ShipSpotting.com Forum
Shipspotters all over the world => Site related news, functions and modules => Topic started by: Owen Foley on September 01, 2023, 04:30:29 AM
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I'm sick of this website design.
Whenever you log on, the only images you see are just the top four"most popular" and everything else is buried and only visible if you want to dig for it.
The previous version of Shipspotting was a good showcase for ship photography.
When you logged on you saw a range of images, displayed larger and you didn't have to dig to find them.
And almost every day, the top four "most popular" are old B&W images of old ships with no particular photographic merit.
There seems to be a never ending supply of these old images and every day they rocket through the pack and get to the top in just a few hours.
This means that a couple of hundred great images that have been captured by members are hardly seen by anyone.
When I post high quality images now, they are lucky to get 20 views, where once they would frequently have 100 or more views.
This is only marginally better than putting them in a shoebox in the back of a cupboard.
I can't see much point in continuing to post images when they are unlikely to be seen by more than just a handful of people.
The current website design has had a good trial and it's failed.
It's time for a facelift to make Shipspotting better for people who want to see pictures of ships and photographers who want to show their hard work.
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I will not go for "the website design sucks", because the design is much better than the previous version.
Don't think the digging is necessary: the buttons "most popular" and "new photos" give a fast access to many photos.
But I agree with you that the b/w photos are to prominent on the website nowadays.
In the past I had a few arguments with the admins why this was allowed, for reasons of copyright or bad quality or copied from the internet.
The site started in 2004 and it mission was: "because there is no website at the moment for shipspotters to show their work".
That mission has gone out of sight with all those b/w photos, mainly are of great interests but that is not what this website was started for.
Just my thoughts.
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And almost every day, the top four "most popular" are old B&W images of old ships with no particular photographic merit.
That would suggest that they are the most viewed images for that particular day which must say something.
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Owen,
I think the website is fine, it's just certain elements work differently to the previous incarnation.
The "most popular" answers itself - they may be old B&W images but some would say that the ships were better looking in those days so do have merit. As the thumbprints are better on this new site you can view the photos quite well without opening them, hence the lower number of hits. Maybe the B&W photos are more interesting to "people who want to see pictures of ships" so are then being opened, giving them more hits? Some of these B&W photos are from long time ship photographers scanning their own negs/prints who want to "show their hard work".
Pieter,
Your comment on the original purpose of the site - "because there is no website at the moment for shipspotters to show their work" - quite a few of the old B&W photos are doing just that, from well established shipspotters. Maybe when we can filter the groups things will be better for each user.
Patrick
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Let me clarify about B/W: of course I have no objection to b/w photos from shipspotters and my definition for that is: taken by them self. Such as Malcolm Cranfield, excellent photos, I wished I was around in that period.
But for instance b/w photos found in an old shoe box inherited from granddad with photos far before 1945 or without any trace of the origin belong to my opinion on historical websites. And b/w photos copied from the internet or other sources should not be posted on this website.
When uploading, members must comply with Copyright Law. See the website rules under Info & Faqs.
This website was set up for actual shipspotters and not as historical archive for ships worldwide (because there is no limit to that).
Just my opinion and everybody is free to think otherwise.
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The "most popular" answers itself - they may be old B&W images but some would say that the ships were better looking in those days so do have merit. As the thumbprints are better on this new site you can view the photos quite well without opening them, hence the lower number of hits.
My complaint is that when you open the site, the only images you see ate the top 4 and you have to dig deeper to see anything else.
The Top 4 keep getting views and nothing else has a chance to be seen until they finally expire.
I don't understand how old B&W images can get 40 hits only an hour or two after uploading, when wonderful contemporary images struggle to get 20 views in 24 hours.
Perhaps there are a huge number of members who have little interest in coloured images and seek out the ancient ones?
But that doesn't matter.
What does, is that the website in its current form hides almost all other images that are being uploaded and doesn't give them the exposure they deserve.
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As the thumbprints are better on this new site you can view the photos quite well without opening them, hence the lower number of hits.
