Starship Asterisk*

Today I was searching APOD facebook site and I noticed that my friend who lives next street is there:) I didn't know that before. Cool surprise. Joan Girones good luck there in Spain! You wrote few posts earlier that english level in your country is rather low,so is in Poland. Making news more readable or more visible is cool. We have partial solar eclipse in 1 day so I asked friends about attending, I sent an invitations for everyone like an invitation for a good party (free entry, star show guaranteed, no door selection hahaha ) and now there are 22 guests so far. The idea is take a x ray photo or old photografic film and to look at the sky during breakfast brake for those at work. Friends with day off I invited to accompany me. So we will see.

Finally the [url=http://www.facebook.com/apodcatala]Catalan APOD mirror Facebook page[/url] has its own URL: [url]http://www.facebook.com/apodcatala[/url]

[quote="lenka"]Hello bystender!

I rather thought about some kind of support like constructive criticism, thoughts etc:) I just wanted to ask, what do you think:) I feel linked to the APOD and it is important to me what do people here think about my actions.
More or less I understand the copyright issues. Thanks for that anyway. It is helpful, therefore, that confirmed my previous notion of copyrights on the APOD.[/quote]
Basically, you're trying different things to market a site that you like to your friends. The best measures of your success in this endeavor are going to be 1.) comments on your Facebook page; 2.) whether anyone you know "likes" the APOD Facebook page; 3.) whether anyone you know joins Asterisk.

You're no different from most others who uses Facebook: you share what you like so that others who know you will know you better and so they might like it, too. You're much more likely than anyone else here to know whether your friends comment about what you post on your Facebook page, whether they "like" the APOD Facebook page, and whether they are inspired to join Asterisk. If you can generate interest in astronomy among your friends, you'll have more friends who are interested in something you're interested in. Nothing wrong with that!

I think anything that generates an interest in astronomy, astrophotography, and APOD is a great idea. If you could also generate an interest in this discussion forum, even better. There are many examples of astronomical image videos accompanied by many different kinds of music on YouTube. I think I would have to see what you are doing before I could make any comment on it, but good luck with it.

Hello bystender!

I rather thought about some kind of support like constructive criticism, thoughts etc:) I just wanted to ask, what do you think:) I feel linked to the APOD and it is important to me what do people here think about my actions.
More or less I understand the copyright issues. Thanks for that anyway. It is helpful, therefore, that confirmed my previous notion of copyrights on the APOD.

Hello, lenka!

I'm not sure what it is you are requesting. I run the (unofficial) FB page, [url=http://www.facebook.com/AstronomyPictureOfTheDay]Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD)[/url]. There is certainly no problem with you using NASA images for non-commercial purposes, as long as the proper credit for the image is given. However, many images used on APOD are copyrighted and you may need to contact the copyright holder directly before using such images. Image credits and copyrights with links are provided on each APOD page immediately below the image title.

[quote="[url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply][b]APOD[/b][/url]"]

[b]About image permissions:[/b]

All the images on the APOD page are credited to the owner or institution where they originated. Some of the images are copyrighted and to use these pictures publicly or commercially one must write to the owners for permission. For the copyrighted images, the copyright owner is identified in the APOD credit line (please see the caption under the image), along with a hyperlink to the owner's location. NASA images are in the public domain, [url=http://www.nasa.gov/audience/formedia/features/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html]official guidelines for their use can be found here[/url]. For images credited to other owners/institutions, please contact them directly for copyright and permissions questions.

Neither NASA nor APOD can grant permission to use copyrighted images. For use of these images, please write to the copyright owners.[/quote]
[img3="Credit: [mail=nickz@skylog.com]Nick Zivanovic[/mail] / [url=http://casonline.org/]Calumet Astronomical Society[/url]"]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apodbanner.gif[/img3]

My last post was enigmatic, now I have time to explain what I had in mind.
My personal goal is to encourage people around me to gaze the sky. Second goal is to check whether and how human behavior is changing, when I post info about actual sky events using different methods. Message content is always about current sky events but way to tell is modified.
I use my personal facebook profile as a little lab. I “test” my friends. They don't know that, they just use facebook in ways they like and that is cool. Is that ethical to “test” own friends without their knowledge? Before answer this question, I will follow my first thought.

