3/14: Release today + bug reports here

I've uploaded several more photos. All were approved and appear in Plant Files. None show up in the discussion forum, however. As a test, I went to one of my new photos (in Plant Files) and entered a comment (just the word "test".) The forum then showed new activity (because of my comment), but the photo still wasn't there. It looks really weird to see new activity, but not be able to find the post when you look for it!

I was wondering if things had changed too in when photos are posted on the PlantFiles Pictures Discussion Forum. I was hoping that things were beginning to get fixed on PFs which probably means a few bugs appear before positive change.

What I recently noticed was that there would be new photos posted to PFs and show up on the "The latest posts at DG:" on the bottom of my HOME page. But when I went to the PlantFiles Pictures Discussion Forum they are not there! Is this what you are finding SallieKr? I think this is new or maybe I just never noticed it before.

At first I thought it was a new bug because I only saw UBER photos on the PlantFiles Pictures Discussion Forum but after awhile I also some other posters' photos.

I then thought maybe the photos show up on the "The latest posts at DG:" but not on the PlantFiles Pictures Discussion Forum until they get approved. But Sallie, you are saying that the photos are actually in PF entries but still not on the PlantFiles Pictures Discussion Forum.

UBER's photos get directly uploaded to the PF entries so they never get put in the line waiting for approval. This is done so as not to clog up the works and make the approval line too long, because of the huge number of photos UBER people upload. It just makes it easier and faster not only for UBERS but for everyone else too. .So UBER photos show up on the bottom of your home page under "The latest posts at DG" and simultaneously on the PlantFiles Pictures Discussion Forum and as an actual photo in their plant entry.

I do not know who is doing the photo approvals but maybe they would tell us if something new is going on.


This message was edited Jul 16, 2016 9:33 PM

Previously, disappearing new posts were caused by the posting date/time being fouled up. Could that factor be contributing to this current problem?

ViburnumValley: I think if it were a date/time issue everyone would be affected. But who knows ;-)

Kell: My Home page doesn't show "The latest posts at DG:", probably due to my DG settings. I'm afraid I don't really have a lot of time to spend in forums so the only things I watch are specific forums and updated threads in my Thread Watcher.

A couple of weeks ago I started looking at each user whose images appeared in the forum and I too noticed that they were all Uber or Pioneer. Then, recently I think, other users' images started to show up, but still none of mine! Last year, all of my photos appeared- last ones were in July 2015. (photo 1)

I just noticed a new bug as well. When I go to My Info, View the threads SallieKr has started, then use the dropdown to view PlantFile Pictures only, the page reloads, but still shows all forums. (Photo 2 & 3).

I'm going to create another post, as I have more than 5 screenshots... so this is 1 of 2.

Post 2 of 2
I decided to do a test and comment on an image I uploaded 7/12/2016. It showed up as new activity in the PlantFiles Pictures forum in my forum watch list, but the photo still can't be found there. This is the link to the PlantFiles photo itself, clicking "Discuss this image" will show my comment:

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/403849/

The 5 screenshots show my test process. Screenshot 4 shows the new forum activity. Screenshot 5 shows all the photos in the pictures forum posted on 7/12... mine still not there. That explains why you see new activity, Kell, but no photo!

WELL SHOOT!
I typed out a long reply then decided to add a quote from your post and instead of inserting your quote at the bottom of my post it deleted my post entirely.

So................. lets see if I copy and paste the quote if my post stays.
[quote="SallieKr"]

I just noticed a new bug as well. When I go to My Info, View the threads SallieKr has started, then use the dropdown to view PlantFile Pictures only, the page reloads, but still shows all forums. (Photo 2 & 3).

I agree, i can replicate that bug too!

Also I noticed in looking at your photos that the one of the the PlantFiles Pictures Discussion Forum that all the photos are mine from July 12. The others mixed in are only ones with comments on them. Since my photos bypass the approval queue and get directly uploaded and the other photos all have comments on them so they came from PFs and not the approval queue, the error must be happening as the photos are released after approval. Of course then your photo with your comment should be there too now but I think because it was originally uploaded after the bug started, it will never show even with comments!

LOL Did you follow that? I am going to add another comment to yours just for fun and see if it appears then add a comment to a photo uploaded awhile back pre bug.
Your photo I was referring to -

Yes, I can follow that ;-) For my overly long post I created a text file first, then copied & pasted it here. I've lost posts too!

