I’m not sure who would be interested in this, but I created a JMonkey engine Flickr photo pool.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/jmonkey/
I was thinking we could use it to share any random screenshots, development work or any other jmonkey created nonsense in a common photo pool. I know a lot of times when looking for cool things to do with jME you like to see screenshots of what’s possible, and what others have done, it kind of drives you to develop new things.
I know there is the user showcase on the jmonkeyengine.com website, and on this forums (hey I’m in it right now! XD ) but this would be a little more community interactive, and screenshot driven. You can add links to wiki tutorials or forum posts in the comments for the photo (check out this example shot ).
There is even a Joomla (mambo) plugin for flickr so that the jmonkeyengine website could display the latest uploaded screenshots.
http://www.joomlaya.com/component/option,com_remository/Itemid,27/func,fileinfo/filecatid,2843/parent,category/
Personally the best part about JME IMHO has been these forums and the community around JME (wiki tutorials, super helpful developers etc). I think it’d be cool to branch out with some other collaborative tools like Flickr photo pools.
P.S. I kinda stole the jME monkey logo for the group’s icon, I hope that’s ok, if not I can take it off ;).
Hm… doesn't flickr have some kind of policy against (public) screenshots?
Kind of but I think it still is useable, there’s an article on Wired about it:
Flickr Cracks Down on Screenshots
“Uploading those types of images[screenshots] is fine, explained Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield. But when more than half of an account holder’s images are screenshots or other NIPSA content, the images generally will not show up in global search results.”
“However, Ito’s images do show up in the Flickr group pools for his guild, We Know, and for World of Warcraft, because more than half of the images in his account are traditional photographs. In Ito’s Flickr account, images he has taken of Helsinki, Finland, and Vancouver, British Columbia, show up beside an image of guild members setting out for a hike in World of Warcraft.”
So this means people won’t be able to see jmonkey stuff if they did a global search through flickr, but if people are looking specifically at the jmonkey engine photo pool (through RSS feed on the jmonkeyengine.com site for example), or through a bookmark, then people can still post and collaborate (tag, comment with links, etc.) their screenshots on Flickr.
Although it does seem a little vague as to what “forcing the photos to be private means” if that means only the user can see it, or if anyone looking in the pool can see it.
I’ll check it out some more…it sucks if we can’t use it 
but maybe we can have some other collaborative thing (showcase gallery on the wiki or something?).
So it doesn't show in searches, it does show in pools? That's fine I guess… if that's what they are saying.
More comments about the not in public site area (NIPSA) Flickr policy, these aren’t anything official just comments people have made on digg:
http://digg.com/design/Flickr_Cracks_Down_on_Screenshots_3
“And yes, Flickr is for photos. With some exceptions, it’s OK to post other images, but if the majority of your photostream contains content other than photographs (like illustrations, screenshots, diagrams, etc.) it’s very likely that your account will be marked Not in Public Site Areas (NIPSA). NIPSA means your photos won’t show up in photo searches, but they will still be visible in your pages, your groups and contacts.”
“Pictures of drawings and 2D artwork are perfectly ok. It’s only if your photostream is dominated by things like screencaptures, movie ads, etc. that makes you NIPSA’d. The images will still show up in group pools and blogs (and wherever you post it), it just won’t show up in the Flickr public search results.”
Looks like you can use it then 
Thanks for clearing that up for me…
I'm not sure why you'd want people to post JOGL/Xith/etc. stuff in a group named JMonkey Engine. I don't think it's fair to show that on the frontpage either.
Haha fair enough, I just figured in an effort to be more "open source"ish, the photo pool could include screenshots from other various Java OpenGL projects. (I guess then it should've been named Java Graphics and gaming photo pool)
Realistically I only plan on working with jME with some experiments with straight LWJGL or JOGL perhaps. So I'll remove JOGL/Xith/etc from the description (I have to wait until I'm home because hilariously my work's HTTP proxy/filter blocks Flickr).
I suppose you could always make a new pool "Java Graphics and Gaming" and ask people to tag what projects they are using (eg opengl, lwjgl, jme for us). Then we could filter this if it's ever used to show off jME.
I like that idea, I think I'll do that!!
Now to spearhead this effort, I'm going to personally ask people if I can post their screenshots (with credit and description), on Flickr.
Right now I know of the following users, who's shots are on the jME screenshots page and it'd be cool to put them on Flickr so that we could benefit from the metadata (tags, links to wiki articles, links to forum posts ):
- Shingoki - Air Carrier
- Irrisor - Multi-Shufflepuck.and, Open Space.
- Mud - A Foosball simulator with dynamic real-time physics.
- Sfera - Moenia.
- azathoth - RoverRun
- Mr. Coder - Projected Grid Water effect
If they want they can put it on their account and add it to the jME pool.
I think it'd be cool to browse through jME's features by looking at a pool of screenshots and then browsing the related wiki articles/tutorials and other related content.
Hmmm, you could always go the logicalnetwork.com route? 
I could even add a category for Screenshots if you'd like?
I like the logical network idea! The only issue I have is that it does give as rich a set of features as Flickr does (unless I can't find it). I think things like user comments (to post additional information), as well as tag based image browsing is really useful. Also is there a way to do RSS feeds so that other feed readers could include a stream of screenshots on their sites?
I like the logical network because it's geared towards open source and game developers, but it's missing some key features, perhaps when it gets those features we could switch over.
Maybe I should research other content based collaborative tools other than just Flickr, maybe there's a better fit like logical network (or some kind of wiki plugin or something).
Well, though moderately old, I wrote LogicalNetwork and can always add to it. Post comments here:
http://www.captiveimagination.com/forum/index.php/board,8.0.html
I can always add extra features and turn it into a much nicer system, that’s just the preliminary release…it hadn’t caught on really so I didn’t really bother adding to it.
Cool, once I get home I'll post some ideas there (I registered a new account with my gmail, which is hilariously blocked by work http filters :// ).
So for now to get going I think I'm going to use Flickr and a jME only photo pool, maybe later make a generic Java Graphics and Gaming photo pool (I just think it might be difficult to filter on tags such as jME, although maybe Flickr can create RSS/Atom feeds based on tags within a photo pool, that'd be neat!!).
For the future though it'd be nice to take some of the good collaboration ideas from Flickr but create a "better" version of it on logical network (add RSS, tags, tag browsing, user comments/tagging etc).
I manually activated you so you don't have to worry about the e-mail validation.
I also added a category "Screenshots" with a subcategory of "General Screenshots". Let me know if you would like additional categories.
Currently all submitted content has to be approved before it is visible. I need to make it so after a certain number of uploads have been validated you no longer have to be approved as you are considered "safe" now. This is to keep people from posting inappropriate or copyrighted material.