I second this. After a little scrolling anyone would see this - photos in those thumbnails are clearly visible, so clicking on any becomes unnecessary unless you have to for some reason.
Clicking on From our Galleries brings random photos from the database.
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Personally I think the new design is a big improvement on the old one. Not perfect, but not much ever is.
Everything seems accessible. The number of hits on a photograph is down because of the reasons above, the thumbnails are now much better, and there is no need to click on the photograph most of the time. I don't post to attract hits, I post in the hope that others will enjoy my photographs, but the number doesn't bother me. If only two people do, that's as good for me as 100.
I think the older photographs, especially the b/w ones attract the hits, simply because they are interesting to members. It is that simple. Would I click on the 334th photograph for Estelle Maersk (for example), or the first of a 1950's built freighter. The freighter wins every time, no matter how good the photograph for Estelle Maersk is. I would enjoy the Maersk ship, but the thumbnail would be good enough for me.
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I can appreciate Owen's concern and understand that a lot of us only view thum nails, mainly due to the slow response. Interesting though today I visited the lighthouse category and the top six posts had the same number of hits double that of the next post. Interesting.
On another subject forum posts some are inappropriate ie "how to improve spided solatire and What bmtcallulaes. They have remained for a couple of hours so far. This did not happen in the past. I had a photo deleted within 30 minutes yet these posts still exist. So in summary I tend to agree with Owen all is not well with this site. Hopefully things will improve.
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On another subject forum posts some are inappropriate ie "how to improve spided solatire and What bmtcallulaes. They have remained for a couple of hours so far. This did not happen in the past. I had a photo deleted within 30 minutes yet these posts still exist.
Dear Tony, I deleted the spam posts as soon as I woke up. This is not the first time we have had them in the forum, quite the contrary. I'm sorry we can't be on the lookout 24/7 as we are merely volunteers.
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Hi Aleksi thanks for responding, seems this is a European site, if you had a more global admin this would not be a problem. Ie 24 hours coverage. Cheers
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I agree with Owen Foley. The main problem in my view is the scrolling system that is boring and makes that hits are given only in a short period after uploading a photo. In the old version hits were increasing from time to time and now are frozen.
This is a site based in the members activity and it seems that fellow members are losing interest. We should ask why the forum has so poor activity.
My opinion: if you give me the choice I prefer the old version ... but I continue uploading
Health for everybody
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I agree wholeheartedly that the thumbnails now do not require anyone to click on a photo anymore, and even when you do click the photo isn't much bigger with an unattractive couple of black rectangles at either side of the photo.
For a trial period how about going back to thumbnails the size of the old site where you can only open it to full size IF your logged in as a member?
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For a trial period how about going back to thumbnails the size of the old site where you can only open it to full size IF your logged in as a member?
Hope they can arrange this very soon!
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And while you are busy implementing this great idea about the thumbnails please delete the Copyright part from the site regulations or please finally act accordingly, thank you. Photos from so called collections by unknown photographers are getting on my nerves.
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A true word Manfred.
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And while you are busy implementing this great idea about the thumbnails please delete the Copyright part from the site regulations or please finally act accordingly, thank you. Photos from so called collections by unknown photographers are getting on my nerves.
This gives me an idea... In the Upload page there should be an option to check - my own photo or photo by someone else (fill in the field who's the photographer). Then once the photo is uploaded, at the bottom in the blue bar it should be something like Photo by etc Shipspotting member, or Photo by (other photographer if known). It should be also mentioned in photo details below in the info field - uploaded by etc member, photo taken by (that member or someone else).
Then once info about whose photo is in the system, every member should have a variety of viewing options in their Account Settings - like, which categories include or exclude from viewing in Recent uploads & in Random photos, also option to view or not view photos not taken by members.
I think in this way some would be happy to see only Cruise ships of 50-70s & nothing else, some would be happy to NOT see B&W photos from the 50s, some would be happy to NOT see photos members never took themselves.
Regarding photos which were uploaded before such option was implemented, either members themselves should change who's the real photographer of each photo not taken by themselves. Or any viewer should report such questionable photo & the reviewing staff would check the field like [v] "not taken by etc member, taken by __________" & changes would be auto-made to that photo.
