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Re: Adjenda Setting
D. Name of the Beast -
- several have been suggested but this is still open for discussion
1. The Aquatic Gardeners Association On-line Aquascaping Festival
2. AGA International Aquascaping Competition
3. AGA International Millenium Aquascaping Competition
(IMAC would _definately_ get us in truble with the legal department of Apple
Computer, so I guess its out. Thank's Olga, I completely missed that
acronym).
I like #2 - we could accept it as is or ammend it in various ways...
2b. AGA International Aquascaping Competition & Showcase
2c. AGA International Aquascaping Showcase & Competition
2d. AGA International Aquascaping Showcase
2e. AGA International Aquascaping Festival
I like 2d, but I am open to other choices. Yeah, I love Apple, I used
to work for them, but I would stay clear of anything to do with their
lawyers. They have a reputation for being quite aggressive and for
good reason (can we say Future Power) ok I'll shutup now. :-)
E. Entries - Acceptable Formats
To me, this seems like a non issue, I would agree with Erik, everyone
needs to turn in JPEGS. If you don't turn up the compression too
high, the images can look great. Furthermore, with the web being the
end result of the publication medium, the only available formats are
JPEG and GIF.
Having done some extensive analysis into how both these compression
formats work, I can say the GIFs are not the appropriate format.
Furthermore, we should stronly encourage people to send the as JPEGS
because then 1) they will know what their finished product looks like
and 2) if they used another compression format, there would be double
loss because who ever is posting them on the web will have to convert
this into JPEG anyways which would result in double compression or
(loss of image quality).
As far as sizes, I would say that 640*480 would be the maximum
allowable size. Obviously everyone should use this size but some
images might be slightly smaller to allow for cropping of images.
F. Submission Elements / Constituents:
- Most folks have said that they favour multiple images per submission, in
order to be able to get a better feel for the aquascape under consideration.
Several gave specific numbers, both for maximum and minimum. Please refer to
my earlier post concerning the limitations on artistic expression (both of
the aquascaper and the photographer) that any such limits may impose.
Remember that our purpose is inclusion, not exclusion. We have several folks
with scanning facilities and Erik has told me that he can devote upwards of
1 GB of online storage space to this project if necessary. I don't want to
limit the potential creativity of the contributors.
We have also discussed the other elements of a submission (other than the
images). Topics such as tank set-up details, maintenance details, plant
species list, floor plan, etc. have been discussed. Jose (I think) doesn't
like including a plan view but I think that from an educational aspect this
will be vital - remember that this is not just about "pretty pictures".
Someone suggested a format similar to what Amano gives in his books -
something like:
Image Title
Aquarium Volume
Aquarium Dimensions
Lighting
Filter
Substrate
Fertilizer
CO2 Supply
Water Conditions (Temperature, pH, General Hardness, Alkalinity, etc.)
Water Change Schedule
Plant Species list (Scientific names preferred)
Fish Species list
Comments
I suggest that we discuss this and decide on a uniform list of things which
must be stated for each and every sumbission. This should be part of the
entry package in such a way as we get uniformity from all entrants in the
range of information we receive.
I like the list that we came up with and I am glad to see that you
didn't include Amano's ridiculous stats on how many nitrates found in
the tank. I think it would also be nice if the artists could
(optional) include a short (1 paragraph max or 200 words) write up of
anything special they have done or what it means to them.
Also, I think a max of 3 submissions would be fine and they could be
all of one tank or of different tanks.
G. Submitting Entries / Points of Contact
- All submissions are to go to ONE person/address. I believe that we have
settled on Erik as that person. Requests for information can be directed
either to me or to the AGA Website - where we can place a write-up about the
contest. If enteries reach a level that threatens to swamp Erik, there are
several people with scanning equipment who have offered to help him with
that task. In that event, Erik can get the physical entries to those folks
who will do the scanning and then return both the scans and the originals to
Erik for safekeeping.
One thing which is not quite clear to me yet - for electronic images - do
folks put them on disk and mail the disk to Erik, or send the images as
e-mail attachments? Again, I'm concerned about huge image files moving over
the Web, clogging Erik's in-basket. If we elect to have people put them on
disk and mail them in, we will have to specify a compression format which is
acceptable (like ZIP files).
I guess this is mainly up to Erik, but how many people do we honestly
expect to participate. Of coarse the more the better, but I would be
surprised to see more than 80 entrants.
P.S. Thanks James, I like the focus your bringing to the discussion.
Julius Odian