How does screening work?

[HerisonRK]

The process begins with the image and associated data being visible to the screener. Once the image/data has been reviewed, there are six options for the screener to select:

1. Vote Add - the image will remain in the queue. It will be added if it receives another Vote Add, or rejected if it receives two Vote Rejects
2. Vote Reject - the image will remain in the queue. It will be rejected if it receives another Vote Reject, or added if it receives two Vote Adds
3. Skip - the image will remain in the queue and await the next screener
4. Instant Add - the image will be added immediately to the DB
5. Instant Reject - the image will be rejected immediately
6. Senior Review - the image will be sent to a special queue to be reviewed by senior screeners

Numbers from yesterday's screening:

1. Vote Add - 1394
2. Vote Reject - 773
3. Skip - 56
4. Instant Add - 1259
5. Instant Reject - 626
6. Senior Review - 1

We cannot easily access specific numbers for appeals, but we receive 100-200 per day, of which 10-20 may be successful.

So to answer your questions:

• ~45% of images are immediately rejected/accepted after being seen by a single screener. We encourage this as it keeps the queue down, and as you can tell by the rate of successful appeals, the instant decisions (and votes) are correct the vast majority of the time.
• senior screeners can instant add/reject an image that has been voted on; regular screeners cannot, they can only vote or skip. Such decisions can be appealed as with any other rejection, but appeals of rejections from senior screeners have a very low success rate, under 5%

I wonder what would need to be done to have a photo sent to senior review. Also do regular screeners also have the choice to nominate photos for screeners choice and photo of the week or are those senior screeners only?

[Siddarth.Bhandary]

The process begins with the image and associated data being visible to the screener. Once the image/data has been reviewed, there are six options for the screener to select:

1. Vote Add - the image will remain in the queue. It will be added if it receives another Vote Add, or rejected if it receives two Vote Rejects
2. Vote Reject - the image will remain in the queue. It will be rejected if it receives another Vote Reject, or added if it receives two Vote Adds
3. Skip - the image will remain in the queue and await the next screener
4. Instant Add - the image will be added immediately to the DB
5. Instant Reject - the image will be rejected immediately
6. Senior Review - the image will be sent to a special queue to be reviewed by senior screeners

Numbers from yesterday's screening:

1. Vote Add - 1394
2. Vote Reject - 773
3. Skip - 56
4. Instant Add - 1259
5. Instant Reject - 626
6. Senior Review - 1

We cannot easily access specific numbers for appeals, but we receive 100-200 per day, of which 10-20 may be successful.

So to answer your questions:

• ~45% of images are immediately rejected/accepted after being seen by a single screener. We encourage this as it keeps the queue down, and as you can tell by the rate of successful appeals, the instant decisions (and votes) are correct the vast majority of the time.
• senior screeners can instant add/reject an image that has been voted on; regular screeners cannot, they can only vote or skip. Such decisions can be appealed as with any other rejection, but appeals of rejections from senior screeners have a very low success rate, under 5%

Fantastic view of how a photo is processed. Thanks for sharing, Dana! I have never doubted the integrity of screening process, but this was a nice peak into behind-the-scenes workflow.

[JesseV]

I wonder what would need to be done to have a photo sent to senior review. Also do regular screeners also have the choice to nominate photos for screeners choice and photo of the week or are those senior screeners only?

There are multiple reasons for images to be sent for senior review, but the more ‘obvious’ reasons would be suspicion of manipulation, date cheating, double accounts etc. Especially in the less obvious cases, images can be sent to senior screeners for extra verification.

Regular screeners can indeed nominate images for screeners choice. Rule of thumb is that screeners choice is agreed upon by two screeners.
Photo of the week is selected by senior screeners.

[dlowwa]

From my current screening session, with certain identifying info hidden:


Screening interface hasn't really changed since at least 2015, but probably much earlier.

[Felipe Garcia]

Adding to what Dana posted, we also get a small warning message in the serial box if the serial doesn't match the census (census info is the first line in the grey zone), and also if the image has an invalid aspect ratio

[rayinad]

my current screening session

Could you please explain the "Artistic" checkbox a bit? It's not on the upload page, but there is such a category in the search engine, which finds fairly recent photos.

[Alex - Spot-This !]

Artistic can only be selected by screeners while screening

[rayinad]

I also noticed that the screenshot doesn’t show any tools for viewing the photo's EXIF data.

[zomeu]

Much more interesting would be the technical screening tools themselves...

[JesseV]

I also noticed that the screenshot doesn’t show any tools for viewing the photo's EXIF data.

The system shows info such as some basic camera settings, photo date and image size.

[JesseV]

Much more interesting would be the technical screening tools themselves...

The tools are exactly the same compared to the upload and queue tools uploaders can use. There are 0 differences

[Stanley JH]

Artistic can only be selected by screeners while screening

What photos are considered as "Artistic" category? Thanks.

[dlowwa]

I also noticed that the screenshot doesn’t show any tools for viewing the photo's EXIF data.

I blurred that info.

What photos are considered as "Artistic" category? Thanks.

Subjective decision by crew. Rarely if ever used in my experience.

[Alex - Spot-This !]

What photos are considered as "Artistic" category? Thanks.

https://www.jetphotos.com/showphotos.php?aircraft=all&airline=all&country-location=all&photographer-group=all&category=256&keywords-type=all&keywords-contain=3&keywords=&photo-year=all&width=&height=&genre=all&search-type=Advanced&sort-order=0

[rayinad]

Also how does the choosing of CS and PW look like? Is it a decision of one screener or is it made by voting?