I was kind of wondering how the sorting worked in that forum. If you comment on a pre bug photo, will the photo get moved to the top of the forum? I guess I should have tried that too. Well, hubby is yelling at me that it's time to go shopping. I'll check back later.

OK so my comment on a photo uploaded in 2009 (pre bug) does show up on the PlantFiles Pictures Discussion Forum
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/958050/

but the comment I made on your photo post bug does not show up on the PlantFiles Pictures Discussion Forum
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1428311/

However both show up on the bottom of my homepage under "The latest posts at DG:"
No PlantFiles Pictures Candle Anemone (Anemone cylindrica) ladygardener1 1 12 Jul 17, 2016 10:24 AM
No PlantFiles Pictures Candle Anemone (Anemone cylindrica) SallieKr 2 14 Jul 17, 2016 10:23 AM

My gosh, I think we have got it!!! Your Thanks post added to your picture
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1428311/
does show up as being on the PlantFile forum under new posts but is not really there! LOL I think DG is just trying to make us think we are nuts!!!

Anyway, I am not going to ask you about being a Wild One. LOL

So I wonder what "new" means in first column under my
Kell's Threads

Communities > Forums
Limit to threads in which forum:

I see that all my new threads under PlantFiles Pictures that I have made are marked NO but all the Bloom of the Day threads are marked NEW all the way back even though I have not looked at any of my threads in either forum.
LOL

I just saw this post! So you are saying that a thumbnail of pre approved photos will show on the actual plant entry but you cannot enlarge it till it is approved? I will have to look for someone to upload a new photo to PFs and look.

On the bottom right on my homepage I have a pending image box but it is Pending images by Kell but that does not show other people's pending images.

This message was edited Jul 17, 2016 10:55 AM

Kell: Right- about the comments. Your comment on my photo showed up in my Threadwatcher, but didn't make the photo appear in the forum. Your comment on the

"pre bug" photo of the same plant bumped the photo to the top of the pictures forum. It makes sense, somehow, I guess.

Kell & Chillybean: I uploaded a photo of this plant this morning. It shows a thumbnail on my Home page under images of mine which are pending, but only

there (not in PlantFiles):

http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/200237/

As for Wild Ones: it does sound kinda kinky, but actually it's a national organization promoting the use of native plants. I just joined my local chapter

this Spring and have already learned a lot!

http://www.wildones.org/

You really have to wonder who does the programming for this site. They should donate this site to a computer programming school to go at it. At the least it would be an example of what never to do!! LOL Since they first started to "fix" PFs what a year ago which screwed it up then they went over to the DG part and screwed that up, leaving both to limp along with bandaids on all their "fixes."

There are so many links to that go nowhere or at least not where they are supposed go to.

I can no longer get upset at all the screw ups. At some point it becomes comical.

Yeah. I was half-thinking of going to "that other site" and asking Dave if he'd ever thought of releasing the code as an "Open Source" project. That way other programmers could help debugging, make improvements, etc. At one time, 20 or so years ago, I found an Open Source project for a DVD/Movie database program which I really liked. It had some bugs and I had some ideas for improvements. I downloaded the code, corrected some bugs, and added some code as suggestions for improvement. My name was even included in the release notes as a contributor in the next official release. It was the exact same code as used here (PHP/MySQL/HTML). That was long ago, many changes have been made to the programs which I'd have to learn, and I doubt that I'd have time to do that sort of thing now. Wouldn't it be great if someone from IB would consider that here, though? I'm sure there are programmers out there who'd be interested.

I do not think Dave would be inclined to help! LOL From what I have heard there appears to be sheer delight with our trials and tribulations over there.

So................. I see your PF picture of Nymphoides peltata
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/404061/
you just posted with a comment no less has appeared on the PF Discussion Forum and in the PF plant entry and enlarges!
So there goes part of our theory! LOL

But your photo of Ligularia Bottle Rocket though enlarged in PFs is not showing in the PF Discussion Forum.

LOL OK, back to our theory being correct. I see now that your photo of Nymphoides peltata
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/404061/
is an old photo so pre bug. That is why it came up on the PF Discussion Forum.

