SANParks.org Forums

Dear Cammers,

The time has come to review the webcam etiquette.

Could you please contribute your ideas of how it can be improved.
Suggestions on how to improve the management of the webcam forum will be most welcome.

Questions that have been raised in the past include :
Is there too much competition in posting pics ?
Should there be awards for cam posting ?
What should the procedure regarding posting @highlights be ?
How many pics of one sighting should be allowed ?

Please feel free to discuss and add any other ideas and suggestions here.

Hello Mattys.

Regarding question 3 I do think that posters shold first check what is already on the higlights before replacing. Often we have a pic of something very interesting and then it is replaced with a "nothing" (just the scenery) pic. It's happened to me when I have in the 30 secs cam-pic got animals which have disppeared in the next 30 secs and my pic has been replaced soon after with a nothing.
My pennyworth!

jane

Thank you Jane.

I am very glad that you brought this up !
I actually omitted to include the 'Latest on webcams' here.
It has been a sore point with many forumites.

The highlights (Q#3) actually refers to these highlights, but as I have said, you raised a very valid issue here.

I too had got slightly mixed up and confused posting @highlights with Latest on the Webcam.

Thoughts/suggestions -
don`t think it`s a question of being competitive, more frustration at being slow-fingered.

How about stopping the habit of showing number of postings a forumite has made?

Could advise cammers to Save then refresh before posting to `Latest`
Alternatively, advise everyone that they should only click highlights button if they have actually seen pic change - otherwise refresh first.

Give awards for posting based on (consistent) quality rather than quantity. (Shadowdog will undoubtedly continue to win awards as her pics are consistently amazing!)

Just a few thoughts from someone who is more or less a novice.

That has no bearing on awards/horns anyway....See Kudu Horns



AND after you "highlight" go back to the forums and then back to webcams...BEFORE refreshing..or else you might accidentally post a "nothing" highlight.

That has no bearing on awards/horns anyway....See Kudu Horns

Was thinking of it more along the lines of stopping possible competitiveness, never thought for a moment that horns, etc, were based on number of posts.

Oh..I see...

alot of forums base their award/reward system on the number of posts one can rack up.

My apologies for mis-understanding....

The competitiveness that has been appearing every now and then has been bothering me. It tends to develop towards negative conflict between members, after there had been a few scuffles. People get nasty and people get hurt.

I think such competitiveness is against the spirit of the Forums. This should be a friendly nature based community. If the highlights and awards are fostering conflict, new ways of managing this, that avoids unnecessary conflict, should be found!

IMHO we should move away from a system of "first poster owns a sighting." Everybody that saw that sighting is part of it. Just because I post faster, or my line is faster, does not give me ownership.

One `obvious` thing I forgot to say in my first post - should recommend people to check foot of page before clicking highlight button. I have quite often forborne to do so when I thought that what was there already was more (or at least as) interesting as what I had. To answer others - I don`t really think people are competitive, just, as I said, get a bit frustrated. As regards too many posts of same pic, it`s not always apparent at time of posting and perhaps not everyone knows that you can go back and erase your posted pic. (If it was the last one, though, you have to leave something in its place - e.g. an`embarrassed` smiley. I didn`t realise this for a while until a kindly fellow-forumite explained it to me. There`s a lot of us tyros around!)

To continue where we left off ..... just caught with a double whammy! Saw something on Nossob cam, so Saved; went to post and similar one already there. Back to Webcams, creature stilll there (apparently) - refreshed, and it had disappeared ....

ps When I had another look, it was different - and taken more than an hour later - so I went back and posted it after all!

I am one with strong opinions on a couple of these topics, and can be quite vociferous sometimes, so I'm really going to try and be quiet here. Please forgive me if I come across stronger than intended.

Q1 - too much competition? Most definitely yes. Do I sometimes get a feeling of "I must get this on before somebody else!"? Most definitely. Do I feel angry/whatever that somebody else posted it first? Nope. "Good for them."

Q2 - awards for cam posting? I don't think it is necessarily a bad idea, but then the "rules" for such as award should be clear. To me one thing which should be included in such rules is not only to award somebody for really amazing sightings, but somebody who constantly posts doubles (i.e. someone else has already posted the same picture) and leave them there should be penalised, and not be eligible for rewards. I've often posted a double to realise it, and then simply delete the post if I still can. My "number of posts" drops by one again - so what? And, as Scot put it so well, I can only agree: quantity of posts should not be any consideration, other than a possible negative if it has to be considered.

