Author Topic: NANY 2011 Release: askapic.com - Photo Q&A Site (Read 107715 times)

tomos · « **on:** December 20, 2010, 02:28 PM »

NANY 2011

Application Name	askapic.com
Version	let's just call it Beta
Short Description	Photo Question & Answer Site
Supported OSes	N/A
Web Page	http://www.askapic.com/
System Requirements	a browser
Authors	tomos & adi_barb with lots of help from mouser

Well, lets call this a release

There wont be any structural changes made to the site till Monday (Jan 3rd) or later

First I'll say -
if you go to the site and have problems, have a look at Current Problems below and see if that helps you - if the problem isnt listed please post about it - thanks!

Description

The idea is very simple

upload an image and ask a question
Answers can be chosen by the OP or by a moderator
The pictures can be tagged and answers could be added as tags - so over time a database of tagged images would build up
Pictures/Questions can be browsed via slideshow, randomly or related to topic of interest

Background
I was working on this idea for a while with mouser. Then we were both busy and it just sat there for a while. Recently adi started two threads: we want to enter a small nany web service app, coded in php... any suggestions? and FamousWhy Software : Famous Questions CMS. So I suggested the idea to him.
Basically adi & co. have been working for the last week customising their Q&A "CMS" while I've been saying I want this

and I want that and generally pestering them

Evolution of Idea
initially I was thinking of it as a very practical, an 'identification' site - what is this - this is an oak tree. Now it's much more open - we wont really know what the site will be like until it gets going. Which makes it interesting, and means that you can mould it to however you would like it to be...

Features

Implemented so far:
home/indexpage showing list of questions and "editor's choice" image/question with ability to ask a question on the same page (shot #1 below)
click on question or thumbnail to go to full question page (shot #2 below)
ask/answer - with immediate regristration via a small popup, or via Facebook
categories/topics pages
member pages

Current Problems (mainly the big ones :p)

1) You have to tag an image before it will be accepted:

you have to add a comma "," after the tag word for it to be accepted
the status of your selected file is not indicated - e.g. if you forget to add a tag to an image, you will get an error message and the site will 'forget' the selected file's details so you'll have to srat from scratch (your question is remembered though).

2) Facebook login works a treat - but I'm not sure what shows up on your Facebook homepage (nothing in my case) - do let me know! [seems to be showing okay on FB]
3) Currently you are UNABLE to change any details on your Profile page
4) Categories are not properly associated with the questions i.e. on Categories page they all show as having zero related questions.
5) ~~"Unanswered" tab on the homepage shows all questions~~
6) if you ask a question and then login using name & password, you may get an error message but the login should still be successful
7) Some emails take a long time (I get emails instantly in my gmail a/c but have had to wait hours with other email accounts. But note that you can post instantly - without having gotten your regristration email. I dont know why this is - some problem with the godaddy email accounts maybe.

Planned Features

slideshow - random or related to chosen category (pre-defined tag) or topic (free-tag)

Screenshots

NANY 2011 Release: askapic.com - Photo Q&A Site

home/indexpage

NANY 2011 Release: askapic.com - Photo Q&A Site

full question page

HOW YOU CAN HELP (!)

Feedback

Report any problems, preferably here.
design comments
Feedback in general
Any advice in general about "this kind of thing" - I'm sortof out of my depth here!
first what do you think of the name imagenamer.com ? It has been a struggle trying to get a name that is available and suitable. If you have any other suggestions throw them out (preferably available as a dot com name - but I can check!) name now askapic

cranioscopical · « **Reply #1 on:** December 20, 2010, 02:36 PM »

what do you think of the name imagenamer.com ?
-Tomos

Quizapick (has more than one deliberate ambiguity).

adi_barb · « **Reply #2 on:** December 20, 2010, 03:27 PM »

Nice!

What about AskMyPhoto?

timns · « **Reply #3 on:** December 20, 2010, 03:31 PM »

Wossissden.com (you may have to say it out loud)

tomos · « **Reply #4 on:** December 20, 2010, 03:35 PM »

what do you think of the name imagenamer.com ?
-Tomos

Quizapick (has more than one deliberate ambiguity).
-cranioscopical (December 20, 2010, 02:36 PM)

I should have asked you a long time ago Chris

have to get the opinion of my advisor though (yes, mouser)

Nice!

What about AskMyPhoto?
-adi_barb (December 20, 2010, 03:27 PM)

I like this one too... Quizapick is more catchy I think, but this one is more straightforward

$:-\$

tomos · « **Reply #5 on:** December 20, 2010, 03:45 PM »

Wossissden.com (you may have to say it out loud)
-timns (December 20, 2010, 03:31 PM)

I had similar ideas but was told someone has to be able to spell it on hearing it....

timns · « **Reply #6 on:** December 20, 2010, 03:47 PM »

Wossissden.com (you may have to say it out loud)
-timns (December 20, 2010, 03:31 PM)

I had similar ideas but was told someone has to be able to spell it on hearing it....
-tomos (December 20, 2010, 03:45 PM)

Curse those practicalities. For what it's worth, I like cranio's suggestion... there could be some fun aspects to uploading confusing images to see what people make of them. Does anyone remember those weird photos they used to show on "Ask the Family?"

adi_barb · « **Reply #7 on:** December 20, 2010, 03:58 PM »

what about "photosqa" from Photos Questions and Answers ?

adi_barb · « **Reply #8 on:** December 20, 2010, 04:29 PM »

What about the following :

askapic

; picwhy ; photosabout

All the names are available on .com

timns · « **Reply #9 on:** December 20, 2010, 04:37 PM »

