Dear members and friends of ipernity,
1. Statement from our Club President about AI images.
We've noticed that some members are now sharing images created using artificial intelligence (AI) on ipernity, reflecting their interest in modern methods. We appreciate and embrace this technological innovation. However, the use of AI in photography raises questions concerning labeling requirements and copyright, which are not yet clearly defined by current legislation and existing standards.
It may be years before such legal rules are in place. In order to ensure harmonious coexistence in our community, we believe it is essential to establish some common guidelines today. Our recommendations are:
a. We suggest labeling images generated entirely with AI as such. This does not apply to photos or other content edited using AI-based tools.
b. Consider classifying AI-generated images as "DigiArt" [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_art]
c. We ask admins not to exclude AI-generated images from groups, especially public groups, unless there are valid factual and objective reasons for doing so.
Always keep in mind that our community was formed mostly by photographers. But it has also always been a home for other creative people. All kinds of creative expressions are welcome: photos, videos, music, essays, podcasts, poems, scanned painting and drawings - and now also Artificial Intelligence (AI) images as a special kind of DigiArt.
We have added an 'AI advice' link with a popup message box to the upload page.
Also, you might be interested in the AI Generated Pictures group.
Website Updates
2. Revision to Albums section.
This update relates to albums with mixed content, that is, those with both photos/videos and documents. When viewing an album, any videos are also displayed with the photos. It is not possible to show both photos and docs together.
For such an album, there will be links to switch between 'Photos' and 'Docs', just as with the links for 'All', or for 'Photos' or 'Videos' only, in the 'Photos' section.
This is clearer to the user than when the options were within the drop-down menu.
3. Further revision to the Upload page.
We appreciate the suggestion from some members to tone down the wording of the warning message, which has now been incorporated. Now with this re-wording, we ask that those who already know these rules understand that the team routinely has to deal with returning members asking about missing content. This is partly because some of our automated emails are not being delivered. Thus the team considers it appropriate to place this message on the upload page.
4. Revision of the group guidelines.
A recent debate within the HFF Group indicated that some parts of our group guidelines are too vague or even incomplete. Both members and administrators do not find enough support in them. This can also lead to further misunderstandings in the future and affect the harmony within our community. For this reason, we have reactivated an old discussion forum Group Guidelines. We are looking for your input and suggestions to improve our group guidelines and to prepare a proposal for amendment to the ima team. Your participation is highly encouraged and welcome! Your inputs may help us maintain a welcoming and respectful atmosphere at ipernity. We are looking forward to your contributions.
Early Notice
5. Ipernity General Assembly 2024.
We give this early notice so that you may avoid conflicting commitments. We note that the typical date of the last Sunday in March is an Easter weekend in 2024. We therefore state that the meeting will be held on Sunday April 7th 2024, 5pm Paris (16:00 UTC).
We also take this opportunity to call for candidates to the ima board. First for the vacant position of Vice President. Secondly, while our current treasurer has agreed to run again, the position is open to members to apply.
Your ima team.
PS If you are a techy nerd, you might care to take a look at this article where you may be able to help.
Right now I notice:
1) Of the last 18 photos posted, only 3 have had more than 100 views, although in the first two days I usually change the date of publication once or twice as if I were uploading the photo again. If you didn't do this, most likely none of the 18 photos would pass 50 hits in the first few days. This makes me think that the life of each photo is very short and that after a very short period of time it enters the limbo of oblivion.
2) Right now I have an account open on Instagram and another on Flickr. On Instagram, which is the worst of all existing networks, I don't know how many visits I have because only likes are counted, I have an approximate flow of between 120 and 180 likes per photo, which makes me assume that there are a lot of visits month. On Flickr, the number of hits is between 200 and 400 hits per photo on average. I tend to post the same photos on all three sites. By this I do not mean that I like Instagram and Flickr more than ipernity, but at least I have the impression that my photos have a little more projection.
3) On Instagram I basically share photos with people close to my country, Catalonia and my territory, the Pyrenees, with few coincidences with Ipernity profiles, but yes with former Panoramio and former Ipernity profiles. On Flickr I share photos with people from all over the world and with a good number of profiles that count on Ipernity and ex Panoramio and ex Ipernity. In the latter case, I think that there is an important group of Ipernity people who are not quite satisfied with it and for this reason they are part of Flickr. And I also imagine there may be Ipernity members who have other accounts on other photography websites.
4) I've had the Instagram account for 2 years and I'm not convinced that the future of this Network is very interesting but at least it's not paid yet and you can easily skip its algorithm and therefore not see anything of advertising I've had the Flickr account for a year (previously I had one that I closed to dedicate myself exclusively to Ipernity) and right now of the three accounts (Ipernity, Instagram, Flickr) it's the one I see the most future in since advertising is not excessive and you can upload up to 1000 high resolution photos for free.