HOW DOES IT WORK AND
When event is coming up, I give info in my “status box”, and I wait for response. I can measure facebook feedback in two ways: quantitatively (number of “likes” , comments, clicks on the link) and qualitatively (content of comments). There are not statistics on personal profile, but it can be organized. I use other tools to count clicks e.g. platform SoundCloud. I can publish image with music track which is specially selected to the sky event. Tracks are made by my friends, who create music. I can also chose one of the music tracks which is already public ownership like music of classical composers. My soundcloud profile show number of downloaded links. I also use YouTube, there is number of views. I am working on kind of visualization matched with music, it is a process extended in time, because I need more my own images. Third thing I am working on is a website. I want it to be ready in summer (I am only one person, brother helps me sometimes). Goal of this website is to popularize watching the sky. It is for everyone, those who don't know astronomic terms too. I don't care, we learn all life. New raised heads, looking at the sky with own reflexion, will be a great success for me. Message is simple. Stop and think for a while. Relax.

WHY I NEED APOD
I see my idea as a kind of antechamber to places related with astronomy. APOD is one of it. People use APOD depending of their needs from low to high involvment. It looks like: just watching the images -> watching images and reading explanations -> use the archive just to view images -> use the archive for watching images and reading explanations -> passive participation in the discussion -> active participation in the disscussion -> APOD addiction (joke) :wink:
I realize that active discussion followers make APOD stronger. My facebook activities and website will guide people to APOD. Selection will take place naturally. I see my activities, as a local incubator of needs and curiosity. If you want learn more - go there.

Facebook fansite which is already run is a good global idea, my is local, based on activities among people around me with the use of global media.

I do little "human experiments" on facebook:) Today I am speaking in capitalistic language and it works. I mean people give their "likes" and all this facebook feedback like "lets be friends propositions".

"From tomorrow people you have more sun every day! And it is worth to mention that it is for free! These days you have very few valuable things everyday more and just free! Yes!This is a solstice day ad, It is good news for everyone. Simply you dont have to pay. Enough for everyone."

I have my humble opinion about this creature which facebook is. I'll talk about it later as I have more time. Now I'm on the run. I wonder at this moment whether it is okay if I attach APOD to my small experiments?

With some minor trouble and the valuable help from bystander, it’s running the Facebook page from Catalan APOD mirror.

Because it still doesn’t have URL, you can found it on Facebook searching “Imatge Astronòmica del Dia (APOD)”

As I'm sure some of you have surmised, I am the originator of the Facebook page [url=http://www.facebook.com/AstronomyPictureOfTheDay]Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD)[/url]. I am new to FB an I'm still learning my way around. I want to automate the posting of the APOD links and perhaps add a discussion tab to the page. Any pointers on how to accomplish either or both of these objectives would be appreciated. Any other suggestions on how to improve the page are also welcome.

[color=#0000BF]ad[/color][color=#BF0000]THANKS[/color][color=#0000BF]vance[/color]

[quote="Joan Girones"]Hi,

From a year ago I have in mind a Facebook group of APOD Catalan mirror, but I have a couple of doubts/questions:

Is there any copyright problem, especially on non English APOD mirrors?

Is the word “official” suitable to an APOD mirror?

Thanks.[/quote]

A Facebook group for the Catalan APOD mirror would be great! I think image copyrights would not be broken so long as only thumbnail images are used, like in the English APOD Facebook site. As for the word "official", so long as no advertising is used and nothing strange is going on, I think it would be OK to list any mirror as "official" as soon as it appears on the APOD mirror list at NASA.

- RJN

Hi,

From a year ago I have in mind a Facebook group of APOD Catalan mirror, but I have a couple of doubts/questions:

Is there any copyright problem, especially on non English APOD mirrors?

Is the word “official” suitable to an APOD mirror?

Thanks.

OK, I just put a link from one of the main APOD pages to the Facebook APOD page listed above. Before the link, 8 people were listed as "Liking" it. I am curious to see if there is a significant Facebook crowd that would access a Facebook APOD page like this. The Facebook APOD page currently contains only links and thumbnails.

I do note that NASA has its own Facebook page and this page appears to me to have no advertising. Does anyone know if there is a special page category that allows that? If possible, I would like the Facebook APOD page to also have no advertising.

- RJN

There is also a very nice Facebook app, [url=http://apps.facebook.com/the_apod/]The APOD[/url], built and maintained by the folks at [url=http://www.astrofiles.net/]Astrofiles[/url].

