To Ran...

[Rich Goodale]

...dearest and most beloved

Please add a facility for this website for the posting and collating of pictures of golf courses.  In ye olde dayse ofe golfe clube atlase very few few had actutally seen (or even seen pictures of) the great and not so great course we love, but by now those of us who have been there and had the t-shirt (or other logoed merchandise), seeing 2-D pictures of random fairways and greens really doesn't add much to our experience.

Can we please have an archive of 2-D photos and then have people who can and wish to write and do so crtiically actually comment on them?

Thanks

Rich

[David Cronheim]

Fantastic idea.

[RJ_Daley]

Rich, I agree that it would be nice if this website had a separate section or tab that enabled direct posting of photos rather than need to download from another photobucket sort of site.  I have to imagine that may entail a good deal of cost extra for what it costs to host the GCA.com site as currently organized. 

But, when it comes to a searchable website with a multitude of photos of golf courses, this one is good to find some excellent perspectives on the courses featured.

http://www.golfarchitecturepictures.com/Pages/usa.html

 However, I'm not able to capture the IMG url link to paste them onto GCA.com.

If someone knows how to get the pictures out of the golfarchitecture web side off of the Flash Player, it would be much appreciated if you'd post those instructions.  I can't seem to find a method on the 'simple viewer' website that is downloadable for free when one right clicks a photo on the golfarchitecture pictures. 

[Dan Kelly]

Dick --

Maybe the copyright owner doesn't want you to move them?

Dan

[Garland Bayley]

Photo resources

Index of GCA Photo tours:  http://delicious.com/golfclubatlas

Terrific index of aerial tours with the ability to measure landmarks.  I use this quite often:  http://course.bluegolf.com/bluegolf/course/course/directory.htm

[Frank Pont]

I have offered Ran to merge Golf Architecture Pictures.com into GolfClubAtlas

[David Harshbarger]

Rich,

The path of least resistance would be to start documenting courses on an existing photo-hosting, collaborative site such as Wikipedia.  Wikipedia itself might not be the best choice as they try to be factual, not opinion oriented.  If you feel you could couch commentary in descriptive terms that aren't superlatives, this could be an option worth exploring. 

The plus side of contributing to Wikipedia is pretty strong: highly visible, the infrastructure exits, there's lots of help available, etc.  The downside is that for most people it's a labor of anonymity, and as much as you like what you write, there's nothing to stop the next guy from deleting it.

An obvious alternative would be to have GCA.com, or your own site, start a Wiki.  Host-able Wiki software is available, so the underlying engine could be purchased and run, much the way the existing DG is run. I have to think expense in terms of storage and bandwidth are the considerations behind not uploading images to GCA.com provided media servers.  I would encourage Ran and Co. to figure out a way to get over whatever impediments there are, though, as I believe controlling them at GCA is worth it, given the fragility of the existing model where images disappear from threads when the hosting service or user account is compromised.

Another advantage (and disadvantage) of tying structured commentary into GCA.com is the existing user model.  The current users are pre-screened to some extent, knowledgable (this member excluded), and motivated.  They also seem to leave the fold unexpectedly.  There are some who would gladly commit to a project to build out more structured commentary.  But there may be non GCA members who would also enlist that might not participate on GCA.com.

Hosting your own may be an alternative, if you can fund it.  ownership has privileges, and obligations.  You can set your own rules, structure the site the way you like, focus on what you like, etc. 

Finally, there may be ways to bring together the semi-structured data on this site in ways that create meaningful structure.  The search results do an Ok job of this, but one can imagine other formulations of the results page that are more compelling. What if results showed the top photos of the photo tours, the best commentary, the course histories, the history of changes, the aerials, the old layouts and maps, etc?  Ran hinted at some changes awhile back.  I don't know if that meant the changes in post count on the home pages and thread pages, or more, but this site has so much valuable content, one can certainly envisage ways to present it that would really thrill users, members and guests alike. 

Count me in when it comes to working to advance the work that's been done here.

[Sean_A]

Rihc

I don't have a clue what it is you are requesting, but just to make things simple, we should probably start with decent size pix which don't need to be scrolled.  This to me is by the far the biggest shortfall of the site.

Ciao

[Tim Martin]

I have offered Ran to merge Golf Architecture Pictures.com into GolfClubAtlas

This would be an incredible merger. The content of one could only enhance the other. That said I know it is easier said than done.

[Mark Bourgeois]

Rich's request as I read it:

Ghettoize photo tours, ie remove them from the discussion board and place somewhere else. Once upon a time such threads contributed to discussion but no longer: everyone has seen and/or played these courses or seen X photo tours, to the point where new threads inflict a form of arteriosclerosis on the board ie block / limit discussion.

