I would like to clarify that I'm open to discussions regarding "IOTD categories", explain my position, and evaluate suggestions AstroBin Platform open discussions community forum · Salvatore Iovene · ... · 96 · 2843 · 10

Salvatore Iovene:

Ruediger:
I have just noticed, that the strongest supporters of the current IOTD process in this discussion, are remote imagers. Maybe a correlation … 🤔

Have you considered the fact that if AstroBin's IOTD was split in Backyard and Remote astrophotography (by whatever definition of them) the remote images will get even more exposure, more IOTDs, and more TPs etc?

If such a split were to happen, the two categories would be given even visibility, so now there would be a remote observatory IOTD every day instead of only 42% of the times.

And yes, all this noise, and actually Backyard + Traveler still make up 56% of the IOTDs.

Salvatore Iovene:

Ruediger:
I have no problems with the amount of batched images, but with the unfair comparison of backyard images to remote images. E.g. I fight with gradients because my neighbor likes x-mas lights or makes party. Or much more relevant. Usually I have at max 2 to 3 clear nights and maybe 25 per year. I will never collect as much data as remote guy can do easily. This unfairness troubles and bothers me. Not the amount. You throw apples and oranges in one pot and look for the most orange fruit.

Then, if I interpret correctly, this is not only an issue with remote imagers. Yes, they have more clear nights. But:

• people without kids also have more opportunities to stay up late and use every available night
• people who don't need to get up in the morning for work also have more opportunities to stay up late and image
• people with a station wagon or other big car can carry their equipment somewhere where it's clear
• people from Spain have more clear night because the weather is better

I can probably go on and find a few more examples.

I suggest you stick around until next year, and as part of the Community Contests you can have a recurring contest for deep-sky images with less than 5 hours of integration time, or something.

Until then, I really don't think that remote astrophotographers are at an advantage in the IOTD/TP. As I noted, they get 42% of the IOTDs, and Backyard + Traveller get 56%.

You somehow want to exclude them, and I find that to be divisive for our community, instead of uniting. I find it discriminatory somehow, and I don't support it for the IOTD/TP.

Salvatore Iovene:
Hi @David Payne,

sorry for missing your suggestion regarding splitting the Likes in multiple categories. I did write, in my last post, something like "sorry if I missed anything, do let me know if I did and I will address it", so I don't know why you're getting all confrontational and accusing me of picking and choosing.

Also, please note that I didn't open this topic so I would accept every suggestions. Everything I read so far, I read already years ago and there are good reasons why the status quo is the way it is. Reasons that are explained in the IOTD FAQ and here as well.

I actually explained the reasons why opened this topic at the very top of the first post, and they are:

1. Clarify my position
2. Express the fact that I am open to discussions and suggestions
3. Clarify the fact that there might be a perceived conflict of interest due to AstroBin sponsors

Suggestions are very welcome, and I lost count of the things I added to AstroBin over the course of the years thanks to user suggestions. However, remember that suggestions are suggestions, and I'm happy to explain why some of them will not be implemented. This is  more than most companies do.

Now on to your idea!

You said:

My suggested solution is to have the "like" button include a submenu - so that when I click "like" on an image a checklist comes out that requires me to check categories - such as "framing", "processing", "data aquisition", "detail", "colour", "improvement in portfolio", new object, "uniqueness", technical write-up,  and even a "constructive feedback" comment option.   This would help with my understanding of what someone liked (or even didn't like so much) about an image I posted.   It would also provide me the ability to express exactly what I liked about an image, in a way that doesn't "attach" a comment necessarily visible to the image itself.    This would take additional time to "like" an image, but not that much more.   This would also discourage giving "likes" out like candy.

I share your sentiment: I want more constructive feedback on AstroBin, I want to encourage people to have more technical dialog, and I want to give beginners more opportunities to learn and improve.

At a first read, I found your idea very attractive. But after thinking about it for a few minutes, there's a problem with it, in my opinion. Back in the very early days (I guess only 2011 and 2012? Can't remember without checking the code history) AstroBin didn't have a Like button. Instead, it had a 5-star voting mechanism.

Guess what? Naturally people hated getting only 1, or 2, or 3 stars. They did not solicit that feedback, that criticism, and it was not well-received.

For that reason, I switched to a positive only Likes system.

Having a dropdown menu so you can like individual features like you proposed (framing, processing, color, etc), while it's not as detrimental as a 5-star based system, might still leave some people offended because somebody liked the color but not the framing.

There's the additional questions of "what do we do with the millions of likes already on AstroBin?"

I find that this is a complication that would only have the effect of adding friction to liking an image, resulting in fewer likes, which results in less time on the front page activity stream, which results in user dissatisfaction.

Having said that, I do agree, as mentioned, with the idea behind this: provide feedback. This is all inline with the custom community contests I have mentioned in another post above, and plan to begin work on it in 2024. As I said, I will strive to design these contests so that they are not popularity contests, but are driven as much as possible by feedback.

To finish off, please don't attribute malice to things I say or do, in the future. I find it quite hurtful.

Thank you!

David Payne:
Did I attribute malice to the things you said or did?  I don't believe so - please check again because that was not my intent.

