User talk:Slaunger/Archives/2007/11

A thought about what is really boring

Today, right now, in my mind, the two most boring things a person can be is:

1. a person who agrees with everything you say, think or do and
2. a person who disagrees with everything you say, think or do

Both defy my imagination. -- carol 12:09, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

@Carol - I will remember to alternatively agree and disagree with every second thing you say think or do so that I don't seem too boring ;-) --Tony Wills 10:27, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Tic tac toe? -- carol 02:44, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

He, he. Which reminds me, I better start agreeing about something with you Tony, otherwise it gets too boring. Actually, I was thinking about making a joint proposal with you. For a new concept: "Valuable Image". This should be for an image where value is put on a pedestal, but where technical qualities are of less importance (to get rid of the nitty-gritty and boring technical arguments at QIC and FPC to get the last 2% of technical image quality). The motivation should be to encourage contributions which fills in gaps of areas, which are not covered at all. Emphasis should be on the uniqueness of the subject, having an excellent image page, which is well categorized geolocated is relevant and tells an interesting story. Photographic beauty should not be very relevant. You know the type of stuff Mila contributed with. What do you think? -- Slaunger 10:42, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

I think I agree with you much more than disagree, but the great ph-x debate has gone beyond your proposal (see below). Yes I too have been contemplating a valuable-images type scheme, it is always a pity to see 'important' or 'valuable' images not recognised by FP because of poor technical quality or no 'wow' or because general voters don't understand its significance. This first struck me with Commons:Featured_picture_candidates/Log/May_2007#Image:Passchendaele_aerial_view.jpg_-_not_featured and more recently with images by User:Mbz1. How shall we define 'value' (best not take a vote on it ;-) ? --Tony Wills 11:27, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

The war is image is a very good example of a very valuable image, which it not recognised with current systems. A "Valuable image". I agree totally on that. But you are right, it would be difficult but not impossible to define "value": Examples could be: Being the first contribution or best contribution of an interesting event current or historical, place, situation, natural phenomena, a process, an object. Making the first contribution of a new species not registered before in commons. Stuff like that. Technically it should look good in something like 800x600 but not perfect. Point-and-shoot with an average compact camera should be sufficient (on the PH-1 level or so). -- Slaunger 11:45, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

This image and discussion of the image by the image critics, I have a photograph of old stainless steel nesting bowls. Or, perhaps I could figure out a way to get a photograph of nested measuring spoons -- I have some from Ikea right now that measure in metric instead of whatever it is that I am used to. The image, the discussion; my sick sad feeling as I was laughing at it all -- it got my attention and I feel sucked into the crayfish's cave and I think I was already in one of my own. User:Mbz1 has photographs of sharks and speaks in their personifications condescending language as well. I came to this talk page today because I wanted to mention that people who get declined often have a real problem declining other people -- this is a situation that I faced today. -- carol 15:03, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

What if I asked you kindly, will you please decline my QIC? Try it, its not so bad, especially for a photo which deserves to be declined. Actually, now that I look at the photo carefully I cannot understand why I nominated it in the first place...-- Slaunger 15:58, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I did this. It feels like voting down the people who do dangerous work or requiring that more dangerous work is tackled because of the photo opportunity it presents. All of that feeling is the reason I should not try to participate, perhaps, and just keep doing what I consider to be a good or the best job I can, given the circumstances.

Good. What it really that bad? The photo can still be value despite it is not a QI, I don't mind. BTW, something I forgot to comment on in your previous post. I do recall that FPC debate by mila very clearly. It is again a very good example that we need a forum for acknowledging these types of, how should I say, Unique Images or Valuable Images.-- Slaunger 20:02, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks...

Hi Slaunger... thanks for your comments, critiques, observations and level head... wikipedia could use more like you.

I apologize to you in case any of my comments offended you personally... not my intention... that temper sometimes just goes off!

I truly wish that the level could be upped a bit, this is a good cause, but I believe that the attitudes, mine included for that manner, keep talent out.

