(meta) Community consensus on "Can you name the place..."

The Can you name the place in the photograph game? thread has been running for 2 years and 10 months. In that time, we've posted nearly 8000 posts, with exactly half a gazillion photos (I counted them).

The number of participants has dropped somewhat, though, and there are some rough edges in communication and recurring bad feelings, which sadly have not all been sanded off over time. Talking over the issue in private message (thanks for the input!), I thought it might be beneficial to have a separate thread from the main game to hash out some things, to see if we could form any broad consensus on what we want the game to be (wrt rules and behaviour), and hopefully move forward in a friendlier spirit, or at least gain some understanding for different viewpoints. A lot of this will be in the realm of current unwritten rules, which different people might have different views on?

Rules for this thread
- Assume good faith
- No accusations
(If you must say "I think X is doing bad thing", say it to their face in private message, with the full understanding that it's impossible for them to prove a negative. In public, no good can come of such an accusation, and I can only rule it as inflammatory.)

My role here: I'm the moderator for the Travel Photography forum. That means my purpose here is making certain the spirit of the forum rules is adhered to. Specifically: "We want this forum to be a pleasant place for all our users". This is where we seem to be failing somewhat with the game, and where I hope that talking about it can improve matters. (I'm also a sometimes participant in the thread, and have personal feelings about when the game is fun and when it isn't. I might share some of those in a separate post, clearly labeled as personal opinion, but ultimately my moderator hat takes precedence, and I don't really care what the ultimate consensus - if any - turns out to be.)

As a moderator, I care about the wider forum. I don't care about the game. The game is not the point of the forum. Adhering to any community consensus on rules and behaviour for the game is up to all participants individually, and I will not be enforcing it. I will however be enforcing the forum rules.

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Some starting subjects to share your opinion on. Feel free to add others.
Tool use: The elephant in the room. For many, many locations in the world, technology makes it trivially easy to find the location through a photo, but regular image search based on textual input can also be very powerful. There is no reward for guessing right, only the burden of having to find yet another photo. Yet there might be imagined admiration for how well traveled you are if you guess many photos? Or does the knowledge of the existence of the tools take that away?

Research: If you don't recognize the location, what level of research is okay? Using which tools? What's the point of researching at all?

Time: How swiftly "should" the thread move? How long "should" you wait before you add more clues? And as a participant, how long "should" you wait before you research things? Should there be a point where the conclusion is "too hard, I'll put up a different location / someone else should have a turn"? Is that preferable over research being necessary?

Hardness: If you look back to the early pages of the thread, most photos were very recognizable to anyone who'd been to the location, and guessed very swiftly, only sometimes needing a second photo clue. Later on, they started getting obscure, both because most widely visited places had been done already, because participants started posting more-or-less "misleading" initial photos or photos of obscure details from popular locations, or simply because of running out of good photos for the game. Nowadays it feels like most locations need 10+ photos and many textual clues. What is okay here? What do we like? Is there a relation to reduced participation? (If anyone not currently participating is reading along and wants to chime in, please do!)

Outside help: If someone knows the location but doesn't want to take a turn, should they give hints?

Meta: What is actually the value in the thread? Is it the challenge of guessing the location? Is it learning about new and interesting locations which you might want to visit yourself? Is it seeing pretty pictures?

[ Edit: Edited on 25 Jun 2023, 09:42 GMT by Sander ]

Remembering that the thread began during lockdown, as a way of engaging minds and lifting spirits....not for any other purpose. I've never viewed it as any sort of competition and I doubt most other participants have.

During the period the thread has existed the vast, vast majority of participants appear to have taken part with enjoyment, regardless of whether their guesses were correct or not.

All the comments below are imo, obviously.

Tool use

>Yet there might be imagined admiration for how well traveled you are if you guess many photos?

'Imagined' possibly, depending on how much the person lacks confidence/needs validation/wants to show off etc etc. Real admiration: certainly none from me regardless of how many correct guesses and I would imagine none from most other participants. It's a traveller's website so surely we expect each other to be as well-travelled as is feasible for each of us?

>does the knowledge of the existence of the tools take that away?

Yes, very obviously, just as it is equally obvious when reverse-image tools are exclusively used.

Research:

>What's the point of researching at all?

All research broadens the mind. That's its point and its value.

I research loads of things on a daily basis. That's my norm.

