Members suggestions for improvement of the website

[Pieter_Inpijn]

From an other suggestion:
Correct French, Scandinavian, German etc. spelling should be possible and allowed. Encouraged, in fact. The current system is discriminatory and tends to lead to confusion.

In my opinion not a good idea. All registers and databases are now working on the "simple" spelling of the vessel names: not using á, ä, ö, ú, etc.

In Europe are a lot of countries with special characters: Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Hungary, Portugal to mention a few.

Characters like æ, þ, ø, å, ű, ñ, ß, ê are not on our keyboards: do you know how to make them? Many also different in upper and lower case. Introducing them will be additional work for the admin team because the posters simply will not bother about it as to difficult, as there are now also posters that never bother about the correct category.

[pieter melissen]

Let alone correct Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Thai or Russian spelling... are we discriminating too when we change those to the "register book" spelling?

[L Brown]

As a new member on here with extensive shipping knowledge, I have been looking through the 'Mystery Ships' category, quite a few Mysteries have been solved but are still in the Mystery Ship's category, is it down to the photographer or an Admin to put them into the correct category once identified ? This would eliminate solved mysteries and leave the remaining ones for all to see ? Sorry if I have added this to the wrong topic / forum.

L. Brown.

[Emmanuel.L]

I have been noting this discrepancy for a long time, anyone who post such photos as "mystery" and in time  their name is discovered by some member in a comment, the owner and poster of the photo should monitor his photos especially such "mystery" ones and amend the title and allocate in the proper category.
I think Administration should either contact the poster or amend the title etc themselves.
Thanks for the positive comment my friend, a very worthwhile one.
regards to all
Keep safe and positive...better times will soon be here.
Emmanuel.L.(Malta)

[davidships]

Yes, Emmanuel
I have already be in touch with member L Brown, and am taking this forward in conjunction with Admin colleagues. 

David

[L Brown]

I have been noting this discrepancy for a long time, anyone who post such photos as "mystery" and in time  their name is discovered by some member in a comment, the owner and poster of the photo should monitor his photos especially such "mystery" ones and amend the title and allocate in the proper category.
I think Administration should either contact the poster or amend the title etc themselves.
Thanks for the positive comment my friend, a very worthwhile one.
regards to all
Keep safe and positive...better times will soon be here.
Emmanuel.L.(Malta)

Thank you for your kind words, I have also noticed in the 'support' information for Mystery Ships it states ; If identification is not achieved within 12 months of uploading, photographs will be transferred to the Consider for deletion category . The description will be noted “Identity not established within 12 Months” or similar.

I don't want to tread on anyones toes as I enjoyed a few hours last night going through the Mystery ships and managed to identify a couple but some of the photos will never be identified.

L. Brown.

[pieter melissen]

I have another one.

When you upload, you can include a description of the photo. And while the size of the description itself seems not to be limited, it is during the writing process that you only get to see three lines at a time, which makes editing a bit awkward. Only when the photo has been uploaded you really have chance to see what you wrote, and I often find that I made typos and other mistakes.

So the question is, can the the of the decription block in the upload page be significantly increased.

[ChasB46]

Drag the bottom right corner and box will open to whatever size you want.
Also makes it easier to read your total message for typos etc.

[pieter melissen]

Thank you, I am never good at understanding signs, other than alfanumerical...
But at least my request proved to be not necessary.

[ChasB46]

Hi Pieter, question was necessary, so all know now. I only found it by accident a few weeks ago, after many years of typing in the small box! A bit of help returned, thank you .Chas

[L Brown]

Yes, Emmanuel
I have already be in touch with member L Brown, and am taking this forward in conjunction with Admin colleagues. 

David

Any updates David ?

L. Brown.

[foggy]

Hello all,

Here are my suggestions/hopes for improvement:

1) As someone who  don’t have the opportunity to check shipspotting.com daily, and when I do I’m mostly interested in new additions – I would like the ”New Ships” and ”New Ports” lists under Photo Index to be expanded. E.g. by clicking on the “New Ships” or “New Ports” headings you would be directed to a new page with the latest 100 entries or so. The same can be said for comments.

2) As a statistics buff I see an ocean of possibilities with the site – There could be general statistics (what is the most/least popular category – total or for each port, what weekday is most popular for capturing photos or what weekday is most popular for taking photos of tankers or ferries, what is the most popular photos for each category, how many contributors for each port etc etc etc)… How many new photos/ships/ports/contributors in the last month etc , and personal statistics (what categories have I, or any user, contributed to by percentage of our total contributions to the site, e.g. User X have 25% of his/her photos in the Y category and 17% in the Z category) etc etc… the possibilities are basically endless.

3) Continue to develop the “Ships” section. And make a similar section for “Ports”.

4) I agree with others that the “Photo of the day” should be one or more random photos which change each time the page is refreshed or loaded.

5) Making photo descriptions and comments searchable (e.g. the description or comment might mention another vessel than the title vessel, shown in the background, or the port/location I´m looking for might not be in the database, but mentioned in the description).

6) A hope that someday the database of ports/locations might be expanded (I know the subject have been brought up before and chances are slim, but I hope each new IT tech brought onboard are asked to look into it… someday, someone might figure out a way).


BRGDS / foggy

[sommer500]

How about a Photo of the Year category or competition?

[L Brown]

Yes, Emmanuel
I have already be in touch with member L Brown, and am taking this forward in conjunction with Admin colleagues. 

David

Any updates David ?

L. Brown.

Personal message received, thank you David.

L. Brown.

[csaba]

How about a Photo of the Year category or competition?

I wouldn't make a hobby into a competition. We already have "number of views" which brings the photo to the front page and "most viewed in 24 hrs/ year etc"