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All this thread show is you can't please everyone......make some changes to suit some members, and other members will be annoyed. It will never be prefect for every member. No site ever is.
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All this thread show is you can't please everyone......make some changes to suit some members, and other members will be annoyed. It will never be prefect for every member. No site ever is.
I agree nothing is ever perfect, but the whole point of posting photos to share with others is to see how popular a photo can be/viewed. We all know that's one of the main reasons to do so. Nobody can deny this.
The point is if "hits" on photos are going to be so low as they tend to be now, folk's interest in the site will simply wane and postings will dry up. The site's lifeblood is it's photo contributions, without that it dies.
I know of members that no longer post photos for this very reason. Hence my suggestion to go back to the old site's way of setting up photos so they CAN be viewed as opposed to the current way in which you just look at them without clicking to go bigger.
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Well said Richard !!
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As I said before I'm not bothered how many hits I get on any of my photographs. if only one person enjoys a photograph it's fine by me. If a hundred do then that's also fine. It's very rare I go back and look to see how many hits a particular photographs gets.
I photograph ships for my own enjoyment, and post on line so others may also enjoy them if they wish.
Personally I find the front page layout for this site just fine. But if enough people want to change it back, that's fair enough.
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Sorry Simon, I don't think it has anything to do with a frontpage, but everything with the terrible speed last two weeks.
Nothing else!
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I'm sick of this website design.
Whenever you log on, the only images you see are just the top four"most popular" and everything else is buried and only visible if you want to dig for it.
Hi Owen,
I have just returned from five day working on my other job, and had not time to visit the site. I will go through the other comments as well, but I would like to start with yours, which is factually incorrect, but probably because of the title you choose for the subject, it will attract many a reaction.
Your quoted remark is incorrect because one does NOT have to dig deep to see what is on the site, just use your scrolling tool and the latest photos immediately appear. And if you wanted and had the time you can keep scrolling until you reach photo 3,000,000 plus he rest.
Therefore if have changed the title of the topic, because it feels like an unjustified insult to all those who work hard to please all who use this site, and as you can see from the reactions have different opinions about what they think that all users would want the site to be.
Thank you
Pieter Melissen
Webmaster
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I agree nothing is ever perfect, but the whole point of posting photos to share with others is to see how popular a photo can be/viewed. We all know that's one of the main reasons to do so. Nobody can deny this.
The point is if "hits" on photos are going to be so low as they tend to be now, folk's interest in the site will simply wane and postings will dry up. The site's lifeblood is it's photo contributions, without that it dies.
I know of members that no longer post photos for this very reason. Hence my suggestion to go back to the old site's way of setting up photos so they CAN be viewed as opposed to the current way in which you just look at them without clicking to go bigger.
What if size of thumbnails could be reduced so that on home page you see not 3 thumbnails in width but 5-7?
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And almost every day, the top four "most popular" are old B&W images of old ships with no particular photographic merit.
That would suggest that they are the most viewed images for that particular day which must say something.
I have kept a screenshot where four of my B&W images (taken during the eighties) were shown on the home page as being the (then) most popular shots. I hope nobody is suggesting that I should stop posting them.... I am only halfway done with names starting with G, and you all know what comes after G until we reach the Z.
Anyway, there exists a list of people who have been allowed by Admin to post older shots, not taken by them, but with proper source references. Perhaps this list should be screened to see where we are now. And on top of that several analog colour shots have also been posted, not taken by the poster. Based on the reactions here, they seem to be less offensive than the B&W ones.
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All this thread show is you can't please everyone......make some changes to suit some members, and other members will be annoyed. It will never be prefect for every member. No site ever is.
I agree nothing is ever perfect, but the whole point of posting photos to share with others is to see how popular a photo can be/viewed. We all know that's one of the main reasons to do so. Nobody can deny this.
The point is if "hits" on photos are going to be so low as they tend to be now, folk's interest in the site will simply wane and postings will dry up. The site's lifeblood is it's photo contributions, without that it dies.
