Ah yes, the permissions. I'd forgotten all about that. That's going to be where the work lies. I'd be up for trying one day, although I confess most of the interesting stuff i see comes from the BBC -how easy/fast is it to get permission from them/their sources? I notice very few IOTDs seem to come from there.....

Most of IotD is a big copyright violation. Which is one reason it's a drag.

At one point I tried contacting the wire services about buying their stuff, and they weren't interested yet, maybe they are now.

I get permissions when it seems like the right thing to do, as when there's a private person involved who may not have wanted their stuff posted all over the net.

Only one person did not give permission.

Doc Searls, in giving permission for an image I did not use, said pretty much what I thought... paraphrasing, once it's on the net, it's public domain for all practical purposes. Really good Astro pics of the Day get regularly stolen and reused in everyone's livejournal entries. WTF images are routinely shared via email with millions (Hullo xoB!) They can't keep people from trading songs and even movies, so what hope do image owners have?

It's a strange world

Got something to share with us there, girlie?

UT, it has to be a controlled thing. IOTD has inherent integrity. That said, there's a lot of people on here that are well qualified to take it on in terms of ability and discretion, but time...? That's the sticky part.

I haven't read this whole thread, but I know Bruce to be an avid procurer of images, and most of them are not porn. He would be a very logical choice, if he would deign to take on such a responsibility.

Oh I can live with risking it permission-wise :D I just didn't want to get the cellar into trouble....

I agree IOTD is important -it brought me :D Also I'm not into the voting thing. way too messy. I like Jim's idea of one day each, and the idea of asking for a stand-in if you can't do your day.

...assuming xoB is unwilling. If he'll do it, then we're sorted!

While this is undeniable . . . .
The Cellar got along just fine when there were no images (of the day, or of anything else). I too would be sorry to see IotD go. But The Cellar would go on very well without it.

Maybe this is an opportunity to articulate exactly what makes the IotD special, and worth continuing, in the face of several hundred thousand social bookmarking sites and blogs. That might give us some insight into good ways to proceed, that would preserve what makes IotD IotD.

As most things, there's more to it than you can see on the surface, so I say bravo to Undertoad for handling it for the time that he did. It brought users and (sometimes server-crashing) hits to the site, but the real delight in IotD was the clever wordplay and running gags.

I heard about the Cellar by word-of-mouth (can't think of an equivalent expression) and I stuck around for the people I found here, who have been very gracious to put up with me. I've never joined a community based on a random image search.

I'm gonna have to agree with flint here...most other image sites or blogs are about the pictures...they're interesting and nice, the backstory is cool...but all of the comments are lame, useless, repetitive, boring.
The cellar is the cellar because of all of you guys, I would never have joined except that you're all such a fun group of people. IOTD is awesome, I would be sad to see it go...but even though it brought me here, you all are the reason I stayed.:grouphug:

Worst Case Scenario Contingency Plan:
 

UT, formulate your IotD criteria and a submission procedure. Reduce these to writing in simple language. Send it to each spammer that hits on the Cellar. Offer one day of posting [solicitation] privileges in exchange for each published [successful] IotD submission.

Let someone else do the legwork for you by turning a negative into a positive. It's for a good cause and a little spam never killed anyone :skull: (at least no one important).

Speaking from extensive experience...administering any program laden with laws and regulations (and often nuances thereof) is harder even than the actual footwork.

Just sayin': I'm not sure any of these solutions really lets UT off the hook in any way.

Dude, on the Cellar, if you go beyond "enough" text, someone will come down on you with both feet.

IotW?

Update?

I don't know. vBulletin has added a blog feature that I have to check out to see whether I am gonna reinvent the wheel. If what they have isn't good enough, I want to re-do the software I've written to queue and post the IotD, so that many of you can use it and there can even maybe be voting and whatnot. Then maybe we can add a schedule to it so that one person's pick goes up Tuesday, etc.

it seems to me like you must have shrugged like....wait, lemme re read it and count.....well, actually it was 3 little shrugs, and one long one at the end. You sound rather un-enthused, matey.