Regards, --Tomascastelazo 02:09, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I have no hard feelings, and you are doing the right thing: Coming back and contribute with a photo of such excellent quality. I had hoped you would come back and you did. I think we all know the feeling of being misunderstood when nominating photos at FPs. Some photos have so many emotions and/or hard work behind that it can be hard to absorb critique and also accept its flaws in a balanced way. I recently experienced that with this FPC, where I had to go for a walk once or twice just to get away and stay calm. I agree that there is an overly harsh tone at FPC, which can often heat up and boil over. It is always triggered by generalizing comments and speculations about conspiracies instead of staying on target, and be very specific in the critique. I guess one of the reasons for this is that a forum for the best of the best photographs tend to attract competitive, decisive and strong personalities. This often leads to an unfriendly environment. -- Slaunger 07:29, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Slaunger... Well, a few things... I like critisism... my problem is not about people liking my pictures, my problem is about how pictures are evaluated in here. I think the judging is flawed, and mainly attributed to a lack of understanding of photograhy itself, its reach, its symbolic value, its message, even photographic technique. Not that everyone needs to become a scholar, but I think it is a duty to educate oneself as much as possible in order to express one's judgement more objectively. Especially in light of the potential of the wikipedia effort.

The reason I argue for that point is that this forum can truly be a great way to contribute to the wikipedia project by attracting and maintaining good photograhic talent around. I believe that the current methodology keeps people away. As a photograher, good or bad, with 30+ years of experience, my opinion of the judging/critique practices plainly suck, but what gets me the most is the matter-of-fact way in which people have erected themselves into guardians of the faith when it is visible from afar that they really know nothing about ctitisism and less about photograhy. And that is the real tragedy! They keep people out!

Personally, I am on the borderline of whether I stay or not, and the only thing that keeps me in is the bigger mission of wikipedia, the spirit of the effort... FP is not wikipedia, and I have to remind myself of that.

However, there is another side to human nature, and that is ego. The need to get stroked once in a while is evident in all creative endeavors, artists feed on ego. And if their work is fine, they deserve the stroke as a reward for their contribution to humanity. But that creativity sometimes gets shot down with demolishing consequences, like the Taliban destroying the Buddas of Afganistan... remember? No difference here!

I challenge you to get together with a photograher friend, not just someone who takes good pictures, but a real photograher that understands the discipline, show her/him the site, the critiques, what the guardians of the faith let in and what they leave out. I know what she/he will say.

Regards,

--Tomascastelazo 15:18, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Tomascastelazo. Thank you for elaborating on your views here. I once participated in a project management course about people management, and there I was presented with the following old Chinese proverb: You can show him the door, but he has to open it!. This of course related to what you shall do if you want people to change their behavior or attitude towards something. Assuming your views on how bad the situation is at FPC is correct (I do not think your views on this are very balanced, but for the sake of argument lets just follow this path a little) I suggest you think about that proverb and how you could use it actively and acheive what you want. (I may have pressed down the handle on the door already, I do that all the time, sorry.). For instance, my own opinion on noise in photographs has changed a little recently, not dramatically, but slightly. My gradual change of opinion could be due to repeated statements from another reviewer at FPC... I hope you understand what I mean. I must warn you though. It is a slow process, don't expect fast results. -- Slaunger 18:33, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Slaunger.... Listen, do you want to compare? Visit www.photo.net www.photo.net and have a look. While there, visit my page at [[1]]. The critique forum is a good one, as lots of images are constantly being uploaded. See it at [[2]]. Have fun. --Tomascastelazo 03:56, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Tomascastelazo. Very interesting gallery and site. I seems like only a few do critiques there or maybe I was just unlucky/unskilled in my brief search. I didn't find any actually... -- Slaunger 11:27, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Upernavik

Hi Slaunger; May I complement you on your work on Upernavik? It was a pleasure to see plants from the same genus and even some of the same species that I see above 1500 m elevation in the Cascade Range of Washington. On another matter, I wonder if you might be kind enough to add an indication of the approximate size in the description of Image:Melting Iceberg upernavik 2007-07-12.jpg. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 00:33, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for your encouraging remarks. Yes it is interesting with the arctic-alpine plants such as the Saxifraga, Oxyria digyna and so on, which I have noticed you also have contributed with. What a massive, high quality gallery you have by the way. Amazing work! -- Slaunger 20:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

I have tried to add some comments about the size of that iceberg on the photo. It is hard to estimate these sizes, because you do not have a scale to compare with. However I think the altitude of the helicopter was of the order 1000 m from which I guess an end to end distance of 50-100 m is pausible. -- Slaunger 20:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for added the area estimate to the iceberg description. It is helpful to readers like me who have never seen an iceberg. Thank you for the kind words. I began contributing plant images as a means of learning about our indigenous plants. It has been a satisfying experience.

