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GeneralUser gallery vers public gallery

7th Mar 2015 02:18 UTCRandy Harris

So I've loaded some 700 specimens of my collection, as I look back at the photos some say in user gallery only and some say in public gallery. Can you enlighten me on the difference and is this normal?

7th Mar 2015 02:26 UTCDebbie Woolf Manager

Yes quite normal if there are issues, such as out of focus, large text, incorrect locality. We have contacted you about this but until now have not received a reply.

7th Mar 2015 14:04 UTCJason Evans

I recently posted about the same problem and my post has been moved into a sub forum which when it appears I am not allowed to view.

7th Mar 2015 15:43 UTCKnut Edvard Larsen 🌟 Manager

Jason :

http://www.mindat.org/photo-661540.html

My personal guess why this was approved for your user gallery only, is that the photo is out of focus. Even though it is a nice specimen, the educational value is much reduced since it is out of focus. I would very much encourage you to try to make a new photo.

7th Mar 2015 22:06 UTCJason Evans

I shall attempt to take a better photo. It only seems to be out of focus if you zoom in on it but as I only have a compact camera I dont think I can get much better, but I shall try!

I showed the photo to the chap who I got it off, and he thought it was a good photo.

Thanks for the suggestion.

7th Mar 2015 22:34 UTCJason Evans

I have uploaded a new photo, i think it is a slight improvement, still gets a bit blurry when you zoom in, but then again so do all my other photos which have all been approved for the public gallery.

Maybe I did not use the best F number or something like that so I took several photos using different F numbers and chose what I think is the best, it does look a little bit more sharper.

9th Mar 2015 06:30 UTCRalph S Bottrill 🌟 Manager

Hi Jason

Sorry, I didn't realize I had moved you post to a forum you could not read, some forums like Manual don't get so much attention but it's hard to know where is best to post some issues for managers.

Anyway, you got a useful response:

Jason,

I don't know who did not approve your orpiment specimen for general distribution, but I would also not approve it for general distribution. It is almost certainly from Russia and not Peru, and the quality is quite low with more damaged than undamaged areas and there are already many better examples in our database..

As for the delhayleite I will have to accept the opinion of our resident expert. I have been to the locality, but that does not an expert make and I would be inclined to agree with our expert on the region who originally sent you a note about the specimen. You should reply to that note and ask Pavel if your new picture changes his mind.

There are more than 1000 photos waiting for review and judgment by our managers and experts and more and more, if a photo is not judged adequate for our general galleries we just consign it to the users only gallery. If we sent out a complaint letter to each one that we thought not good enough for our general gallery we would have to spend full time communicating with the uploaders, and all of us who do this work do it Pro bono.

Rock Currier

9th Mar 2015 10:02 UTCGrzegorz Słowik

Hello,

I have also smoe questions. Why some of my photos was moved from Public gallery to User gallery only?? For example this:

http://www.mindat.org/photo-609881.html

http://www.mindat.org/photo-537441.html

http://www.mindat.org/photo-537444.html

Many times I saw very poor quality photos which stil are in Public gallery. I don't understand some of Yours decisions...

Regards,

Grzesiek

9th Mar 2015 10:21 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

Grzesiek

For photos of common minerals from well-known localities we really need top quality photos as we already have many good photos of all of these minerals from these localities.

In the past maybe photos of similar quality were approved for public gallery, but as we go through each gallery many of these older photos will be changed to user-gallery only too.

Jolyon

9th Mar 2015 11:08 UTCJason Evans

Thank you Ralph, do you know if there is a way i can remove the image completely, without giving Mindat the copyright?

Also I cannot reply to the note I got about the delhayelite as it was not sent by Pavel. I'm not sure if I can send him a message but will try.

9th Mar 2015 12:24 UTCJohn R. Montgomery 🌟 Expert

I understand the need to assign specimens to "user gallery only"....but I was very surprised to find this specimen assigned as such, as it was one of the top 4 from this pocket...

http://www.mindat.org/photo-490531.html

John

9th Mar 2015 13:04 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

We sometimes make mistakes John, in this case it certainly does deserve to be site-wide, and has been edited accordingly.

9th Mar 2015 13:27 UTCGrzegorz Słowik

Thanks for your reply Jolyon. I also think that should be added option of delete photos in such a case.

Regards,

Grzesiek

9th Mar 2015 13:34 UTCDebbie Woolf Manager

Deleting photos because it didn't make the cut, is a valid reason ?

9th Mar 2015 14:10 UTCGrzegorz Słowik

I'm adding photos for general use, for anyone who want to find for example similar specimen. If any photos can't be find in mineral or location gallery so what's the point of adding such photos? If I want to have only personal gallery I can create one for example on facebook. I don't want to offend anyone, it's only my opinion.