[Joe Bausch]

Rich's request as I read it:

Ghettoize photo tours, ie remove them from the discussion board and place somewhere else. Once upon a time such threads contributed to discussion but no longer: everyone has seen and/or played these courses or seen X photo tours, to the point where new threads inflict a form of arteriosclerosis on the board ie block / limit discussion.

Perhaps I'll no longer do photo tours if they aren't desired.  That's cool.  Really.

[Tim Martin]

Rich's request as I read it:

Ghettoize photo tours, ie remove them from the discussion board and place somewhere else. Once upon a time such threads contributed to discussion but no longer: everyone has seen and/or played these courses or seen X photo tours, to the point where new threads inflict a form of arteriosclerosis on the board ie block / limit discussion.

Perhaps I'll no longer do photo tours if they aren't desired.  That's cool.  Really.

Joe- The absence of your photo tours would be a great loss to GCA and it's members. Please keep em coming!

[Mark Bourgeois]

I don't think Rich is saying no more photos but I'm done interpreting.

For the record, I mostly like the tours -- except repeats. Those I don't get. I therefore like Rich's idea of mashing all these photos into one, separate place. Then in the discussion board we can engage in frank commentary, referencing specific photos as necessary.

[Stewart Abramson]

If the goal is to have a central place to access photos of lots of course photos, I started a site that gathered links to my golf course photo albums as well as links to other people's GC photo sites, albums or photo tours. I reached about 700  and gave up. In addition to about 300 courses that I photographed, it has links to about 50 Golf Club Atlas photo tours and includes a link to Joe B's Pennsy photo albums.  It is merely a collection of links to sites or albums sorted by state or country.  I will probably add more  during the winter and would be happy to add any links that anyone here might suggest and welcome any suggestions to make the collection more useful.  Here is a link - http://golfcoursephotos.weebly.com/new-york.html

[Phil McDade]

I'm always surprised when I see comments that suggest photo threads shouldn't be the place where frank commentary is exchanged among the GCA contributors. That once occured -- to my ever-lasting befuddlement -- on a thread regarding one of this country's most revered courses, that few people actually get to play, and one of its chief proponents chastised several of us who dared to question the merits of particular holes on the course.

As one who avidly reads nearly all of the photo threads, it's true that not all of them provoke intense, multi-page debates. I'm guessing -- as one who has posted several picture threads over the years -- that may or may not be the author's intentions. But sometimes they do -- Joe Bausch's take on some of Wisconsin's most notable public courses sparked a lively debate (which I contributed to, in many ways ) on the course that held this year's Women's U.S. Open.

Picture threads aren't some work of art, to be stuffed in some wing of GCA for reverential viewing. They are, in many ways, the heart and soul of the discussion board, and the very things that should be kept there for the frank exchange of ideas and commentary.

[Tommy Williamsen]

Count me as one who thinks the photo threads are some of the best stuff on the site.  Additionally, I don't mind repeats whether they are of courses I have played or courses I have not played.  A second thread always includes something new since the pictures are taken with a different set of eyes.  This came home to me last week when I was in SC.  Both my buddy and I took pictures of the same course.  When we shared our photos we found that few were the same.  It was almost as if we had played different courses. 

[Rich Goodale]

I don't think Rich is saying no more photos but I'm done interpreting.

For the record, I mostly like the tours -- except repeats. Those I don't get. I therefore like Rich's idea of mashing all these photos into one, separate place. Then in the discussion board we can engage in frank commentary, referencing specific photos as necessary.

You interepreted well, my friend.  Thanks.

To me, a knowledgeable and carefully crafted paragraph or even phrase is worth 1000+ pictures.  Others obviously think otherwise.  To each his or her own.

Rich

[Dan Herrmann]

Joe Bausch - you do realize that the other 99.9% of us love the photo tours.

[Scott Warren]

Indeed, Dan, it would seem we are the 99%. Let's destroy some stuff to make our point!

[Tom_Doak]

I come down in the middle on this one.

I agree with Rich's general point, which is that self-editing is a valuable skill.  If one does not practice it well, with photos, you wind up with threads that take five minutes to load, and keep scrolling while you are trying to type something.  Take the recent thread on the Green nine at St. George's Hill -- there are 31 photos of a nine hole course.  At least half the photos posted show us very little that we would discuss.  There are about five great photos there, but I don't know why some of the others were included.

This is just a general problem with the world of unlimited bandwidth.  I'm an old fogey because I learned in the days when film cost money, and so I usually don't take a picture unless there is something worth remembering in it.

