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IOTD is a cool thing, we all know that. But the reality is that the vast majority of us will never have images seriously considered as IOTD for one reason or another. So I was thinking about this and would like to propose that there be a couple of extra “medals” that could be awarded independent of the automatic ones based on number of likes (which favors those who have the most followers). Perhaps something like: 1. Great Image Artistically 2. Great Image Technique 3. Deserves To Be Appreciated There are several ways it could be implemented. Perhaps a set of reviewers could look and give a quick vote and if x number have voted in favor it’s awarded. Or the IOTD people could select one of several categories if they reject an image. They could specify it deserves one of the other categories (or none). Perhaps if something is viewed/liked enough it automatically is put into a queue for selection. Maybe something else? My thought is that it would be nice to find a way for people to find great images they wouldn’t ordinarily be exposed to. There are some great images here that don’t get seen because they aren’t IOTD and/or they don’t have enough social media contacts to raise the number of views/likes compared to others. |
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| I don’t think any automatic award based on the number of likes exists. |
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IOTD is a cool thing, we all know that. But the reality is that the vast majority of us will never have images seriously considered as IOTD for one reason or another. So I was thinking about this and would like to propose that there be a couple of extra “medals” that could be awarded independent of the automatic ones based on number of likes (which favors those who have the most followers). Perhaps something like: I'm not sure if I understand you correctly. The selection of images initially has nothing to do with the likes received. Conversely, it is of course the case that selected images receive a lot of attention and therefore usually also receive a lot of likes. The criteria you mentioned will of course also be used by the reviewers for the selection as TopPic/IOTD. Of course, not every image that deserves it can be elected as IOTD. (There is only one per day.) But in my opinion the worthy pictures have a good chance of being selected as TopPic. Since many people are involved in selecting the images, different perspectives come into play. In my opinion, the process for selecting the images is democratic, well thought out and mature. Look here: https://welcome.astrobin.com/iotd |
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| I keep thinking about should i submit for IOTD or anything to be awarded, then i was thinking maybe i am not good enough yet until next time, then i got busy in collecting gear so it might help me in future to build good gallery so then i can have something for AB's IOTD or even TopPick, but in all cases i won't kill myself to make my images super wonderful WOW just to have awarded, but if that will happen i will definitely be happy, but now i am happier to have more gear really, and i hope one day our best images can be awarded somehow with any recognition one way or another. |
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I was thinking of the (now obsolete?) flags indicating “rising” and such for statuses. I assumed those were based on likes as they usually have lots of likes and the criteria seemed vague. In any case, it does seem difficult to surface good images unless you spend a lot of time trying to lure people to follow you or you follow. I posted before I saw that there were a number of similar topics. I see that this can be a sensitive subject now. I was hoping that there could be something to recognize an image independently of IOTD. Thankfully I do this for my own amusement although it would be nice if an image of mine was recognized in some way. I’ll just go back to minding my own business. I just won’t submit to IOTD now as it seems I’ll have very little chance for that or even a badge indicating it’s a good pic. Maybe all mine are terrible? Whatever, I do this for fun. |
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| I would encourage you to submit your pictures in any case!!! There's no cost or penalty in doing that, whatever the outcome. Your pictures are quite good, in my opinion, and if you don't submit them you'll never know if they meet the taste and approval of submitters, reviewers, judges. |
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Francesco Meschia: I think, meeting the taste of others is not the aim of the game. You have to find your own stile, instead of imitating other’s stile only to get a fancy badges. In the end there are only three individuals who have to like the image: me, myself and I. 🤪 |
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Ruediger: Ruediger is exactly right that you should never adapt your style to satisfy others. The criteria put forward in the OP are already used in the IOTD process, and given that we have other badges like TPN and TP, I believe are already covered in the current process. My own perspective is that receiving a badge for an image is nice but hardly life changing. Far more of consequence is the constructive feedback and appreciation received from people whose work you respect and who in turn respect yours. I'd find a set of people whose work you appreciate, and whose images you'd consider a reasonable stretch or benchmark. The satisfaction and accomplishment that comes from achieving an imaging goal is more important and will sustain you in this hobby longer than badges and awards. |
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| @TurtleCat I would agree with the last couple of posts here. 1st you have a very nice profile with very nice pictures that I’d submit for IOTD. And especially what @Ruediger said about you being the only person in the end that needs to be happy with the image you produce. I’ve had several images that I thought was good enough to at least get a bronze arrow and never got one, and other images that I didn’t think were good enough at all and got something. Again regardless of what you get with an image you have to be happy with it. Dale |
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| The top pick and promotion from submitters is something I haven’t fully understood. But since no one has done that to any of my images I guess they are below average or just don’t get enough views from anyone. As I said earlier, I do this for my own amusement. My suggestion wasn’t purely about my own work but others where I see some great images that have like 5 views. I thought having some mechanism where good images could be tagged differently than what is being done today would be helpful. I see that I am mistaken. We can let this thread die now. |
