yes, Dave is the one who can split threads.

Robin, I keep forgetting you're a moderator, too because I look for the microbadge and don't see it. Plus, I don't spend any time in the Mid-Atlantic forum. I'd be totally lost!

the purple flower is
Corn Cockle (Agrostemma githago 'Milas')

Hi Melanie. I think the moderator title only shows up when you're posting in the forum that you moderate... I do have a micro badge

Robin, you have about a million microbadges when I click on your user page but I only see twelve up in the corner of your posts and the moderator one isn't among them. That's what I tend to look for to identify other moderators since the title only shows up in the forum you moderate, as you said.

New rule - name the plant your bee friend or other friend is on! Okay, Melanie politely asks that you include the name of the plant if you know it. That Corn Cockle is beautiful and I just Googled it and learned stuff.

Melanie, I think a lot of people don't put their moderator microbadges in their 12-badge lineup!

I don't have that many microbadges. I guess I'm not a collector.

Okay guys, here's your new thread. Robin, I accidentally deleted one of your posts. It was either you or someone quoting you. Just where I think you said you would like to have a pollinator database. It was only two lines or so. I'm half asleep trying to do this so I'm going to bed while you guys brainstorm new ideas for ATP!

Robin, I still had a tab open in Chrome with your post so I didn't lose it competely. You said, "I agree, Crittergarden--to me the pollinators add to the photo. Would be great to have a pollinator database."

Discuss!

thanks, Melanie! It would have been fine to have left it out, but thanks for going to the trouble of including it.

I was feeling guilty! I hate making mistakes.

Okay, now you are all free to discuss your thoughts about if you would like to see a pollinator database or not, how you approach adding images to the plant database if they include pollinators, and everything else you were talking about.

dirtdorphins said:Close--
There is only one main thumbnail for each plant. There is not a thumbnail for each gallery.

The thumbs thing is very simple.
Photos appear beneath the plant entry in the order in which they are submitted.
If people like a photo and give it a thumb, it moves up within the list of all photos beneath the plant entry.
The photo with the most thumbs becomes the main thumbnail.

If there is only one image it is the main thumbnail.
If no photos receive any thumbs, the first one entered is the main thumbnail.

manipulation? sure
corruption? what the? I mean, no, I don't think that is the point at all.

Thank you for clearing up the "main thumbnail for each plant; not gallery, dirt. I thought "gallery" did not make sense but that's how i read it.

There is only one purpose for a database and that is to provide data and the obligation is to provide correct data. I see manipulation as a form of corruption of data in this case. So they go hand in hand, thumb in thumb. From my perspective, the thumbs add politics to the database in the form of leaving it open to manipulation (aka corruption of data). I don't believe this aspect has any place in a true database. If a database leaves itself open to manipulation (for example if someone wants to change the main thumbnail), then it is not a credible d/b. I think it is fine to be able to give thumbs and/or acorns to the database photos. I don't think it is fine that the thumbs and/or acorns are used to select the main thumbnail or the positions of the photos in the gallery.

I'm not sure I agree with what you're saying, Beverly. Thumbs represent that people like a photo. If someone likes a photo, they give it a thumb. If a photo someone really likes is '2nd in line' and giving it a thumb moves it up, then giving it that thumb is not 'manipulating' (in the negative 'corrupting' sense you are describing), but simply a vote to move a photo up. It's not possible to take a photo way down in the 'like' space and move it to the top simply by giving it a thumb.

However, I think this thread (since we are being purists about threads) is about how we represent pollinators and other bugs in the database, and not about thumbs per se. Perhaps the 'thumb' issue would be best handled by starting a thread in the 'site talk' forum? It is really a site issue and not a pollinator/bug issue.

In the original thread in the plant forum, which evidently is not there anymore, Calif_Sue had some concerns regarding how adding pollenators would affect the database images and particularly the main thumbnail. I wasn't sure i knew what she was talking about, but now i know. I did not respond to her concerns because i did not understand them. Sue is the plants administrator so i give her credit for knowing what she is talking about. I am addressing her concerns because i respect them and am offering ideas regarding those concerns.

Of course--so glad to hear of your respect and of course all constructive suggestions related to this issue are welcome.