Oxyria digyna is a splendid plant. I was very pleased to see it growing in Upernavik. Besides Saxifaga, I noticed overlap in the Silene, Phyllodoce, Vaccinium, Potentilla, and Pedicularis genera. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 01:36, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

My nearly 10 years with GNU

From men who want a sex change so they can become lesbians to creepy hackers who seem to only have experience verifying my experience -- I get a little upset when I think that this thing, this public contribution thing is being abused.

For one thing, I would like to see what kind of money the gnome foundation got starting at the time that me and my little team made GIMPs web site and I started with my web site.

I lost things, and I suspect that gnome has a lot more money to work with because of GIMP. I say that because GIMP is available to windows users but GNOME software isn't. I don't use GNOME, so I don't get to attend their things and I have no idea what they do with that money or how much there was or anything about it. Instead, I get stuff put into my food that makes my heart act funny. Lately, my sleep is being interrupted right before I get there. It seems to be related to commenting on QI panorama's and it also seems to only occur when there is another person in this house I am staying at.

I am going to look at the QI and FP candidates soonish -- although, the history can be edited.

This GNU thing should be beautiful, but instead it looks like a place where the already wealthy play with people who are able to actually do things -- just like everything else. I like to throw a wrench into things like that ("throw a wrench into it" is a phrase probably occurring first during our industrial age and it literally means to throw something into the gears that make the machine stop). Contributing your time and effort and love and stuff should not be met with a gender issued troll at the door or other things like a male dating club or whatever else the hell is going on there.

This GNU thing should be beautiful and not have hurt me (and possibly others) so much. -- carol 11:22, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Carol, again you manage to write stuff I have no idea what means?? I am not familiar with GNOME, I do use and have used the results of many GNU projects. In general I find the GNU work very useful. I am afraid though that I do not really understand what the purpose is with your GNU story and the gender issues. -- Slaunger 11:36, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

http://www.gnome.org and http://foundation.gnome.org It is 10 years that I have been using GIMP. GNOME is a desktop environment for linux that uses GIMPs widgets. I actually have even worse delusions (perhaps delusions, perhaps I am 'right on the money') than I mention here. The image of me that I put on my user page was the image that I used when I played on the wiki in 2003. I really really think that what we did then inspired or begat wikipedia. -- Slaunger 11:44, 16 November 2007 (UTC) (that signature thing is way too simple)

Sure, but the history tab isn't so simple to cheat. In the future I kindly ask you not to use my signature.-- Slaunger 11:50, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

A thread you might find interesting

User talk:CarolSpears#Why? -- Slaunger 11:40, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you for letting me know, Slaunger. But I won't comment on that behaviour, it is just nonsense. However the abuse of my identity was a serious fault (though I believe not intentional). Regards, Alvesgaspar 12:24, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

• Intentional or not, I had my signature (ab)used above in the same manner above. But since it is so evident from the history what is going on, I am just ignoring it too. -- Slaunger 12:33, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you..

For nominating my photo for featured pictures. It looks like 4 people oppose it, but it's okay. I will make a better one :) Hariadhi 11:51, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh.. about cheating. Of course I never cheat, dont worry. he he he. 202.53.232.114 13:40, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Yeas, the critique about overexposure is a valid one, and it should be pretty easy to retake in a better quality. I just like such kinds of photos of things you would not normally photograph. It is something different than the usual landscape, building, flower, animal, portarit photos we see most at COM:FPC (they are fine too, just nice to spread out a bit). -- Slaunger 12:12, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Commons:Quality images candidates/candidate list#Equus burchelli

I am not clear which version you supported (or perhaps both), there is one vote for each one, and one oppose which probably covers both, so yours is a deciding vote :-) --Tony Wills 20:20, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for telling me. I've added an additional comment there; I prefer the edited version. -- Slaunger 20:27, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your quick reply :-) --Tony Wills 21:12, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Bad stitches and such

Hello Slaunger, seen your Image:Sortebroedre kirke viborg 2007-11-10 bad stitch.jpg which is really a pity. I have not looked too closely, but the tree seems to be the main problem. Next to the tree the enblend seam slightly displaces the gutter pipe, obviously. Are there other problems?