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The top pick and promotion from submitters is something I haven’t fully understood. But since no one has done that to any of my images I guess they are below average or just don’t get enough views from anyone. As I said earlier, I do this for my own amusement. My suggestion wasn’t purely about my own work but others where I see some great images that have like 5 views. I thought having some mechanism where good images could be tagged differently than what is being done today would be helpful. I see that I am mistaken. We can let this thread die now. Unless you explicitly submit your image to the IOTD queue (which, you said in a previous post, you don’t do), they will not be part of the process and so it’s guaranteed that they won’t be seen by any submitter and won’t therefore receive any badge. Views are a different metric. It correlates with how many people follow you, which correlates loosely to how much you engage with the overall community (how many people you follow, how many comments you leave, etc.). |
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The top pick and promotion from submitters is something I haven’t fully understood. But since no one has done that to any of my images I guess they are below average or just don’t get enough views from anyone. As I said earlier, I do this for my own amusement. My suggestion wasn’t purely about my own work but others where I see some great images that have like 5 views. I thought having some mechanism where good images could be tagged differently than what is being done today would be helpful. I see that I am mistaken. We can let this thread die now. Hello @TurtleCat , some info: " ... The top pick and promotion from submitters is something I haven’t fully understood ..." Please have look here where the process is explained in detail: https://welcome.astrobin.com/iotd#process " ... or just don’t get enough views from anyone ..." If an image gets less than 80% of views by the IOTD/TP staff team, then an image is automatically re-inserted to the queue again CS, John |
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Hello everyone, I have been a member for a couple of years now and while I have been an amateur telescope maker and visual guy my entire time in the hobby, close to 50 years now, astrophotography has always been a dream. 5 years ago I started my journey into AP. I love the precision that AP requires. To reach that level of precision (focus, guiding, processing ...) takes time, commitment, lots of frustration, and failure to gain the experience to be successful. I am impressed with the software, equipment and seamless integration that todays modern astro equipment enjoys. This is a big reason that the hobby is, what I think, is in its Golden Age. With the development of remote observatories that provide stacked, calibrated images to your in-box for you to process are wonderful. I would entertain using such a service to use a particular piece of equipment I am interested in, or to image something in the southern hemisphere that I can't image from my northern latitude. The data and images that I see posted on AB from these sources (including Hubble and other data) are fantastic and should be admired and awarded. The images that fall into this category should be excluded from the current pool of images to be considered for awards in the current model. They should have a separate category. They can have all of the underlying protocols that are in place currently. However, I think these images should be in a category of Image Processing or RIP (Remote Image Processing). I am not talking about the person that rents a pier or has a remote observatory with their own equipment. I think an image that is judged should reflect all aspects required to produce the image. This includes image acquisition, image processing and ownership not just image processing. Maybe this view is dated and a sign I am getting old and should be more tolerant of change. However, I believe when you purchase a dataset for an image, it crosses the threshold between amateur and professional. In a magazine, the person that clicked the shutter on the camera gets the credit. Not the person that runs the digital darkroom. A small but significant difference. Much more than my 2 cents worth on this subject. CS Tim P.S. After I posted this I thought who would read this and possibly how someone on both sides of this topic would receive my view. With that said, what would the outcomes be? I think that the owners/users of these Remote Observatories that sell time on their equipment would welcome this change. It would promote these facilities and provide a direct conduit to their users to display the achievements of using such data. I am sure this also would have increase revenue to AB which would allow AB to grow. I have always wanted to be judged by my piers and this would enhance the data these companies provide and a provide a space for users of this data to display what can be achieved by using this data. |
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A helpful discussion. I have been on AB for four years and my response to the IOTD winner has gone from an invariable "Wow" to mostly "Wow", with the increasing "Huh". I haven't been awarded an IOTD, but I am still trying.... For me, I think the process is fine as far as it goes. The process is clear even if the selection of those who judge it is opaque. Recently I applied, but with questions like "Do you support the IOTD manifesto?" being asked, I am not sure if the selection panel [it is a panel] are looking for fresh perspectives or those who will implement the existing manifesto to the letter. It is clear the focus is on technical excellence over creativity. Myself, I might prefer greater emphasis on creativity and originality, but that really isn't the vibe of this site. Still, I pay my subscription and get a lot of use out of the site under these rules. IOTD gives me a goal to aim for, [even given my woeful conversion form Bronze -> Silver -> Gold] means that I am unlikely ever to achieve it. I received an 2022 NZ astrophotography prize for an image that wasn't even nomination for Top Pick. I also sell works to the public that were similarly unrecognised by the AB judging panel. This all goes to show that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Any other process that you could come up with would suffer from the same issue. It is rarely the "what", but frequently the "who". CS Brian |