Yet another problem - and possible warning to members! I just started seeing this today. The problem didn't occur yesterday. Here's the bug report D-Mail I just sent:

You really need to find out what's going on with Tynt, or better get rid of it completely. A couple of years ago I was having problems when copying text into a Journal entry. A URL, pointing back to the same Journal entry, was being added and I had to edit it out- very annoying. I mentioned this in one of the forums and was given a link to the Tynt site to opt-out.

Well, Tynt has apparently been purchased by some other company (I was redirected to another site.) I found that I had to opt-out again, which I did. It didn't help my current problem, however. Now every time I try to click a URL I've inserted into a Journal entry I get a warning screen from Google saying that "Google Safe Browsing recently detected phishing on vlr.tynt.com". As I said, attempting to opt-out did not fix this problem. Apparently I can't attach a screenshot to this D-Mail, so I created a Journal entry with the photo here:

External view:
http://davesgarden.com/community/journals/viewentry/390306/

My actual journal link (for admin/tech):
http://davesgarden.com/tools/journal/viewentry.php?rid=390306

I'm glad you two, at least, are on top pf this stuff. I couldn't really follow, but otoh, I rarely try to add anything to PF. Keep up the good work.

I got an Acer running Windows 8/10 at almost the same time as this nonsense started. Both (DG and new Acer) are giving me fits and making me want to hide under the sofa (except it's too hot),

I do not keep a journal so I have no experience with your new found problem;Sallie.

Hi Carrie. Thanks but it does no good if this problem is not brought to the attention of someone who is able to fix it.

I just noticed more PF photo entries under The latest posts at DG:" so I looked again to see if we have gotten it right. And we do!

I see on judithandrews entry of a photo of Tall Bearded Iris 'Amethyst Midnight' (Iris) that though it is now in PFs it is not on the PlantFiles Pictures Discussion Forum. If you click on PlantFile Forum on this page
Image Copyright judithandrews

Subject: Tall Bearded Iris 'Amethyst Midnight'

Forum: PlantFiles Pictures
which is saying this photo is on PFs page, you click on it and the photo is NOT on the page.
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/fp.php?pid=10243861


This is a shocker!!!!!!!!!!!! I just went back on the PlantFiles Pictures Discussion Forum to see when this problem started. I had to go back 44 pages to February 22 to find when the PlantFiles Pictures Discussion Forum worked correctly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And no one seemed to notice. THAT IS AMAZING!!!!! For 44 pages it was mostly the Palmbob, DaylillySLP and Kell show with a few other ubers and non ubers photos which had been commented on.

Yes, that's what's happening to my photos as well. They appear in PlantFiles and "appear" to have the forum link, but the photo isn't there. I didn't know how long the problem had been going on because I hadn't uploaded any photos since last July. I should upload more, but usually only do so when I notice a plant that has very few or no pictures. With all the snow and cold here, my winters are spent working on other projects.

Good news for the "Tynt" problem. I got a response to my DMailed bug report which said DG will no longer be using it. Even though it affected my Journal entries, it has also affected other areas of the site in the past. If you try searching the forums for Tynt, you can read about the other problems.

Is there anyone still answering the "contact us" messages? If there is, how long does it take?

TY

From my experience, usually no response. I think the bug reports/concerns are being forwarded to the techs though. I did get one response this year about a problem I was having and received a response within a day or so. A couple other problems- no response, but the problem was fixed.

I've reported spam thru the contact us link, admin said the flag thing wasn't working. I haven't received any response via dmail, like I use to and the spam was/is still there. I used to always get a response within a day or two, kind of disappointing.

If nobody is protecting our photos in plant files now, I would like mine removed. Used to be, they would stop business from using pics without permission. Seems like, now you're on your own.

Well, this is STILL showing up as having unread posts, when in actuality, there are NO new posts. I imagine my posting here will remove it, but someone should really get on this annoying problem.

Mine too.

It has been my experience that any photo I have posted anywhere on the Internet is vulnerable to being picked up and used. I have seen many of my photos on Google Images and even a few on Amazon third party sellers. I don't post full-sized photos for that reason. I limit my online postings to 1000 pixels wide. My Nikon camera takes pictures 6400 pixels wide, so I crop and/or downsize them a lot to post.

