There are about 75,000 images total across all of ATP. These images are mostly in the forums.

I'm working on a system where you can take an image in the forums and propose that it be added to the database under a specific plant.

I will also set it up so that if you don't want your images to be considered, I can opt you out of this.

On any photo that was proposed for the DB and was subsequently approved, the person who uploaded the photo would be awarded an acorn. Additionally, the person who proposed the image would receive half an acorn (unless it was your own photo in which case you just get the 1 acorn)

So, is this feature something that a lot of you would make good use of?

yes!! there are a lot of good quality images in the forums and their owners don't think of the database...this would save us from always having to ask them to do it!

threegardeners said:this would save us from always having to ask them to do it!

That is precisely my thought, too.

That would be so exciting, Dave. Sue and I have always begged people to post their photos in the database, but they rarely do. There are hundreds and hundreds of images, dating way back to the earliest days of our Cubits database, that we could propose.

I remember very well the difficulties in getting people to submit to the database. A lot of members have wonderful photos and they love posting them to the forums (where it's easy) but submitting it to the database is intimidating to a lot of people.

This way, we get a win-win all the way around!

I'll get this feature in soon.

I think we'd get a lot more images in the database.

Karen

I am a big cheerleader for the databases & beg all the time, I often add direct links to the database entry right in my post, most of the time that works as it's now so easy for them to just click on my link I provided. This was a recent one I posted, that's too time consuming to do very often so this new feature will be awesome!!
http://garden.org/thread/view_...

Great idea Dave Thank you so much...

I copied a bunch of my photos yesterday and today from Cubits an posted them on the database here.

Went to your "old" garden too, and copied some of my own images from that database to this one

This database is so much easier to navigate. I'm so grateful and thank you.

When I add a photo to the Database I consider If there is already a better photo of the same thing.
If anyone can send any photo to the database will they look to see if there is already 20 photos of the plant ? or does that matter?

Yes, I did that too.

There are two I didn't add because the photo's there were better than mine. That said, I did a couple to the one or two that were already there.

Good Question...Dave?

Although, I did appreciate having a number of views of the same pic in a certain other plantfile. Sometimes, there were slight variations of the same pic (different colors, etc.), and sometimes the pics were taken at a different stage in the life of the plant/veggie...

These variations were, sometimes, very helpful in identifications and decision-making...

"Oh, I didn't know it came in orange, too!" and so forth....

Cinda, I think people will automatically have to look at the other images and take them into consideration if Dave sets it up as a system in which we not only propose a photo for inclusion, but also have to provide a link to the entry (or perhaps even have to create an entry for it if one doesn't already exist).

More is better when it comes to photos, for all the reasons one can imagine. The system can support an almost infinite number, and as was said above, often even slight variations in a photo can be helpful.

The one thing we don't want is duplicates.

Moreover, if a plant already has a bunch of nice photos and the new image in question doesn't really add much, consider passing it up.

Anyway, the feature is ready!! I'll post a new thread on how to do it right now.

Will the system know and alert a duplicate? Or is that up to the moderator?
I guess I can see several people seeing a particularly beautiful photo and all proposing it .

Not trying to be a negative , just wondering

gardengus said:Will the system know and alert a duplicate?

Once an image is proposed, that's it and if someone else tries to propose the same image, it will give an error message.

I just knew the computer was smarter than me.

Just looked at my external hard drive and found MORE images to post

dave said: A lot of members have wonderful photos and they love posting them to the forums (where it's easy) but submitting it to the database is intimidating to a lot of people.

Exactly! I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I do not know what's what in the garden. I only know what I like and I take pictures of it. So if there's a photo in a forum with no ID, is it likely to be added by someone else to the DB anyway?

I'm the same way. I find the database a bit intimidating. For example...I have some lovely photos of my Helen's Flower (Helenium) but when I tried to add it to the database I found 3 pages!! of Helenium!!

eeeek!!