>If you don't recognize the location, what level of research is okay? Using which tools?

It was agreed ages ago (I'm not looking back to find the posts!) that if a photo/location remained unguessed for an unspecified amount of time it was fine to research using textual sites. After all, the chances of each location used being recognised by a participant (few nowadays) is pretty much nil unless someone has visited the place and seen the same things from the same viewpoint.

If I don't know somewhere on the thread I often research it out of personal interest but always textually, from what I can see in the photos and/or clues which may have been given. In that situation I've been deliberately trying to remember to give my thinking/searchwords/logic if I subsequently make a guess, so I don't look as if I've just used a reverse-image search.

For me, just using a reverse-image search and then taking part in the thread is cheating, nothing more and nothing less.....in exactly the same way as using e.g. ChatBT to write an essay or a forum reply is 'cheating'.

Time:

>How swiftly "should" the thread move? How long "should" you wait before you add more clues?

For me, there should be something added every 24 hours or so whether it's photos or a text clue. Imo, if you're expecting people to participate you should be courteous enough to help them along.

It shouldn't be a competition with 'winners' being feted. It should be enjoyable, interesting and educational.

For that exactly that reason I don't take part if I'm going away. I don't think it's fair to expect people to hang around for days and days.

Hardness

> What do we like?

I like seeing photos and I like seeing people's guesses and comments.

I genuinely don't care how hard or easy identification is as long as the poster plays fair and adds more photos/clues on a regular basis. If someone posts a pretty-generic photo then allows days to pass with no further input (illness etc excluded, obv) I wouldn't consider it to be in the spirit of the game.

Equally, for me, asking someone who correctly identifies a location for further information about that location (not originally requested) rather than simply acknowledging their success is not in the spirit of the game (or any other game, tbh).

Outside help:

>If someone knows the location but doesn't want to take a turn, should they give hints?

No. We're all intelligent adults who are capable of making our own decisions and doing our own research. Not only is posting 'hints' somewhat patronising towards other players but the person whose turn it is should have control over what photos & clues he/she gives.

If I know what the location is but don't want a turn I don't post in the thread. Simple as that.

Meta:

>What is actually the value in the thread? Is it the challenge of guessing the location? Is it learning about new and interesting locations which you might want to visit yourself?

Any thread's 'value' will vary according to the individual.

For me it's primarily learning about 'new & interesting locations' ...visiting doesn't come into it. Neither does 'winning' (I don't much enjoy competitive games), the challenge of guessing, demonstrating my superior knowledge, making my locations as difficult as possible to guess......

.....though ( more recently) before posting I have learned to check whether my photos give an accurate result on e.g. google lens so that I can make an informed decision about which to use,

>Is it seeing pretty pictures?

I don't care about 'pretty' pictures but I do enjoy seeing photos of places around the world, whether I've visited them or not.

[ Edit: Edited on 25 Jun 2023, 11:24 GMT by leics2 ]

"No accusations" is a good idea but we should bear in mind that you have asked people to express their opinions and we shouldn't be quick to delete any opinions which aren't all butterflies and roses. Otherwise this just compounds the frustrations felt. It's not ideal that you're moderating this thread where one of the factors is your moderation of the game thread - inbuilt conflict.

As a moderator, I care about the wider forum. I don't care about the game. The game is not the point of the forum. Adhering to any community consensus on rules and behaviour for the game is up to all participants individually, and I will not be enforcing it. I will however be enforcing the forum rules.

I can see your point, but I also see another side. Moderation extends to more vague concepts like encouraging good behaviour; it's hard to turn one's face away from activity within the game thread, to say you'll not be enforcing any community consensus that comes about from this thread. Currently you do intervene.

Moderation of this stuff is difficult. It'll be hard to be even handed. We can't go on with selective interventions. Members appear to be reacting in one of two ways to frustrations - they step back from participating, or they try to ask people to behave better. Unfortunately it appears from my perspective that the moderation has been to delete the requests for better behaviour, whilst leaving the poor behaviour intact.

This game isn't what the forums were originally intended for, but it does fit very well. During the pandemic when we couldn't travel it was a great way to keep a sense of community going among us, and I think it continues to do that. So I think it has value, if members want to continue, and I think there is value in treating resolution of any conflicts as worthwhile - we should not wash our hands of it or treat it as "not the point of the forum".