I know of members that no longer post photos for this very reason. Hence my suggestion to go back to the old site's way of setting up photos so they CAN be viewed as opposed to the current way in which you just look at them without clicking to go bigger.
Hi Richard,
It is probably human nature that people want to know how many times a shot of which the poster thinks that it deserves to be viewed actually gets a "hit", meaning that the thumbnail has been opened. Now I think it is a bit perverse that we should reduce the quality of the thumbnails, just to create more hits, while at the same time they may have been looked at, but those views have not been recorded. It may well be the case that the number of views (including the thumbnail views) currently exceeds what was recorded in the previous system, but the number of people who want to open the thumbnail, let alone those who want to see the shot at full size, is less. Does that mean that the shot has been receiving less appreciation? I don't think so, as even those infamously popular B&W shots get far less actual hits than they received in the past.
So what is actually needed is a change in expectations of how many hits you may generate, and if that number is lower, people may get disappointed, but they should get over it, and keep on posting.
There may be another aspect too, and that is that the number of daily uploaded shots is quite large, so attractive shots (shots that attract hits that is) may disappear from immediate view much quicker, inevitably resulting in less hits. If the number of posted shots would be around 50 per day or so, the number of individual hits would probably significantly higher, but I hope nobody will be suggesting to set a maximum to the number of new shots, just to increase hits....
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Therefore if have changed the title of the topic, because it feels like an unjustified insult to all those who work hard to please all who use this site, and as you can see from the reactions have different opinions about what they think that all users would want the site to be.
So the short version is that my comments are ignored and you just don't care..
Just get used to it
No surprise there.
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So the short version is that my comments are ignored and you just don't care..
Just get used to it
No surprise there.
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you were also told by other that surfing the site is relatively easy.
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Hi Pieter thanks for the reply, appreciate your time in doing that for us all.
I respect what you are saying but there's no getting away from the fact this site has lost many long standing members that used to post on here that preferred the old site's manner for displaying photographs. I took a random photo of a bulker from May, it's a good photo, shows an interesting working ship at a good angle and it has only 20 views...now either no one is clicking on the photo, or the photo is being looked at without the click being required, either way if a photographer sees such a low amount of interest in their subject matter they'll get disheartened and may just resort to posting on a social media shipping page on Facebook for example instead.
We all don't want that, we want a thriving shipspotting community.
The smaller thumbnail suggestion is only what was on the previous edition of the site before the makeover, it worked perfectly well then and i did not hear a grumble about the size of said thumbnails at the time because if you were logged in as a member you'd click the photo anyway to look at it if it interested you. The click was then counted and the poster could see his/her work was appreciated and most importantly would be motivated to post more and so on and so on.... you have to keep people engaged/interested otherwise the cycle will stop eventually.
This is just my humble opinion, some might agree, some might disagree with me and that's absolutely fine with me but it's important to get it out there for discussion.
Regards
Richard
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Maybe part of the answer will be when we can filter the groups we want to view - I know I lose interest scrolling through when I get a whole string of vessels I'm not interested in posted en masse. I'd say a limit on posting would help but could be difficult to control.
I will also say that I'm guilty of looking at thumbnails and not opening all the photos - I do however hit the like button to show interest - if we do get the facility to view likes that would also show how interested the viewers are.
Patrick
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If I can add my 2 cents...
I don't open every photo I like, these days due to very slow opening, but if I like the photo I do give it a 'like" click, whether I open it or not. So, clicks+likes=some kind of total :).
As for improvements, the only thing I would like to see is the return of the pages rather then automatic fill in as one scrolls down. This gives a much better sense of how far back you are viewing.
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To Patrick and Csaba.
The de-anonimisation of "likes" (so you can see who liked your photo) is in the improvement plan, while also the page structure will be dealt with. I cannot give you dates, but rest assured that IT efforts since the new site layout are manyfold compared to what was done in the old system.
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Hi Pieter thanks for the reply, appreciate your time in doing that for us all.
