Galaxy Zoo Talk

Object of The Day Board?

  • Rick_N. by Rick_N.

    My first post in talk...gulp! One of the many things I'll miss about GZF is the chance to write about
    subjects at length - tedious though they might be! Can we get an OOTD thread together? It might
    be OOTWeek as it might not get much traffic, but hey, why not? Rick Nowell from GZF reporting in...

    Posted

  • JeanTate by JeanTate in response to Rick N.'s comment.

    There's some discussion of this in the Suggestions on how to improve Talk ... thread, pages 2 and 3. This post by Brooke may help; if you click the 'in response to' link, and then the same in Capella05's, you'll see three of the several posts on the topic.

    Here's part of Brooke's (earlier) post:

    I would like to help with OOTD/OOTW/Spotlight Object/whatever-it-gets-called, but I agree with @zookeeper that it will be hard to keep up if it's only the scientists, and it won't be nearly as diverse. I was continually impressed by the quality and breadth of the OOTDs on the forum. I'd love to see that continue here, and maybe join in myself once in a while.

    Posted

  • elizabeth_s by elizabeth_s in response to Rick N.'s comment.

    😃 congrats in your first post. Hope to see more of them. I agree that a OOTD/OOTW would be nice to have here on TALK.

    Posted

  • ElisabethB by ElisabethB moderator

    We are working on it ! 😄

    Posted

  • elizabeth_s by elizabeth_s in response to ElisabethB's comment.

    Awesome! 😃

    Posted

  • JeanTate by JeanTate

    Collecting posts on this topic, from the Suggestions on how to improve Talk ... thread (pages 2 and 3):

    [zookeeper admin, scientist; July 11 2014 3:51 PM] One thing I'd like to ask is how to support such wonders as the Object of the Day (or whatever new wonders there might be). The story of OOTD is worth knowing for those who weren't around at the beginning - it started as a way for Zookeepers to share their expertise with the gathering Zooites, only to find that we didn't have as much expertise as we thought. After we slipped a few times and forgot to post the whole enterprise - including organisation, research and writing - was gently removed from our hands by the Zooites who (correctly) felt they would do a better job. The OOtD remains a fabulous resource for all sorts of things, whether it's finding amusing galaxies or reading brilliant summaries of cutting edge research.

    Is there any appetite for similar content here? If so, how can we help?

    In response:

    [Capella05 moderator; July 11 2014 3:59 PM] Most of the traffic we get here is transient or from educational institutions. The majority of 'comment' posters do not read the discussion boards.

    Perhaps, a object of the week / fortnight with more emphasis on the educational side of things? I think it is really important to get more interaction between the posters and the scientists. The post themselves would have to be highlighted on the landing page to promote more interest. Not too sure how we could do that.

    Edited to add: I really feel the OOTD should be done by one of the Scientists, a communication bridge? 😃

    In turn, in response:

    [vrooje admin, scientist; July 12 2014 2:45 PM] I would like to help with OOTD/OOTW/Spotlight Object/whatever-it-gets-called, but I agree with @zookeeper that it will be hard to keep up if it's only the scientists, and it won't be nearly as diverse. I was continually impressed by the quality and breadth of the OOTDs on the forum. I'd love to see that continue here, and maybe join in myself once in a while.

    I also liked the suggestion I read earlier about a journal club, which is an idea from RGZ, I think, although I know the forum sometimes discussed papers as well. We've started talking about a recent paper in this thread, and maybe we could make that part of a new Journal Club discussion board. There are resources online like Astrobites where one might find additional information about interesting papers to discuss as well.

    Thoughts?

    Next:

    [Capella05 moderator; July 12 2014 3:25 PM] I personally feel that it should be a Scientist doing it - if it is only monthly, is that feasible?

    I think that many volunteers would appreciate a 'in depth' analysis of a galaxy from a professional astronomer.

    Just my opinion.

    Then:

    [vrooje admin, scientist; July 3 2014 10:13 AM] I will ask the rest of the team (those who haven't already seen this); but I'd be sad if it was only scientists. 😃

    A new voice:

    [ Rick N.; July 14 2014 7:34 AM] The OOTD on GZF was running out of steam- it's quite a task to get someone to do something fresh everyday (thanks Jean for your organisational abilities). An OOTWeek might be a better idea and there might be more volunteers that way.

    As for whether it should only be scientists, I disagree. There are many OOTD authors who are not pro-scientists yet have produced very competent and useful OOTDs. I count myself as one of these! For instance, Saturday the fifth July (2014): 'Green Pea galaxies and the Early Universe' http://www.galaxyzooforum.org/index.php?topic=281946.0

    OOTDs also help to keep people informed of recent developments, as above. Indeed, I see no reason why only pro-scientists should write them: we are all citizen scientists.

    I'd be quite happy to put one together for the week beginning the 28th July. Whether we need a 'Slightly secret' board is for an admin to decide. If Jean doesn't mind organising it, that would provide some continuity.

    Give it a go; it can always be closed down.

    Posted

  • Capella05 by Capella05 moderator

    I think we will hear back from the Scientists within the next day or so...

    Posted

  • klmasters by klmasters scientist, admin

    Well @vrooje started a discussion about OOTW in the science team, and I think we largely agree it would be a pity if it were just the science team doing this. One of the really great things about being involved in Galaxy Zoo is the community of amazing citizen science experts we get to meet.

    Plus as @vrooje pointed out we're mostly all really busy - both with Galaxy Zoo science and other parts of our jobs (e..g student supervision, lecturing, other astronomy projects we're involved in). We genuinely try not to promise to do things we can't manage, but we're also all really enthusiastic, and often over estimate our own time limitations, so please be kind to us when we do!

    Anyway I think we're suggesting that we could commit as a group to a certain frequency (e.g. once a month from the science team), if you think that would be welcome.

    Posted

  • JeanTate by JeanTate

    My 2 cents:

    • Alice had a brilliant idea, the Slightly-secret Object of the Day Board: access is restricted to OotD authors (and Mods, Admins, Scientists, etc), and it worked extremely well in the early days (as Rick N. points out, with the posting traffic in the old GZ forum declining in general, interest in OOTDs also declined)

    • I think quite a few of the ordinary zooite/citizen scientist OotD authors learned a great deal by simply writing up an OotD, and I think they helped build a community

    • one thing I found fascinating: what different authors considered worthy of doing an OotD on! The diversity made for great reading, IMO (not only galaxies, but also sometimes considerable creativity, in making an Xmas card for example: Tsering's 25th December 2010: MERRY CHRISTMAS!)

    • the diversity of nominations was also amazing; in fact there's a whole thread of 'unused nominations' in the old OOTD Board, some of which would surely make a great OOTW

    • for quite a while now, I've been collecting stats on OOTDs, which I plan analyze and write up some day; some real surprises in what were especially popular (and what were not)

    Posted

  • Rick_N. by Rick_N.

    Have any decisions been made about this please?

    Posted

  • Capella05 by Capella05 moderator in response to Rick N.'s comment.

    Hi Rick,

    As far as I am aware a decision has been made, and will be communicated to all, in due course.

    Thanks!

    Posted