Catmint20906 said:
I think what we could do here is unique and does *not* seek to duplicate resources that other sites are better equipped to provide. Following on Asa's excellent point about the interrelatedness of plants and bugs/pollinators, the database we could create could highlight that--eg, as Asa said, the parent (?) roses page could provide links to aphids and rose sawfly larvae, and the milkweed database to Monarchs and Queens, depending on the species. And so on. Bugs and pollinators are a fact of life for gardeners and not an unnecessary interloper whose subject matter only belongs properly on someone else's site.

So, I really like the idea of finding a way to provide links in the plant database to pollinators and other bugs that could serve as an extremely useful tool *for gardeners* (not for entomologists or lepidopterists).

YES
I really think we could do some amazing, unique, and incredibly useful things here.
The potential is grand--it may be a bit bumpy getting to the point of tapping into it though


Cripes--I am really sorry that I polluted "my own" thread with my own brazen opinions about the thing and that I'm apparently not done yet...

Catmint20906 said:
However, I think this thread (since we are being purists about threads) is about how we represent pollinators and other bugs in the database, and not about thumbs per se. Perhaps the 'thumb' issue would be best handled by starting a thread in the 'site talk' forum? It is really a site issue and not a pollinator/bug issue.

Because of the issue with "bug pics" getting thumbs and becoming the main thumbnail for a plant and that being undesirable for many people, the thumb issue is very much a part of the if and how questions regarding representing pollinators and other bugs in the database, now.
The Plant Database Forum was a fine place for the original thread...
and this one is here, sobeit, at least some of the ideas are not lost...
I still think that the ideas/issues involved here might be more fitting for the Site Talk Forum, now, but whatever...

vitrsna said:
There is only one purpose for a database and that is to provide data and the obligation is to provide correct data. I see manipulation as a form of corruption of data in this case. So they go hand in hand, thumb in thumb. From my perspective, the thumbs add politics to the database in the form of leaving it open to manipulation (aka corruption of data). I don't believe this aspect has any place in a true database. If a database leaves itself open to manipulation (for example if someone wants to change the main thumbnail), then it is not a credible d/b. I think it is fine to be able to give thumbs and/or acorns to the database photos. I don't think it is fine that the thumbs and/or acorns are used to select the main thumbnail or the positions of the photos in the gallery.

This is a very interesting perspective Beverly, and I do see your point.
However, regarding the database images, I see the data as being the images themselves; whatever other data the image itself contains (camera/settings/watermark) if present; the submitter; and the date, location, and caption, if provided. The date submitted is also captured but not displayed.
This data set is not manipulated or corrupted or discredited in any way by the relative position of the image.
And, as you pointed out regarding image placement, "Anyone visiting the d/b can clearly view the gallery of photos and choose which ones to select for closer inspection." This is true. It is quite possible that the position of the image is irrelevant data.

And yet, as it is, the position of the images is a different set of data, reflecting both the relative timeline of submission for images without thumbs as well as the number of thumbs images with thumbs have received, which are clearly displayed beneath the images. You can even click on the number and see the members that thumbed the image.
This particular set of data is what it is. It is also not manipulated or corrupted or incorrect.

From your perspective, "the thumbs add politics to the database in the form of leaving it open to manipulation (aka corruption of data)."
From my perspective, the thumbs add a record to the database of specific members who click on the thumb thingy, for whatever reason.
Again, the data are what they are.
In fact, even when an image is "override" selected as the main thumbnail for a plant, the position of that image beneath the plant entry still reflects the number of thumbs it has received. There are images that are serving as the main thumbnail when they have fewer thumbs than other images and the position of those images as displayed within the gallery on the page does not change i.e. it is accurate according to the number of thumbs. Thus, the data are still what they are--nothing erroneous about it.

Now, the only thing I am aware of that is actually manipulated (aka corrupted) --on rare occasion-- is the override selection of an image to serve as the main thumbnail.

I have concluded that the selection of the main thumbnail is the point of contention that warrants discussion and hopefully resolution--both for the "bug pic" concerns as well as the general credibility issue raised by the inconsistency of some main thumbnails selected by Admin override while others are selected by the number of member thumbs (for whatever reason --politics? preference? religion? haha now I am just making an inappropriate joke--sorry).