If it isn't sufficiently relevant to the Travel Photography forum, by all means look at relocating it to a more suitable forum here.

Re tool use, research, time, etc. I think most of us treat it as a progression starting with personal knowledge, and if that fails us then guesswork, further photo clues, and research like looking at maps, Wikipedia, learning about the subject to home in on the location.

Tools like Google Lens are against the spirit. AI style help should come in when we are all stuck. I frequently do not play the game but I do look things up with Google Lens to see how that compares to what the participants are doing. It is very obvious when the pics in a round produce a positive result with a lookup and the player immediately zooms in despite never having been there. The cheats are obvious.

Online forums attract a variety of types. As well as the community, those interested in travel ideas and learning, we get others such as the bored and drunk who may post to be disruptive. Maybe they get a laugh from disrupting the game.

On Hardness, I think that is also sometimes a tool of the disruptive - posting an impossible challenge then declaring "but it's obvious". These sort of dicks are also apparent, and people don't want to play with them, so it reduces participation. I don't know how to tackle that, beyond the other players papering over it and moving on.

Re Outside Help. I've been guilty of this, knowing the place but not wanting to take a turn, chucking in a clue when people are stumped. I hope it's just participation and not a disruption.

You might have noticed that I'm a bit of a glutton for punishment...

I copped all that flak over the pics I posted of Burlington, and there've been other examples, I've had posts edited for no reason, but the galling assertion that a 'respected member' had complained about my posts cut to the quick. I posted nothing inflammatory, defamatory or disrespectful there.

Assertions that a post I made was against the rules bit, too.

I came to this forum because I was looking for help with the identity of a picture my wife took, I got the answer in very quick time. Later I decided to post a blog, I thought that was well-received and I posted another. I was again helped with the identification of the location of another picture, all was well.

But since I started on the 'can you name...' thread I've been the target of all kinds of angst. Let me see, now, assertions that the Targa Florio was a 'little known' event, an event which is spoken of in reverence around the world and which is memorialised by annual modern day events was pretty bad, in my opinion. And my pics of the road to Durango led to all kinds of argumentative posts against me.

When I made an error in a post I was told I must be 'sloppy'. I accepted that and explained what had happened:

And I simply made a mistake when I started looking on Street View and confused myself about the direction I was taking. So, perhaps, 'sloppy.' She is indeed facing West, nothing whatever to do with any symbolism and I never intended it that way.

So who's next? It looks like leics2 to me.

But I'd really appreciate some thanks for posting such a nice and educational picture instead of copping flak for making a mistake.

And then I got further sarcasm in the following post.

This pattern seems to repeat itself most times I take a turn. What have I done wrong?

Once again I ask, what have I done wrong?

This assertion that I am somehow unsavory, less respectable, unworthy of this forum...

This reply by Ray Bell has been reported by one of our Respected Members or Travel Gurus. This is most likely because it broke the forum rules, which it could've done by being a promotional post, containing an email address, being a duplicate post, or being inflammatory.
It will be reviewed by a Moderator or Administrator to verify and will be deleted or edited as appropriate.

...shows that, yet again, people who attack me can report my posts and have them deleted or altered. The treatment I receive here is grossly unfair, just read my post above.

Since the "Can you name the place in the photograph game" thread on the Travel Photography forum has effectively run its course, and the participants have moved over to the new "Where Am I? Game" thread on the Off Topic forum, I'll move this meta discussion thread there as well, to hopefully having some value there.
(First time in nearly 20 years where I wish we had the ability to lock a thread!)

Any chance of me ever getting an answer?

Or a fair hearing?

Quoting Ray Bell

Any chance of me ever getting an answer?

Or a fair hearing?

Ever? It's been one hour.

Clearly a member flagged your post as inflammatory because you gave a snippy answer. It's been unblocked and I wrote a reply in-thread. Active members will all know that things get flagged all the time so it's not necessarily a big drama.

Re "fair". As I'm now responsible for modding the photo game, I'm not playing in the game, not that I did play very often anyway. Hopefully that will keep me out of any disagreements as I'll purely be there with my mod hat on. I'll try to hold everyone to the same standards - we all want this to be a fun forum so if there's any further unpleasantness I'll just delete the posts back to the start of the disagreement and ask for someone else to take a turn.