As most mines have "Public Albums" and "Archive Albums" when do you think the change over from current to archive should be? I know today is tomorrow's history, but I think there sems to be some common agreement or guideline as to when one or other should be used. I have noticed several examples of archive photos in current albums and vicky verker (who is this vicky person and is she a member?) Also, should it be a static date? Or should it be a continuously moving date? Or should it basically be fixed, but moved from time to time?

My suggestion is (at least for the moment) make the changeover date fixed at 00:01 01/01/2000 (and if you were down a mine at that moment, shame on you, you should have been celebrating!) :lol: Maybe keep it fixed for time being.

Seems reasonable to me - though to my mind 2000 is but a snap of the fingers ago. I find it worrying that a lot of the photos I took in the 70's and 80's are now definitely history!

I tend to think of archive stuff as pre 1970's !

Just old age and dry rot I presume (as my father-in-law used to say.)

Graham

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Unfortunately I have to agree with you there Graham. I remeber telling a friend (he is now 30) when he was nearly 20, how I had first visited Maen Offeren in 1972. He said "Do you realise I wasn't even born then". I suddenly felt VERY ancient, and that was over 10 years ago!

I tend to think as archive photos as those that show a site before a change. I've got photos of some sites pre 2000, but you wouldn't really see a difference today. On the other hand other photos I have of Penrhyn pre flooding or before the upper galleries were covered are what I consider archive (does that make sense?)

Yes Wyn, that is a very good point. Maybe the date should be made earlier then? Maybe that is an argument for having different "time zones" a bit like cars! Classic, Vintage, and Veteren :lol: Although I think it would be helpful to have a common date across the site. Having said that, and having thought about it a bit more before I hit the submit button. Any photo before a certain date (whatever that maybe) is still archive compared to today (even if it is the same view as it is today, just with higher trees and bushes!

I always think as these pics as ones of when the mine was working, or when it was in better condition than what it is now.

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My oppinion is that the archive should be for when the mines/quarries had previous owners or were more intact, perhaps at a different stage of development. And there have been a lot of change in recent years.
I think it has a lot to do with ones age really. Which is the same with classic cars. One persons oppinion of a classic car might be a 1950's Alvis or MGF. Wheras a younger person would consider a 1980's Opel Monza to be their choice. The 1972 road tax cut off on classic cars is purely because the goverment realised they were losing money by not getting tax off the owners.
But whatever one's oppinion is, I think archives, classic cars etc can be debated untill the cows come home three times over and still without a definite answer.
I admit to have made a mistake of adding a photo to 'Cwt Y Bugail ' (recent company) wheras I should have added a mine/quarry namely 'Bwlch Slaters/Manod Quarry'. Which I will do so when I find my o.s. map to get a map ref.
I came accross an old slate sighn from the 'Ffestiniog Slate co.'(T.Glyn Williams) last week about 5ft by 3ft at a farm near Bangor on my travels with work. I hace taken a photo of it. But if I were to post it on this website which quarry/mine would it be under?? 😉

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I think archive is more relevant to pics that show a site before some big change and age isn't necessarily very relevant. Some long abandoned places look pretty much the same now as they did 30 years ago so there wouldn't be much point in filing a pic in the archive album just because it was a bit older. Except maybe to show the site hadn't changed, or to get a laugh at early minewear fashions.

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Thansk for all the input into this one everybody :thumbsup: I've never known the definitive answer to this myself. Some photos are clearly instantly archive material but where the distinction is less clear I always assumed a rule of thumb of about 20 to 30 years. So that would include both photos of working quarries/mines; and exploration photographs from the 70s and 80s.

In addition I think the following point made is very sensible:

- Anything that shows a site before a major change (as suggested by a few people) and even if that change was only a few years ago. If the site is no longer as it was then photos of it as was become archive.

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I came accross an old slate sighn from the 'Ffestiniog Slate co.'(T.Glyn Williams) last week about 5ft by 3ft at a farm near Bangor on my travels with work. I hace taken a photo of it. But if I were to post it on this website which quarry/mine would it be under?? 😉

Post it under Oakeley - Glyn Williams a.k.a. Festiniog Slate Co. took over the old Oakeley Lower Quarry after it officially closed in 1968. Then we had Gloddfa Ganol at old Middle Quarry from 1973-4 onwards - when Manod and PenyrOrsedd were added the whole lot became the Ffestiniog Slate Group.

Graham

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Given this is a knotty problem, for the avoidance of confusion where there are a lot of photographs over a long period - e.g. Maenofferen - how about doing what some contributors have already done and putting them into a dated album, rather than the general archive. Most of my maenofferen stuff is 1981, so I'll create a new album under that date and put the stuff in there. I'll move the archive things in as well and generally tidy my bits up. DOn't know if this would work for others - perhaps could use a date range ?

Graham

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That's a good idea, but the create album feature is only available to certain users, this is for a couple of reasons:

1) If everybody could create albums everybody would, and mines could potentially fill up with albums containing only one or two photographs each

2) That would make the site very fragmented, I've already had comments from a few people along the lines of you haven't got many photos of x y or z when in fact there are dozens, it just turned out they'd only looked in one album.

I know that most would use it sensibly, but by and large the User Album and Archive album should cover most requirements (I hope) but where anybody does want a specific album, e.g. your example of a batch of photographs taken in one calendar period, and if they can't access the create album function then I'm happy to create albums as required.

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Sorry, that last message didn't quite read correctly. Bascially with the current code it's only administrators who can create albums, but for certain members I'd be more than happy to add additional code so that the ability to create albums is granted 😉

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Good idea there Graham, solves both problems provided as Simon says it doesn't get abused, although in your case I don't think that would happen! Others might though. I vote that you get "special access".

I'll set aside a few hours to add the extra coding to grant album creation to certain people next Thursday evennig. Grahami, I'll drop you a PM when you can create albums.

I think I'll also take the opportunity to add a 'show all' photos button on each mine that'll show every photograph of that mine/quarry for people who don't want to look through numerous albums. Do people reckon that's a worthwhile addition?

Got a batch of mines to import on Monday courtest of sparty_lea and Barney, and a list of slate mines to MMR thanks to merddinemrys. Keeping me busy 😉

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Just a note to say the coding to allow a limited number of designated members to create albums (where levels of photographs justify it, or the photographs all relate to a specific era for example) has now been done.

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