It has been endlessly fascinating over the years to see the people who complain when APOD includes a picture (or video) that doesn't fit their idea of what APOD should be. These complaints are often framed as if this is a slipping of standards or a personal affront to them or someone they know. They often ignore the long history (from 1995) of showing things that weren't strictly "astronomy" e.g. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap950806.html was a rocket launch.
@slowe I’m honestly more concerned with the bad quality of some of the images that are featured.
I also don’t understand why they’d show a water spout, but I just don’t get understand why they’d feature it on an astronomy picture site; I don’t have strong feelings about it, more just curious what led to that decision.
@slowe I’ve seen a bunch of very badly processed images with overuse of AI noise reduction etc; they would have been more scientifically accurate and more aesthetically pleasing with a little less.
Note that I like weird color palettes and space art, so it’s fine by me if something is more art than documentation; but some images are kind of neither.
@thomasfuchs Out of interest, what is your particular complaint about "bad quality"? I can think of several interpretations and am interested in what your take on that is.
@thomasfuchs Yes, the water spout image is the latest to get criticism. APOD has been edited by two individuals (mostly in their spare time) continuously since 1995 and people get very critical about what they think should be "allowed". Sometimes (across 20+ years) the editors have chosen to have a wider definition. Sometimes, due to their lives, they show repeats which then get criticised as personal affronts to people whose submissions haven't been included yet. Some hate videos being included