A spate of criticisms circulated the PhotoShare early this month. It seems that there is a clash in opinions regarding what and how the PhotoShare should be like. Raja Muhammad Jibrail had openly expressed his contempt towards photo spammers and felt that the photos uploaded by the culprits were vapid, thus bringing down the quality of the PhotoShare itself.
Jibrail was not the first to openly criticize photo spamming; fellow TPJCian, Shawn Wee, started a thread in late April to tackle the problem of 'photo-whoring'. His introductory statement include, "Nobody wants to see such nonsense. PhotoShare is not a place to dump all the crap you took. You wanna show your friends a whole bunch of subjectless photos? There's always Photobucket, Flicker, and even Friendster!"
Most forum regulars are behind Shawn, but some are still sceptical if the idea of photo spamming really exist in PhotoShare. The purpose of having the PhotoShare is to share photos with your schoolmates. There are no rules regarding what kind of photo you can upload. Pictures of CCA events, your favourite sports stars and even nature are occasionally uploaded in PhotoShare. Some users tend to share a bulk of photos which can cover at least two to three pages in the photo sharing system at one go. Each student is allowed up to 5000 photo uploads.
Nonetheless, veteran PhotoShare users such as Jibrail and even Ami Yousoff do not condone such actions, lamenting that PhotoShare is not what it was used to be. My personal favourite artist, Muhammad Noor Iskandar, jumped on the bandwagon to fight photo spamming. He wrote, "Haha true. Sometimes the flooding of photos are very very annoying here. Ehhe sometimes I have to remove my picture and repost them at a later time when this spammers post their photos."
Ami, on the other hand, appeared wretched that his photo did not made it to the Hottest List, allegedly due to photo spamming by another user. However, the photo finally made it in the Hottest List with 375 views and counting after a second attempt. This was the photo:
In my opinion, I believe labelling users who shared their 'uninteresting' photos in PhotoShare as photo spammers is not justified. From what I observe, it is just merely a difference in opinion from the two parties regarding what and how PhotoShare should be. In my opinion, there is no such thing as an irrelevant photo in PhotoShare, thus proving unequivocally that the term spammer is not valid. Obviously, the so-called photo spammers are all about their rights to share as many photos as possible in PhotoShare. And they have all the right to do so since PhotoShare does not specifically set rules which highlights that only original and humorous photos can be uploaded. Furthermore, humour itself is a subjective viewpoint - what you perceive as funny may be dull or even insulting to another.
On the other side of the table, another group of TPJCians suggests that a sudden upload of more than fifty pictures by a photo spammer will mean that other students are unable to view their very own photos. Critics are fast at attacking this group of people, stating that they are selfish and only want to get their photos in the Hottest List, thus stating photo spamming as an excuse when some of their photos failed to make it. I disagree with the critics. All this group of TPJCians want to do is to entertain us with their photos. They have taken time to produce their original pictures or searching for hilarious photos to be shared with the other students, and thus their photos deserve to be rewarded in the Hottest List.
So is there a solution for this? Yes, definitely. I suggest a category/tag selection system which allows users to choose which photos they wish to see. Students will also have choose a category for their photos upon uploading. Let this picture do the explaining:
From here, photos will be ranked in each category. However, there will also be a page which shows the list of photos that are top in all categories. It should look something like this:
It is important that we retain the objective to why PhotoShare was set up, that is to allow students to share their photos freely. I hope the solution above will bring about a win-win situation to both parties involved in the debate.
PhotoShare Woes And How To Solve It
The Thing About TPJC's Canteen
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SO WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?
ANY SOLUTION?
What Happened To TPJC's Very Own "TV CAMPUS"?
It has been a year since the college Film And Photography Society (FAPS) produced its first episode of "TV CAMPUS". The project was undertaken to build a bridge or channel between students and teachers for them to communicate and erase any misunderstandings that lies between them regarding any college issues. Students would be able to view the episodes in the canteen during their breaks.