Q3 - posting on forum @cam highlights? Here I have to agree Imberbe about "ownership" of a sighting. The only people who owns such a sighting is SANParks. My highlight is not necessarily somebody else's and somebody else's is not necessarily mine. You think it is a highlight? I say then post it.

Q4 - how many pics per sighting allowed? Hmm, this is a difficult one which I don't think one can really put a limit on. I've often posted a couple and thn decide "this is enough." Only to have something pop up, on that same animal/herd/group that I think "this is really worth posting." I think the limit should be "please not every frame", and "not multitudes of the same animals". Numbers? Probably impossible to set specific limits.

Q5 (arose from JaneBekker's response) - posting at bottom-of-page "Latest at cam-xxx" highlights. This I think is the most dofficult one to "police" so to speak, simple because I believe there's a lot of people that click the "Save as Latest Highlight" button who never read these forums. They never post here in any case, as I've seen names on those "Latest on..." that I've never seen on any post.

To me, the whole idea of the cams, and the privilege of being able to watch them, and post about them, is an excellent idea. It is something that we should all be able to enjoy, but not have to compete and fight about.

Will get back in my hole now...

Well put Marius. This always happens to me, even with impies. Being in another country (which a lot of cam posters are) means that even the "boring" animals are tremendously exciting and I can't resist documenting all their activity. I will be more selective from now on.



I know of a few dedicated cam posters (e.g. Ceazer, Tilandi, Janeli, bishop3006, Scot, Shadowdog to name a few). When I see any of these guys online I am content to just watch the cams and let them worry about posting . Luckily, being in Aus means I am online when few others are and there is little competition for posting so I don't really experience it.

Btw where is Shadowdog these days?

Here's my 5c worth.

Q.1. Too much competition. Yes, but unnecessary. While posting keep your eye on who is online, slow down to give other c$am watchers and posters the chance to participate.

Q.2. For me it is fun to see how many post I've made, and I don't expect a prize for that.
Bishop3006 wrote
somebody who constantly posts doubles (i.e. someone else has already posted the same picture) and leave them there should be penalised, and not be eligible for rewards.
Like Bishop I post while at work, and many times you don't have the time to go and check for doubles and then forget to go back later.
Awards should be given for cam watching and posting over the whole year and not just for the person or persons that bombard the cam postings when it is time for votes to be cast.

Q.3. Posting @ Specific cam Highlights. I was led to believe that Highlights were done by the person who got the sighting. So let's go for no ownership. But can we please keep highlights as highlights, something special to view separately from the daily posting.

Q.4. How many postings per sighting. You do get carried away with elles and cannot restrict the number of pics, when you least suspect it a special sighting will pop up. It all comes down to selective posting. After all, we do need to think of the forumites looking at the postings with limited bandwidth available to them.

Latest on Webcams Why the big issue on doing the highlight thing? No info is kept on those highlights and it is so small you sometimes cannot make out what is in the pic. And it changes constantly. Why do we have those pics? Is it there so forumites who don't watch the cams and pride themselves for not being interested, to sneak a little glimpse

In Q1 I mentioned checking on who is online, but some people like hiding their online status. Why?

As a "casual cammer" I am wondering about the quality and sensibilty of some of the pics we post (I, me and myself included nogal!! )

It would be interesting to know what the "viewers" want. Do they want to see the tip of an ellie trunk, the hindquarter of a warthog and the tail of a buff ... or should we wait for (at least) half an animal to show itself?

Ag, the joy of posting... right click, save as, TinyPick, post reply and SUBMIT!! And I'm too late Next step ... should I choose a redface or a crying smilie??
It's attitude that counts. Don't you think?? Life is one big race- why not relax and work as a team on "our forum"?

I fully agree, SC. Cam posting should be fun. Particularly for the folk with the patience to watch the cams day and night. I know how it is when that lion or leopard appear at the cam, you want to post every frame from the moment it appears as a shadow until it disappears at the faaar side again. It might be the cammer inside of me talking but I like to see every frame of how an animal appeared and how you saw it. I understand the bandwidth, dial-up reasons for not allowing doubles but I would also like to see more participation and fun to be had on the Webcams Forum.


Absolutely! But I also agree with Imberbe:

I think the FAC of 2009 should look at awarding all the posters of a sighting, like a shared award, rather than pinning ownership to one person.