@Taurus717 Hey! Thank you for the feedback but this seems like unhealthy nitpicking to me. I'm a professional photographer, my work has been good enough to be published in newspapers around the world.
This feedback is not constructive at all. There is no bloody difference if the photo is leaning a bit more to the right or not. If I happened to hold my camera that way when i took the shot, so be it.
This type of "playing god" so that you guys start to nitpick what is correct and what is not just so much discourages using your site.
In my opinion this is good picture. In the context of this photo, "correct" leaning is not that important. It is more important when shooting from ground level. I think photographer wanted to give more artistic feel to this photo, when he chose to take his picture like this.
Well, not everyone is always happy with every vote on their pictures, including myself, but without moderation, a site becomes the repository for millions of pictures that no one but the photographer who contributes them wants to look at, such as RRPA in the US.
As I’ve mentioned before, Trainspo has the most democratic method of moderation available on any site, including the US, drawing its screeners from members who have received several Top Liked Awards from fellow members. There is no elite group of god-playing wanna-be’s. Screeners are we, the members.
I’ve uploaded photos similar to this one and they are quite often rejected for various reasons, including “bad light”, and though it does not please me when that happens, I realize it is not the end of the world, I delete it and move on. In the case of this photo, a minor correction was requested so that it could be more readily accepted, rather than simply being rejected for bad cropping/framing. Ultimately, other screeners preferred to vote to accept it without change, and here it is.
You might notice that Trainspo is FREE to join, is FREE of any advertising, and FREE of pressure to upgrade to any sort of premium membership (like Flickr or RP). Moderation is necessary to limit the total number of pictures stored on servers which are not free to operate and may have limited capacity for this endeavor.
Anonymous moderation is necessary to make it possible for any screener to be an effective one, since the likelihood of retaliatory voting is high, even in an ideally democratic global society like ours.
The mission of Trainspo is to create a database of all the world’s railway vehicles with pictures of high quality, without duplication. To achieve this goal with an economy of storage space, today and in the future, moderation of incoming pictures is used to winnow out the ones which do not appear to the pool of screeners to meet the goal. So yes, it DOES matter how the pictures are framed and cropped.
The suggestions for improvement above are not meant to imply that the picture is terrible, but that it would be improved with a bit of rotation - an easy operation in any photo editing program. Do the suggestions in any way attack the honor of the photographer’s previous work? No, they do not. The overall purpose of making the suggestions is to improve photos for the Trainspo database in the gentlest possible way.
@Maersk.146 In my opinion it would be better to disclose “red” votes because sometimes they have no reason. It’s easy to say “the picture is bad” when you know you’re anonymous. This Image is good example of bad moderation if it has received bad light votes. Lack of direct sunlight on the locomotive/train is not equal to “not well lighted”!
As to your last point, I totally agree, having had many of my own submissions down-voted for lack of light on the nose. This photo has good detail on the shaded side and the lens flares add extra flavor to the scene. Adjusting the vertical lines in a photo editor is possible, though I've seen photos that had worse distortion due to the angle of view. Still, anonymity is desirable so that voters might be willing to seriously consider every photo that comes before them, even to the point of voting to reject. Occasionally such photos enter the queue and must be dealt with firmly, according to the needs of the database. The editors are looking at ways to improve the voting process, since it is obvious that things are still not operating perfectly. There are a lot of moving parts to a community like this, and it takes effort and understanding by all to make it work smoothly. Experiments are sometimes necessary to see what works and what does not. Thanks for your patience, everyone! This is not a commercial enterprise, and we are all doing this in our spare time.
@Maersk.146 hi there, if there is a better place to answer this than please point me in the right direction! I’ve got a picture still on moderation, it’s been there for weeks and it has far more good votes than bad. But yet it’s still in moderation? I must say I have been scratching my head a bit over the negative votes (Poor lighting and obscured) as it was taken in the middle of the day and similar angle to another shot taken at dusk a year or two later. Any insight would be welcome. Cheers Michael
I agree to some of your points and i do not agree to others. Let me explain my thinking in length.
I totally understand the need of keeping costs down and pictures that do not deserve to be on the site out from the site.
My problem is not "with" the moderation at this time (although i must add that if i already had to go through a screening process of sorts, before even joining the site, by my friend sending me an invite, why is moderating after that even necessary?) but my problem is moreover with the imposing of not that important photography rules. i choose the photos i want to upload carefully. There should a bit of leeway for artistic expression. I cannot respect someone saying to me that if i crop this photo just a bit to the right then it is okay. to me this is just someone with too much time on their hands and nitpicking on me. Let's be honest it does not change the idea of the photo at all if the horizon is 100% straight or not.
Also there could be a way of adding partial moderation. If someone has a nice bunch of photos then the moderation clause could be lifted and if users notice a photo or two from someone with bad quality they can report the photos for not abiding to the rules and then the moderation clause can be added to that account again. Just to throw the idea out there.
@tanelifoto Hi! Thank you for your thoughts! I fully understand your points in regard to moderation, but it is perhaps a necessary feature (or evil, depending upon your point of view ) when a site must find a way to limit incoming photos. And, for a quick and easy means of determining whether incoming pictures meet the needs of the site goals, a short list of critiquing factors must be used to give the screening team (our members) some idea of how to vote, again based on the declared mission of the site.
Many of our members are published photographers, and some, like you, are professionals. I've been published in books, magazines and calendars for over forty years. That being said, I also maintain that no professional expects 100% of their work to be selected for use by any client, no matter how good it is. Some pictures, while great, are simply not going to fit the requirements of the project at hand. It does not mean they are bad pictures.
