frassing unidentified decent images

Let's appreciate all that the editors do, whatever it is they decide to do. We greatly appreciate all the work Jeff does with spiders. We greatly appreciate all the work Robin does on guide pages. We don't ask Jeff to help write more guide pages. We don't ask Robin to help frass more poor quality images. We take what they are willing to do and are happy that they do it. Especially in a volunteer powered site, we have to accept that not all volunteers will have the same goals and desires. As long as an editor is not doing harm, frassing images that shouldn't be, for example, let's rejoice in what they are willing to do. We might wish they would do more or do other, but they are going to do what interests them, or they won't volunteer here. It seems according to Tom's analysis above that Jeff is frassing appropriately and contributors are getting autocomments so they can ask if they have questions, so no foul. Maybe the solution is to find a way to generate autocomments that are more appropriate, explaining why an image is frassed. We don't know if that is possible. Until then things may not be perfect, but overall they seem to work fine.

that were frassed without explanation yesterday:

1. This photo doesn't look too bad. Is it not identifiable? The contributor asked for an ID but didn't receive one.

2. This photo and the two that accompany it look fairly good. Is the individual not identifiable beyond "wolf spider"?

3. Here is a blurry photo that one person tentatively identified as Neoscona sp. and another IDed as Neoscona crucifera. If it's N. crucifera it's the first record of that species from Arizona. As far as I know, we're still keeping photos as data points for states/months, as originally suggested by Troy Bartlett. Is the ID of this photo incorrect?

4. This photo and the two that accompany it are interesting shots of a jumping spider with prey. Good close-up images from different angles.

5. This shot clearly shows a distinguishing feature of the genus Ummidia, and none of the other photos currently in the Guide come close to depicting the feature as nicely as this.

The above 5 examples were selected from the first 3 pages of Frass. I didn't look through the remaining 22 pages but I imagine they contain a number of similar examples.

Maybe some of these are duplicate images? Maybe some were unlinked from a series, and other photos in the series were retained? Maybe some were frassed because they're not identifiable beyond a certain level? Or maybe there's other reasons? I don't know because no explanations were given as to why the photos were frassed.

This type of situation would probably be less likely to occur if we had guidelines to follow, as previously suggested. Wikipedia is a volunteer site just like BugGuide is, and I suspect that its generally high quality is due at least in part to its guidelines and policies. I also think that BugGuide's quality would improve if we followed the Wikipedia model. We should be able to make progress as long as we stick to discussing the issues involved, and not the people behind them - again, as previously suggested.

Why don't you go through the rest of the frass and look at the images that have no explanation? I think that is the majority of them. It seems the autocomment is generally sufficient.

I enjoy how you are trying to single me out, Robin. Good work.
It seems Chuck was right about getting way too personal, which you seem to have done.

Don't you think if contributors or other editors were concerned about a frassed image, they would inquire by leaving a comment on the image in question, as Rob did, j&j, others in the past? Why is that so hard for you? Why am repeating myself and wasting my time again?

I am done with you and this forum topic, and I will continue to do what I have been doing.

I agree that it's courteous to make a comment, but not very time efficient. People who take on entire sections have to manage their time. I don't think leaving specific reasons for frass is practical for everyone. Someone working on a section can triple their time spent, or more, if expected to leave special comments. I think the auto comment is good enough most of the time.

It's not a question of time. It's a question of common courtesy and being considerate to the owner of a photo as well as everyone else who sees it. Nobody should have to ask why a photo was frassed; the explanation should be included in the comment. We've already been through several situations where contributors became upset/angry at having their photos frassed with no accompanying comment. Let's try to avoid repeating those events.

Specifically, let's stop offering "I don't have time" as an excuse for being careless or inconsiderate. Remember that anyone who does ANYTHING at BugGuide has time on their hands. There's no quota for us to reach, and there's no deadline for us to meet, so there's no need to rush; we've got all the time in the world.

Editors who don't care enough (or don't think it's important) to give reasons for frassing images should find something else to do - preferably something they DO care about, or something they DO think is important. There's no excuse for aggravating people by frassing their photos for no given reason.

not sure that I agree on the time issue, but I do agree that it will help by reducing the number of upset contributors. I guess I've always assumed that contributers can figure out why their image was frassed by the heading on the frass page, especially since most images are frassed due to quality issues. Personally, I don't frass for any other reason (except occassional duplicate images). It just seems a waste of time to leave a comment on a poor quality image from a one-time contributor, and the spider section gets a lot of those due to the common fear of spiders.

that "contributors can figure out why their image was frassed", there wouldn't be numerous comments asking "Why is this in Frass?"

And the idea that it's "a waste of time" to explain why a photo has been frassed can be restated like this:

"Editors don't have time to help people; they only have time to confuse and annoy people."

I disagree with that statement, and I suspect that the majority of BugGuide contributors and visitors also disagree.

Do the comments in your link even account for 1% of the images that have been frassed over the years?
If someone is concerned why an image has been frassed, usually they will post a comment under the image (Rob replied in an email, but you disagree with that too, don't you?) in question, rather than start a forum topic or comment on one and look for people to jump on the bandwagon.

I don't have time to hold people's hands. I am of average intellegence, sometimes even dumb (as I'm wasting my time explaining myself to you after I said I wouldn't). Yet I can figure this out...
I may have even asked John for the ID Request to frass autocomment.

your statement here that "I'm not going to waste anymore time explaining myself to you." Maybe you rolled out of bed on the wrong side this morning?

It appears that several of our editors are very fragile when anyone even asks a question about their editorial decisions. Other than to note that their justifications for these decisions always seem to ring a little hollow, I am well aware that I don't really know enough about the situations involved (other that what is dealt with in these forums) to comment directly.

Indirectly though, I would prefer that our editors use what time that they can give us to come closer to Robin's communication orientated editor model than some of the 'picture sifter' editor types implied by the responses given. What doesn't get done due the extra time/effort involved is "our" problem not their's.

For perspective, I have noticed occasional 'impatience' expressed by some new contributors due to less than instant responsiveness over the last few years but real hostility seems mostly to come from our 'stressed out' editors.

There's nothing on your bio page, and you haven't posted any pictures.

I asked Roy the same question under similar circumstances and got no answer. I think that his comments have no value.

are the fragile, stressed out editors, Roy? Am I one who's justifications seem to ring a little hollow?

but I can only roll out on one side. Not sure if it is the right or wrong side.

More likely it was the comments in this forum I read before posting that.

I had it already determined and labeled as a Lycosid (= wolf spider)

I have never moved anything, didn't even know I had the ability or right to do so.

As it seems possible that someone new may recognize something further, I would prefer to not have it in frass.

There was an unidentified frassed moth that I later was able to ID.

What is the moving procedure?

You can move any of your own images. Go to the image, click "tag" (if it's a series click "tag all") Find the level in the guide you want to move your images to. When you get there make sure you're in the "images" section, and then you click "moved tagged images".

sometimes images are frassed because they are deemed not able to be ID'd further. The guide can get overwhelmed with images of the same commonly found bugs/spiders so someone has to "clean up". If you don't want your image frassed, just move it back.

I don't agree that anything should be frassed 'only' because it can't be identified below family level. We need example images for users to compare to who never submit ANY images of their own. I count myself in that category. I have already been able to identify a few specimens in my collection from images on Bugguide. Now, if the image is a silhouette or so out of focus as to be useless, by all means, frass away:-)