nap said: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?

Certainly, if the person knows what kind of plant it is.

What if they get it wrong? I will soon have a system where anybody can come along and propose that an image in the database be moved to a different plant.

Might it help get more photos to have a forum designed to be a kind of *catch-all* for good, but unknown or uncertain of, photos?

For instance, I have a lot of photos of which I'm uncertain of cultivar names, etc. I know it's an iris; I know it's a TB, but other than that I know nothing. Someone who is more knowledgeable about irises could scan through the unknown iris images in that forum, find ones that they know what they are, and then propose them.

Just a thought.

In fact, we have such a forum: http://garden.org/forums/view/...

Thank you, Dave.

THANK YOU so much for this link.

I found some beautiful blooms on my external hard drive from my garden a few years ago but have no idea what their name is.

Thank you!

oooo...it even works in tree-mails!!

dave said:

Certainly, if the person knows what kind of plant it is.

What if they get it wrong? I will soon have a system where anybody can come along and propose that an image in the database be moved to a different plant.

You read my mind. Thanks!

Lee Anne, what do you mean about Tree mail? If someone TMs you a photo, you can add it from there?

yup!

I just realized that Boojum has transferred over from Cubits a couple of threads of Orchid photos I took at our Botanical Gardens. Of course I know absolutely nothing about Orchids. So I hope someone will ID them and add them to the DB if they are needed.

When adding a photo from the threads to the database that some one else posted, will it still keep their ID watermarking?

Yes it will, Lynn.

Great. Thank you so much Dave. : )

With so many people using this method of submitting images, there now is a problem with multiple duplicates. I just noticed some of my images from the Huechera forum were submitted this morning, they weren't all caught by the moderator and I had to go submit proposals for each one to remove the duplicates. Maybe there should be another step added somewhere where it suggests the submitters check the entry first before proceeding to add a new image.

Actually, the Heucheras happened because I imported the Heuchera database from Cubits.org this morning.

So, if you had an image in that database, it got added here, as well. But I tried to remove the duplicates that I could find.

Other than this, there shouldn't be duplicates coming in from the forum import unless the user uploaded it directly into the database and subsequently someone else proposed it to be imported, which will hopefully be a more rare occurrence.

Ah I see. I had added mine last week so there were several duplicates.

If more than one person submits the same photo, (many want those acorns!) unless the moderator opens the entry itself to check it before approving it, you won't know if that photo is already in the system. This morning I had 53 daylily images waiting for approval and quickly approved them, now I am going back through each one adding the details, as much as I can before heading out into the garden anyways. That's when I would see duplicates.

Calif_Sue said:If more than one person submits the same photo,

Here's the thing, though: two people can't propose the same image to be added, because the system will see that as a duplicate.

However, if a person uploads a photo into the forums, then later goes and uploads the same photo directly into the database, the system does not know that this was the same exact photo. (It can't actually see the photo and know what it looks like. It can only look at the filename).

That's the only scenario where a duplicate could be created.

The real ultimate solution for this problem is to have the system programmed to be able to actually view an image and compare it to all other images in the database, and look for duplicates that way. This will be a huge challenge... it's going on my "really want to do one day" list.

Oh, I see, that's great that it can't be submitted from a thread twice, didn't know that.
Since I do upload a lot of my own, some of mine may be proposed from threads too. I thought if something written like in red, suggesting they click the entry first, which is the step I have been doing out of habit, they can see if it hadn't already been added to the database by the photographer. For me, that has happened in a few cases already. It also helped me when I saw a discrepancy between an image already in the database and the proposed one. I then knew one or the other was incorrect.

You've got it.

This is definitely a "need to really perfect one day" issue. For now, we're 95% of the way there.

As for the Heucheras, I'm currently working through the duplicates and deleting them.

Coolio