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[jadran]

Let's return to the topic of "linking" .....................
SOMETHING MUST BE DONE VERY SOON !


I'm afraid that very soon this "linking business" will become an "exploding bomb" for the essence & existence of this website.

Till now,, the members cared, more or less, to make good photos which would achieve more views and hopefully enter into Top3 with the greatest award to be TOP1 of the day.
The competition up till now was related to members' hard try & effort to shoot a better photo and reach the Top1  being a deserved award to him.

Now and further on,, unfortunately it might be so, the competition shall change to "gaining the Top record of views (hits)".
The "game" shall be:
Let's compete and see, who will have the Top Number of views (hits); Why to be you if it can be me !!! hahaha

Some members will accept the new option and possibility as "very cool", and as the time goes on, that will become a new fashion  i.e. something very NEW and much EXCITING experience to consume.
Just hypothetically imagine one day: Wow wow I managed to reach 50,000 views (hits); my photo is carrying the new record now !

AND THEN,, what happens with the good "classic" photography approach on this website,, and its essence that an indeed good Photo is properly awarded only and only for the good  & well done work of the Photographer, in the manner and way of only the "classic voting" as was existing till yesterday.

Or will further on in near future,, any kind of photo possibly be Top awarded by benefiting of  a "created and widely spread net of links - linking" and thereas coming relevant "votes received through such channels".
It is for certain, that such artificial votes shall eat-up the essence of the "classic" photography approach, that a good shot & well done photo is the best photo.
THAT IS THE DANGER FOR THIS WEBSITE !

[Dеnis]

Exactly that either the TOP3 charts should be closed or hits being visible only to the author of that photo or we're having a Youtube here already.  It was fair back then, now it degraded.  Maybe Shipspotting staff might consider to give popular memebers with enormous hits a some "Partner" title & give them 1 Euro per every hit on their photos?
And despite that MY SHIP 3's success, that surfing DODO is still the winner.

[Captain Ted]

My point was to place it in the Forum "is it good for the site or not"
the linking I mean. I don,t see a reason that it does good or is good.

I did and do not accuse this one or that one of doing it.

The whole problem could be solved by the simple solution as to block the outside hits from counting on this site. I have nothing against the top three, why not, also my pictures are now and then there, but I can not remember that I had even of my highest hit pictures a picture of the same ship at the same time in the top three.
I had the max hits somewhere around 5800 in 365 days,,not linked to the outside also
when the picture was used on various other web sites. If I would have linked that picture
I would have may be reached easy 20-30000 and more. I personally would have called this not right in the sense of a fair and square picture competition on this site, which after all it is on the site to a certain degree.
The top three, I have no problem with, because it gives some kind of satisfaction for people to be there and also promotes the site to peoples who find this site and see good pictures in the opening page.

My whole point and question is,, Is linking to the outside and counting here good or bad and also fair for this site and for me personally it,s not.
Beside that, I was often enough on top and do not have to proof by linking the pictures to show that some of them are very good or even by that linking make all or most my pictures suddenly very good which they are not. They are good, but not always super good.

btw it was this picture
http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=1760311
brgds
capt ted

[Tuomas Romu]

One of the arguments against not counting outside referrals for hits is that at least for now the first two words in that area of the front page are "most viewed" on a general level instead of "most viewed among a limited audience". In that sense, it does not mean that the photographs shown in that section are supposed to be somehow "better" than other pictures uploaded on that day. They are simply the most interesting photographs in that time window for some reason, which can be anything from being particularly "good" to the ship being in the news either in positive or negative light. I guess that if we had a picture of Sewol, the ship that capsized some time ago in South Korea, it would have received tens of thousands of hits by now as people wanted to find out what the ship looked like. I think it's in a way nice that the "most viewed" section reflects (to some degree) what's happening in the shipping world. On that day, it was Mein Schiff 3 leaving for first sea trials.