Trainspo has these rules of acceptance for a reason, and though we are periodically adjusting certain aspects of the moderation process, it must remain in place for all members. It rains on the just and the unjust alike, to quote a biblical phrase. In other words, we are all in the same boat when it comes to the rules of moderation here, a more democratically-moderated site than most.
Sometimes it is not comfortable to put one's work up for peer review, but the alternatives are sites where none of that is employed and anything goes. The latter scenario does not fit the purposes of Trainspo and thus we are all subject to the principles of moderation.
I hope this helps you to see why Trainspo works the way it does. We are pleased that you are a member and hope you will continue to participate in our community!
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This feedback is not constructive at all. There is no bloody difference if the photo is leaning a bit more to the right or not. If I happened to hold my camera that way when i took the shot, so be it.
This type of "playing god" so that you guys start to nitpick what is correct and what is not just so much discourages using your site.
Well, not everyone is always happy with every vote on their pictures, including myself, but without moderation, a site becomes the repository for millions of pictures that no one but the photographer who contributes them wants to look at, such as RRPA in the US.
As I’ve mentioned before, Trainspo has the most democratic method of moderation available on any site, including the US, drawing its screeners from members who have received several Top Liked Awards from fellow members. There is no elite group of god-playing wanna-be’s. Screeners are we, the members.
I’ve uploaded photos similar to this one and they are quite often rejected for various reasons, including “bad light”, and though it does not please me when that happens, I realize it is not the end of the world, I delete it and move on. In the case of this photo, a minor correction was requested so that it could be more readily accepted, rather than simply being rejected for bad cropping/framing. Ultimately, other screeners preferred to vote to accept it without change, and here it is.
You might notice that Trainspo is FREE to join, is FREE of any advertising, and FREE of pressure to upgrade to any sort of premium membership (like Flickr or RP). Moderation is necessary to limit the total number of pictures stored on servers which are not free to operate and may have limited capacity for this endeavor.
Anonymous moderation is necessary to make it possible for any screener to be an effective one, since the likelihood of retaliatory voting is high, even in an ideally democratic global society like ours.
The mission of Trainspo is to create a database of all the world’s railway vehicles with pictures of high quality, without duplication. To achieve this goal with an economy of storage space, today and in the future, moderation of incoming pictures is used to winnow out the ones which do not appear to the pool of screeners to meet the goal. So yes, it DOES matter how the pictures are framed and cropped.
The suggestions for improvement above are not meant to imply that the picture is terrible, but that it would be improved with a bit of rotation - an easy operation in any photo editing program.
Do the suggestions in any way attack the honor of the photographer’s previous work? No, they do not. The overall purpose of making the suggestions is to improve photos for the Trainspo database in the gentlest possible way.
As to your last point, I totally agree, having had many of my own submissions down-voted for lack of light on the nose. This photo has good detail on the shaded side and the lens flares add extra flavor to the scene. Adjusting the vertical lines in a photo editor is possible, though I've seen photos that had worse distortion due to the angle of view.
Still, anonymity is desirable so that voters might be willing to seriously consider every photo that comes before them, even to the point of voting to reject. Occasionally such photos enter the queue and must be dealt with firmly, according to the needs of the database.
The editors are looking at ways to improve the voting process, since it is obvious that things are still not operating perfectly. There are a lot of moving parts to a community like this, and it takes effort and understanding by all to make it work smoothly. Experiments are sometimes necessary to see what works and what does not.
Thanks for your patience, everyone!
Hi Michael,
I'll respond by Private Messaging a bit later. Time to go to work!
Maersk.146
Thank you for the long explanation!
I agree to some of your points and i do not agree to others. Let me explain my thinking in length.
I totally understand the need of keeping costs down and pictures that do not deserve to be on the site out from the site.
My problem is not "with" the moderation at this time (although i must add that if i already had to go through a screening process of sorts, before even joining the site, by my friend sending me an invite, why is moderating after that even necessary?) but my problem is moreover with the imposing of not that important photography rules. i choose the photos i want to upload carefully. There should a bit of leeway for artistic expression. I cannot respect someone saying to me that if i crop this photo just a bit to the right then it is okay. to me this is just someone with too much time on their hands and nitpicking on me. Let's be honest it does not change the idea of the photo at all if the horizon is 100% straight or not.
Also there could be a way of adding partial moderation. If someone has a nice bunch of photos then the moderation clause could be lifted and if users notice a photo or two from someone with bad quality they can report the photos for not abiding to the rules and then the moderation clause can be added to that account again. Just to throw the idea out there.
Hi! Thank you for your thoughts! I fully understand your points in regard to moderation, but it is perhaps a necessary feature (or evil, depending upon your point of view
Many of our members are published photographers, and some, like you, are professionals. I've been published in books, magazines and calendars for over forty years. That being said, I also maintain that no professional expects 100% of their work to be selected for use by any client, no matter how good it is. Some pictures, while great, are simply not going to fit the requirements of the project at hand. It does not mean they are bad pictures.
Trainspo has these rules of acceptance for a reason, and though we are periodically adjusting certain aspects of the moderation process, it must remain in place for all members. It rains on the just and the unjust alike, to quote a biblical phrase. In other words, we are all in the same boat when it comes to the rules of moderation here, a more democratically-moderated site than most.
Sometimes it is not comfortable to put one's work up for peer review, but the alternatives are sites where none of that is employed and anything goes. The latter scenario does not fit the purposes of Trainspo and thus we are all subject to the principles of moderation.
I hope this helps you to see why Trainspo works the way it does. We are pleased that you are a member and hope you will continue to participate in our community!