9th Mar 2015 14:36 UTCDebbie Woolf Manager

Grzegorz, I do see your point but we are talking specifically here about photos of minerals that are heavily represented at a locality, where a locality is not represented so well the photos usually do go site wide until such time when they become redundant. Perhaps Jolyon might provide 'a link to similar photos' in user galleries, someday?

9th Mar 2015 15:56 UTCDennis Tryon

I have noticed that when you use the option to search for a mineral in a particular area using that new search option, you see both public gallery and user gallery photos. Not a complaint, just a comment..

Dennis

9th Mar 2015 16:16 UTCJamison K. Brizendine 🌟 Expert

It is interesting to note that concerns have just started to appear because viewers can now see any specimen’s “Approval Status:” and a specimen being labeled as “Public Galleries”, “User Gallery Only” and “Pending Approval”.

In 2012, there was a thread titled “Rude comments on questioned photos” (http://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,6,273838,page=1). Users were complaining that comments sent from managers for photos were saying “This is a poor example of X in this photo” or “Where is the Y in this photo?” Unfortunately, some uploaders thought that when a manager sent a comment saying that, “This is a poor example of X”, the uploader thought the manager was saying, “Your specimen is terrible!”. Obviously this didn’t benefit either the uploader or the manager. A beneficial compromise was to consign photos to a “user gallery” or “public galleries”. I personally prefer this method, than getting comments that “this is a poor example of X” . As Rock said before, this compromise method is much less stressful and less time consuming.

I have received comments (none of them rude) on my photos for the following reason:

A. I usually type my descriptions for photos in Microsoft Word and then copy and paste it. One time I accidentally copied and pasted the wrong description that belonged to another specimen (and it was rather obvious), luckily a manager found my mistake and messaged me about it.

B. I have made errors in my descriptions, for example I would describe something as being a silicate instead of a sulfide, or describe the mineral as an iron sulfide instead of a zinc sulfide.

C. I misidentified the mineral in the description.

D. I uploaded an example of a mineral where I photographed it against a white background; two of the managers really liked the specimen, but suggested to photograph it against a black background instead. The new photo came up much better and it was later approved.

E. The manager identified a mineral that I had questioned in the description.

F. The manager identified the locality or questioned the locality for a mineral.

When I look at a public gallery of photos, I usually set “Order by => Rating” to “Order by => Mineral name A-Z”. An alphabetical list makes it easier for me to search a gallery.

When I look at anyone’s personal photo gallery, the first thing I do is usually set the “Show => Gallery Images” to “Show => All Images” , this way I can look at a person’s entire collection.

Also I have noticed that when I set photos the “Order by => Newest first or Oldest first” the list of photographs doesn’t necessarily coorespond to the chronology of photos I uploaded. For example, it shows my “oldest photograph” was uploaded October 2, 2014, when in fact my oldest photo was uploaded on the July 4, 2008. I am assuming this is a bug and it is being worked on…

9th Mar 2015 18:11 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

One thing that we have changed, that hopefully will make people happier, is that now when you do a gallery search you have the option to include ALL images, not just gallery images.

This way, if anyone is really interested in seeing all specimens that are available from a site, they can see, even if they are not listed in the public galleries.

So don't worry, your photos are not completely hidden - they are available to all.

9th Mar 2015 19:50 UTCJohn R. Montgomery 🌟 Expert

Thank you Jolyon. I'm glad you agreed. I'm sure the busy manager saw how many specimens I uploaded from this pocket and was rightly trying to pick out the better specimens from such a load and missed this one.

With kind regards to yourself and all the managers for their work on Mindat.

John

9th Mar 2015 20:04 UTCRock Currier Expert

I have uploaded a number of images that I assign to my user only gallery. Its a handy place to store them, and I can easily refer anyone to them just by sending them the URL of the large size image. You own the copyright to your own images unless you specified that it was public domain.

10th Mar 2015 22:08 UTCIan Whitlock

Ya, I've seen quite a few great looking specimens "slip through the cracks" and get labeled as User-Gallery Only. For example, this was one of my better Drusy Quartz over Chrysocolla specimens from Ray and it didn't get approved. Nevertheless, I understand that Mindat has to go through hundreds of photos everyday and it must be a daunting task.

http://www.mindat.org/photo-644299.html

10th Mar 2015 22:14 UTCAlfredo Petrov Manager

Ian, that lovely specimen would have undoubtedly been approved if you'd taken your fingers out of the photo ;-)

11th Mar 2015 08:00 UTCRock Currier Expert

I don't mind the fingers. Makes for a good scale.

11th Mar 2015 15:44 UTCUwe Kolitsch Manager

"I don't mind the fingers. Makes for a good scale."

I guess finger sizes can vary quite a lot, up to a factor of 2(?).

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