Despite its potential to become whatever it has the potential to become, the ATP database is currently for all of us--the users of and contributors to the database. While it is a resource that provides data, it has many unique features that many members use extensively as a multi-functional tool to mine the data beyond the images alone. As such, the main thumbnail does have more significance and utility to us collectively than a random point of data.
I will wager that the majority of users and contributors do prefer to see a differentiating image in the main thumbnail (for example, if browsing iris cultivars under the letter 'T' brings up images of rhizomes and leaves it might not be as useful to differentiate among particular cultivars). For this reason, I think that the main thumbnail serves a function for us that every other image does not and that it is appropriate for the database to have an algorithm to select a "reasonably good" main thumbnail. The set-up for auto-selection of the main thumbnail is fairly elegant, overall, IMO, and generally results in the selection of good images, over time, to serve as the main thumbnail.
I don't think that the fact that the main thumbnail can change as more images are added to the data pool is a bad thing. With a crowd-sourced data pool as this is, the first image posted to the database for a particular plant may be the only one there is for a while, but it might not be the most useful image to serve as the main thumbnail forever (such as emerging growth or a bulb), so I see it as a good thing that members can give thumbs to new images and thus help to select new main thumbnails, rather than a corruption of the existing data.

Even when the main thumbnail is selected by Admin override, I don't really see it as a corruption of data per se. All of the data is still there unchanged, just the main thumbnail is made more consistent/useful/functional/appropriate/better/something? for users of the database.
For example
Rose (Rosa 'Therese Bugnet')
If you are searching medium-pink, shade tolerant roses, it is probably much more consistent/useful/functional/appropriate/better to have images of the bloom appear next to the cultivar names rather than an image of fall leaf color showing up for one rose, just saying! And the fact that an Administrator chose to select a good bloom picture for the main thumbnail does not corrupt the existing data or discredit the database in my perspective at all.

The "override" option is used most often in the databases that came here from Cubits (Rose, Clematis, Iris, etc.). There were no "thumbs" in Cubits, and there were no "thumbs" in the early days of the ATP database. Many superior photos therefore have no "thumbs" or just happen to get one or two when people see them come up as random photos.

I always appreciate levity dirt, so don't apologize. I really don't have a stake in this discussion. In the original discussion (which has evidently now disappeared) Calif_Sue expressed some concern (regarding the question of a pollinator database tied to the plant files) regarding how the main database thumbnail was chosen and the possibility that all of the main d/b thumbnails would wind up including pollinators (since, per Sue, these images seem to receive lots of thumbs). Some members take the choice of the main d/b thumbnail very seriously. I am not suggesting that Calif_Sue does, and i know that i couldn't care less. But Sue is the Plants Admin, and i figure she has some reasons for her concern. Therefore, i set out to offer alternative ideas about how the main thumbnail could be chosen (or eliminated in such a way that the majority of main images wouldn't all have bugs (not to be confused with computer bugs) in them.

The two alternative possibilities i suggested were 1) to eliminate the main d/b thumbnail altogether or 2) that the main d/b thumbnails rotate on a regular basis (including all gallery photos per plant). Members would still be able to give thumbs and acorns to the d/b photos but the selection of the main thumbnail would not rely on the thumb count.

This conversation has been difficult to follow, because the beginning of it has disappeared, and the remainder has been fractured into many pieces here and there. It is even difficult for one to know if one has read all of the related posts.

Personally, i can see how a separate bug d/b would function. I do not have any idea of how a pollinator d/b, connected to the plant files would function. What i really wonder is if people really want a pollinator d/b at all (considering things like one type of pollinator could potentially pollinate 40,000 different flowers, etc) but from what i have managed to read, a "pollinator gallery" (as opposed to a pollinator d/b) would be very workable and imho preferable.

As i say, i don't have an agenda in this matter. I have offered my suggestions and preferences and it is up to other people who have an agenda to continue to work through this to some conclusion, or not. I am officially out of the picture. So good luck and i hope you give the idea of a "pollinator gallery" instead of a "pollinator d/b", some consideration. I see a considerable advantage here.