David Payne:
I may have suggested that we might be at difference in goals.    

Yours seems to be (please correct me if I am wrong) is to get the best IOTD possible to post at the top of the page, and not hurt anyone's feelings in the process.   There is nothing wrong with this goal, it just isn't mine.

Mine is to get views and feeback on my images, and enjoy others' images and give feedback to them.   At the same time, I would love to hear back from the judges what they thought about my images - not every one of course, but occasionally.   I think this should be the primary goal of the IOTD process and the best way to stop it from becoming just a contest.  Maybe a tick box on our profile as to if we would accept constructive feedback?

The current IOTD process just doesn't provide very much feedback to me, and I mean no malice in that - just that it doesn't match my goals.

Can we al least try to prevent members from gaming the awards system? 
Everyday I see images that I know have won awards re posted as crops or in different colors..  Far too often these previously posted images win another award.

I have noticed a wide field image posted on one day followed by 2 crops of the objects in the wide field with all 3 images winning awards in the same week!

I have seen an image in the Hubble palette win IOTD and a few days later the exact same image won a TPN in SHO

Recently a member simply reprocessed most of his old award winning images with the new tools and won new awards for exactly the same data.

I realize this is a product of the "blind" aspect of the system where the same image is randomly seen by different submitters and presenters a second time as a new post.  I do not claim to know much about computer programing but surely there must be a way to prevent the same image from winning an award more than once.

Salvatore Iovene:
That's tough indeed. As you say, this is a product of the blind voting (images are anonymized) and anyway staff members don't really have the time to go and check the photographer's gallery for every image.

Even if I showed a history of the titles of the past 10 images by that photographer, you still cannot know if it's the same data being reprocessed or something else.

Perhaps the best approach is to make this a rule, and failing to respect the rule has consequences. First time's a warning, after that you're banned from submitting to the IOTD/TP for a set amount of time.

I could get people to acknowledge this new rule by having to agree to an unskippable message on AstroBin.

The question is: who will police this? I can react if I get reports, but I cannot go thru awards and investigate.

I would like to make a new proposal reflecting what has been said so far.

The main arguments against splitting into IOTD categories are that ABs IOTD has evolved as the major award in AP and a split would lead to a loss of reputation it has gained.
The main arguments for IOTD categories are that 70% of all images are from "Backyard" but they only account for 37% of all IOTDs while 8% of "Remote" get 37.5% of all IOTD. In other words, a "Remote" image is 9 times more likely to receive IOTD than a "Backyard" image. Hence this idea:

A. "IOTD" stays as is, open for all imagers irrespective of location, gear etc.
B. An additional competition, lets call it "IOTD-Backyard", is installed with the same selection mechanisms as the main "IOTD". Backyard imagers can then decide whether they want to submit their image to the main "IOTD" or to the '"IOTD-Backyard" (but not to both)

Advantages
- the high reputation of the "IOTD" is not sacrificed
- the largest group in AB, the backyard imagers, have the opportunity to only compete with other backyarders who have similar sky conditions of typically light-polluted suburban skies and moderate sized scopes
- this will result in more recognitions overall (more TP nominations, more TP and each day two awards, one "IOTD" and one "IOTD-Backyard".

Things to think about:
- this will result in more volunteer work. Yes, but a) still the number of all images to review per day stays the same; b) there are more potential volunteers available than current volunteer jobs (i believe).
- "it is hard to define what 'backyard' is": Well, when we currently publish an image we need to select options like "Backyard", "Traveller", "Own remote observatory" etc. So, obviously imagers know very well what to choose and where they belong to. So why wont that work when submitting to "IOTD-Backyard"? It will.

Thanks and CS, John

I am planning, for 2024, a section of AstroBin called "Community Contests" (please note the word Contests: this will be actual competitions, occasionally with sponsors and prizes). The Community Contests will be initially driven by me, then later by the community (i.e. anyone can create a contest with custom rules). For instance, custom contests might be "Backyard astrophotography", "Sub $1000 equipment", "Winter Moon", etc, completely free and arbitrary.

The idea would be that the contests are only a tool to drive feedback: the entire voting mechanism would be based on providing constructive feedback. Users will upvote/downvote feedback according to how much it's constructive and useful, and these votes will buy "voting credits" for the user who wrote that feedback.

- i am proposing a permanent new "IOTD-Backyard" while community contest are one-time contests
- i am proposing a selection scheme that is the same as in IOTD while community contest are voted by the community
- I am proposing a competition that takes away some perceived or real unfairness in the current IOTD since it provides an alternative while your community contest's major goal is to provide more feedback to users.

Ruediger:

John Favalessa:
I don't know where else to post this suggestion, so forgive me...    How about a LTAA, "life time achievement award" for Gary Imm!   -john

No, no, noooo! Blasphemy! No new award categories!

John Favalessa:
Gosh Salvatore I didn't expect your reply.  I'm impressed and know your heart and soul in this.  I think increasing awards is a great idea and makes sense.  I'm curious to know how much this site has grown in membership and posts.  -john

John Favalessa:
I still submit just to see how broken the system is.  I do thrive on the encouraging comments from the members of this great community (which shows how civil and wonderful social media can be).