then they could firstly ask/inform members to upload a max number (per day) and then it would be down to the group organisers to ensure that individual members don't consistently break the rule.
# by chrisbeach on on 2011-Apr-12
Marcus, thanks for replying to this.
Automation is clearly important in highlighting the best photos, like you say. In my web projects, I've also automated the promotion of "good" content (as per user behaviour e.g. voting).
However, the new content has to be shown initially in (roughly) chronological order in order to give all contributors fair exposure. If we allow users to submit a mountain of content without QC, some people natually will do, and they will immediately drown out other people's content. This means less user behaviour can happen around other contributions, thus the fairness of automation is hurt as a result.
I introduced quotas on one of my sites after it was demanded by the users, and it worked well. I believe artificial scarcity or restriction often enhances the "game" aspect of a user-powered site.
Another large photo sharing site (you know which one I mean), allows individual groups to set restrictions on number of photos posted either per user, or per user per week/month/year. That works well, and not just for groups that have an aspect of competition. It means that users have to think before they post, which is always a good thing.
Agree with your point on subjectivity, but my answer would be to make the quotas appropriately large to ensure that people are not prevented from posting photos that others may enjoy.
Also, regarding newcomers, I think it's important that newcomers aren't discouraged by having their submissions immediately drowned out by someone else's.
The new contributions of all members should carry equal weight on the site. For newcomers, quotas are particularly important.
Correction - the other site allows restriction per user, or per user per day/week/month.
# by Marcus on on 2011-Apr-13
@chrisbeach All good points Chris but we operate differently to the "other site".
We take a view that we never want to restrict the amount of content that is uploaded. If the quantity of content is overwhelming, rather than imposing an upload limit, we'd rather create better presentation of that content. Sorting and filtering becomes the problem and we'd rather work on improving that than limiting uploads.
In your example we should probably consider implementing more view filters, perhaps showing group content in a different way, like only showing the top 10 photos for any given photographer in a given time slice.
Since the entire content is being viewed in other dimensions anyway (other places than the group) we still have attention data which can help identify quality.
# by chrisbeach on on 2011-Apr-13
Agreed, Marcus - showing top 10 photos from each photographer would solve the problem immediately.
Thanks
Chris
# by henrystuart on on 2011-Apr-15
Hi guys and gals, Mandy and I have talked about this and also agree that we should have a limit on the number of photos that can be uploaded per walk. It should just be the very best shots from a photographers set.
Can we set this up Marcus?
Many thanks,
Henry
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