[fgates]

I'd like to suggest that the Wildlife/animals category would be split into Wildlife and Farm animals/Pets categories. The style of these categories is quite different.

Fred

[_MB_]

Agreed.

[Angela]

The Crew will give it some thought

[Angela]

Thanks for the suggestion.

We are not ruling out the idea for the future, but we already have 11 galleries (plus members' own, of course) and for now we would prefer do avoid further subdivision where there is already an unambiguous location for a particular type of photo.

There can also be a problem if existing photos are moved to a new gallery, since any current links to those images will be broken.

We will keep the idea open, so please feel free to add to the discussion.

[_MB_]

Just curious - is there a reason you don't want more galleries?

I wouldn't care if there were 25 galleries - 90% of the time i just look at recent uploads so the containing gallery isn't that important, though sometimes I'll look at a specific gallery for inspiration - the current animal gallery often has captive or domestic animals, which can be tedious to sort through to look for the genuinely wild animals.

[silkstone]

But if the containing gallery isn't that important.....

As Angela says, we're not closed to the idea. We've recently introduced the Transport gallery because there was no obvious place to post photos of trains, boats, planes, cars, etc. (Someone actually asked in which gallery they should post photos of planes, and we went, er, )

There will be some who don't mind how many galleries there are, and I guess others who find too many confusing and are 'spoilt for choice'. There's also the 'lost link' issue relating to any existing images that are moved, as Angela mentioned.

So for now we'll leave it alone and listen to any further comments.

[_MB_]

Originally Posted by silkstone

But if the containing gallery isn't that important.....

Except that 10% of the time, in my case.

It strikes me that the disciplines are so different - and with such different audiences - pet/captive animal photography really more akin to portrait photography and wildlife of course mainly long lenses, natural light that its a strange situation to have them in one gallery.

Have you ever polled people on use of the gallery? i.e. happiness with layout, categories etc.

[silkstone]

Originally Posted by _MB_

Have you ever polled people on use of the gallery? i.e. happiness with layout, categories etc.

Well that's what we're doing here - inviting comments and listening to them - and so far only two members have posted in support of a change.

The Ideas & Suggestions forum is here so that anyone can suggest improvements or tell us about their dislikes, but before we go changing things we like to get a consensus.

[_MB_]

I was meaning something more empirical.

[Steve]

Originally Posted by _MB_

the current animal gallery often has captive or domestic animals, which can be tedious to sort through to look for the genuinely wild animals.

If you used the search function then input your desired animal(s), providing members have tagged/named their shots correctly it should return relevant photos I tried it with 'lion' and got accurate results with the exception of lionel Richie and Richard the lionheart.

I find this method much better than trawling through all the shots for that 10 % of the time

[orangepeel]

must admit, i'm with _MB_

I couldn't give a monkeys about somones cat, budgie or dug but I would be interested in wildlife - especially outside of zoo's. Takes special skills, equipment and patience to capture these shots so imo they are deserving of their own category.

As for the "11 galleries are enough" logic, well extend that a bit and why not just have one and dump everything in that? That way there is no confusion about where to put images.

Searching that's fine if you are looking for something specific however at a guess, some of us actually like to browse. This means we quickly get bored trawling through images we have no interest in and give up.

Finally, easy cure for the broken links issue. Close the current Wildlife / Animal Photography gallery to new submissions then create 3 new ones: -
Pets
Wildlife
Zoo Animals


Anyone that puts wee Trixy into Wildlife or Zoo Animals has their image moved to the correct category. When they find their link no longer works and question it, they learn a valuable lesson about how to categorise their images properly.

[silkstone]

We really don't have an axe to grind here! We do want to be sure that any changes have general support and won't upset more people than they please, so comments here from a few more members would be welcome.

I'd say that we do have to be wary of too much subdivision - where do you stop? For example, the new Transport gallery could be split into Trains, Boats, Planes, Cars, Bikes, etc... so that people who are interested in only one category don't have to wade through all the others.

But having said that, the issue is still open for discussion.

[silkstone]

Another question...

If we did split the Animals gallery, would it really be necessary to distinguish between Wildlife and Zoo? What about wildlife parks or reserves? What constitutes a zoo? Would you be happy simply with having Pets as a separate category?

[_MB_]

Originally Posted by silkstone

Another question...

If we did split the Animals gallery, would it really be necessary to distinguish between Wildlife and Zoo? What about wildlife parks or reserves? What constitutes a zoo? Would you be happy simply with having Pets as a separate category?

Sorry, been away on business so not contributed for a few days

General convention in wildlife photography is to declare a captive photograph as opposed to a wild photograph. There are very sound reasons for this, ie snapping a captive bird may not need schedule 1 license approval, whilst a wild one most certainly would.

To my mind then, you need a "captive/domestic" category, and a "wildlife" category, some common sense from members and some sensible moderation by the crew

I'd also like to point out I quite enjoy pet photos, livestock, working animals etc but these photos are as I and OP point out, very often achieved in a totally different manner. I am principally here to learn, so would love to see a screen full of useful photos as opposed to half of them of no immediate interest.

I also understand Pixalo is not particularly big on wildlife so perhaps there isn't the necessary population of wildlife/nature photographers for it to matter greatly. It'd be nice, s'all