It's also funny how this discussion started from a picture that wasn't even particularly bad. It's just a standard shipspotter's photograph without any gimmicks.

Personally, I still fail to see what's the big freaking deal with all this fuss about hits and external linking. I don't think anyone is posting links to their photographs everywhere just to get hits - they just want to show their photographs to the world, often in a relevant context. Regardless of where the photographs are posted, they still have to comply with the site standards. As for what is "fair", everyone is free to post links on their Facebook wall or on a "your newest ship photos" thread on some shipping forum.

As a conclusion, hit count does not necessarily (have to) reflect how "good" your photograph is. It's just an indicator for how _interesting_ it is to other people. If you can't take interesting pics (say, a random photograph of a ship that has already been featured on this website), well... though luck...

[Andreas Schlatterer]

Hello together

Competition - what kind of competition? As I remember this site was just to satisfy people which are somehow infected by ships and infos related to them. Looks like now it is a competition who gets most hits. For me absolute nonsense!
When I joined the Site in 2005 it was just to share my pics with other members who been interested in shipping. I do not count and I will never do the hits fpor my pics it is muh more fun to get a reply to the photos and even better if a story will be behind. But sorry for that this getting less and less too.
My opinion
get rid of this counting hit system on the first page and show the latest twelve pics like it was made in the past. Much more info, much higher variety of photos.

with best regards
Andreas (Capesize)

[Malim Sahib]

I very much agree with Andreas. By all means have a top 10 of the week or suchlike, but such photos should be decided by a rating function manually selected by those who view them, rather than simple views.
I think we're taking this far too seriously - shipspotting and ship photography is not a competition; it's a hobby that's supposed to be fun, interesting and informative, not serious to the point of being a chore. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's noticed that over a number of years this site has changed from being a friendly setting for ship enthusiasts to share information and photos (great and not so great), to basically being an image factory with increasingly draconian (and in some ways unrealistic) rules about photographic 'standards'.
A casual visitor would be forgiven for thinking it's some kind of extremist secret ship photography society with a correspondingly unfriendly atmosphere, you only have to look at the increasingly negative and discourteous comments about the smallest perceived 'technical' flaws in a members photos to see that.

[Peter S. aus N]

hello,
I agree with Andreas, show the latest uploaded pictures. This is the best overview of this site and every time you are on the site you see automatically good various shots and can comment them if you feel a need. By this way you comment good shots on the spur of the moment! and not because it is your friend.
For the people who think there is a need of a kind of competition count only hits from this site no linked hits !!!!!!!!!!and show 3 pictures top of the week and on christmas top of the year.
greetings Xylad-Peter

[Captain Ted]

@Andreas
agreed what you say, I kicked this discussion off only for one reason, because this ridiculous hit counting and even more by linking destroys the reason why I joined this site,,exactly the reasons you just gave,,show my pictures and it,s nice when sometimes some people comment and want more info or more info and even make contact now and then.
I would not have problems with that at all, but some members have seemingly only one goal to be on daily/weekly basis on top and that you can only achieve via linking, ridiculous in my opinion, but unfortunately an option which exists even here on this good site. Some members think, link to the outside here as hit counts has a informative and news value, beats me on that.
 
@ James
The site standard is good in my opinion, I saw some pictures what peoples wanted upload here,,I mean,,I would not unload them from my camera but delete them right then and there. A certain standard has to be maintained otherwise the overall standard, which made this site so successful declines rapidly. I sail as Master as you may know and Andreas does too for example and a few others as CaptainPeter, and very often I meet pilots for example who know this site and all of them mention one thing : he high standard and quality of the pictures.
I would hate that this would detoriate the site and quality means for me also when I do not see every day,,same posters,,same style ships over and over again.

@ Peter
good for me too  !!! :-)

[tvtech]

Hello All

I don't post photo's here. I am far from the sea...I am probably one of thousands out there that visit here because they love looking at ships. I find them incredibly interesting and I have learned lot's by viewing and commenting too on the hard work that people do. There are fantastic photo's taken by members here that deserve recognition...

