Author Topic: Flagged keywords - what ??? (Read 22211 times)

click_click · « **on:** September 10, 2009, 09:17 »

Out of thousands of submissions I had a couple of images rejected due to keywording issues. I'm strict against keyword spamming.

Now out of the sudden it appears that at Dreamstime people feel motivated to flag other people's images with inappropriate keywords.

What is the flagging about?

Do these "flaggers" get any incentives for doing that (and please don't make up stories about that)?

I check the flaggers portfolios and see worse use of keywords in their images. I just don't have the time to flag their images.

Friend of mine at DT is experiencing the same.

Anyone else?

abimages · « **Reply #1 on:** September 10, 2009, 09:31 »

There was a discussion recently at Dreamstime. http://www.dreamstime.com/thread_18084

Someone got 'flag happy' about the word 'cowboy'. Including my shot of some cowboy boots. I complained, but surprise surprise nothing was done! I think the flagger gets .02 cents per keyword if the site agrees with their suggestion.

Xalanx · « **Reply #2 on:** September 10, 2009, 14:43 »

Yea I had this kind of stuff too. I imagine that there will always be people willing to make a few cents by picking on other portolios, without taking a look at their own, first.

Peter · « **Reply #3 on:** September 10, 2009, 15:11 »

yeah, some $%&$%( flaged 50 of my images. And I am also strict not to spam with kws. But, it was 20 days ago, and nothing happend, so I dont care.

Dook · « **Reply #4 on:** September 10, 2009, 15:32 »

Does this affect search quality of your images? If not, who cares?

click_click · « **Reply #5 on:** September 10, 2009, 15:42 »

I'd rather see the reviewers getting 2 cents more per image review and checking the keywords in the first place than some site members with questionable agendas.

Let trained reviewers take over that job and not some idiots who sometimes don't even speak English as their native language clogging up resources on the agency's site.

It's not making sense.

Xalanx · « **Reply #6 on:** September 10, 2009, 15:57 »

There are many times when out of curiosity I'm looking at the keywords the buyer used to find and download my photos. A lot of times the search engine returns also images that don't have anything to do with the subject in question. However, I am aware that there are times when people make mistakes and it can happen to copy / paste keywords from one photo to others even if they're not about the same thing. I don't think keyword spamming works and I don't think it's so much of a problem that it has to be fought this way, paying 2 cents for a find. If you look at all agencies, regardless of what they do against kw spam, the search engine returns mostly the correct results. I'm quite confident that the number of photographers who put "air" as keyword in a photo with a woman sitting in grass and hope to sell to buyers that search for "air" is irrelevant.

My most recent example is of a photo of mine with a child in a restaurant. Of course, eating - that's what the search terms were about, as well. Among the results in the first page there was also a photo of a statue of a mythological creature, full of wrong keywords. It's clear the author made the wrong copy / paste. Will I report him? No. Why? Because his photo didn't affect my sale, people looking for "eating" will not buy his photo - it's his loss, not mine.
And I don't think it's nice, btw.

takestock · « **Reply #7 on:** September 10, 2009, 16:42 »

deleted

takestock · « **Reply #8 on:** September 10, 2009, 16:44 »

Quote from: takestock on September 10, 2009, 16:42

Quote from: click_click on September 10, 2009, 15:42
I'd rather see the reviewers getting 2 cents more per image review and checking the keywords in the first place than some site members with questionable agendas.

Let trained reviewers take over that job and not some idiots who sometimes don't even speak English as their native language clogging up resources on the agency's site.

It's not making sense.
I agree with you on this. Well said!

madelaide · « **Reply #9 on:** September 10, 2009, 16:47 »

Quote from: click_click on September 10, 2009, 15:42

Let trained reviewers take over that job and not some idiots who sometimes don't even speak English as their native language clogging up resources on the agency's site.

English is not my native language. Should I stop uploading?

