New author-images feature

ConversesNew features

Afegeix-te a LibraryThing per participar.

New author-images feature

Aquest tema està marcat com "inactiu": L'últim missatge és de fa més de 90 dies. Podeu revifar-lo enviant una resposta.

1timspalding
Editat: gen. 15, 2020, 1:08 pm

This is a small feature, but I think you'll have fun spotting it:

Compare the old way: https://www.librarything.com/authorgallery/old
With the new way: https://www.librarything.com/authorgallery/all

Put them in two tabs and flip back and forth.

The rest of this post in spoiler tag!

Select author images are now "squared" not at the center of the image but at the top. Some points:

* There are some AI systems that attempt to figure out when to do this; we did not use them.
* We did it manually--I did 5k images, conceptdawg another 5k, and ablachly is doing the rest of the top 50k authors. It's really fast to do--the human eye is great at picking out problems.
* The real problems are the headless ones--see Jane Austen in the "old way" above!
* We aren't currently going to be opening this up to users to change. Maybe in the future?
* We only did it to primary images.
* Although LibraryThing doesn't use these squared images a lot, they are how our product Syndetics Unbound shows authors, so we thought it was important.

2tardis
gen. 15, 2020, 2:12 pm

I like! Thanks!

3Bookmarque
Editat: gen. 15, 2020, 2:16 pm

**headdesk**

Why? Why was this something worth spending this much time on when there is so much else that needs doing? I mean, I can read your bullet points, but I see nothing compelling.

I'm baffled.

4Aquila
gen. 15, 2020, 2:17 pm

Hah! Cool.

5Lyndatrue
gen. 15, 2020, 3:51 pm

>1 timspalding: I'd have to agree with >3 Bookmarque: on this one. Of all the things you might have devoted time to, this one seems close to pointless. In some rare cases, it may have improved the image, ever so slightly, but honestly, we're book readers here (or so I thought), and author images are a nicety, but hardly worth spending that amount of time on.

Ah, well. So it goes.

6gilroy
gen. 15, 2020, 3:58 pm

>5 Lyndatrue: I see an improvement in one in every 1000 maybe?

Also agreeing with >3 Bookmarque:.

7abbottthomas
gen. 15, 2020, 4:01 pm

Aww, c'mon guys! Give TPTB a break! Looks nice and sounds relaxing to do, like thumb twiddling or worry beads.

8norabelle414
gen. 15, 2020, 4:07 pm

>1 timspalding: Thanks for making improvements to the thing that makes LT money, so you can use that money to continue to run the site I use basically for free!

9al.vick
gen. 15, 2020, 4:25 pm

Neither of the lists at the top is in alphabetical order, while the one under the authors tab is.

10lesmel
gen. 15, 2020, 10:51 pm

>6 gilroy: 1 in 1000? Really? I count 10 in the first 32 images.

11r.orrison
Editat: gen. 16, 2020, 8:48 am

Love it! Looks much better and such a simple fix. (I thought perhaps you'd applied face recognition to choose the center.)

I bet it took longer to set up the second gallery page than it took to change how the thumbnails are generated.

What's up with Dean Koontz though? The top of his head is still chopped off in the new version. (New and old thumbnails are exactly the same.)

12lorax
gen. 16, 2020, 9:15 am

r.orrison (#11):

Love it! Looks much better and such a simple fix. (I thought perhaps you'd applied face recognition to choose the center.)


Tim has a rather low opinion of any sort of ML. He deliberately chose to have developers spend a few hours on manually doing this rather than going with the automated solution. I guess this was a high priority for Syndetics Unbound - remember, they pay the bills, so their requests get prioritized over ours.

13gilroy
gen. 16, 2020, 10:07 am

>10 lesmel: Anything that was a 5 pixel adjustment I'm not counting, as that was a pointless shift. So I see very few.

14CtrSacredSciences
gen. 16, 2020, 4:06 pm

LOL, my peeps must be VERY unpopular, as when I switch the view to my authors there's really no change. But on the others, I do like seeing Jane Austin's head and all. Nice work.