5) Social life in Ipernity has its maximum expression on Fridays, Mondays and Wednesdays of each week with the sharing of photographs of fences, benches and walls (in addition to hundreds of groups, many of which are repetitive) that turn the Club into a family that wishes each other good morning three times a week. It could be said (sorry to say it like that, I can't think of another way to say it) that Ipernity has better people than photographers, because personal contact is more valued than photographic quality.
6) The Club makes a great effort to try to project a good external image: It constantly selects images for its presentations every season of the year and what it calls ambassador images. But then he doesn't project them outside, they stay facing inside. The club has accounts on other platforms but does not use them to promote Ipernity.
I have been part of Ipernity since 2015, coming from Panoramio, and, right now, none of the former Panoramios that joined Ipernity are left. Ipernity offers what it should have: A wall, the possibility of organizing each one's own photos, the possibility of a blog and groups to share thematic photos, and still you can't get out of it.
I will not leave Ipernity as long as it exists, but if nothing changes it will no longer be my priority choice, and maybe my participation will gradually decrease.
Surely the IMA will ask me what things I would be willing to do to improve the Club. The answer is that nothing to do with the internal organization, nor any management position, but if I could imagine working on the external projection of Ipernity to other networks (from where it is assumed that new members could be acquired ) as long as there was express authorization to use Ipernity images for Ipernity accounts on Instagram, Flickr, etc... with attribution of course. The idea would be to create a group called "The image of the day" to upload them, one a day, to the Ipernity accounts on other platforms. One person should be assigned to each platform, to upload the photos and to track users of these platforms to promote Ipernity. For this to be effective it would also be necessary to change the concept of the basic account exempt from payment and convert it to a trial account for a free year with the same features as a standard account. After this year (and for the whole time) it is necessary from the organization perform a trial member onboarding task to convince them to become a paid member like any other. For all those cases of non-renewal at the end of the trial period, the rule of 100 photos and a period of one or three years should be applied to permanently delete the account.
I trust I have not been too heavy, and bear with me for all those things I have said which are not to your liking.
And in this convulsive period that we are living on a global scale, for those who celebrate Christmas and New Year, my best wishes.
I understand your concerns and I think you have expressed them quite well. Your topics are also close to my heart. I also have the impression that visits to my account are decreasing. In 2017-2019, my account constantly had around 65 visits per day. At some point, I was no longer that interested. However, your post motivates me to start monitoring again.
What I was able to do immediately was a quick fact check with regard to visitor interest. Your uploads since the beginning of November have received an average of 97 visits, 35 FAVs and 10 comments (median values in each case). My uploads from the same period had 101 visits, 28 FAVs and 13 comments. So we play in the same league.
Even if the figures seem rather low, they are still very good. They mean that 11 to 12 per cent of ipernity club members are interested in our content. Transferred to the Flickr community, which is a thousand times larger, we should get more than 100,000 visits per image, 30,000 FAVs and 10,000 comments. I would be completely overwhelmed to read or appreciate all that.
I don't know what your numbers are like on Flickr, but I don't get anywhere near that level. My oldest image there (from 2 December 2016) has received 1,562 visits in 7 years. My oldest image on ipernity (from 5 April 2016) has received 830 visits. This shows that we have a much livelier community here at ipernity.
Our frontrunner in terms of visitor interest is probably Jaap van 't Veen. His images from the last two months were visited an average of 175 times, received 50 FAVs and 45 comments.
However, Jaap - just like me - does not achieve these figures with fences or benches! The impression that participation in "Happy" groups would drive up the figures is deceptive. It only comes about because the corresponding images appear more frequently in the gallery on Saturday/Sunday. I don't begrudge all members who draw attention to themselves in this way once a week.
God knows, this is not meant to be a whitewash. The weaknesses you point out are undeniable. I would be delighted, along with you, if someone could be found to take care of them. The position of Vice-President on the Club Board has been vacant for almost two years.
Second idea: Setting up a photo pool of “most popular photos”. The photos that received the 20 most favorite stars from my pictures end up in tis public site. My private MPP- pool is also at the top of my private page. My pictures with the most favorite stars can be found there (for public as well).
Regarding AI: I would be happy if strong image changes in general (including strong color changes, alienation) were voluntarily named by the photographer, as were the camera, lenses, film, etc. I think that would be fair.
I still like Ipernity, even though I get very few clicks, compared with other members...
I whish you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. Greatings from the Black Forest, Rainer.
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