[goosey]

There has been a bit of talk recently about “Key words” in the gallery submissions. "I" even said in a post, to use “search” to find specific images. However, I found by doing this in the simplest form like asking for moths, butterflies or dragonflies, there were pictures missing which I knew were there because I uploaded them!
It turns out that when I filled in the key word section on the orriginal uploads – I filled in the common, and the Latin name where possible but omitted words like butterfly! So people doing a basic, general search wouldn’t see these images. I have now gone through my own images and added more basic details.
This really does show how important it is to fill in the key words as fully as possible and not think “well everyone can see it’s a butterfly." It speeds things up and will make a much more comprehensive data base in future.

[Pudding4brains]

Hi all,
I totally agree with goosey. More importantly, even if you don't know (exactly) what it is at upload please do go back and update title and keywords once you've gotten an ID for it. I think using the info you've obtained is also a nice way of showing that you appreciate the help from the experts and the time they put in.

Myself, I try to put in higher taxon names as much as possible too so that even within say "Insects and Invertebrates" searches for scientific family names or orders will give the subset you expect (at some point).

As the gallery guidelines (or was it on WAB?) suggest putting the sex/gender in brackets I've started putting order and family (or other better suited taxa, depending on the group) in the title in square brackets. I'm not suggesting everyone should do this and I'm more than willing to go back and change it again, but as a general principle it may be a suggestion we could talk about ... here .. ?

So I've now named images something like:

• Common Striped Woodlouse juvenile - Philoscia muscorum [Isopoda: Oniscidea]
• Ant Woodlouse (female) - Platyarthrus hoffmanseggii [Isopoda: Oniscidea]
• Ladybirds - Halyzia sedecimguttata and Calvia decemguttata [Coccinellidae]

Problem with the last one (two sci. names in it) is that it's getting too long to also include the order name.

Any other thoughts on "good working practices"??
Arp

[paul m]

Highly commendable, of course. The one thing that worries me is people putting in an identification (or whatever) that is wrong. Clearly newcomers may then come in and think that their picture is the same as the wrongly labelled one .... ignorance and chaos grows!

I tried to amend some of my poorly keyed pictures a few weeks ago and couldn't do it - probably my incompetence. Shall have another go!

[goosey]

Originally Posted by paul m

The one thing that worries me is people putting in an identification (or whatever) that is wrong. Clearly newcomers may then come in and think that their picture is the same as the wrongly labelled one .... ignorance and chaos grows!

Yes you are right - when you put it like that! Or even if one has spelled it correctly in the first place , (something I have been guilty of - spelling it incorrectly in the first instance then copying and pasting the mistake .)

It's certainly more than the simple case of putting "moth" after "The Herald Scoliopteryx libatrix" in key words.

[paul m]

There's a difference between a mis-spelling and a typo! I, who have all of these things imprinted on my memory (or what's left of it), still write a load of rubbish at times! We all do or will type incorrect things - the important thing is to correct them asap!

Yes, chosing keywords is more complex than it seems at first and we shouldn't expect too much of newcomers (to the site or to identification). I'll be tolerant of them if they'll be tolerant of me!

Originally Posted by goosey

Yes you are right - when you put it like that! Or even if one has spelled it correctly in the first place , (something I have been guilty of - spelling it incorrectly in the first instance then copying and pasting the mistake .)

It's certainly more than the simple case of putting "moth" after "The Herald Scoliopteryx libatrix" in key words.

[Pudding4brains]

Hi,
About spelling and all that - this is probably going to be a bigger problem here on WATW anyway as the whole site is more internationally focused and will attract people with limited "English skills" (such as yours truly).

It gets out of hand quite quickly, especially with terms like "Shield bug" or "Hover fly" where some people seem to feel these should be spelled with a space and others spell them spaceless (I actually wouldn't even know what's supposed to be right, just like the single word versions better). This affects searchability. Or what to do with plurals? Woodlouse and Woodlice? Two quite different search terms.

No way you will get all the titles right or "complete" so the keywords are the only way to go and it would mean including both single and multiple word versions of names, singular an plural versions, as many taxon-levels as possible, locality (at least the country, maybe finer grained) and preferably some "time of year data" such as the month or 'summer' or such.

It would be good to have at least a very clear guideline in the FAQ of what would be considered good practice (after discussing it here), but I feel it would be a much better idea to have such things as separate input boxes on the upload form, possibly required to fill in select, but clearly also with options "unknown" or "not applicable".