The demo episode invited students to voice out their opinions concerning the bird faeces issue in college. The video received a total of 1,627 views and was favourited 5 times up to date. A 3GP version of the video was also available in school and Tpjcians could obtain it by using their handphones via bluetooth. The video lured compliments from the student population; they found it humorous.
FAPS soon produced its first formal episode which was released during the Teachers' Day concert last year. I was there and the crowd enjoyed every minute of it. Nevertheless, the video fell short of the record 1,627 views set by its predecessor - it only managed to grab 1,213 views in Youtube. It was hosted by former Student Council president, Daniel Lim together with his co-host, Shawn Wee. The video served as a platform for Tpjcians to dedicate their Teachers' Day wishes to their respective tutors and lecturers.
One year later, and a much-awaited sequel never materialised. The Teachers' Day video this year was produced entirely by the 23rd Student Council. The video only featured dedications by the JC1 students, leaving out their seniors. I am not sure what happened to the "TV CAMPUS" proposal. However, if it was true that the proposal was rejected, I may have an answer to why it is so.
I think having a video played in the canteen may not be feasible as students will not be able to hear the audio quality of the video. This is due to the fact that the volume of the plasma televisions are set low to avoid disturbing any ongoing classes near the canteen. This explains why it is not practical to have videos broadcasted there.
Nonetheless, I believe "TV CAMPUS" is a good idea and hope that FAPS can continue the project.
Organic Chem Romance: Mr Ethene's Date Gone Wrong!
An original content brought to you by TPJCian Magazine.
Organic Chem War: King Ethane vs Chlorine Girl
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TPJC Live!
If you are available during the date and time stated above, please support this initiative. Students and teachers are welcomed to join in the 'LIVE' debate. This is the second online discussion organized by us.
Please write your name and class below if you wish to participate. We would like to gauge the number of participants for the event. We are expecting at least 10 participants. Thank you.
TPJCian Magazine: August Round-Up
August has been a hectic month for me as I have to juggle my revision and work on this online magazine. I spent an average of about an hour daily just to update new posts and/or make sure everything is going smoothly as planned. I have used up nearly all my scheduled posts this month as I had to use a large chunk of time to revise my work for my Preliminary examinations. I am not sure if my effort is adequate though - Prelims was very tough.
There are two more scheduled posts left; the 'Biography of Shawn Wee' and 'A TPJCian's Trip To New York'. Both will be scheduled for release very soon, most probably end of September. The scheduled posts system is devised so that the blog continues to live on despite my busy schedule. I have used up more than 10 scheduled posts in August, therefore creating a record of 32 posts in a month.
It was a strategic move as I know and comprehend that the JC1s are very busy this September while the JC2s will make use of the entire October to revise their work. The readership will plunge for the next two months and I don't see a burning need to blog or publish the scheduled posts. After all, only half of the readership base is going to read it.
Besides that, August also opened the door to the Olympics. I expected TPJCians to spend time online checking on news or updates regarding the sporting event. Thus, I decided to update TPJCian Magazine and post the links in the forum as a net to catch the online flies. Furthermore, I bombarded the blog with more posts during and after the E-learning day. I anticipated heavy online activities during this time.
My expectations were spot on and this was the result:
I calculate my readership statistics strictly on unique visitors per month. As you can observe from the graph, traffic has surged from 2,459 to 3,945 unique visitors. This illustrates a 1,486 jump or a 60.4% increase in readership.
I would like to thank my readers and contributors for your support. All this is not possible without each and every one of you.
TPJCian Magazine will cool down during this month of September. I am going to spend more time revising my work in preparation for my 'A' levels. I will also be writing new scheduled posts for release in the month of December this year. That said, we are going to focus more on providing you with useful educational resources this month. There will be interactive 'LIVE' discussions every Saturday, most probably from 10pm onwards. The discussions are very useful for your General Paper as it develops content for your essay.
I welcome feedback from you. If you're interested to be a blogger or contributor for this online magazine, do send me an online message.
Oh ya, enjoy these videos:
Best regards and many thanks,
azhar
07s16