From a creative perspective, nothing beats the thrill of watching the world go by, waiting for that perfect moment to arise right in front of you, and push the shutter release on your camera. Organizing your photos, on the other hand, is a much less glamorous activity, and if you're like me, often put on the back burner of the photographic process. Categorizing your photos never feels quite as urgent and important as taking them.
Until you're trying to find them again, that is.
Today's diary — the third in the process of setting up the Daily Kos Photo Cooperative — will present an organizing system that we've come up with as a starting point for our archive. We'll explain the basic idea behind it and then open up the floor for comments and suggestions.
If you haven't heard about this project yet and have questions about its goals and functionalities, I highly recommend reading the first two diaries in the series:
Daily Kos Photo Cooperative launches, by Meteor Blades
DK Photo Cooperative: How it will work, by citisven
The Daily Kos Photo Cooperative is an administratively initiated and facilitated archive featuring original photos by Kossacks relevant to the mission of Daily Kos, made available for online editorial discourse by other Kossacks and progressive bloggers elsewhere in the blogosphere.
Here's how smugmug.com, our chosen host site works. Each photo gets uploaded into a gallery that is assigned a category, and if desired, a sub-category. Each photo can be further classified with relevant keywords which is the best way to find images in a site-wide search.
We thought it would be best for our main categories to stay close to the main browse tags on Daily Kos, to keep consistency and at least some level of objectivity (aside from the "Community" tag, which could be added later if there's a consensus for it).
Here they are:
Civil Rights, Congress, Culture, Economy, Education, Elections, Energy, Environment, Health Care, International, Labor, Law, Media, National Security, Science, Transportation, White House.
And this is what it might look like on the home page:
We also tried to minimize the use of subcategories, as they can really clutter things up (three clicks to get to an actual photo) and open up a whole slew of different possible arrangements, and thus second-guessing. The only three main categories that we found would benefit from a further subdivision are Congress, Culture, and International. The other 14 categories go directly to the different galleries.
For example, clicking on the "Environment" category would get you to this gallery page:
Then, if I clicked on the "Livable Cities" gallery, I would get the individual images, including descriptions and keywords:
We tried to create the galleries, which is where the actual photos will reside, with an eye toward photography. Some terms like "health care reform" may be popular tags, but don't work as well visually as say, "Activism," so we left them out, at least for now. Let us know in the comments if we've forgotten any indispensable galleries, but also remember that each photo can and will be further classified by the keywords of each contributor's choice.
So without further ado, here is the system we've come up with as a starting point:
Civil Rights
Galleries: Activism, People of Color; Women's Rights; LGBT Rights, Native American Rights, Religious Freedom, Human Rights issues, Racism, Privacy, Immigration/U.S. border
Congress
Subcategory 1: House of Representatives
Galleries: Congresspeople A-C, Congresspeople D-F, Congresspeople G-I, Congresspeople J-L, Congresspeople M-O, Congresspeople P-S, Congresspeople T-V, Congresspeople W-Z
Subcategory 2: Senate
Galleries: Senator A-F, Senator G-L, Senator M-S, Senator T-Z
Culture
Subcategory 1: Ancient Culture
Galleries: anthropological points of interest
Subcategory 2: Modern Culture
Galleries: specific cultural groups like LGBT, Youth, Latino, etc. Add as they arise.
Economy
Galleries: Recession, Housing/Foreclosure, Income Inequality, Wall Street, Corporations, Stock Market, Jobs, Small businesses, Trade, Class Warfare, Globalization, Poverty
Education
Galleries: Children, Primary School, High School, College, Libraries, Special Education, Teachers, Students
Elections
Galleries: Presidential Campaigns, Congressional Campaigns, State Races, Local Races, GOTV, Voter Registration, Voter Suppression, Voters, Voting Machines
Energy
Galleries: Oil, Coal, Nuclear Power, Wind Power, Solar Power, Biofuels, Alternative Energy, Energy Companies, Natural Gas, Gasoline, Ethanol
Environment
Galleries: Climate Change, Ecology, Endangered Species, Pollution, Waste, Recycling, Agriculture, Food, Wilderness & National Parks, Green Living, Livable Cities, Environmental Justice, Consumerism, Natural Disasters
Health Care
Galleries: Insurance Companies, Aging, Single Payer, Diseases, Alternative Medicine, Public Health, Women's Health, Veterans Health, Drugs/Pharmaceutical, Prevention, Other Countries, Activism
International
Subcategories: Australia and Oceania, Caucasus and the Middle East, Central America, Central Asia, Eastern Asia, Eastern Europe, Northeastern Africa, Northwestern Africa, South America, Southern Africa, Southern Asia, U.S., Canada, and Mexico, West Indies, Western Europe
Galleries: individual countries, add as they arise.
Labor
Galleries: Unions, Auto Workers, Nurses, Teachers, Public Services, Wages, Factories, Farm Workers
Law
Galleries: Law Enforcement, Supreme Court, Court Houses, Prisons, Death Penalty, War on Drugs
Media
Galleries: Television, Film, Radio, Internet, Print, Journalism, History, Personalities, Photo Journalism
National Security
Galleries: Diplomacy, Terrorism, Airport Security, Ports, Military, Contractors, War
Science
Galleries: Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Astronomy, War on Science, NASA/Space
Transportation
Galleries: Cars, Electric Vehicles, Public Transit, Bicycles, Walking, Trains, Roads, Air Travel, Ships
White House
Galleries: Barack Obama, Presidents, Vice Presidents, First Ladies, Chief of Staff, The White House, Washington D.C.
Okay, that's what we've got so far. Have at it. Let us know what you think and how we might improve this. Remember that nothing is cast in stone. Some things will only become apparent once people start uploading images. We can adjust these categories and galleries as we go, though the less shuffling around we have to do, the less confusion there will be. Another idea was to have a "staging gallery" where folks could upload photos that don't fit into any existing galleries with a suggestion for a new gallery.
We're still working on specifics for a manual and terms of use, something we will have ready in the next diary, which will hopefully launch the Daily Kos Photo Cooperative.