I am attaching one of my zinnia pictures as an example. You can right-click and select View Image on Dave's Garden pictures to see a larger version, and hit the F11 key for a bit larger view, enabled by removing your Browser's heading material. You can see larger yet by doing Ctrl + to magnify your Browser. Hit F11 again to restore your headings and hit the left arrow to return to the normal DG view. So limiting your posted pictures to only 1000 pixels wide does not impose a serious limitation on Dave's Garden viewers.

I have no idea whether Dave's Garden will honor your request to have your photos removed. Let us know how that turns out. They do imprint a copyright notice on my posted photos. That is all I require in the way of protection from Dave's Garden.

ZM



This message was edited Jul 29, 2016 10:28 AM

I am aware of all you posted, ZM. Most of my photos were donated years ago, when DG would contact the 'abuser' and pressure them to take down stolen photos. It is not that big a deal, but still I don't like it. This last one I found has been cropped to remove the DG watermark and my name on the flower, skewing it to make it narrow and look ridiculous. To me, worse than just using it the way it was, or better yet, ask permission to use and everybody is happy.

I have a lot of photos and when I google them they are attributed to me. Which is nice. I should say that at one point admin put me in touch with a woman who was having a garden sale and wanted to use my picture of Heuchera 'Firefly'. I was pleased and gave permission. I also contribute to a column in the county paper and usually provide my own pics, but they are attributed to me.

Echoes, I understand what you are saying, and of course you are right, but if the creep who stole your picture and botched it didn't use your name, it's probably for the best!

The Internet is an enormous place, and I can't even guess how many times my photos have been "purloined" and re-used. And I am a little mystified that at some time in the past Dave's Garden may have been able to police photo re-use. I would be very curious how they might discover such photo re-use. Like I said, the Internet is an enormous place.

Well I don't expect a lot. I have been on the internet as long as anybody. But I would expect an answer from admin to my message..

If a nursery is having to steal a photo of a daylily to use in their catalogue, (and mine is not the only one) I doubt they have any idea what they are selling. Too bad, because Blue Sky Nursery is a Canadian seller, and I would have given permission to use the real photo and may have even bought from them if they looked reliable.

I agree. This is Admin's thread. Admin should be participating here.

I hear you echos. I used to get upset seeing my photos all over especially when they cropped off my copyright/name I would have at the bottom. Then I started to put my copyright in the center of the photo in a similar color to the flower. That was then, now I do not really care. I figure when I die my kid will delete all my photos so I hope others use them and enjoy them. I see mine on Facebook all the time and now I think it is fun even if my name is cropped. Sometimes I will comment that the photo is mine and where I took it, not in a confrontational way but just as information. I actually think it is cool when I see them on sites in other countries.

I used to see that photo of the 3 different head pots with the great plants all over the place! Must be the photo most often stolen! If there was a way to post, I would always comment the photo belonged to Kathy Guagliano. Remember her? KatG. She always had the prettiest combo pots. So talented! See her photo below!

DG used to send a form letter I believe to eBay when a PF photo was used but I really do not think eBay cares anymore. I know eBay used to take mine down when I complained but at some point they stopped even responding to me. I have complained myself to nursery sites and they usually took them down.

I do not think Admin really follows this thread anymore or at least acknowledges posts.

Such a great photo by Kathy Guagliano.

I must say that I have never checked Facebook, but my pictures do not appear to be showing up there. I'm not on Facebook. I really despise it. Over and over again people tell me that I have to get on it because everyone is on it. I think it, and Twitter, and a number of other "social media" have contributed to a lot of negative things in this society. I'm not on any of them. I think avoiding them protects your personal information of all kinds, since Mr. Zuckerberg just wants to sell everything about you to anyone who wants to buy it. And it's not a Harvard thing. I went to Harvard. It only makes me despise him more because it was such a fabulous place when I was there, but seems to have produced some real asses.

I regularly Google myself just to see what's out there. I have a fairly common name, but when I do that I get articles I have written for the county paper, All Expert references, comments on Dave's Garden and Help Me Find, and that's it. Given that people leak stuff from Facebook all the time, the day when I go on those kinds of forums is never.

Is anyone else having a new problem with their Journals? Last night when I tried to clone one of my Journal entries containing multiple images, I got a MySQL error.

Edited to add: I didn't have this problem yesterday morning when I cloned several items.

