When I were a lad ....

[Conrad]

When looking at changes there are the standard few things I think about.

Potential for vandalism, I can't see much potential in this to be honest.

Technical (back end) difficulty, technically not very difficult to get the system to handle an extra date, it is already done with reviews, although hidden away.

User Interface, this is where I stumble on this one. Currently it is a minority posting old pictures (and long may they do so and more join them), this means it would be wrong to demand that every time you upload a photo you give a date. Instead then we should allow the owners to change the date of the photo, and I just stumble when I try and think of some simple way of asking people for the timing of their photo. And when I do think of ways they are just of a level of complication that makes it a change that can wait.

So if you can describe a simple interface that won't confuse the casual user this one will happen quicker, otherwise it will carry on hiding further down the pile at the moment.

[ETA]

What about a simple caption box with a simple default message for the uploader to change (eg "Date/Caption").

Anything inappropriate could be deleted at the approval stage, though if it took off it might mean a bit more work for moderators.

[Conrad]

It is such a few people uploading old images that I prefer not to hassle the majority (this would mean an extra click per picture for the majority of users uploading), also captions aren't actually that easy on the web, every time I have tried them they look sh*t. So for instance if you delete a picture, that is one of my failed attempts at a caption.

This is why I was erring towards a post processing method in my suggestion.

[Conrad]

Was mulling over this last night and realised I was being really stupid.

I am convinced it needs to go after the picture has been uploaded as described. This meant the interface would be best placed on the picture page along with the switch watermark and those sort of controls.

Having got this far my brain stumbled as I had the impression of a date input box along with a submit button which I think would look bl**dy messy. Suddenly realised that we could do a change display date button though and when this is clicked slide down the inputs in the same way we do with reviews, which would avoid the mess.

We could also preload the date with any date in the picture so those using fancy cameras or storage software would have a faster time of it. Really should have thought of this idea sooner as it is nothing new on what we have done, but I am terrible at designing screens.

Not sure how soon I could do that work, as I have loads of other stuff on, but at least I can see the solution to the whole problem now.