Recent dispute of photo screening

Airport-Data

Hi Team,

It is evident that our current way of screening has caused some dispute. While I stand by our team members' decision, I am thinking there maybe better way to do that. Unfortunately I am too busy with work, and will be for next couple of months. So I have temporarily disabled the screening function until I find some free time to fix it.

Thanks,

Ken

ChrisHall

Hi Ken

I feel very disappointed that you have done this. Very few images get removed by the admin team and only when we feel it is necessary. We have had only one complaint and they didn't even have the common decency to contact a member of the admin team. They chose to publicly berate the team both on this site and Facebook.

By disabling this feature we are nolonger able to move aircraft into thier correct locations or move aircraft photos from the airport section and visa-versa. If this function is disabled for several months, all it will do is create a backlog of additional work for the team.

Only last week myself and Malcolm moved nearly 30 aircraft images from the airport section to the aircraft section.

I hope you can reconsider your decision and reinstate this function so we can continue to help improve the site.

regards

Chris

ChrisHall

Hi Ken

I find it disapointing that you have not responded to my post, over the last week I have note several items that need attending to, but cannot correct these errors.

How do the other team members feel about this?

comments please!

Chris

MalcolmClarke

Ken.

I have to say that I find the current situation regarding administration of the site to be both disappointing and demotivating.

I of course understand that as the site owner you are free to make whatever decisions you feel are valid.

However I feel that I have to say that your decision was based upon the behaviour of someone who told me on a public website to g* f*** y******* for which any other website, I feel sure, would have banned him immediately and permanently.

Doug Robertson's behaviour was almost as unacceptable but there was no apology from him and no one appeared to be in anyway critical of what he said.

Whatever high regard he may held in, this does not make his behaviour acceptable and he should have been asked to apologise.

Also I have seen no evidence whatsoever of any unhappiness in respect of my editing work on the part of other members. Having made thousands upon thousands of profile revisions, I do not recall a single individual suggesting that any of these revisions were incorrect - except for one!.

The situation now is that every day more incorrectly located photos are being uploaded, two members are uploading ridiculous letter box sized images, although they were kindly requested and agreed not to do so, VERY clear duplicate images are entering the database as are inverted images and inappropriate images.

All because two members objected to an action of mine which was clearly in accordance with your own instructions.

This unique site provides unequalled freedom for members compared with any other organised aviation website across the internet and we have allowed the actions of these two individuals to damage its reputation.

Consider for example the reduction in forum postings over recent weeks.

These freedoms must continue and not allowed to be damaged by persons who seek disruption for self serving reasons.

What would have been wrong with maintaining the photo editing functions but to take a more lenient attitude toward duplicates?

Perhaps you would be so kind as to explain why, having been publically humiliated, I now seem to be the reason for the site having taken a backward step.

Deeply distressed seems hardly to begin to describe how I feel.

Malcolm.

MalcolmClarke

Ken,

I am disappointed that you have chosen not to reply to my posting.

It is not easy to put such an event as this behind oneself and the lack of support for myself generally is surprising.

To put it bluntly, your banning editing even temporally, something which many must now realise, is something of a victory for those who felt the need to attack me personally.

It might have been more acceptable to temporarily stop image deletions but now we see daily further inaccurate additions of the database, compromising some of the good work done in the past by those of us who care.

Malcolm.

Airport-Data

Hi Malcolm,

I understand you are very upset about the recent event. My position on this issue is very clear, Gintaras' action and speech is not acceptable, which I said clearly in my post.

Gintara has been posting some negative speech about our site in facebook. I decided to leave the forum thread intact, because we have nothing to hide, anybody who read the thread will figure how rude he is. Regarding his account, honestly I thought he would have deleted it by himself, but apparently he hasn't done anything since, that's kind a surprise for me.

I also received a few messages via forum PM, with concerns about our current screening method, such as the photographer never get warned or informed if a photo is deleted. So I disabled the photo editing function before I can develop a workflow for photo screening, so the photographer in question can be advised first, any deletion is approved by more than one admin (to reduce personal taste involved in decision making), all deletions will be recorded and photographers being informed, etc. This require quite some work so it would not happen soon.

I have come across a few examples which photos not fall in line (including the recent very narrow message), in all cases the photographers made proper changes after a kindly message.

Thanks,

Ken

MalcolmClarke

Thanks Ken that is helpful.

One aspect that will need discussion prior to the introduction of a new screening system would be a set of agreed "rules" which would enable all to understand and agree the reasons for an editing decision, e.g.

Should be in Airport or vice versa.

Duplicates. We must agree on how close the images are allowed to be.

Photos not owned by the uploader, magazines, newspapers, TV screen copies, other web sites, etc.

Images where people /cars/animals dominate.

Strange crop sizes.

The wrong way up!

Very tiny images.

Etc, etc.

I absolutely do not wish to have an Airliners.net system. We need a lot of freedom regarding quality but at the same time we do need some basic standards.

I honestly think that many uploaders would welcome some basic guidance which I believe will not compromise the freedom offered by the site.

Malcolm.

Airport-Data

I absolutely do not wish to have an Airliners.net system. We need a lot of freedom regarding quality but at the same time we do need some basic standards.

Right. I'll make sure we keep the freedom spirit.

Ken

MalcolmClarke

Ken.

The effects of the decision to call a temporary halt to screening should be clearly understood.

In my opinion some 40 images in the first 5 pages of recently uploaded Airport pictures are of Aircraft and will be lost into the increasing depth of Airport very soon.

I make no apologies for being repetitious about the current situation but this undermines much of the time consuming work already carried out to correct these areas.

Whatever you may be planning, I do feel strongly that editing generally should be reinstated immediately, but to exclude entirely for now the deletion of all images for reasons of duplication.

Remember that this has all come about due to one individuals almost psychopathic reaction to the justified deletion of a single image.

The site is suffering significantly as a direct effect of his action whilst administrators will be left to attempt to clean up the mess he is responsible for creating.

Malcolm.

ChrisHall

Ken

I totally agree with everything in Malcoms last post. Loosing the ability to do any type of editing has just created a large backlog of work for an already overloaded admin team.

Chris

MalcolmClarke

Ken.

Since losing my authority to edit from June 27th, I have now accumulated in my day book 72 errors which need correction and some of these involve more than one image!

Surely it is in all our interests that the edit facility be re-instated, excluding the deletion of duplicate images of course, or all deletions should you so wish.

Currently I cannot even correct the most obvious of errors!

Malcolm.

ChrisHall

Ken,

I dont want to sound so blunt, But just how long are we going to have to wait before we can start editing all the errors that are now appearing on the site. The admin team worked very hard and had a lot of these problems under control at one time, but now it is becoming a massive job again.

People say that being part of the team is a thankless task, it now appears that we are nolonger getting support from you, the owner. Do you want us to continue or not?

Depressed at getting no replies or support

Chris