Today I tried again and got the same error. Both times the Journal entry was actually cloned, but the clone contained no entries/images. As a test I decided to clone the clone entry to see if I got the same error when there were no images. The clone appeared to work. This is where it got really weird. I added an entry and single image to the 2nd clone. The entry ended up with 3 images- the 3rd was of a completely different plant! Edit: Oops- the 3 images *are* of the same plant, and are the 3 images associated with the entry in the original item I cloned.

I still don't know if we're supposed to report bugs here or through DMail. I'll DMail more complete information, but thought I'd try to find out if anyone else is having the same problem or if it's something affecting my Journal only.

This message was edited Aug 18, 2016 9:18 AM

This message was edited Aug 18, 2016 9:37 AM

This message was edited Aug 18, 2016 9:37 AM

Well, cloning my Journal entries is working now. I guess they fixed something.

That's good to hear. Scary thought that someone left the tools out and unattended.

Yeah. No response here or to my DMail'd bug report, but at least it got fixed.

To those who have had their photos stolen and posted to other sites,

You can handle this problem yourself. It's not that difficult. If you see one of your photos posted anywhere on the web other than where you put it, contact the website directly (usually via their 'contact us' info). Tell them that you are the copyright owner of the photo, that you did not give permission for it to be used on the site, and you expect it to be taken down immediately. This is the important part. Be sure to mention The Digital Millennium Copyright Law of 1998. That law specifies that a website must remove any photo that violates copyright law; it further specifies that any website which fails to remove such items will loose its right to display photos at all.

I have done what I'm telling you to do, and I can tell you that every site I've contacted has removed the offending photos immediately. Only once did I run across a site that ignored my 1st message, but even they quickly caved when sent a 2nd notice. It's true that there may be any number of copies of your photos on other sites, copies you haven't even found yet, but if it matters to you, you can insist they be removed once you do find them.

Most people are very confused about copyright law. In brief, it works like this. The instant you take a photo, you become the copyright owner for that photo. You do not have to file any papers or do anything to acquire a copyright. You already have the rights to that photo when you take it. You ARE the copyright owner. As the copyright owner, you have rights under copyright law. No one is allowed to publish your photo without your permission, whether online or in a book, etc. It doesn't matter how they alter the photo, it's still a copyright violation to publish it. That falls under derivative works & is also covered under copyright law.

Just to clarify the above, you can go to the extra effort to register a particular photo or painting with the copyright office & obtain a written copyright document (at a cost). Doing so will give you 1 or 2 additional protections but is typically only cost effective for professionals. However as I stated above, you don't have to do anything to own the copyright to the photo or painting. You own it the moment you create the photo or painting.

You also don't have to include a copyright notice on or beside your photo to be eligible for copyright protection. You can do these things, and they may even help to dissuade some people from stealing the photo, but these things are not required. Some people thing any photo w/o a copyright notice is free. That's completely incorrect. It's actually the other way around. Every photo (except certain older photos for which the copyright has expired, but that determination gets very complicated) is protected by copyright law, and only those which include express notice allowing their reuse may be freely used.

Ok, I know I've gotten way off topic here, but I wanted to pass this information on to those of you who are concerned about reuse of your photos. Zen_Man's suggestion about reducing the size and resolution of your photos is a good one, too, btw.

Just one more thing regarding copyright law and your photos. The fact that you were 1st to publish a photo will go a long way toward establishing you as the rightful owner of the copyright. Posting your photo on a website such as DG is a form of publishing and thus establishes you as the probable owner in the event of a dispute. Anyone who steals your photo will be posting it AFTER you originally published it, thus making it fairly obvious who owns it and who stole it.

As for steps you may take to dissuade theft, I like the idea of reducing the resolution and size of your photos. I also like the idea of adding your own watermark to the photo, especially a large, somewhat complex, but very pale image across the center of the photo, something which is large enough to cover a good deal of the photo, complex enough to make removal difficult, and pale/transparent enough so as not to obscure the image. Many word processing programs as well as art programs include the watermark feature. A good watermark, one which will take a great deal of effort to remove, will likely deter most photo thieves.

Thank you very much, DreamofSpring. I have given permission for publications to use my pictures and often wonder if they have been lifted by others. This gives an excellent outline of what can be done in such a case, and gives me great peace of mind.

Donna