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Screening Queue Too Long !!

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  • #46
    It's not ideal admittedly, however during the summer months (in Europe) a lot of screeners are enjoying their holidays, whilst spotters are also enjoying their holidays and spotting more which equates to more uploads being dealt with by less screeners.

    All we can do for now is ask for members to be more selective with images they upload until such times that the queue drops down again.

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    • #47
      People, don't you realize that the screeners do this volunteerily?
      That they do this in their spare time?
      That they are here to check your pictures and see if they meet our standards?

      What do you expect?
      That all pictures you send in be accepted?
      That a picture will never be longer than two days in queue?

      Yes, I too think the queue is long, but really... It doesn't bother me. I know the pictures I sent in will be screened one day and be accepted or not.

      What's the problem?
      Or... what's the alternative?
      Sloppy screening with bad pics being accepted and by doing so lowering the quality of this fantastic website?

      No, I prefer 3 weeks or longer over sloppy screening.

      Cheers,

      Hinkelbein

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      • #48
        When single users up-load around 400 with a rejection rate above 70%, it always will be an up-hill battle.
        In the end we have 2 options, a long queue or more restrictions for all up-loaders. The long queue is equal for all users, more restrictions however mean that all users would be punished for actions of a smaller percentage of users.
        And as we know from our efforts to reduce the queue, if the queue goes down the up-loads go up and the quality goes down. And statistics show that up-loads can peak at 2000+ each day. Which even an enlarged screening team can not handle.

        I personally think the situation is not satisfactory as it is, but the big questions is what restrictions would our users accept for faster screening.

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        • #49
          Originally posted by seahawk View Post
          I personally think the situation is not satisfactory as it is, but the big questions is what restrictions would our users accept for faster screening.
          Well, I do accept some restrictions- ELite member or not- just to get the queue down to an acceptable time of screening.
          Remember ,some restrictions can be good for us as well; just to upload only the best!

          What kind of restrictrictions are in mind of the screeners, for example?

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          • #50
            Originally posted by seahawk View Post
            When single users up-load around 400 with a rejection rate above 70%, it always will be an up-hill battle.
            That is a statistic that honestly scares me a lot! Like Hinkelbein - I am quite happy to wait my turn in the queue. However, with that sort of rejection rate on that sort of upload rate, I agree that something should be done. What - is the very tricky situation - because - no matter what you implement, do or let go, there will always be people that are unhappy.

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            • #51
              Originally posted by wrxflyer View Post
              What kind of restrictrictions are in mind of the screeners, for example?
              One idea is a daily up-load limit for Elite users.

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              • #52
                It's an idea Stefan - the only thing there is - for 4 consecutive days, you still get 400 pictures uploaded, and based on your post of 70% rejection rate, you still have to go through those. Perhaps there should be something based on rejection rate as well.

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                • #53
                  Originally posted by seahawk View Post
                  When single users up-load around 400 with a rejection rate above 70%, it always will be an up-hill battle.
                  I'm sorry, but that is just bullshit and abuse.

                  I think that there will be a need to establish restrictions based on rejection rate as well, to prevent photo dumping, and maybe even based on how short the queue is (eg. no more than 15-20 uploads per user every 24h if the queue<4000 photos). One of the christmas (2012?) that the staff brought the queue down to zero, many of us were uploading about the same, maybe a few more than usual but trying to stick to <20 per day (which seems to be what is considered acceptable), and a particular user uploaded 300+ shots taken at a single airport. That just reduces our motivation to be selective with uploads (although I will make the counter argument that even on vacation I find it difficult to even maintain a constant upload stream of 20 pics per day and sometimes go for as much as 2 weeks without uploading), and I'm quite sure that it reduces the screeners' motivation to keep the queue low, because you're screening just as fast as uploads are coming in.

                  I will admit that we all have bad batches of edits from time to time, but rejection rates that high are pretty bad. I'm sitting around 4% over the last 7 days (as per my math), and I already feel like I'm wasting the screeners' time (2 of those shots were completely my fault for overlooking things, the 3rd one was a contrast issue that DH left me clear and concise comments on how to fix it).

                  It seems like habitual photo dumping is one of the causes for long queue times, and it might be worth looking at that issue first (eg. how many habitual users, number of uploads, rejection ratios, impact on the overall queue), before putting severe restrictions across the board.

                  I do agree that summer tends to be quite bad for screening and uploading, since people are away on vacation (so no screening but lots of spotting), but it does seem to improve before Christmas.

                  Also, I apologize if I sounded too harsh, my gin and tonic glass is around the 50/50 split of G+T and air.

                  Lastly, kudos to the screeners because even with the ton of photos to screen they still take the time to leave comments to help fix rejections.
                  [SIGNATURE GOES HERE]

                  Felipe Garcia

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                  • #54
                    Christmas 2012 was highly unusual compared to normal for screening. The screeners basically gave up their Christmas to do that. I don't think you will see that happen again to that amazing level.
                    We have recently got rid of one card dumper permanently. Despite warnings about his massive uploads combined with his 50% - 70% reject rate, and one account deletion he simply opened another account, bought a 1 month Elite membership, dumped 600+ images into the queue and then cancelled his Elite membership. That one member took up most of my workload over the course of one week a couple of weeks or so ago. That means that I as an admin was doing far less than I should have been for the rest of you.