If keywords were "frozen" after approval, then leaving this to reviewers only might make sense. As it isn't so, I think anyone should be allowed to report inadequate keywords - which are not automatically removed.

And yes, I've done that when I saw something wrong.

Fred · « **Reply #10 on:** September 10, 2009, 17:21 »

Looks reasonable to me. If you don't spam your keywords you won't have a problem. No action is taken until the flagged keywords are reviewed and you have plenty of time to fix it before review.

If someone makes a mistake on their keywords (copy/paste error or whatever) they should appreciate being made aware of it.

If someone is spamming keywords they need to be stopped.

Simple as that.

fred

lisafx · « **Reply #11 on:** September 10, 2009, 17:35 »

Yeah, it seems kind of nutty.

I had the word "Senior" flagged on three different pictures of....Seniors. As in senior citizens, old people, pensioners. In fact, "senior" is the universally accepted term on all sites for the over 65 crowd. The person who flagged them either has competing images or else is a complete moron.

Since these "flags" have to be reviewed by some inspector before being removed from the image, there should be some sort of penalty for people flagging clearly appropriate keywords.

click_click · « **Reply #12 on:** September 10, 2009, 18:08 »

Quote from: lisafx on September 10, 2009, 17:35

...Since these "flags" have to be reviewed by some inspector before being removed from the image, there should be some sort of penalty for people flagging clearly appropriate keywords.

Thanks Lisa!

This the exact point.

No doubt that constant violators need to be stopped and penalized but for issues like Lisa mentioned above I think nobody disagrees that this is a waste resources - and guess what, we have to pay for this nonsense.

Dreamframer · « **Reply #13 on:** September 10, 2009, 18:36 »

For 2 cents.....my God.... that's sad.... looks like economic crisis still rocks

click_click · « **Reply #14 on:** September 10, 2009, 18:50 »

Quote from: Whitechild on September 10, 2009, 18:36

For 2 cents.....my God.... that's sad.... looks like economic crisis still rocks

You see - it's not about the money. It's about pissing other contributors off.

Who . has the time to make the effort of flagging people???

goldenangel · « **Reply #15 on:** September 10, 2009, 19:39 »

This is really hard to understand.....

madelaide · « **Reply #16 on:** September 10, 2009, 19:55 »

Quote from: click_click on September 10, 2009, 18:50

Quote from: Whitechild on September 10, 2009, 18:36
For 2 cents.....my God.... that's sad.... looks like economic crisis still rocks

You see - it's not about the money. It's about pissing other contributors off.

Who . has the time to make the effort of flagging people???

I can't tell about the others, but for me it's certainly not for the money. I come accross an image with wrong keywords, I report it. It's not like I keep looking for images to report, and if people do that I am certain DT can detect that easily.

click_click · « **Reply #17 on:** September 10, 2009, 20:01 »

Quote from: madelaide on September 10, 2009, 19:55

I can't tell about the others, but for me it's certainly not for the money. I come accross an image with wrong keywords, I report it. It's not like I keep looking for images to report, and if people do that I am certain DT can detect that easily.

I'm upset about the "flaggers" that report an image for a keyword that is directly related to the image. Why should any resources be wasted for keywords that do relate to the image???

I'm not talking about the sexy apple thing...

madelaide · « **Reply #18 on:** September 10, 2009, 20:21 »

Quote from: click_click on September 10, 2009, 20:01

I'm upset about the "flaggers" that report an image for a keyword that is directly related to the image. Why should any resources be wasted for keywords that do relate to the image???

Are you sure that DT doesn't take any measure about inappropriate flagging? Have you got appropriate keywords removed by them? I have in IS - like rose removed from a photo of ... a rose - but not in DT, I believe. Do they send us any notice?

click_click · « **Reply #19 on:** September 10, 2009, 20:33 »

Quote from: madelaide on September 10, 2009, 20:21

Are you sure that DT doesn't take any measure about inappropriate flagging? Have you got appropriate keywords removed by them? I have in IS - like rose removed from a photo of ... a rose - but not in DT, I believe. Do they send us any notice?

