Looking at the home page I'm wondering if the UK and international photos sections should be combined.

There are far more UK updates than international ones, so I don't think it would reduce the UK content a great deal, and it would make the home page shorter and a bit quicker to load.

Another minor tweak - the random images on the home page are now only selected from photos flagged as underground. Basically it was throwing up too many personal album photos, and often the top right of the site didn't look like it was anythign to do with mines, exploration or mining history any more.

(not that there's anything wrong with non mine exploration related photos in personal albums, before somebody gets the wrong message there - it's just that the random script was throwing up too much stuff that wasn't clearly related to the main subject of the site!)

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Personally I would prefer UK and international to be kept seperate.

Having seen how long ago the "latest" photos are, maybe the number of "squares" could be reduced? I sometimes think there aren't enogh "squares" for UK as it is when a few people add photos in quick succession. In fact sometimes you get the situation where one person suddenl;y adds one photo to quite a few mines at the same time and it pushes very recent (same day) photos off the bottom of the section. People who only sign in even just once a day must miss quite a lot of new stuff.

With regard to the "random" images on the home page, 😞 somewhat disappointed that only underground photos are to be included from now. From a personal view point this section often highlighted unknown mines or surface remains, but there's always to option of turning off this section if I get too bored with "people underground" pics as opposed to "underground pics with people in them"!

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Yes, I can appreciate that. At some point I may add an option to show random images from all/underground only. But at present this was the quickest solution. The random script was throwing up so many photos of things that were most definitely not mines that a few people were asking me if this site was actually still about mines...

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My 2p (plus VAT) - I think the latest updates should be slimmed down a bit by combining UK and international photos. I'm not sure what resolution the site is designed to be used at but I definitely have to scroll down to see the bottom of the UK and all of the International stuff. Both are of interest to me and it would be nice to see them all at a glance.

That was my thinking too. Quite a few pages on here are arguably too long and complex. I anticipated it would say the country name clearly against the mine / site.

Regarding the random image issue; just in case anybody thinks I have... I don't have anything against above ground mine related photographs. To run a mine history and exploration site that precluded above ground remains and structures would be potty!

Mining surface remains and mining above ground photographs (modern or archive) are as welcome as ever. In particular there are some fantastic above ground archive photos uploaded regularly and the time people take to share these is much appreciated.

BUT, as it was the random image script was throwing up so many photos that weren't mine related in any way, and because of the prominent position on the page, it often gave an odd impression as to what the site was about - pictures of previous years calendars, inflatable dinghies, cars, trains and so on. All perfectly OK in personal albums I hasten to add, often there to illustrate forum posts but a bit confusing if you'd hit the site for the first time and wondered what it was all about :lol:

In time I'll add a user option to show underground only or all photos in the random box. And probably improve the way the box works as well.

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Perhaps, if the two are to be combined, an extra row (or 2)should be added so new UK photo albums don't disappear so quickly (that is already an issue sometimes).

I don't see there being an issue with a long page, most sites work this way & scrolling down is very easy, provided the page loads quickly, which AN does .

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Having read Brakeman's comment, I agree, leave it as it is, it is not that difficult to scroll down if you want international photos.

Or, the events section could be moved down. Although I reckon that should be left alone too.

Incidentally, even though I know the top bar can be switched off, I leave it in place, scrolling down (on a quick loading site like this) is no real issue.