One other thing that I have been wondering about is the possibility of selecting multiple "Categories" per image. A bird eating a butterfly. A shieldbug from Africa. That sort of thing. You would not need to select one "place" to upload, but use the categories (and/or search results!) to assemble Galleries/Views of things. One thing I would really like personally for example is to have the same viewing options that the galleries offer also on the search results as opposed the one view offered now.

Well enough of my ramblings on that ... you people any thoughts?
Arp

[goosey]

I think we are losing the point a bit and making life too complicated for ourselves and everyone else. There is the chance of scaring people off who may think it's all too technical and that WATW is for experts - it's not - it's for everyone to enjoy and share their thoughts and images along the way. We all learn and pick things up here, but basiclly most of us are enthusiastic amateurs.
Example - A year or so ago, to me there were red, yellow or black ladybirds and 2 spots were babies because they were small - I had no idea! Places like WAB and WATW charged my enthusiasm and curiosity - if it had been full of scientific words, taxomony etc - I would never have stuck around, I am still feeling my way so many fields. We must be careful not to bury the forum in complexities!

[paul m]

Originally Posted by goosey

I think we are losing the point a bit and making life too complicated for ourselves and everyone else. There is the chance of scaring people off who may think it's all too technical and that WATW is for experts - it's not - it's for everyone to enjoy and share their thoughts and images along the way. We all learn and pick things up here, but basiclly most of us are enthusiastic amateurs.

Oh yes - we should recommend a 'best practise' but make it clear that all contributions are welcome!

[Suzanne B]

How do you update the title or keywords on your own photos in the Gallery?
I've just had a quick look and I want to add the word 'Butterfly' to a couple of mine but I'm not sure how to do it.
Thanks

[ericrovve]

You click on one of those icons underneath - the one that says Edit, Suzanne

[Suzanne B]

Thanks Eric.
I did look there before ....honestly.....but I never saw it!
I've got a feeling this is all going to get a bit complicated for me!

[Pudding4brains]

Originally Posted by Suzanne B

I've got a feeling this is all going to get a bit complicated for me!

No worries, you can do it! I totally overlooked the little icons too at first

As to the remark by Goosey to not scare people away:
It doesn't have to look "SCARY" to offer a structured means of providing extra data on the photographed subject. If anything, it would make things clearer and easier as it would take away much/some of the doubts as to what sort of data (keywords) to provide.

Imagine a block on the input form that states:

Please fill in as many of the fields below as you feel you can or have time for. You may also leave these at default, but filling some will help tremendously in keeping the image repository organized and searchable. Thanks!
- - - - -
Locality and Date:
Continent: [ v] Country: [ ] Region/city: [ ]
Date: [ ] Month of year: [ v]

Vernacular name: [ ]
Scientific ID:
Order:[ v] Family: [ ] Other taxon: [ ]
Genus:[ ] Species: [ ]

Of course, that should be refined. Some can be roll down selection boxes etc etc and maybe it's even possible to have some of the options/fields variable depneding on previous selections ... thoughs and discussion needed.

But offering it in such a way provides more "guidance" to newbies than a free form "Keywords" I think.

[paul m]

Could anyone clarify which fields are searched when one does a search in the gallery? Presumably the keywords and the title but what about descriptions, replies and comments?

I've had a couple of experiences lately when searching for various items - e.g. mantis or mantid - where I know these terms have been used for a photo (although not necessarily in title or, perhaps keyword. Quite possibly some of my early pictures weren't given keywords ....

[goosey]

Originally Posted by paul m

Could anyone clarify which fields are searched when one does a search in the gallery? Presumably the keywords and the title but what about descriptions, replies and comments?

I've had a couple of experiences lately when searching for various items - e.g. mantis or mantid - where I know these terms have been used for a photo (although not necessarily in title or, perhaps keyword. Quite possibly some of my early pictures weren't given keywords ....

I don't know if this still applies with all the recent changes to the softwear here. I had noticed a while back that when I did a search that the words were found in the "image details" as well as title and Key words but only if they happened to be in the first paragragh. ie, if I mentioned the place date and country of an ID first, then added any other details and observations etc, none of the latter would be found in the search. For that reason I always put the place a nd date after all the other details.
I don't think that actual comments come up inthe Key word search though.

(What I really do love about the WATW gallery over the WAB gallery is that here people want to share the extra info about things what happened that day and places which makes the images so more interesting.)