I have left a message on this persons profile, but I dont speak portugese, so if any brazilian /portugese could back me up that would be appreciated :)
I got to admit, http://whatthemovie.com/shot/21540# is weird. The movie was shot in 1.85:1, I have just checked my DVD so am not sure why the still is in 4:3.
@them00ch Unfortunately, many DVDs are still fullframe/pan&scan (mostly in the US)... But as long as the pic itself (without the WTM frame) does not have black bars, is not distorted and is either 720 wide or 400 high, I think it should be accepted.
Fully agree with you zob about it being accepted. Just thought it was weird thats all. Such a shame that such a great film is in P&S. I would always choose to watch in letterbox'ed widescreen than miss half of the directors vision :(
Very sorry, I was one who voted. I didn't realize (normally when I have a doubt, I simply dont vote). It was mentionned somewhere else but maybe when it is ambigous like this one, the poster should include a note directly using the vote for deletion so that other people know...
I can perhaps understand why some people might have thought this had black bars even though it hasnt, just a one-off unfortunate situation. Cant blame the poster or the voters in this case I dont think.
Maybe there should be some guideline on how and when vote for deletion, people seems to confuse giving a low score because they find the shot boring... and voting for deletion because of bad quality...
The "five golden rules of uploading" are definitly clear :
1. Take the snapshot yourself! Don‘t rip it from elsewhere How to take a snapshot? 2. Use the original DVD to take the snapshot; We won't accept low quality! 3. You are not able to post more than 2 snapshots of the same movie and have more than 3 snapshots simultaneously in the category New Submissions. Read more about this subject here 4. Don‘t post the same or a similar shot, which has already been posted at wtm 5. No snapshots from trailers, tv broadcasts or movies which are not yet availiable on DVD; No Porn; No racist material; No unsuitable content
I am the author of the comment "8+ snapshots in 1 month". My intention was clearly provocative. I am tired of this new system and I think (hope) i am not alone. Every day I see in the "new submissions" section many masterpieces, that have never been posted before, getting insulting ratings. They never go through. Sometimes they are simply deleted for "bad quality" or "black bars" silly reasons. On the other hand, a small bunch of recent blockbusters are posted again and again and reach the FF section easily since everybody solve it and give it a high rating.
Sometimes ago, I made a proposition: publish some statistics about the most represented movies in the database. But, as well as the masterpieces' shots, my proposition didn't go through :)
I actually don't think it is a bad idea to have a list of the 25 or 50 most uploaded movies . . . it might help people in wanting to dig a little deeper in their DVD collection . . but there are still plenty of not so famous movies making it through . . .
My first accepted upload was from a older movie and it has only been solved like 10 times . . but I guess people found it interesting enough to push through . . so it's not a perfect system yet, but it's not really that bad . . . it will be interesting to see what happens once we get some people with a high enough score to save some of these lesser known movies . . .
efji, don't be up in arms so fast :-) The latter might just be due to the fact that our esteemed creators have to finish their term at university (and they've already apologized nicely here: http://forum.whatthemovie.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=346&page=1#Item_14 ) - at least I hope so as I'd love to see some statistics, too.
And maybe comments like these should be added as tags? Actually they would be shouts but since not everybody is to read them until they solved the snapshot ... Two classes of shouts, however, seems to be over-complicated, doesn't it?
I believe a rant in the forum or a shout on someones profile is now customary :)
I dont think a vote-delete with a message like that is particularly useful efji. All it will do is annoy the poster of the image who, lets face it, is acting completely within the guidelines and rules of the site. While I do think you have a point, I would direct your frustration at the current system to the forums or directly to naut/tliff. I dont think upsetting individual users is the way to deal with it, regardless of intentions.
No offence meant by that at all.
EDIT: perhaps a way to deal with it would be to only allow a single shot from any specific movie in the new submission section. Or perhaps when a shot is uploaded, no-one can upload a still for that movie for a week. Just an idea. It might cut down on the amount of new submissions, and as another side effect this would leave more room for some of these other "non-blockbuster" movies to go through.
@LePaposaure While you list the five golden rules for uploading, you forget to include the more numerous guidelines listed in the FAQ in the forum which used to be enforced. Under these rules, stills could be deleted for many more reasons, which resulted in fewer stills of blockbusters. It also specifically stated that it would not accept shots from movies that had been submitted many times.
I was starting to swing to your point of view that democracy should rule, but then I looked at the Feature Films for June. In the last 2 weeks, I've solved nearly 75% of the shots. The best I did in the old WTM was about 33%. Clearly (to me), the shots are getting easier, and until regular users get enough WTM Bucks to become Executive Producers (which takes ~6 months at 300 WTM Bucks per day) this isn't going to change.
I really think the movie submission page should have the five golden rules , plus maybe five silver rules - which give guidance on style.
astrododo, you're a lucky guy. In the old wtm I solved about 40% and was close to the 20th place. Now I still solve 40% and my ranking is plunging. To me the shots are not getting easier and that's what make me angry :)
astrododo, you are indeed very lucky. I've gone from 46% to 54%. 46% was enough for top 20 in the old wtm, now it's not even close. It probably just means I haven't been watching enough blockbusters, and you have.
@astrododo Back to the subject (vote-delete), guidelines are not rules. They are just here to guide the uploader and help him to find the most "awesome" shot. And even if those shots are far from the guidelines, they are not breaking the laws, so they don't deserve any deletion-vote. It's not because someone doesn't like how New Submission's system is working that he should have the power to delete or directly promote the shots he prefers.