I respect what you are saying but there's no getting away from the fact this site has lost many long standing members that used to post on here that preferred the old site's manner for displaying photographs. I took a random photo of a bulker from May, it's a good photo, shows an interesting working ship at a good angle and it has only 20 views...now either no one is clicking on the photo, or the photo is being looked at without the click being required, either way if a photographer sees such a low amount of interest in their subject matter they'll get disheartened and may just resort to posting on a social media shipping page on Facebook for example instead.
We all don't want that, we want a thriving shipspotting community.
The smaller thumbnail suggestion is only what was on the previous edition of the site before the makeover, it worked perfectly well then and i did not hear a grumble about the size of said thumbnails at the time because if you were logged in as a member you'd click the photo anyway to look at it if it interested you. The click was then counted and the poster could see his/her work was appreciated and most importantly would be motivated to post more and so on and so on.... you have to keep people engaged/interested otherwise the cycle will stop eventually.
This is just my humble opinion, some might agree, some might disagree with me and that's absolutely fine with me but it's important to get it out there for discussion.
Regards
Richard
Thanks Richard for your kind words, which implicitly describe what needs to be adjusted. Before the revamp people were used to getting a certain amount of hits, which actually said nothing about the appreciation of the photo itself, but just showed how many people opened the thumbnail. Now my question is how would people have reacted if the current situation had been there from the beginning. In other words the 100 hits from the past would always have been 50 (numbers taken just to make the point) I am inclined to say : "probably not" as this would be considered as a reasonable number. It is largely the psychological effort that the numbers have gone down rather than up, which causes the discomfort.
If you mention that we want to be a thriving community, than one way of looking at that is to look at the figures. Over the last year the number of views has been steadily increasing to over 1,000,000 per month. Actually the figure I see in the system for last August is 4.4 million, but that may need some adjustment. The monthly number of new accounts is going as well (over 1500 last month), the same goes for the number of likes and the number of comments, although comments have not yet reached the level from before the revamp. So it looks like the popularity of the site is not really declining, as can also be concluded from the number of new photos which close to 15,000 per month, 50% over the numbers recorded in 2021 for instance.
You mention that a number of long standing members have stopped their activities, but there might be an underlying reason that relates to the fact that many of us are reaching ages where being active in ship spotting becomes increasingly difficult, and we have to face the fact too that we are all mortal. The site is reaching its 20th anniversary, and in 20 years a lot things can happen. One thing being that over the last year we have seen a number of new photographers that make substantial contributions. In other words, we have a fluid community, names come and go, and I suppose it will always be like that.
So the picture is not so negative as you describe, and we are still working on improvements to make the site more attractive, in the process of which we keep on looking forward to your invaluable suggestions and proposals.
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My comments are not related to the features but to the look of the site, my views are unchanged since the redesign was first introduced. Basically, it looks as though the site was put together by someone that has no idea about visual design. The site works but it is visually unattractive, the dark blue back ground is wrong as are the 'heavy' orange headings and why is the first word of these headings in bold - and thus even heavier - text?
The photo categories - why does every title picture sit above a dark blue rectangle that is rounded at the bottom corners. This is messy, design for designs sake. The whole thing looks as though the person that put it together found all these different features and was anxious to use them all.
Simple is best!
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My comments are not related to the features but to the look of the site, my views are unchanged since the redesign was first introduced. Basically, it looks as though the site was put together by someone that has no idea about visual design. The site works but it is visually unattractive, the dark blue back ground is wrong as are the 'heavy' orange headings and why is the first word of these headings in bold - and thus even heavier - text?
The photo categories - why does every title picture sit above a dark blue rectangle that is rounded at the bottom corners. This is messy, design for designs sake. The whole thing looks as though the person that put it together found all these different features and was anxious to use them all.
Simple is best!
What if orange highlight was replaced with light blue one? So the site would have a livery similar to DEO VOLENTE ship...
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Replacing orange with light blue would not be visible enough, not enough contrast. Retain the orange but using a lighter weight font would make it look less visually cumbersome. Also use a lighter blue background, not pale blue just a lighter blue.
The whole site just looks fussy and over designed.