Jared Goguen  ✉️

How does one assist in the review process?

 I can only comment this on a general basis, but here I go. 

The photo review process is a manual process managed by trusted volunteers that have shown over time that they are knowledgable contributors to mindat. Thet are also willing to spend time reviewing and approving photos.  Every now and then there is a back-log of photos or photos from a region poorly covered by experts. This may cause a photo or group of photos to stay in the "pending approval" status longer than anyone would like. 

Any person that uploads a photo can ease the photo approval process by: 
- Providing a decent quality photo ( decent exposure, no hands showing , the key mineral in-focus, natural colors)

- Providing a good description clearly indicating which mineral on the specimen is which (also possible via annotations), how the mineral(s) on the specimen were identified, any known information of provenance etc. If the specimen is self-collected, adding "self-collected" to the description removes any doubt regarding location.

An example of the type of annotations I like is on the attached photo. I will be the first to confess that many of my photo description does not live up to my own standard. I am also learning.

If you are interested and have shown competent contributions over time, you may also become a photo reviewer yourself. 

I hope this helps. 

Olav