Author Topic: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m  (Read 11058 times)

Offline dirk septer

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Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« on: August 23, 2019, 03:33:28 PM »
Why are ancient motor vessels under 20 m like Wanderer:

http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=2100604

deleted?

Is it not time to add a new category "Classic wooden yachts" with
no under 20 m restrictions?

The photographs of my beautifully restored classic wooden yacht ORBA
(built 1927 by Lake Union Dry Dock) were yesterday deleted because of
this under 20 m restriction.

While maintaining literally hundreds of photographs of these boring,
huge floating condos (aka cruise ships), why restricting these few
rare surviving and lovely restored and maintained wooden beauties?

Anybody else in favour of adding a "Classic wooden yacht" category?


« Last Edit: August 23, 2019, 11:42:55 PM by dirk septer »

Offline Emmanuel.L

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2019, 07:06:24 PM »
Yes Dirk, I am for your suggestion for this new category. Incidentally what is the category "examples" doing here ?,rather occupying a place for a better one like Dirk is suggesting. Can someone explain what this "examples" is?
regards
Emmanuel.l.(Malta)

Offline Michael Wirth

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2019, 09:06:31 PM »
This leads me to a general question I'm asking myself for some time now:

Is this site still developed further?
Is there anything planned, 'in the pipeline'?

With all respect - it looks and acts like such a site did more than ten years ago.

Here is much room for improvement in many ways - more categories is only one.

This site has truly a great community and database of pictures and knowledge - unparalleled as far as I know.

But technically it looks - neglected I am tempted to say.


Best regards,

Michael.

Offline Marc Pingoud

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2019, 09:51:45 PM »
Michael Wirth, you speak from my heart!
I have heard a lot about problems with updated ship data, the links to IMO, MMSi, ENI and their tracking. The platform shipspotting.com is ingenious and offers a wide range of possibilities - but only those that are finicky defined, regulated and interpreted...

Maybe some of you know my discussions about " atmospheric pictures "...
Open up - Give special pictures a chance and above all: Focus on the quality!
Michael - I often think the same - how long will the site survive in the status quo?
The development goes gigantic fast!
One hand for myself, one for the ship - and one for my camera!

Offline dirk septer

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #4 on: August 24, 2019, 01:47:59 PM »
What gets me, that after all these years Shipspotting still cannot provide a vessel-specific photo search. For example, if I want to find my photos of Melinchenko's super yacht "A", I will have to scroll through 236,859 photographs.
Then you have to go to Advanced Search; and spend more time scrolling through the long list of photographers.

Also, the Vessel Identification information is incomplete, inaccurate and way out of date (sometimes up to many years). Is there no way this can be corrected? And it also looks so unprofessional, as if entered by a three-year-old: a mixture of upper and lower case letters; just looks so amateurish....

Offline simonwp

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #5 on: August 24, 2019, 03:13:46 PM »
In many ways the site is a victim of it's own success, it's seen as the premier ship photograph site. But that brings it's own problems, in that it's run by volunteers who give what time they can to keeping the site going. Perhaps if a few of the moaners volunteered to act as an admin for example, or undertake specifiying upgrades. Just a few more could make a big difference.

Also the site is free...

Offline Michael Wirth

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2019, 08:53:19 AM »
I didn't mean the work of the volunteers - I appreciate their work wery much (and by the way would be willing to volunteer myself if needed).

What I mean is the lets say technical side - an as far as I know this is not in the hands of volunteers.

Most of the problems mentioned above and in other discussions related to this are out of reach for volunteer admins - correct me if I'm wrong.

And by the way - this site shows ads - so of course someone is making money with the pictures we provide. Which is OK, don't get me wrong. Hosting and administration costs money. And in the legal jungle of today (at least in my country) I am very reluctant hosting content myself.

So the question was not: what more can the admins do? but What is planned for the development of the site in general - is there anything planned regarding development?


Best regards,

Michael.


Offline simonwp

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #7 on: August 25, 2019, 10:09:54 AM »
You are wrong with regards the ship information. The previous (free) provider ceased operating, that was nothing to do with the technical side.

Finding an alternative is a volunteer role, one which for many understandable reasons they have been unable to move forward as yet. the only technical involvement is an alternative provider was found would be creating the link.

As far as I'm aware no money is being made from this site, the ads cover the costs of the existing technical side.

Offline DEREK SANDS

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #8 on: August 25, 2019, 10:11:45 AM »
In all my time as Webmaster on this site, it has slowly ground to a halt on the technical side. Once it was purchased by Andre Brandao it started of with much progress and went to a better platform. However that is when the site could no longer be individually developed and all software enhancements went to the "site manager" Henrik appointed by Andre. A deal with gross tonnage saw much information become available until Gross tonnage folded. That was how the present situation with out of date information happened.
Despite hoping to get a replacement database this has never materialised as they really don't exist unless you pay up front. The photographer therefore would have to upload any information himself for the benefit of others or link it to Equasis at the least. Volunteer admins would have a very difficult and time consuming task if they added much info themselves. The site has not developed as Andre no doubt wished, as I am sure he would have liked to finance it from sales of Shiptrax rather than adverts on the site (some rather dubious). His Airnav site for Plane enthusiasts I am sure sells enough of his tracking equipment/ software to finance it and make a small profit even though he has more staff ? There will be no more development of Shipspotting.com unless it is either sold off or Andre manages to develop an income stream to help upgrade it. I believe the tech man is just doing the bare minimum to keep the site on line and is not solely working for Andre who probably pays him a small retainer. Good luck to the current Webmaster and admins you have an unenviable task. Which I am glad is no longer mine

best regards
Derek
« Last Edit: August 26, 2019, 06:51:39 AM by DEREK SANDS »

Offline Michael Wirth

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #9 on: August 25, 2019, 10:17:17 AM »
Thank you very much Derek for shedding some light on this.

