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I concur with Salvatore...the attacks on Roberto are unwarranted. There's nothing but destructive reasons to defame one of our own. Ours is a small community of highly skilled people doing really cool things. I generally consider "us" to be in that "1%" of people really curious about the universe and how things work. So let's actually think and not be "right fighters" at all costs. Defamation is wrong. Defamation is not free speech. I don't think any of us would want our friends or colleagues wrongly accused of being a liar, cheater, or anything similar. The definition of what is allowed on AB has already been established. Salvatore just said it yet again. Roberto is operating completely within the rules, their intent, and spirit. Follow the arc of well-known astrophotographers and you will see a pattern. Roberto is on a similar arc. I'll leave the research to you. IOTD is a competition if you want it to be. If you hope to be selected then it's a competition to you. If you really, really don't care, then the competitive aspect disappears for you. This is a really simple concept. All of us image under different conditions, with different equipment and across different skill levels. The extremes of equipment, location, etc. and the lack of sub-classifications should be a clue that IOTD is not the final arbiter of your skill level! IOTD are more likely exemplars of something unique, or particularly interesting, etc. My perception is it is not an indication of pure skill at all. However, if one believes their imaging skills or fortunes rise and fall with the vote on Astrobin then that is their prerogative, sadly. Finally, there are calls to create various categories to even out the playing field for the competitive aspects of IOTD. This move to categorize seems innocuous and fair at first, but there's a risk of unintended consequences. I believe the result will be detrimental. I'm against this for many reasons including the potential loss of imagers whose work I admire and whose skill level I hope to achieve. AB is one of the best places to see the most work in one place. There's a potential loss of ideas and interchange. There's a potential to stifle innovation. We innovate. We innovate through the DIY spirit inherent in the hobby, we innovate in processing and acquisition. This hobby is changing and any "anti-dog-eat-dog" policies will be an attempt to subvert innovation, but the result will be that many will be left behind. We collectively should use the best of everything at our disposal that makes sense for us individually. The imagers under attack utilize the best data they can get to produce the best results they can as it pertains to their sensibilities. AB selects images in the best way as per their sensibilities. To be clear, I have gone on record in this forum as believing terrestrially acquired data should be considered apart from space-based data. I do not think any less of Roberto or anyone else who has the skill to infuse space-based data into their work. However, I do not advocate for a separate category. Instead I use my vote as a my voice. I should also make it clear that I work with many imagers who us this site to display their work with data acquired from a remote observatory so I have a vested interest in them, us, not being denigrated. Either way this goes down, we remote imagers will continue to help, innovate, progress. Like it or not AB is among the best sources of information for astrophotography and has an aspect of competitiveness. It is a place of learning how others do what they do and why. -Lloyd |
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| I agree with Lloyd we are a small community of highly skilled people doing really cool things. Astrobin should focus on that. Fine if a few want to be competitive about IOTD or league tables. But lets keep it primarily as a resource for astrophotography. I would rather see time spent on expanding this rather than waste time on endless judging and competitions. If the emphasis is on competitions respect will go and we will end up with more and more post like those above. |
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Well, I'll comment again here since I have some thoughts that haven't been put forward recently anyways. First, Astrobin is not a competition, it is an image hosting website with invaluable way to easily record technical aspects of your acquisition, processing, and more. I feel that most imagers here who have acquired IOTD awards do not think about it at all when capturing or processing images. They're in it for the love of the cosmos and the hobby. When they do get selected, it's an honor and when they don't it likely doesn't cross their mind. For those that it is important to them, good for them if they get it and I wish them many more since it is important to them. Second, the libelous comments are absurd and Roberto and or anyone else who uses shared data, pro data, or anything else do not deserve those comments and one should be ashamed for false accusations. Thirdly, and this is more opinion based, I enjoy the wide array of images that make IOTD. I personally have never processed and posted pro data, but that is just because it isn't what has interested me to this point in time. I take a great deal of pride in my brutal struggle of fighting the conditions and horrible lp I face to provide images that I believe to be on par with some of the best out there. Does it mean that I think any less of others' images acquired by processing pro data or shared data? Of course not!! This is a hobby and maybe a little more to some of us, but what gives them enjoyment is all that matters and I love people enjoying what they are doing. I could see maybe a mechanism in place that makes it more obvious if your data was acquired by you or a team or a pro scope, but I still like seeing them all available for highlighting on the front page. If you open the picture, you can see who captured data and who processed. As long as there is transparency and no monkey business, it's absolutely fine. I prefer having amazing examples of pro data up there to shoot for. My recent M106 was captured from terrible lp and over many nights in my driveway. There weren't many example I saw on the web of amateur acquired M106 images with great details to confer and verify some of what I was seeing in my data. I was beyond appreciative that Roberto took the time and effort to put together his incredible M106 image so that I could reference it and it made me all the more excited I was able to produce something better than my previous attempt. Finally, I've had images selected as IOTD with $1500 setups and $20000 setups. Some of the very best and most incredible IOTDs are captured with a lens and a DSLR. Some have 100 hours of data and some have 30 seconds of data. Some were captured in space, some from the muck and middle of big cities. I find it awesome and intriguing to see what people can do across the spectrum. I appreciate the works of all of the imagers here and am thankful for the opportunity to see so many cool and different example of the cosmos. The only request I would maybe have is a category that tagged/flagged images produced by data that was from a team or pro data as opposed to collected only by you. I don't think it should be separated out as consideration for IOTD as I like seeing all forms of great images highlighted. I do think that it is nice for rank beginners to see that you can do amazing work from either kinds of data and have realistic expectations for what they can do. The other thing is that I've seen a few occasions here where IOTD's where awarded to folks who were not entirely transparent about the source of their data. Only very rarely, but it is very sad to see when it does. Tip-toeing around due credit for data acquisition is morally terrible and is wrong at best and cheating/illegal at worst. There's no place for that here. |
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| Why not just ask members to vote? It would be settled once for all. |
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Why not just ask members to vote? It would be settled once for all. In this case, I just don't really care because the IOTD is not important and I'm happy with what Sal provides. The organization of the data acquisition, the platesolving, the gear, and the descriptions are why I love it as well as the huge user base. For any image highlighting mechanism, it's Sal's site and I'm behind whatever he wants to do for that. |
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I agree with you. I also love being a member of AB. Sal started this discussion asking for opinions. One of the first suggestions was to establish a poll for the members. He said it's was a great idea. If one doesn't care one way or another, then it doesn't matter. However obviously there are a lot of people who do care. I agree with you with another point. Images with data acquisition details not listed should not be in IOTD. This is actually the same reason why I disagree with the pro data. I look up to IOTD images. I look at their details, locale, and decide what I should do with my images. It does me no good looking at an image from Hubble accept that it's nice. |
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| I am fine either way. However, I want to point out that voting often works against minority. We need to think very carefully before we decide to use voting to settle something. |
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Wei-Hao Wang: I concur with Wei-Hao. Voting can go awry depending on the topic and the volume of either side. SI is the authority on AB. If he suggested a vote and changed his mind, so be it. If he wants a vote, that's cool too. I'd say there is plenty of information and opinions with which to inform his judgement. I trust his judgement and believe AB to be doing well as is. -Lloyd |
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Josh Smith:<-- This, and Josh Smith:<-- This Thank you Josh for a high quality post. AB is much more then IOTD... |
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After careful consideration, user Paulo de Almeida has been banned for defamatory conduct and violating the following rules in AstroBin's Terms of Service (relevant parts highlighted). You may not use the Site or the Service:
All of the user's content has been deleted. This thread is now also locked because the matter has been discussed in an exhaustive way. |
