In the moderator's queue of photos waiting for approval "The only action available to you here is to upvote submissions by giving them a thumbs-up."

If I give a thumb's up to a photo waiting for moderator's approval in the queue, am I
1. saying "this is a beautiful photo" or
2. saying to moderators "this photo is definitely an image of the plant it claims to be"

???

Having a senior moment I guess.

Karen

It's #2.

Thanks, Dave.

Karen

I always had thought it was #1.........after it is approved does it become #2?

The reason I asked was I have become kind of addicted to looking at all the new images added. I don't "thumb up" many in the queue because while I might admire the pretty picture I'm not really sure what it is!

I do enjoy watching those new images though. Who new there were so many daylilies? Or sempervivum? I've never grown semps, never thought much of them. But now I know I need some.

Karen

I know what you mean, Karen. I love moderating these images because it gives me a chance to see each one.

Paul, you're somewhat right. The thumbs up survive the moderation process. Initially the idea is that by giving a thumbs up, you are indicating to the moderators that you agree with the proposal, i.e., this is a quality image that indeed belongs to the plant that it was submitted to.

Once the plant is approve, the thumbs-up is copied along and becomes a "quality vote" for that image.

I guess I misunderstood the purpose the thumbs up, too. I remember reading somewhere else on the site that people should be more generous with their thumbs-up, and use it to express approval or appreciation for pictures or posts. As I went through the moderation queue, I used it to indicate which ones were good, clear pictures that helped make the plant identifiable. I wasn't necessarily intending it to mean that I recognized that particular cultivar, or confirmed that they matched. I hope I didn't inadvertently "approve" some misposted photos.

Speaking of which, today when I went to the moderation queue, the thumbs up feature was gone. Was that only for a limited period of time?

Angie

I am now also concerned that I am giving a thumbs-up to a post only for the quality of the picture. There are many posts of plants that I do not recognize but I think are wonderful pictures. For example there are many quality pictures of daylilies posted each day and I would like to give a great picture of a gorgeous daylily a thumbs up but I am not familiar with all the varieties so I can't contribute anything as to if the picture is really one of the named plant. Should only those who grow or have seen the DL give a thumbs-up? It seems a thumbs-up should only be given if it is a plant I recognize, including the variety. I thought I was leaving that to people more knowledgeable than I am. Also many things are posted that do not grow in my area so I can only trust someone else to confirm ID. I'll bet you get tired of our suggestions and that would be justified but here is one more. If I were someone new to ATP and just getting interested in hosta, as an example, could the first listing be 10 or 12 good pictures of individual plants and garden scenes of hosta chosen by the moderator. Maybe these could be changed occasionally. We would not be able to add to this listing. It could also give suggestions for the new person about using the site. If I were new and wanted to look at hosta now I would find a bewildering list of names and very few pictures. I think Polly has done this on iris. Many thanks for all your efforts!

And then there is me that thought the thumbs up had something to do with google finding us easier

Call me stupid

I've quit doing them as well.

I feel really embarrassed because I was giving thumbs up to a lot of photo's in the moderator "waiting" queue. I didn't know a thing about many of those plants, I was giving the thumbs up because they were beautiful pictures.

I think the feature has now been removed to make it easier for the moderators. We can always thumbs up pic's after they've been approved. Just click on Plants at the top of the page and those photo's on the left are (I think) the most recent ones that have been approved. If we like what we see we can click to enlarge and then give the thumbs up.

Ideally, you should click on the photo as Lin says, but then look at all of the other photos of the same plant and give the thumbs-up to the one (or ones) you like best. The ones with the most thumbs-up votes will end up as the thumbnails on the browse pages for the genera.

I think this problem will persist as long as new people join ATP and don't understand thumbs-up. I now think that most of the thumbs-up I've received on my profile were not deserved and many I have given were improper also. That really really doesn't matter. No more thumbs-up from me.

I know first hand that receiving a thumb on a post of mine or a picture I've uploaded, makes me feel really good.

If that's all thumbs did, then I think they would be worth doing.

But they also provide this service, letting the best photos float to the top. I don't think a blurry shot is going to get as many thumbs as a crisp beautiful shot.

But I do think we need a better system to allow moderators to over-ride the votes and assign top position to an image regardless of how many thumbs it and the other images for that plant get.

It seems like that would pretty much resolve this altogether. What do you all think?

That's a great idea, Dave.

Paul, all of the thumbs-up votes I've given you were well deserved.

Also, to answer your question about the photos and text on the main pages, I didn't see Polly's on the Iris page, but I wrote an introduction and some growing instructions on the Rosa page and Dave wrote several paragraphs about Crepe Myrtles on the Lagerstroemia page, but I don't see them anymore, so Dave must be tweaking the system.

Dave...every image in the database is assigned "label" when we upload it. Bloom, Leaves, seed, etc.

Can't you just program the system to auto assign photos with a bloom label to the top position?
That way, the blooms will show and we can all go back to merrily handing out thumbs ups?

Lee Anne, there are plants with multiple "bloom" shots of varying quality, so that doesn't solve the problem. Besides, some plants have better-looking leaves (Coleus, for instance), some don't have blooms, and sometimes the entire plant is a better representation than a bloom.

That seems so complex. I like Dave's idea of having everyone give as many thumbs-up as they want, but letting the moderators override the choice if there is a better photo for the thumbnail on the browsing page.

But would everyone actually go to every plant to choose a favorite? There are thousands of Daylily photos in the database, for instance, and I'm giving the photos I like a thumbs-up, but I'm never going to comb through the entries to choose my favorites for each cultivar, so I'll leave that up to the moderators.