Rate scenic canal pics for CRT.

[Richard T]

I voted very scenic if it had a boat in regardless of how bad the photo was and not at all scenic if it didn't.

[Athy]

I just had a go until I got bored - perhaps 30 photos in all. II kept wondering when the good ones were going to start.

   I don't find large cranes or modern blocks of flats scenic, and too many of the snaps were either poorly composed, taken under grey skies, , or both.. My marks ranged from 2 to 6 out of 10.

out of 10.

[Mike Todd]

Do we know how the pix were obtained. I strongly suspect that that the copyright owners were not asked.

[John Brightley]

2 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

Do we know how the pix were obtained. I strongly suspect that that the copyright owners were not asked.

As I said above, most photos are from Geograph. A Creative Commons licence applies, so individual copyright owners don't have to be asked.

[PD1964]

Not really any Country File winners amongst the ones I saw, all old 10 years plus, obviously taken before phones got really good cameras or high mega-pixel cameras with wide angle lenses.

[David Mack]

I gave up when I got a picture of a Biffa waste lorry driving past a rubbish-strewn ditch leading to a concrete culvert.

Scenic???

[Hudds Lad]

Don’t worry, it’s not serious, it’s just a new “fun online game” according to this lady  

 

 

 

 

[dmr]

I think the CRT site this work was done in conjunction with a University (can't face going back to check this) so this work was probably given to an undergraduate as a final year project. I suspect this student is heading for a 3rd (at best) 😀

[MtB]

On 17/10/2022 at 10:17, Ronaldo47 said:

It's clearly all to do with wellbeing rather than boating.

 

I don't think being in a well would be particularly conducive to happiness. 

 

 

[enigmatic]

It's a selection of 30k photos picked off a website by an algorithm, of course most of them are rubbish and don't actually feature canals

 

Big fan of them showing me a picture of a train line with a small puddle next to it. Life's better by water!

[Ewan123]

I think some people have misunderstood the aim of this... they're not asking which photo looks the nicest, they're asking which photos include features that one would consider to be "scenic", in the context that "scenic" = "positive wellbeing" and therefore "scenic" = "more likely to secure government funding" (it's not explicit in the accompanying text but I reckon that's the gist of it).

 

It's likely that each photo is assigned a list of attributes, e.g. it contains one or more of:

• Water
• Trees
• Modern Buildings
• Historic Infrastructure
• Evidence of Disrepair
• Boats
• Bicycles
• etc.

So if more photos containing e.g. Trees, Boats and Historic Infrastructure are voted as very scenic, compared to e.g. photos with Modern Buildings and Evidence of Disrepair, the data would show that the former features are generally considered more scenic, therefore have a more positive impact on wellbeing, which in turn helps justify a funding request that supports those items.

 

Voting that infrastructure in a state of disrepair is not scenic, therefore, could help justify a funding request that says "we need this much money to maintain infrastructure".

 

Of course, this depends on the list of attributes used and I'm only assuming it goes into that much detail, but I'm willing to bet that this is what's behind it. It's the sort of thing this kind of "Citizen Science" project can quite effective for (it would cost a LOT more money to have an employee score photos and would also be much less robust as it would be more subject to an individual's bias).

Edited October 19, 2022 by Ewan123

[haggis]

Interesting if that's what it is all about but as it is not clear, the results are unlikely to give the result they are looking for. 

[Ronaldo47]

Spin doctors are experts in selecting data to give the results they are looking for. 

[Andrew Denny]

On 17/10/2022 at 16:25, Athy said:

I just had a go until I got bored - perhaps 30 photos in all. II kept wondering when the good ones were going to start.

   I don't find large cranes or modern blocks of flats scenic, and too many of the snaps were either poorly composed, taken under grey skies, , or both.. My marks ranged from 2 to 6 out of 10.

out of 10.

As I understand it, it doesn't matter if you find the scenes ugly or the pictures dull. The point of it is for the boffins at the University to learn what is considered attractive in canal scenes. 

[Athy]

29 minutes ago, Andrew Denny said:

As I understand it, it doesn't matter if you find the scenes ugly or the pictures dull. The point of it is for the boffins at the University to learn what is considered attractive in canal scenes. 

...which they surely do from reading the reactions of people like you and me who look at them?

[John Brightley]

On 19/10/2022 at 12:38, Ewan123 said:

 

It's likely that each photo is assigned a list of attributes, e.g. it contains one or more of:

• Water
• Trees
• Modern Buildings
• Historic Infrastructure
• Evidence of Disrepair
• Boats
• Bicycles
• etc.

Many of the Geograph photos used have attributes like these attached to them already by the photographer/ contributor.

[Lady M]

CRT are now inviting people to upload their own photos.

[Andrew Denny]

17 minutes ago, Athy said:

...which they surely do from reading the reactions of people like you and me who look at them?

Well, I doubt they'll bother to read our comments, they'll only look at the scores on the rate this scene 

[Athy]

10 minutes ago, Andrew Denny said:

Well, I doubt they'll bother to read our comments, they'll only look at the scores on the rate this scene 

Forgive my inexactitude. To me, a score implies a comment. Two out of ten means that I don't think much of the picture.

[Andrew Denny]

Ah, but I think it's more complex than that. For example, they may be classifying the scene (e.g. weather, if there's a boat, whether there are humans, vegetation, dogs, if water is visible, etc etc. Your ranking won't necessarily be seen in simple like/dislike terms, but according to what's in the picture. It might be that photos with boats score more highly or lower, people might prefer pics with or without people in them etc.

 

For example, what if pics with children in rate more highly? Your simple ranking will knit with others to deliver conclusions that perhaps you never realised might in the aggregate form different conclusions from your simple 1-10 ranking. That's what (to me) could be fascinating!