POTW Disqualifications

Hey guys -

It seems that in the current POTW "Soft Coral", a number of entries have been submitted that are not in fact soft corals (despite their appearances). Without singling out any specific image, anemones and cup corals are Hexacorallia and Scleractinia, respectively, and the latter would be an excellent submission to the upcoming POTW "Hard Coral".

This is a great motivation for everyone to learn the species names and classifications of the subjects in their images. Unfortunately, those images that currently are ineligible for voting will be disqualified.

Good luck in future Photo of the Week Competitions!

While it understandable that people will make mistakes on themes of a taxonomic nature, we also get plenty of entries in competitions such as "silhouettes" "Wrecks" etc that do not adhere to the themes.

Good luck in future competitions.

Alex

I remember seeing entries into a 'fish' competition which were of cuttlefish. Try explaining that something which has fish as part of its name isn't actually eligible...........

Matt,

You'll have to take it easy on us landlocked types who only dabble in the sport. As an offender, I would have removed the entry if I had the ability to retract it (people are usually kind enough to leave you comments when you screw up there) and I assure you it not done intentionally. Secondly, is there a good online source where I could reference these things before submit them? I tried looking up a site for hard coral references the other day with very little luck.

For the Caribbean and Surrounding areas I have always found these inavluable:

Reef Coral Identification: Florida, Caribbean, Bahamas (Reef Set) (Paperback)

They have some Pacific Fish ones also. However I don't know what extent their Pacfic line goes to or how good they are.

I want this for Christmas .. it looks like a fantastic collection to have:

The Reef Set: Reef Fish, Reef Creature and Reef Coral (3 Volumes) (Reef Set) [bOX SET] (Hardcover)

I can't say that I have ever found any online source to be as good as the books for searching and finding information with no starting knowledge at all. Once you have some basics down from a book it is easier to find stuff online from google searches etc with scientific names and all that.

Giles

PS thanks to

Matt for making this post possible

Thanks Giles. So I guess I'll have to break down and buy a book so I can spell the search options Maybe that's a website/blog waiting to happen. I know if there were an updated website, I'd be a member. Anyway no one ever told me there'd be homework to do after taking those pictures underwater :glare: I guess its a lot like my job...I'm decent in the performance of it but totally suck when it comes to the paperwork.

Gary, I don't see a website being great help unless you have an inkling, I mean take this POTW for example.

You have a picture you have taken. You think it's a soft coral, so it goes into your soft coral folder on your hard drive.

Maybe one day you want to figure out what sort of Soft Coral it is, so you go to a website to work it out, this website has everything ever found underwater on it, all with photos and Scientific Names and Common Names, Habitats, Geography, Size etc etc.

So you go to the soft coral section and start browsing photos. I don't know how many soft corals there are, but I imagine there are thousands. Are you going to go through all the photos checking to figure out which coral is yours? What happens when you have gone throgh the photos (all 3000 of them) and you couldn't find it? Could be because you missed it, could because it's actually in a different section under anenomes or something like that ... how would you ever find it unless you already knew just a little something about the thing you had taken a photo of?

I don't know how you could ever go abouts it online, I mean even the books aren't perfect .. if you know nothing it's impossible to find anything easily.

I guess this is why eric is always harping on .. Title your Critter Identification Topics better so that it is a little helpfull to others.

I guess scientific types would know better about how to go about this project, although they normally start of all the dividing down to smaller groups by scientific names, and not many of us know what they mean, I know I don't

Maybe some sort of photo recognition might work ? like they use on the myheritage.com to match you with a bunch of celebritys you look like?

I think I ranted enough, but it would be a cool resource to have online, I mean you could just have a system that worked and it could encompass everything .. birds, fish, corals, plants, reptiles, mammals etc etc