[Neil White]

Rich,

Tom makes a fair point regarding the number of photo's people take and subsequently post on the web-site.  I would imagine if anything like what you propose was to take off it would need some form of moderating so that only the photo's that add to any discussion were available - as to who would do that is anyone's guess - although it would be interesting to see which photos Tom considers worthy of being shown, and that way we all could learn what makes a worthy photo........  I for one feel that any form of censorship should be precipitated by those who use and view the photos.  An option to vote on each individual photo would soon separate the wheat from the chaff and allow those wanting to view only those photos with say a 5* rating to filter them out; subsequent lower rated photos would be available but via a separate folder.

Neil.

[Rich Goodale]

Neil et. al.

I'm advocating neither censorship nor the banning of photos.  What I would prefer is for people who have something to say about some course or some hole or some architectural thought, to say what they have to say and illustrate their point (if necessary) with a link to a picture (e.g. richphotobucket.com/happytrails7a13po9), rather than upload a complete cyberspace equivalent of the 35mm slides of the latest Griswold family vacation...

Rich

PS--glad to see that I'm in the 1% of something!

[Ulrich Mayring]

Well, the pictures in the photo threads are not uploads, they are just links to images uploaded elsewhere. For example, I've uploaded some of my photos to https://picasaweb.google.com/realulim and whenever I need one in a discussion, I just link to or include from there. So basically what you're suggesting is already possible using 3rd party services. I don't think it would make particular sense for Ran to try to compete with specialized photos sites such as Picasa or Photobucket.

Ulrich

[David Harshbarger]

First, let me congratulate you on the impressive body of rated courses you have on your map.  That is quite a bit of work, and well thought out, and done.

Second, the main argument to allow uploading of photos to this site is that it would preserve the integrity of the photo tours.  There are many, many tours that now consist of Long blocks of "Image Not Available" placeholders.  It is likely these tours will never return.

The other argument that I thought Rich was putting forward was along the lines of creating a new format on this site for creating course commentaries, that would include photos and commentary in a more structured way. 

Having gone through over a thousand course threads now, it seems that there was an evolution over the last 8-9 years from the earliest photo threads, to what we see now.  The early threads were often no more than 3-4 photos and a "Hey, check this out", to be shared among friends.  The popularity and commentary generated seems to have encouraged posters to evolve the form to what we see in the best photo threads today: historical backgrounders, well thought out commentary, quality photos, and strong and compelling dialogue.

However, because the structure used to publish this rich content is a discussion board, these interactive course reviews are also filled with all manner of extemporaneous commentary, jokes, personal comments, travel plans, etc. etc.  Now I find this part of the charm of the site, but, I also see the potential, given the energy and enthusiasm put into these efforts, and other models of collaborative content creation, for all this work to be harnessed into a more compelling format.

Wikipedia is the ultimate example of crowd-sourced content creation. In 8-10 years, they have put the Encyclopedia Brittanica out of business.  It has its limitations, but, through volunteer contributions by knowledgable contributors, Wikipedia is the World's go-to general purpose reference guide.

The other reason I would give to host pictures here is tied the idea that given the willingness, enthusiasm and knowledge GCA members are already committing to create  this treasure trove of insight and reference material on the history of GCA, it is a small leap to imagine a new section of the site that focuses that energy on a more compelling compendium of that history.  That new section could, and maybe should, be purpose built to the task, with well defined sections for the history, architects, routings, photos, comments, etc.  If that were to come to pass, then for the integrity of that new site, owning the content, text, structure, photos, videos, audio, etc. would be a real plus.

Maybe that wasn't quite what Rich was suggesting, but that's what interpreted.

That said, if you are building a compendium of photo tours of your own, it is easier to keep them separate and just embed them, as needed, within DG image tags.

Dave

[Dónal Ó Ceallaigh]

I come down in the middle on this one.

I agree with Rich's general point, which is that self-editing is a valuable skill.  If one does not practice it well, with photos, you wind up with threads that take five minutes to load, and keep scrolling while you are trying to type something.  Take the recent thread on the Green nine at St. George's Hill -- there are 31 photos of a nine hole course.  At least half the photos posted show us very little that we would discuss.  There are about five great photos there, but I don't know why some of the others were included.

This is just a general problem with the world of unlimited bandwidth.  I'm an old fogey because I learned in the days when film cost money, and so I usually don't take a picture unless there is something worth remembering in it.

Tom: not every single pic needs to be dissected from an architectural point of view in a photo thread - some pics are included just to show a bit more of what the holes look like. Some agree with that, others don't but given the time and effort it takes for one to do these,  I wouldn't criticise the efforts of others. Most of us are just enthusiastic amateurs and not claiming to be anything else.

I like to see the view from the tee and the approaches to the greens, so that's usually about 3-4 pix per hole at least. Sometimes, there may not be much to discuss architecturally, but the extra pictures help the reader get a feel for the course.
 
Nowadays, most people have broadband with large monthly data limits and speeds of several Mb/s, so the it's less of an issue that it was a few years ago.