New rule for Spotting category

Real World Aviation Spotting
1

Starting today, all new thread should have a maximum of 10 pictures. Make sure you select the absolute best from your spotting session!

We are making this change for a couple reasons:

  • pics take a lot of storage space on the server; with our growing numbers we will soon reach our current limit.
  • we want to promote quality over quantity.

Happy spotting!

70 Likes
2
3

Will do that from now on. Thanks for the notice, Philippe!

5 Likes
4

Aww man! Logical reason though! @JRRaviation might wanna take a look at this one.

3 Likes
5

What if all the pictures you’re posting are 100% amazing quality? I don’t see the problem with that.

EDIT: Nvm I see why.

13 Likes
6

Got it Philippe. Thanks for the heads up

1 Like
7

This rule is great for improving quality, although I have a few questions;

  1. Limiting all threads to 10 photos may be too harsh. Are there any exceptions for large airshows where you will probably have more than 10 good shots?
  2. I’m assuming this also covers people posting multiple threads to get all their shots in?
  3. I know you came to 10 after much consideration, but would it be possible to raise this to 15?
  4. Another thing you can consider adding in is a max upload size for a thread, so we could have more photos at a lower resolution. I don’t have much experience with website storage, but this could be a compromise.

Thanks!

6 Likes
8

I’m not sure spotters would be keen with reducing quality for quantity. About the 15 photos and airshows, as a spotter I can say I usually take 1000-1500 pictures each spotting trip, and keep 20-40 of them (all high quality too). At airshows, I take around 2000 pictures, it depends. I don’t think 5 extra pictures in a topic won’t make much difference.

3 Likes
10

As a spotter myself, I understand what you mean. The 15 was just a ballpark number, but if the limit was set all the way down at 10, there must be some serious problems with space. It’s more the airshows that I’m worried about, those can easily hit 50 shots for large shows.

We’ll just wait for Philippe’s reply, see what he says.

2 Likes
11

Pick your best 10, if you have more you could always link to an external photo storage service that contain the rest at the end of the post.

Don’t try to game the system :)

10 for now, we will see how it improve the quality of posts and reassess in the future.

We already have a max size; I rather see fewer great quality pics than many lower res pics.

We will continue monitoring and adjusting rules as we go.

6 Likes
12

Adding onto this, Google Drive is a great service to link external photos with.

3 Likes
13

We still have some margin with storage, just trying to be proactive here.

I personally really want to see the best of the best here, unique pictures, unique angles … etc.

1 Like
15

10 photos is a very small amount to tell a story with. With spotting, it’s about sharing a story with the pictures you take. All your pictures combined
share a story. I don’t see the reason, other than server storage, why we should always limit it to 10. There has to be another solution, as this is only a temporary fix.

2 Likes
16

Indeed; upload your 10 best, add a link at the bottom for the rest of the album (or your own photography blog if you want traffic).

3 Likes
17

Not really a fan of this but I can respect it. Went spotting currently and took 32 good ones. I have a question however. What if someone exceeds that limit by one or two photos. Do you let them off or give them a warning, or tell them to remove a few pictures. Some may find more pictures very intriguing to view. Just a question I thought I may address if someone does not read this and decided to share.

18

Is not entirely limiting you, you can post 10 and as Philippe said link it to a external storage service

19

So you’re saying that 10-13 pictures is the new rule? Just upload 10 to avoid conflict and problems.

21

I’m actually glad with these changes, I’ve seen some very excellent photos from our marvelous spotters in the community. But I’ve also seen some where it is like “now this might be a 787 or 777 can’t tell”. I think making this will lead to pictures that look like you are there with the amazing quality they will have. I think this is a good decision by the staff at FDS. I know many people may be against this, but what if a preset or so,eating like that in the IFC itself limits how many photos can be uploaded in each post/topic so if someone goes over the limit, there won’t be endless links to this topic over and over again. For example, in the Best Photos topic some posts have 20+ photos in them I think this should not only be implemented in the spotting category, but also in other categories. Anyways, have a great rest of your day to whoever is reading this ;)

2 Likes
22

Good is subjective.

This forum is not a photo sharing website; we are not google or facebook (and clearly do not have the same resources).

8 Likes
23

Looking into this more, I can see where the staff is coming from. They want the Spotting catergory to be a place to share your experience level, and not to show off how many pictures you can take. If people like what they see, then they can look into it more. I like that fact that they are allowing you to post links to your personal websites and cloud storages, but couldn’t this become a security issue? What if some random kid posts some pictures of planes and then posts a google drive link with non-related inappropriate pictures? Would you guys have to update the TOS with this issue? Also, will mods now have to click links to ensure they are safe?

3 Likes