Don't misunderstand me LePaposaure. My intention was not to start a global war and vote for the deletion of all the movies I don't like. It was just an small disobeying act to focus on what is non functioning, imho, in the new system: monocolor selection mode and bad "vote for deletion" system, since any silly player like me can almost delete a snapshot for any silly reasons.
@LePaposaure I'm sorry, I wasn't clear in my comment that I was refering to how WTM beta was set up. I understand that this is not the purpose of the delete vote, and I haven't used it on shots that I think violated these guidlines, nor do I advocate doing so.
I'm simply saying that I think style guidelines should be presented to uploaders to help them choose good shots. along with the five golden rules.
This is ridiculous, movieuser and abendwaerts have votes on half the movies in new submissions as black bars. We have left multiple messages on abendwaerts profile but they seem to be being ignored. Can an admin - tliff or naut or someone - remove their voting priveleges or give them a warning or something?
Just as a joke, but please don't vote "black bars" any more when the still is completely filling the frame horizontally or vertically. The image can't be bigger (unless stretched) in those cases.
@team00ch: You can just ignore things, if you have recogniced them before. And I don't know if look daily at you profile to see, weather there are some new messages, but I don't do it. I have just seen it after taking a look to the forum.
Now for you the answer i shouded: <quote> Hi, sorry I didn't recognised your messages. Ok, I will stop voting for black bar. But what I don't understand is, why don't you cut the bars before uploading the shot? It isn't so hard. And the are at least enough online tools to do it in a few seconds, like http://www.pixlr.com/. And at the end it really looks better. Just have a look at number 22573 and 22567 to see the difference. And for me it's also a part of the awesomeness of a shot. </quote>
At least to elfi and astrododo: If you take a look to the movie site http://whatthemovie.com/shot/23166 you'll see, that there are bars at the right and left side. The reason for it is, that there are bars at the button and the top of the shot.
To the admins: Maybe it whould be a good feature to have the possibility to change a shot for a better quality. So you can cut of bar or take a shout without jpeq artefacts, without making a new submission of the same still. You can just put the picture under the tag part, and let the people vote, weather it's the same still or not.
abendwaerts: applying a rule without understand it is always a bad idea. The motivation for the BB rule was simple and clear: have a shot with a reasonable resolution filling the box and avoid too small pictures. Applying it to 3 pixels bars is simply nonsense.
I think you dont seem to understand the rule, you seem to be voting for stills that have NO black bars, other than the ones that have been forced due to the movie's aspect ratio. If the height or the width of the image is full, you should not vote for black bars, even if there are "black bars" either side or above and below.
the same goes for images with only a couple of pixels as a black border. Is it really worth upsetting people over?
EDIT: and please accept my apologies, it did not occur to me that you may not have checked your profile. I do it every 10 minutes lol but Im addicted to this place :)
2nd EDIT: Im going through todays new submissions abenwaerts and movieuser and you have voted black bars on nearly all of them. Did you not think you were pehaps being over zealous as you were doing it on so many images?
I won't stop voting. Cutting the bars away isn't that hard. If you want to upload a good snapshot, you should have the 2 minutes for editing your image, checking for right size and aspect ratio and saving it as PNG or 100% JPG. If everyone would respect the rules, voting would be unnecessary.
There's already so much crap reaching the feature films, so let's concentrate on the good ones.
EDIT: @Coding department: How about creating some JavaScript/Flash-Code for editing your image online, before submitting?
I think we need an admins ruling on this before it degenerates into a flame fest.
Movieuser, you are right, EXCESSIVE black bars should be cropped. If its only 2px or 3px either side whats the problem? I must admit on some of these pictures you have voted I didnt even notice any black bars at all. I think you are being a little obsessive about it. Its really not worth upsetting people over.
How about letting it slide, and saving the vote deletes for the images where there are really obvious black bars, for the sake of getting on and enjoying the game?
Wait a minute, it NEVER was my intention to upset people... I am not interested in taking part in a flame war. But if you begin to tolerate shots with small black bars, people start to cry again if you vote for their snapshots with bigger ones. The transition from "small" to "big" is a little bit too smooth, in my eyes.
As I already mentioned: Uploading a shot should not be done in a force of habit. You should select it with caution, edit it carefully and then upload it. Just like a little ceremony. ;)
It'd be great to edit your images online, especially for the people who are not familiar with editing images with software. I'll ask in IRC for that feature.
also - Is there any way the WTM image holder size has changed recently? Ive notice that a couple of my uploads have had the 2/3px black bars on the side, but my earlier uploads never had it. Im using the same software, taking all my shots from blu-ray or DVD, nothing has changed this side yet a couple of my uploads have had these black bars on left and right.
Coupled with the fact that this seems to be happening with LOTS of movies in the new submissions section (hence all the votes from MU and abendwaerts) it makes me wonder if the site layout has slightly changed by a couple of pixels.
As an example, this is how this shot looks on my PC and anywhere else: No black bars. but when uploaded to WTM, this is how it looks http://whatthemovie.com/shot/23064
Yes it has the black bars on either side, and yes I know I am opening myself up for potential vote deletes here. Could it be an encoding anomoly with the DVD itself? Is VLC adding pixels vertically to my snapshots all of a sudden? Im pretty sure it isnt.... perhaps its only shots in a certain aspect ratio that have this problem,. or non-anamorphic dvds or something. I dont know Im not overly technical when it comes to DVD technical specs.