This Facebook / APOD page looks very nice! Is there any way to find out who created it and continues to update it? Please send me an email if this is you or you know who it is. - RJN

[url]http://www.facebook.com/AstronomyPictureoftheDay/[/url]

[quote="RJN"]When I saw the post from EDG that the Twitter feed had stopped (thanks EDG!), I looked on the "About APOD" page for the name and email address of the person who has been running the APOD Twitter feed and emailed him (Stuart Lowe) that the feed had stopped. It seems that he has now restarted it. Now anyone could have done this. Please, EDG or anyone who follows the APOD Twitter feed, if you notice the APOD Twitter feed has stopped, please just email Stuart and ask him to restart it. That will not take long.[/quote]

You're one up on me there. I sent a reply to an APOD tweet a few days ago asking if there would be any more updates (and got no reply), but I couldn't find any other contact info on the APOD twitter page itself (or any sign that it wasn't actually an officially run page for that matter), so I assumed - as anyone would - that it was being run by the same people who ran APOD. That is essentially why I came here to ask about it, and why I'm surprised that it isn't something that one of the people who maintain APOD runs.

I wouldn't have thought to look at the (somewhat obscure) "About APOD" page for that information at all. It might be worth Stuart mentioning in the bio (if he has room) that it's not an "official" feed.

First, thanks for replying RJN. I know I sounds like I'm being demanding but I seem to be getting a lot of noise about this here from other people.

As for "not having the knowhow", here's how to set up a twitter page: Go to twitter.com. Click the Signup link. Pick a username. Follow the instructions. You're done. It takes a couple of minutes at most. If you can set up a forum account (which you obviously can, since you're here) then you can set up a twitter page, though obviously the "apod" username is already taken - maybe Stuart can just tell you the username and password for the APOD twitter page he's set up and let you take over it.

How to post: Go to twitter.com and sign in (you can get it to remember to sign in). You'll see your feed there, and you'll see a "What's happening" link there. Type the title of the link in there, and then copy/paste the link into the text box, and hit "tweet". That's all that Stuart is doing on the APOD twitter page. That whole process takes a few seconds.

Facebook is more complicated, and I can see reasons for not doing that (e.g. having to delete spam posts). But at the very least, a Twitter feed is easy to run and to update.

Will you get more new users? Probably not that many - but you will definitely get more hits on the APOD page as a result. Right now, Stuart's feed reminds over 106,000 users that there's been an update and that seems to be growing every day. If (conservatively) even 10% of those users take note of that and click the link, you're getting about 10,000 more people hitting your page, which means 10,000 more people who might tell their friends about it, which means that you might get even more people interested in astronomy as a result. Or maybe all 100,000 or so are clicking it, who knows. Obviously that doesn't compare to a million page views, but it's still somethin - for all we know maybe the 100,000 on the twitter feed are like me and don't even go to the NASA web page to click on any links to the APOD page there and thus wouldn't have clicked it otherwise. The Twitter update is delivered directly to the user and allows them to click on it along with all the other updates from websites that they're following there. For a few seconds of time I think it's worth it.

But, if Stuart has restarted it and can maintain it in the future then that's great. I just didn't want to see the idea poo-poo'd by people here.

When I saw the post from EDG that the Twitter feed had stopped (thanks EDG!), I looked on the "About APOD" page for the name and email address of the person who has been running the APOD Twitter feed and emailed him (Stuart Lowe) that the feed had stopped. It seems that he has now restarted it. Now anyone could have done this. Please, EDG or anyone who follows the APOD Twitter feed, if you notice the APOD Twitter feed has stopped, please just email Stuart and ask him to restart it. That will not take long.

Next, what EDG is also right about, I believe, is including thumbnails on commercial sites. It seems to me that Google Image Search has set the precedent on this and indeed thumbnails of even copyrighted images can be displayed without the consent of the copyright owner. What size image constitutes a thumbnail? Dunno. My advice is to use your own cautious judgement.

Why doesn't APOD do its own Twitter and Facebook pages? This is a good question but the answer(s) may be annoying. Essentially, we don't have the time or knowhow. APOD is written and edited by only two people, both of which have full time jobs already. I am frequently overwhelmed trying to keep up, and when that happens I think to myself things like "protect the trunk." This means that picking, writing, and editing good APODs is the most important thing. Were APOD to default and not update with a new image and description because I was trying to increase the APOD reader base by a few percent, that would be tragic. And so far, for over 15 years now, Jerry and I have not let that happen.

Won't APOD pick up thousands of readers if we Twitter and Facebook? Possibly. But APOD can get a million page views a day to its main NASA web page, and I just don't see Twitter or Facebook rivaling that. Twitter and Facebook, it seems to me, will remain a few percent effect. Still, both are increasing in popularity, and yes, surely APOD wants to remain relevant to major new forms of media. That is why there is a Twitter Feed, an RSS feed, and mirror sites in over a dozen languages.

Still, all of these "APOD mirrors", be they new technology mirrors such as Twitter or foreign language mirrors such as Observatorio.info (a Spanish language mirror), all are done by volunteers, not by Jerry or me. Jerry and I keep the trunk of APOD going, and branches like Twitter APOD and Obsevatorio.info and Starship Asterisk and the APOD iPhone app all grow out from the trunk.