I contacted them today because of a much bigger issue regarding the flag-feature and the response was rather neutral.

All in all and I can only speak for myself, I don't care at all what keywords other people are using. It's not going to affect my sales.

It will affect theirs.

If the agencies don't like the way people keyword their images then they should take active actions to prevent it from happening.

It's almost like handing out guns to everybody and tell everyone to arrest/shoot criminals. Now guess what's going to happen...

As soon as people get some kind of power they will abuse it and I'm most certainly sure that more people will abuse the flagging feature than use it wisely.

I've gotten so many images flagged that I don't even want to know what's happening to people that sell sexy apples...

HermanM · « **Reply #20 on:** September 10, 2009, 20:41 »

I got flagged... Silly thing...

Eco · « **Reply #21 on:** September 11, 2009, 01:06 »

Just check today and noticed that three of my lion images were locked by DT for being flagged for the keywords "panthera" and "cat". The scientific name of a lion is Panthera leo. According to Wikipedia: “Panthera is a genus of the family Felidae (the cats), which contains four well-known living species: the Tiger, the Lion, the Jaguar, and the Leopard. ...”

Did not know that the word "cat" is reserved for domesticated cats only. Seems like some of the reviewers who must judge the validity of the flagged keywords are as clueless as these flaggers.

Adeptris · « **Reply #22 on:** September 11, 2009, 02:14 »

Quote from: Xalanx on September 10, 2009, 15:57

>...
<...
My most recent example is of a photo of mine with a child in a restaurant. Of course, eating - that's what the search terms were about, as well. Among the results in the first page there was also a photo of a statue of a mythological creature, full of wrong keywords. It's clear the author made the wrong copy / paste. Will I report him? No. Why? Because his photo didn't affect my sale, people looking for "eating" will not buy his photo - it's his loss, not mine.
And I don't think it's nice, btw.

This is a business so 'business rules' and not 'being nice' should be what you base your actions on, as you say it did not affected this sale, but the question you need to answer is what about the next?

Just another perspective, Lets say another image of yours is a perfect match to a search term, and is returned in a search where it is positioned as the first image on 'Page 6', our buyer only looks at '5 pages' and lightboxes a couple of images to re-visit, within the first five pages there are 5-10 images of 'mythological creatures' that do not fit the keywords, now you have lost a potential sale, our buyer is not happy with the search results, and the keyword spammer is not aware that the bad keywording has damaged our buyers experience.

A few cents difference in price point will not attact and keep our buyer, but a good search engine with relevent quality images returned will, the sites that will retain our buyer will be the ones that offer our buyer the best experience, so if there is an image that breaks the keywording rules then it is not a bad thing if you report the image, as it could strengthen the position of the site with this and other buyers.

If there is a business case for reporting an image then you should not feel bad about doing it, and keyword spamming is a good enough reason as it could affects both the website owners and your revenue.

David

MarkFGD · « **Reply #23 on:** September 11, 2009, 02:33 »

I think I'm correct in stating that Dreamstime splits phrases into individual words. Therefore, someone doing a search for 'dog end' would be happy with the images returned, where someone seeing a cigarette butt whilst searching for 'dog' would not be.

takestock · « **Reply #24 on:** September 11, 2009, 04:02 »

As Click Click said above, I think it should be left to admin to check over the keys.
This way, there would be no ill feeling amongst members.

As it is - it's just contributors doing Admin work.
Has any other site adopted this flagging. I am not aware of any!

hoi ha · « **Reply #25 on:** September 11, 2009, 06:12 »

Quote from: click_click on September 10, 2009, 18:50

Quote from: Whitechild on September 10, 2009, 18:36
For 2 cents.....my God.... that's sad.... looks like economic crisis still rocks

You see - it's not about the money. It's about pissing other contributors off.

Who . has the time to make the effort of flagging people???