                    That was just one individual. When I get images ready to upload I follow a particular procedure.
                    1. Check for any similars already in the database.
                    2. Process.
                    3. Recheck the image processing before uploading.
                    4. Upload no more than 10-15 per day.
                    5. Pause uploads for 2 or 3 days when I get to 50 in the queue.
                    6. Recheck the queued images. You'll be amazed how many small flaws present at this stage.

                    By taking my time like this I get to keep a good level of quality control, I don't flood the queue and screeners don't get bored with interminable batches of the same old same old throughout the days.

                    Most satisfying is the fact that I get very, very few rejections. There's nothing special about me as a photographer. I just take my time, learn how to get the best out my cameras, change settings according to the conditions and reap the rewards of that.
                    If it 'ain't broken........ Don't try to mend it !

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                    • #55
                      I think the feedback is quite interesting, as we so usually do not get such feedback, or let me say constructive feedback. The usual complaints emails are usually a little more one-sided in their approach of the problem.

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                      • #56
                        Happens every year.

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                        • #57
                          Elite or not, there should be a way in which to limit uploads based on numbers of pictures in the db and/or percentage of accepted pictures of the las X amount of uploads. That would scare off folks that upload anything and everything. I can't believe some people can upload 600 pictures all together, even with a 100% acceptance rate, those people really need to get a life! We all know how long it takes after a day of spotting to check the pictures, categorize them, edit them and then start uploading. It's not a fast process, and these guys upload 600?! amazing.

                          btw, the long queue doesn't bother me, I was just suggesting.

                          regards,

                          Alberto

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                          • #58
                            This is voluntary.... Screeners are people just like us who have their lives...


                            I know sometimes, the queue gets too long, but these guys cannot just stay behind the monitor for your pleasure...

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                            • #59
                              It seems like quite a few of the team will be away in the next 2-4 weeks. So the queue might grow a little more. We are sorry for that, but it would be impossible to coordinate the holidays within the team, as we all have to do that already for our real jobs.

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                              • #60
                                When I first began uploading photos on this site it was common to have the first photo or two screened before you even got through 10 uploads or so. At that time there were still less than 50,000 photos in the database. Sure that kind of quick screening was nice, but as any enterprise grows things tend to slow down. A 21 day backlog in uploads might seem excessive, but it probably isn't if you look at the total numbers involved these days.

                                That said, I would support the idea that no user could have more than 100 photos total in the queue at any given time. Mostly because I can't imagine that any photographer could actually be doing his/her best work in 600 photo batches.

                                Two things I would not like to see are upload restrictions based on rejection rate, and the end of screener comments. When one has been spotting for a while and has gotten good enough to have a low rejection rate it is easy to forget how it was when they were first beginning in this hobby. I recall a 13 year old from around Liverpool who was very active in this forum about 12 years ago. The poor lad did not have a very good camera at the time and was having a very hard time getting his first photos accepted here. He was very discouraged, and even though I was still new to digital post-processing myself at the time I offered to help him with some of his shots. Once he had a few photos accepted he became more confident and went out and bought a much better camera and software and his acceptance rate went way up. I'd hate to see all those young newcomers driven away by having their uploads restricted based on their rejection rate. That sounds like a way to kill off the interest of any new users and to eventually lead to failure of the site, since the new photographers would either migrate elsewhere, or just give up.

                                As to screener comments, I think they are one of the best ways to encourage a new user (and maybe some experienced photographers as well) to improve their technique. The comments also help in understanding just what the screeners are looking for in a photo, and what they don't want to see. Sometimes the reasons given for photo rejection don't make sense to photographers. (Especially newer photographers here.) The comments can go a long way toward making rejections understandable and in motivating the photographer to do better.

                                We should all expect the summer months to be busier even without screeners taking time off for vacation. In winter a plane spotter might be out at a nearby airport all day and only take a total of 600 photos or so. (Less daylight in winter to work with too.) Of those if he is honest with himself/herself maybe 60 will be worth uploading here. But in summer one can attend an air show and easily take over 2000 photos in a single day, especially with multiple aerobatic acts to shoot. Obviously that means there will be more photos worthy of upload, probably well over 100 photos, but it doesn't mean that they all need to be uploaded in a single day. Even if a photographer spent the whole summer going from one airshow to another, they could still pace their uploads throughout the slower winter period when more screeners would have time to work longer hours. (Since they could easily be snowed in with nothing else to amuse them.)

                                I think the whole key to keeping the queue reasonable is simply to have a total number of photos in the queue limited, maybe 100 photos for Elite users, and 50 for any others might work. And then for photographers to show some personal restraint and pace themselves in their uploading process. They also need to consider that not every shot they took is their best work and to learn to be self-critical and do screening of their own before beginning to upload.

                                Beyond that I don't think much needs to change. A longer queue is simply the natural result of a bigger database and additional contributors. No one should expect it to go down too much as long as the site is growing.

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