So if you or anyone wants to grow another branch out from the trunk, like a new mirror site say in Chinese (but see: http://www.bjp.org.cn/apod/today.htm) or Facebook, please feel free. I would be very happy to see it. Unfortunately, most likely, Jerry and I can do little more than cheer you on.

What could be on the Facebook APOD "mirror"? It seems to me thumbnails and links -- but that would be cool. I am rarely on Facebook myself, so I don't even know how to tell you to do it, however easy it may be.

I hope this is a help.

- RJN (For information about my association with APOD, please see: http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=19889 )

[quote="EDG"]A couple of extra minutes posting links to facebook or twitter won't kill anyone[/quote]
So why don't [i]you[/i] do it? If the people who claim [i](e.g. [b]you[/b][/i]) they want it done can't be bothered to do it, why should anyone else care. If you spent as much effort in actually doing something as you do in complaining, it would be done already, but then, you obviously would rather complain.

[quote="EDG"]it appears that the APOD twitter feed appears to have restarted (thank you, whoever you are)[/quote]
Twitter Feed: [url]http://twitter.com/apod[/url] maintained by [email=stuart@strudel.org.uk]Stuart Lowe[/email] ([url=http://asterisk.apod.com/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=129612]astrostu[/url])

[quote="owlice"]I'm not the one insisting they have time to do this; I'm not telling them what to spend their time on, as you are trying to do.[/quote]

No, you're just making excuses for them. No offense, but I'm not really interested in hearing from anyone else about this, I'd like to get responses from the people who actually run APOD.

RJN has so far provided some reasons - none of them time-related - as to why there isn't an official APOD facebook/twitter page, and I've demonstrated that the reasons he stated are not really an issue. There is no legal obstruction to posting a link to the APOD page, period. There is also no significant effort required to post links to a facebook or twitter page (and seriously? Claiming that they're not paid to spend a few minutes posting links to facebook or twitter is ridiculous - they're probably not paid to run APOD either, but they do that. A couple of extra minutes posting links to facebook or twitter won't kill anyone). So if there is a different reason for them not to set up one or both of those pages, I'd like to know what it is. Heck, if they just honestly don't WANT to do it, I'd like them to state that.

And why [i]should[/i] anyone else have to do this? If the people who run APOD don't care enough to make the minimal effort required to do this, why should the rest of us support them?

As it is, it appears that the APOD twitter feed appears to have restarted (thank you, whoever you are) as I saw the today's entry on my feed, which means at least [i]somebody[/i] cares about getting the word out. It's pretty sad that the people who run the site don't appear to be willing to do that though.

Again, the idea of setting up an official APOD facebook or twitter page can only be a good idea - why would they NOT want to let more people know about the site? Perhaps the owner of the current unofficial twitter page could even transfer it to the official APOD people too (essentially by letting them know what the and login information is), so that they don't compete and they have the wide audience there already.

[quote="EDG"]
Well, you were the one who started off by saying they probably don't have time and who told me what their jobs were... ;)[/quote]
I'm not the one insisting they have time to do this; I'm not telling them what to spend their time on, as you are trying to do.

[quote]This is something that requires a very minimal effort, and will only serve to help APOD.[/quote]
So do it. Since it won't take much time and there is no problem with sending LINKS, and compensation for efforts (the whole "doing what you're paid to do" thing) isn't a consideration (according to you), there is nothing stopping you from tweeting out the link to APOD. This is something you value, and since you are already tweeting other stuff, adding a tweet about APOD requires very minimal effort.

There. Problem solved. Yay!

[quote="owlice"]You can think what you want, but I think it's hubris on your part to decide what the editors have time to do and what their jobs are![/quote]

Well, you were the one who started off by saying they probably don't have time and who told me what their jobs were... ;)

Having an official facebook and twitter group is only going to expand APOD's reach and get the pictures and their accompanying message out to more and more people, which is surely the whole point of posting the images in the first place. It has been demonstrated that legal issues are not a problem, time issues are also not a problem since hardly any extra time is required to post these links, and there are no money issues involved either. Spammers on the facebook comments might be an issue, but that can be solved by having volunteer admins. What other possible reason is there not to do it?

This is something that requires a very minimal effort, and will only serve to help APOD.

[quote="EDG"]But if they have time to post an APOD page, I think they have time to post links to facebook and/or twitter too.[/quote]
You can think what you want, but I think it's hubris on your part to decide what the editors have time to do and what their jobs are!