I gave up on Geograph a few years ago after it got bogged down in arguments about whether a picture was valid or which NGR you put down, where you took the picture from or some arbitrary point in the picture.

MB

As I've had to do something similar, I have some sympathy with the geograph team, as the initial idea of a "geograph" will have been conceived without the realisation that it would have to deal with so many images from the actual spot, and the immediately surrounding area.

As the numbers grew, the definition and application of the rules will have changed to suit, but the numbers mean no-one can go back and re-classify those dealt with using previous rules, and as time passes and people change, interpretation becomes less well defined, and looking to the past doesn't help (because no-one has reclassified what was once "right", but is now "not quite right".

They are still trying to address these issues, for example, there are now option to look at pics taken from a square, not just of a square, BUT, who is going to go back through what is now approaching a quarter of a million photographs to see which ones should be reclassified or corrected?

Should they have locked a square and closed it to further pics once one was submitted? It would certainly have stopped common attractions having dozes of pictures online - but this is another issue for another day (and really not even our debate).

The geograph admins have to take a stance, right or wrong, otherwise nothing would get done.

My opening point wasn't meant as a criticism, but was an observation that I didn't understand, and arose from the number of times I had looked up a geograph picture - the content of which is down soleley to the contributing photographer, and not any geograph admin or definition - and the number of times I considered (and remember that "I") that there was an interesting subject lying in the square, but the photogrpaher had chosen to avoid it, and provide nice scenery, rather than a building or similar artefact.

Can I suggest again Geocoding all pictures.  I have spent the last week going through all my files of images extracting some to pass on and it can be quite difficult to remember where some were taken!  I use a GPS Tracker now and add the position to all images but it can be done from an ordinary GPS or even manually.  I use the GEOSETTER program (free) but others are available.

I also now try to scale to most things I photograph, I carry a few striped surveying poles and also some surveying / forensic style rules for laying alongside something to add a scale - sure we have all heard the famous story of the only ever Top Secret apple!  There is also a long tape measure in the back of my car and laser rangefinder (proper one not B&Q!) in the camera bag.

MB

I have never submitted a photograph to Geograph so have no experience of the processs/moderation etc..

In its early days I found it quite interesting but now it seems little more than yet another photostorage site.  Some views/ buildings seem to recur regularly, often with very similar pictures nowadays and some of the pics seem to be quite poor quality.  The OS map gismo is interesting but needs to be consistently applied, I would suggest as designating where the pic was taken from rather than the subject.

It's not picture hosting, so should not - and cannot - be compared with it.

It's purpose is to record the contents of an OS square.

Submitted pics are not hosted, and if you try and use it that way, you will receive a error warning, and may even find yourself blocked.

User images are not kept either, everything is reduced to 640x480 (where have I seen that before ), and the quality varies - damn those cameraphones!

I've never submitted any pics - I simply have none that are digital and relevant - but I have submitted numerous edits and corrections to the information contained, and discovered some photographers were "lost" when they took their pics. In all cases, the process has been without problem or dispute - and that's with me saying "Sorry, your description is wrong".

For what it's worth, I'm afraid designating a pic by where it was taken from is a complete non-starter.

Nine squares surround any given OS square for anyone using a camera with a standard lens, so you can immediately have nine squares as references for the same photograph.

If you have a zoom lens, then that figure is increased by 12, taking the total to 21, and if you have a long zoom, that adds another 16... a possible 37 squares around a given square.

And if you stand on a hilltop

I tend to think the square the subject is inside is the winner in this case, with little contest.

One of the early problems I alluded to was the lack of photographer location in the early days, but this was later corrected, although not all submitters provide full info.

This would have allowed the earlier option of the "Pics taken of" and "Pics taken from".

For the mathematicians among us, geograph is something of a gem. Why? because it is one of the few applications where the OS grid and the rectangular or Cartesian coordinates inherent in its use actually have an advantage over decimal degrees and lat/lon. The grid usually drives me up the wall, as all my online mapping applications and GPS work directly in decimal degrees, and need addition routines whenever local customisations are encountered.

And it is (or was, to be accurate) important. I was fairly shocked to learn that rather than store waypoints once, and convert the stored values for display, GPS systems actually converted the stored numbers every time you changed coordinate systems. Trivial and irrelevant for normal users, before online mapping services were available, I discovered all my stored waypoints were wandering about as I changed coordinate systems hundreds of times. This was needed when using paper OS maps and non-OS maps before proper digital maps were available.

Quoted from Captain Brittles

I never started this thread, was it not JMB who started it about Ravenscraig on the Clyde?
Admin is playing games.

Not guilty

Yes, I posted something here which has vanished! (The post referred remains in the original thread where it was posted - Admin)