So, as an outsider who likes this lovely place, please stop all possible linking from other sites and concentrate on the goodness here. Rather concentrate on keeping the Guys that take the time and trouble to post their wonderful shots here happy.

Stuff the rest and save the best.

And this site is the best.

Regards,
tvtech

[Glenn Towler]

Ex number of random photos each day sound much better than the ex number with the most hits.  However it worries me if the random photo function excludes poorer quality shots from the site this could potentially lead to starting the whole quality debate again, if its us going to be random shots then it should be that regardless of the shot being of poorer quality.  Besides what some people might consider to be a poor quality shot someone else might thi k it is wonderful.

[Tony des Landes]

I know www.fleetmon.com has a number of links to shipspotting.com. Perhaps this approach has been used by other sites to respect the copyright of the photogrspher so that the full acknowledgement is provided this way. This would be much more desirable than "stealing" the photo.

Maybe external links may also result in attracting more members when they are redirected to this site which surely cannot be a bad thing.

I often post photos of livestock carriers and often these receive a huge number of hits compared to my other postings. I have no idea why but there seems to be an interest out there for that type of vessel by an unknown group or groups. My last one of the Galloway Express was a good example and made it to the top photo of the day for a short period before the 24 hours expired. It definitely wasn't an outstanding photo but I have no doubt it was the vessel that created the interest.

I suppose the top 3 photos adds a little bit of interest to a few, and simply means that a certain number of people whether it be by members, guests or via external links, made a conscious decision to view that particular photo. Maybe it simply should be taken for what it is.

Regards

Tony d

[Sinisa Aljinovic]

I think that "Latest photo comments" on home page makes troubles.Some members just click on them and push photo counters going on and on.It is enough that just one make a comment and you are on the top on the world.All others are just curious and follow the steps.This is virus for counter and some members like it.Quality is last one issue.I think that comments should be removed from home page and if someone want to read it let he browse every single page and make comment.I would rather see latest uploads of 9 or 12 photos than this.
Regarding Fleetmon web site.They do not link photos from our site.Some photographers here are members of Fleetmon as well,including myself.But be sure that rules there are much stricter than here.There are no boats there,distant,hazy shots etc....just those with MMSI.
If someone want to become theirs member better to read and study the rules before upload anything.

[Captain Ted]

This whole discussion was meant more in that line that should outside viewing be also  counted as "hits" on this site, which seemingly is the case. I do not say don,t link, as Tony said it may promote the site which is a good thing.
But should those hits count here.
Imagine, and I think it is not only imagine, some people link it somewhere and sitting in front of their pc and clicking the pic there linked to this site and drive the count up just by doing that.
 

[Tuomas Romu]

Yeah, it's terrible when the hit counter counts hits from people who were not after the picture itself, but just were curious about the content. Perhaps we could introduce a message box with two buttons, one resulting in the hit being counted ("Yes, I came here for the pic and I think it's nice" and "I'm just browsing around instead of seriously looking at photographs"). Also, we should introduce some kind of alco-lock that would prevent people under the influcence of alcohol from browsing through the folders - when you're drunk, you tend to open a bunch of pics even if you don't intend to look at them long enough so that some members would accept the hit for the hit counter. Or perhaps we could just count hits from registered members, preferrably those who have donated money to the admins during the past 3 months...

I don't have to click an outside link to get hits on my photographs. I can just browse them here without signing in. During the night, I run an automatic script that browses through my pics. Gettings hits is not the most important thing in ShipSpotting.com. It's the ONLY thing...

If someone want to become theirs member better to read and study the rules before upload anything.

I believe some other websites such as Airliners.net are also famously anal for their photographic quality rules. I'm not sure if I want that culture here...

[Captain Ted]

@ Tuomas
Speaking of experience ?    :-)))

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