I was aware of the problem with grosstonnage.com going offline but not of the other things.

This answers my question.


Best regards,

Michael.

Offline pieter melissen

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #10 on: August 25, 2019, 08:29:49 PM »
"What gets me, that after all these years Shipspotting still cannot provide a vessel-specific photo search".

This quote from Dirk Septer shows that the working of the site is not known to everybody.
so if you want to see your pictures of A, you make an advanced search for A, you will find 292 photographs, of two different ships, and after some scrolling you will find the A you were referring to,

http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=2665278

 then you click on the summary page for that ship and you will get a list of all photographers who have submitted a shot of A. Dirk Septer has provided three shots.

Offline dirk septer

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #11 on: August 25, 2019, 09:35:46 PM »
First of all, to web masters like Ken Smith and Derek Sands, and all volunteer editors a big "thank you" for the great work they have done and are doing. They certainly do not get enough credit for this from the many members of Shipspotting.

Having said that, however, there always is room for improvement. I still fail to understand that the photo search cannot be made vessel name specific. For a simple vessel name search I should not have to go to the more time consuming advanced search. For example, if there are less than 300 photos of motor yacht "A," why does the system have to bring up hundreds of thousands photos? In this age of modern technology, this should not be necessary.

If already so much time is being spend on the quality of the photographs, it would be nice if the vessel information could also be more accurate and up to date. Or if it would be possible to edit this info, allowing to make corrections, updates and additions..... Only wishful thinking, I'm afraid...

Offline pieter melissen

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #12 on: August 26, 2019, 06:55:25 AM »
First of all, to web masters like Ken Smith and Derek Sands, and all volunteer editors a big "thank you" for the great work they have done and are doing. They certainly do not get enough credit for this from the many members of Shipspotting.

Having said that, however, there always is room for improvement. I still fail to understand that the photo search cannot be made vessel name specific. For a simple vessel name search I should not have to go to the more time consuming advanced search. For example, if there are less than 300 photos of motor yacht "A," why does the system have to bring up hundreds of thousands photos? In this age of modern technology, this should not be necessary.

If already so much time is being spend on the quality of the photographs, it would be nice if the vessel information could also be more accurate and up to date. Or if it would be possible to edit this info, allowing to make corrections, updates and additions..... Only wishful thinking, I'm afraid...

Dirk, if you use advanced search and make sure that the EXACT name of the ship is searched for, typing A in the name box, gives you immmediately 292 photos. As there seems to be newbuilding also named A, the ship you are looking for is the 10th photograph, and once you have found that you can use the summary table to get all the info available. Furthermore you only have to fill in the name box in the advanced search system ,all the other fields you do not have to worry about. I cannot think of a quicker search system.

Regarding the ship data, As Derek Sands already explained, the data supplier, Gross Tonnage has folded and the existing data (that remained available after the demise of GT) get more and more obsolete over time. There is no way that anybody in the admin team can access those data and maintain them. So you have to look for outside data if you want to know more of a ship. Equasis for current vessels and Miramar (for the ridiculously low cost of 20 US# per year) if you are interested in more historic stuff.  

The site now is what it is, decisive progress is unlikely to happen anytime soon, but still it is probably the best free source of high quality pictures anywhere in the world. Now you/we can moan about its deficiencies, but as I explained above, some of those complaints are unjustified, and others we simply have to live with. I can but can you?  
« Last Edit: August 26, 2019, 04:46:06 PM by pieter melissen »

Offline DEREK SANDS

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #13 on: August 26, 2019, 06:59:35 AM »
Well put Pieter :)

If only data could be added but with no admin access allowed its a vain hope at present.

Offline davidships

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Re: Deletion of Ancient Motor Vessels under 20 m
« Reply #14 on: August 26, 2019, 04:20:03 PM »
Thanks to Derek and current colleagues for clarifying the present situation.

It is indeed my understanding that we are effectively linked to a static version of of grosstonnnage database at its "closing point", and that have been told that this is non-editable.  

For ship searches, if there is an IMO number, there is no difficulty using the simple search either by entering the number or (if not known), clicking "more of: this ship".  If you only want one specific name that ship carried, then entering that name and the IMO number in advanced search is the simplest way.

(By the way, many database search engines cannot cope with one- or two-character names, but at least ours does that OK)  

It would nice to be able to link to an individual ship entry on Equasis, but that seems to be impossible because it requires individual (free) registration to view (it has also defeated the clever tech minds at Wikipedia).  Incidentally, Equasis is not, a suggested below, a commercial organisation selling information - it makes freely available information, relevant to its objectives in ship safety provided to it from a range of established sources (including IHS-Seaweb, Class societies, maritime administrations, P&I clubs etc) and is funded by the European Union plus five national governments.
http://www.equasis.org/EquasisWeb/public/About?fs=ShipInfo
http://equasis.org/EquasisWeb/public/About?fs=About&P_ABOUT=Providers.html
« Last Edit: September 03, 2019, 01:40:19 PM by davidships »

 

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