Are there limits on daily photo submissions?

Let me first say that I haven't hit one yet for the PlantFiles, if it exists.

I'm just curious, as I've been trying to capture some of the springtime growth of well-established plants in my area. There can be a tremendous difference in photos from the re-emergence of a perennial (from out of the ground or in leaf buds, for example) and what may appear a week or two later (clusters of foliage or flowers). I'm also trying to add pics of the more 'boring' annuals, like veggies and herbs. :)

I'd like to continue submitting photos of these springtime milestones as they occur, probably a maximum of two or three per plant. Once the plants are off and running, I doubt I will submit further images until the plants are fully leafed out or bearing fruit. Yet I'm also wondering if this is a really busy time for submissions and if I should save them up for a better/later time.

I'm flexible. What is the preference of the PlantFile editors?

Donna

Good question! There is no limit for daily submissions - if you really want to pound on the system and add hundreds of images at once, you can.

Here's what happens to the queued-up images:

Each day (usually morning, but not always!) I pull up everything in the queue, and select one image per user to be showcased in the nightly newsletter. I do a cursory check for accuracy. (For example, if you accidentally submitted an image of your dog instead of your dogwood, I will probably spot it before it's released. But I probably won't catch your error if you added an image of Cercis texensis to a Cercis canadensis entry.) When I'm doing this first pass, I also have some ways of "scrambling" the sequence they're submitted, so the ten images on the PlantFiles homepage aren't always from the same users

As the number of people submitting images continues to increase, I may have to figure out a way to "cap" the nightly newsletter images in a way that's fair to everyone. Currently, we're running between 50 and 70 images per day, which is the maximum pain threshhold for newsletter readers, especially those on dialup.)

For the remaining images, I look to see how many images the user has in the queue. If a user has more than 4 or 5 remaining images, I will probably release most of them through a "back door" that places them directly in PlantFiles rather than appearing in the newsletter, too. That's important for people who REALLY want their images showcased in the newsletter: if you do, then you'll need to take it upon yourself to add just one or two images at a time. If we try to hang onto everyone's images and release them one-a-day, the queue quickly balloons with hundreds of images, which makes it almost impossible for me to navigate.

A few other pointers: if you are submitting images to an entry that already has several images, try to choose a shot that's unique. (If there are many images of the plant in glorious full bloom, get pictures of the leaves, stem, seedpods, buds, seeds, etc. If the image is too similar to others already submitted, we reserve the right to decline it.

If an entry is a "blank slate" you're welcome to submit multiple images for it. But again, try to capture different aspects of the plant, rather than submitting a half-dozen similar images. (Blooms are always a gorgeous subject, but leaves, stems, bark, seeds, etc. are also helpful for other readers trying to ID their plant from your information.)

Thank you for expanding on the guidelines used for adding photos, Terry.

If someone isn't particularly interested in having their current submissions included in the daily newsletter, should they send a Contact Us email stating that? I would imagine that lots of folks are camera happy here in the Northern Hemisphere now that spring is here. :)

Donna, yes they can let us know if they don't care about having their images in the newsletter. Though I'll usually try to catch one from each user regardless of how many they might have in the queue, then release the others.

I generally keep an inventory of 1-3 days' worth of images in the queue. That's my insurance against a "slow news day" - if we had a day with few or no new images (unlikely but possible), the newsletter would be mighty bare-looking. This is more of an issue during the winter months, when image submissions slow down a lot. But as best I recall, last winter's slowest point was still a couple dozen images a day. (A few short years ago, I was able to release 2-5 images per user per day and still keep under 50 images total in the newsletter. Not so anymore! We're currently seeing 100 to 300 images a day pouring in.)

One add-on question, Terry......

When you release a user's multiple photos through the "back door" you mentioned, I understand they won't show up in the Newsletter (fine with me) but they still show up in the PF Pictures forum, right? Or are they just magically added to PF?

They have a thread attached to them, which will appear in the PF Pictures forum - the only difference is they don't appear in the newsletter.