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Brian Boyle: I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I hate the idea of a false dichotomy between technical and creative qualities in an image. It does not have to be one or the other. There are plenty of very creative yet very well processed images out there. |
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I just won the Image of the Day on a forum that is a respectful one about my solar image, it was my first time with the tools and also i had it from the first time test, this alone told me that i do have nice and quality stuff, only i need to keep going in that route for everything i will do if possible, and not worry at all if i could win more IOTD anywhere, if one place recognize and awarded me then i don't need to have it awarded everywhere also, and if i can win here and there with different results then i am good enough to win, then i can focus more to re-fine my results better to make it like more IOTD type of images, so i can have more chances to win again, rather than having many images that i don't believe it is good enough then i shouldn't expect i will win for sure. I am here learning everyday, and watching those IOTD sometimes making me happy but for most of the time i feel very sad when i look at the equipment and i know it was done by space telescopes or high end expensive professional remote observatories, so it makes me to think that if i buy one of those data and process it my way and submit then i will have big chances to win, kind of using others racing cars and i do my own speed and skills to win a race while i don't or can't afford that car [equipment], so then i think that i better not think about IOTD at all if i must use another data to have bigger chances rather than depends on my simple equipment under bad conditions/skies. |
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Tim Ray: None of this is new and such ideas have been proposed in the past, you can take a look at other threads. I don't think there is any interest in changing the IOTD criteria as the IOTD manifesto makes clear. Given that, the approach I take is the following: if there is an image that makes TP, TPN, or IOTD that I think I could reasonably take under my conditions using my equipment - well, I'll generally like or comment on it and will follow the imager so I can learn. If an IOTD, TP, TPN etc., falls outside this criteria, I generally pay no attention to it. There is probably enough of a diversity of images making these picks that you can choose to pay attention to the subset of images that you care to take, whether it is remote imaging, backyard imaging, or simply data processing. |
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I just applied to be a judge but I have such little Astro experience I will probably not get a look. I think The best images are the Best images as long as they are taken on Physical earth so I would select IOTD with that as my criteria. Although I am new to Astrophotography (2 years), I have been in photography for 50 years so I think I can judge what a good image is no matter the discipline. I don't see how you could ever set the "rules" so all are equal and I see photos here shot in backyards by people like myself but who know what they are doing, that are as good as any image from Chile..... Backyard people just don't get as much imaging time is the real difference. Rather than change the rules for awards, I would rather this site have a regular critique area other than the forums. Rather than a specific request on the forum which I am not sure is viewed much, an area like the current Explore area with a lot of posts to critique and get critiques. I spent years in Landscape, Bird and wildlife photography and learned immensely by critique. When you post an image here, you get likes basically which tell you nothing except if you follow people you get more "likes". A lot like Instagram. I try to learn by viewing images but there is nothing like a knowledgeable critique for learning any discipline. |
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Brian Boyle: Hi @SemiPro I was referring the AB manifesto below - with particularly reference to the last six words. That's not to say that creative and technically excellent images don't exist. I don't think, and it certainly wasn't my intention to give that impression. Rather that, in AB's own words, technical excellence is the focus, The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, hereby abbreviated as IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs[b],[/b] with a focus on technical excellence. |
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Brian Boyle: This could be confirmation bias. For instance, go back and look at 2015 IOTDs, or 2018 IOTD, or 2021 IOTDs, and see if you can find a pattern of IOTDs getting worse, or it's just that your eye adapted, your expectations changed, you got desinitized from the wow factor. Brian Boyle: It's not about applying it "to the letter" (a bit of an exaggeration fallacy there), but of course the IOTD/TP process has objectives that are decided by me as the sole owner of AstroBin. I needed to provide a sense of direction for the IOTD/TP, and while preserving one's unique preferences, members of the staff still need to adhere to the general direction, otherwise what's the point? When you interview to work somewhere, you need to be a cultural fit. I don't see anything wrong in this. And it's the same for the IOTD/TP staff members, tho their are volunteers and paid workers. Brian Boyle: Yup, and this is why there will never be a consensus on every image. The IOTD/TP does a great job at getting as close as possible, but it will never be perfect. This is not an exact science: we can't all agree on an objective set of parameters with which to score an image and that will leave nobody wanting. Dan Kearl: This is planned for the future! Stick with AstroBin and you'll find out at some point  |
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Salvatore Iovene: I think it is also that a lot of people's standards are going up, and there are a lot of good images, not all of them getting badges (because there are a limited number of slots, and whether am image gets picked or not can depend on what other images are present in the queue at the same time). So sometimes, you'll see an image that, while very good, is not that dissimilar from other images of that object you have seen. That can be a source of desensitization as well. That doesn't mean badged images are getting worse, it just means there are lots of good images. |