How would I try if I were to salvage this image...first I'd try to move the seam through the tree trunk downwards, either editing masks in the interim TIFFs (or directly the enblend seam) so the offset happens on the forecourt. Then obviously significant use of the cloning tool in gimp or so to move the bottom trunk right.

Ooops, I just notice that the right branches are not really continuous. But this problem is much more hidden than the trunk fault line. It is even more the blurred brickwork than the branches that make one suspicious.

Anyway, a nice view. -- Klaus with K 14:57, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Klaus. Nice to hear from you again. Thank you for your constructive suggestions. Yes, the tree is the main problem. Not easy to save. I just think it might be the time to buy a tripod. It'll be too much work. I already spend several hours on it. I almost felt inclined to clone out the hole tree, but it has a shadow to... -- Slaunger 16:29, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Slaunger. regarding the trunk shadow, I would probably clone the entire bottom using the shadow as the shift vector. Maybe not the stamp tool, but using the lasso tool and then fix the seams with the rubber stamp. Maybe it helps to load both the enblended TIFF and the individual tiffs into gimp as layers and then paint into the mask (although in the past I usually edited the alpha channel of the TIFF enblend input files).-- Klaus with K 19:19, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Klaus. I really appreciate the energy you put into helping me with this one. However, I am still a novice GIMP user and quite frankly I have got no clue what you are talking about concerning shift vector, stamp tool, rubber stamp, all them TIFFs together on different layers, alpha channel, pheew... Of course I could just look it all up, but this is way too advanced for me - yet. I think it is easier to retake the scenary on another sunny day and be more careful about having a fixed nodal point as it is only two kilometers from where I live...or just be satisfied with this other version I have stitched from three portraits at a slightly different location. -- Slaunger 20:43, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Klaus with a K is giving photoshop hints. Good luck with that. btw, when I thought that there was a possibility of a person being thrown into a volcano, I chased away the bad feelings by making GNU software available (via the url to the recent release) in case that person had got into that position using GNU money and resources and cred. GIMP is cumbersome to stitch photographs with. There is a plug-in IWarp but I have had a difficult time getting it to work, especially on my images which I took without a tripod. I had no idea that me and my stuff would be apart for so fscking long. -- carol 11:29, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi Slaunger, have been travelling for a few days. Regarding gimp, for a start it looks complicated what I try to describe. But then you say the church is just around the corner for you, yes I agree that then it is a much better option to take a series of good photos at a convenient future time. Klaus with K 15:26, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

O for West! (Kilt Rock)

How silly I am! I forgot I had to use the English abbreviation and not the French one!!! I have to check if I didn't make the same mistake for the other pictures I tagged with geodata... BTW I added geodata to Image:Dam-pollution.JPG so that people can understand where it is even if the picture is not self-explanatory (but I guess that doesn't change your review, does it? ;-) Have a good day (or night, wherever you are...) --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 06:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi TwoWings, Thank you for your message. I thought I had completely ruined your location info when I changed O to E (because O is pretty close to the danish word Øst for East - I am a complete ignorant regarding the French language) and found that your bench was floating in the sea. But then I found out that the Location of Scotland seemed to fit if I interpreted O as West. And nice that you have added geodata to the Dam pollution image as well, although that will not change my mind about it. I think the geodata feature is so nice. I am located in Denmark, so here it is morning now. Have a nice morning (as I suppose you are located in France). -- Slaunger 07:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes I'm in France (in Lyon to be more precise). For your knowledge, O stands for "Ouest" in French, which has the same prononciation as West. I understand for the dam pollution image. I was just trying since that might be one of my favourite pictures of mine and there's a 1-1 draw... As a saying goes in French: "one who doesn't try doesn't have anything"! ;-) Cheers --TwoWings * to talk or not to talk... 17:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)