What about the following :

askapic ; picwhy ; photosabout

All the names are available on .com
-adi_barb (December 20, 2010, 04:29 PM)

I'm amazed askapic.com is still available. That's pretty good, I think.

tomos · « **Reply #10 on:** December 20, 2010, 04:39 PM »

askapic
-adi_barb (December 20, 2010, 04:29 PM)

I like that too

adi_barb · « **Reply #11 on:** December 20, 2010, 04:48 PM »

glad you like askapic cause I'm really happy as well it's available. It's so hard to find good names on .com nowadays.

should I look for more alternatives?

tomos · « **Reply #12 on:** December 20, 2010, 05:06 PM »

went for askapic -
thanks for all the help

adi_barb · « **Reply #13 on:** December 20, 2010, 05:10 PM »

my pleasure tom

cranioscopical · « **Reply #14 on:** December 20, 2010, 07:14 PM »

What about the following :
askapic
-adi_barb (December 20, 2010, 04:29 PM)

Gets my vote (well, it would if I had one).

tomos · « **Reply #15 on:** December 22, 2010, 09:23 AM »

Another Plea for HELP

(questions are numbered)

when you upload an image you have to choose a category and a sub-category
I dont want to have too many top-level categories so (1) I'm looking for help in what main categories to use. (2) Some names may have to be modified for the US
So far I have

general
the natural world
film
mechanical

off the top of my head, there's many possible canditates (with of course possibility of overlap):

art(y), sciences, people, computer related, food, [(3) should I say Movies instead of Film], politics (might just leave that out), sport,

General has only two sub-categories so far:

general
humour

I'm happy with the Natural sub-categories

Film has none yet, maybe film, actor, [(4) people dont say actress any more?], director, + + ??

Mechanical has the following subs:
cameras
cars
computer [(5) or maybe make that a seperate main category?]
planes
trains/locomotives

mouser · « **Reply #16 on:** December 22, 2010, 10:10 AM »

let me suggest the same thing i suggest to people who are creating new forums:

Start out with the smallest number of categories/sections you possible can, and expand only when things get busy enough to demand re-organization.
There is a big temptation to logically organize everything into tons of hierarchical categories, but when you start out with so many different isolated areas in the beginning, it just feels empty and pointless.

Just my 2 cents.

tomos · « **Reply #17 on:** December 22, 2010, 11:19 AM »

Start out with the smallest number of categories/sections you possible can, and expand only when things get busy enough to demand re-organization.
There is a big temptation to logically organize everything into tons of hierarchical categories, but when you start out with so many different isolated areas in the beginning, it just feels empty and pointless.
-mouser (December 22, 2010, 10:10 AM)

yeah,
the Q&A framework came with Categories and Topics(Tags) which I already find a bit confusing - I guess the idea of the categories is to have a more structured framework.
A problem with tags is that I mght call something one name and you another (and then there's spelling differences) which makes it difficult to track down stuff....

I'm starting to think that if you want to categorise stuff you would nearly have to make a different website for each category e.g.
TheNaturalWorld [.com - available for 1.5 grand

]
etc....

tomos · « **Reply #18 on:** December 22, 2010, 12:19 PM »

Anyone got any tips re "terms and conditions" [for] the site?

edit/ is there something generic out there I could use for the moment?

JavaJones · « **Reply #19 on:** December 22, 2010, 03:32 PM »

Re: categories, I'd be more in favor of tags. They're more flexible. Alternatively you could go with a system that allows suggesting new categories. With *either* solution you want an auto-complete of some kind or a "suggest" function so there is less chance for spelling-related miscategorization, etc.

Re: terms and conditions, one thing you definitely want to make clear is copyright. Essentially, anyone uploading an image should, by doing so, be stating that they either own the copyright for the image, have explicit permission from the copyright holder to use it in this manner, or it is an open/creative commons/otherwise not copyright controlled image. These kinds of Cover Your Ass (CYA

) terms may be critical to the long-term survival of such a system as it could otherwise be easily cut-off from web hosting without warning, or be the subject of a lot of DMCA/take-down notices (at the least).

- Oshyan

mouser · « **Reply #20 on:** December 22, 2010, 03:38 PM »

You may also want to mention whether or not you want to allow adult images.

tomos · « **Reply #21 on:** December 22, 2010, 04:15 PM »

Okay,
good tips there, thanks.

To make my job easier though - is there any basic T&C out there for public use that I could then modify?

JavaJones · « **Reply #22 on:** December 22, 2010, 04:35 PM »

Likely any photo sharing site would have a T&C that would be a good start, e.g. Flickr, Smugmug, Picasa, or an art site like DeviantArt.

- Oshyan

tomos · « **Reply #23 on:** December 23, 2010, 03:36 AM »

Oshyan,
what you wrote re tags got me thinking a bit 'deeper' about it.
I started a new thread Tags for multiple users - problems (& solutions?)

I was querying what "Categories" to use for a new Q&A website and got this reply:

Re: categories, I'd be more in favor of tags. They're more flexible. Alternatively you could go with a system that allows suggesting new categories. With *either* solution you want an auto-complete of some kind or a "suggest" function so there is less chance for spelling-related miscategorization, etc.
-JavaJones (December 22, 2010, 03:32 PM)
-tomos (December 23, 2010, 03:33 AM)

mouser · « **Reply #24 on:** December 23, 2010, 04:11 AM »

With all the suggestions, i forgot to say: CONGRATULATIONS to tomos and adi_barb for getting this up and running so quickly!
Very very impressive.