blunderground
For some unholy reason, I signed up to be a photo administrator at
href="http://www.wunderground.com/">Weather Underground. I've been
doing it for most of the year now.
Being a Weather Underground photo admin requires:
- An Internet connection.
- Absolutely no clue what a good photo is, as proven by many of the other photo admins. (Though quite a few clearly have their heads on straight and recognize photos that shouldn't be there.)
- Suspension of disbelief that no one would ever doctor a weather photo or put in the wrong date or location. (As proven, again, by many of my fellow photo approving weather watchers.)
- A hearty sense of humor.
href="http://www.wunderground.com/data/wximagenew/p/pcolabaygm/46.jpg">
src="/images/catsniff.jpg" width="350" height="263" alt="Stupid Cat Photo"
/>
(Click the image for the full-size version.)
OK. Well, where to begin?
Obviously, this photo was taken inside. What's the name of the site again?
You weren't paying attention, were you? It's Weather Underground.
Not "Your friend's house where they let their three hideously ugly cats
run free and climb the furniture that the people eat off of and smell each
other's butts" Underground.
I really can't begin to say what's funnier about this photo though. That
the cat is smelling the other cat's butt, or the look on the face of the
cat up front, or that they're on the dinning room table, or that this
photo was submitted to Weather Underground, or that this photo was ever
taken at all.
It's tragic.
Well, I got to exercise my responsibility to REJECT IMAGE for the obvious
reason: Not weather related.
Every time one of these ridiculous photos appears on my approval screen, I
wonder why I bother to help them.
Other times, I wonder what some of the other photo admins believe is
appropriate images for the site. Then I wonder how they decide which of
the two main categories (Current Weather and Current Other photos) to
assign to new images.
For example, images of sunrises and sunsets are considered Current
Weather. To the contrary, the plethora of photos of the recent full lunar
eclipse were all moved to Current Other. What's the logic in that?
There also seems to be an obsession for some photo admins in the number of
photos they approve. Since whenever I agreed to participate in this farce,
I have approved 1,267 images. In roughly the same period of time (since
the beginning of the year), the person with the most approvals has 5,158.
That's an average of 16 images approved per day. The runner up has 4,110
-- an average of almost 13 per day.
We all need to get a life... but these people especially need to get out
and take more photos and spend less time approving.
In case you're wondering, my average is about four images per day.
Well, I promise that this will be my one and only rant on the Weather
Underground photo system. Next time, I'll talk about less interesting
topics like gadgets (my new computer, cell phone, and Palm PDA), or maybe
the new business cards I got printed, or perhaps an ode to pumpkin pie.
(Mmmmmm... pie... *drool*)
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