Actually it's about pissing the buyers off - Dreamstime instituted this programme because buyers were complaining about having to wade through spammed images thereby wasting their time and money. The flagging programme was introduced years ago at DT - that is not new- what is new is that the contributor is now being given the opportunity to fix their keywords before they are reviewed by an admin because once they are reviewed - and if they are found to be incorrect - a contributor loses the ability to edit the keywords on that image as they will lock that function. Before this new notification system the contributor was not given the opportunity to correct mistakes - their editing rights for that image were subject to being locked. So this new system is actually fairer to contributors. It also adds accountabilty into the system from the flaggers side - previously their identity was kept secret - now it out in the open - this means that the flagger has to be pretty certain that the keywords are in fact not correct. If a person flags and the keywords are in fact correct, then they in turn lose their "privilege" to flag.

So the system is actually more open and fair than it has been in the past - but if you don't spam keywords you have nothing to worry about - being flagged has no impact whatsoever on a contributor unless he/she is spamming. If you are not spamming, you have not been harmed in any way.

Oldhand · « **Reply #26 on:** September 11, 2009, 06:52 »

Quote from: HermanM on September 10, 2009, 20:41

I got flagged... Silly thing...

Hi there - nothing wrong with cat as a keyword for a lion. A lion is a "big cat" - hence the derivative, "big game hunting". It's DT's fault, as they split phrases into individual words.

If you typed, lion, big, cat, panthera, leo, felidae, lion - that's fine.

To get around the complaint that cat is for domesticated pets type: -

lion, big-cat, panthera, leo, lion, felidae,

In truth, you should be praised for using the correct scientic / latin name, certainly not flagged over cat.

If everyone keyword their pets as "domesticated, cat", then a search would easily eliminate lion's from being found.

All fun

Oldhand

tdoes · « **Reply #27 on:** September 11, 2009, 07:08 »

Quote from: Adeptris on September 11, 2009, 02:14

Quote from: Xalanx on September 10, 2009, 15:57
>...
<...
My most recent example is of a photo of mine with a child in a restaurant. Of course, eating - that's what the search terms were about, as well. Among the results in the first page there was also a photo of a statue of a mythological creature, full of wrong keywords. It's clear the author made the wrong copy / paste. Will I report him? No. Why? Because his photo didn't affect my sale, people looking for "eating" will not buy his photo - it's his loss, not mine.
And I don't think it's nice, btw.

This is a business so 'business rules' and not 'being nice' should be what you base your actions on, as you say it did not affected this sale, but the question you need to answer is what about the next?

Just another perspective, Lets say another image of yours is a perfect match to a search term, and is returned in a search where it is positioned as the first image on 'Page 6', our buyer only looks at '5 pages' and lightboxes a couple of images to re-visit, within the first five pages there are 5-10 images of 'mythological creatures' that do not fit the keywords, now you have lost a potential sale, our buyer is not happy with the search results, and the keyword spammer is not aware that the bad keywording has damaged our buyers experience.

A few cents difference in price point will not attact and keep our buyer, but a good search engine with relevent quality images returned will, the sites that will retain our buyer will be the ones that offer our buyer the best experience, so if there is an image that breaks the keywording rules then it is not a bad thing if you report the image, as it could strengthen the position of the site with this and other buyers.

If there is a business case for reporting an image then you should not feel bad about doing it, and keyword spamming is a good enough reason as it could affects both the website owners and your revenue.

David

Based on what the OP stated, I don't think he would see this as an issue if relevant keywords weren't being flagged !

click_click · « **Reply #28 on:** September 11, 2009, 07:35 »

Quote from: tdoes on September 11, 2009, 07:08

Quote from: Adeptris on September 11, 2009, 02:14
Quote from: Xalanx on September 10, 2009, 15:57
>...
<...
...
If there is a business case for reporting an image then you should not feel bad about doing it, and keyword spamming is a good enough reason as it could affects both the website owners and your revenue.
David

Based on what the OP stated, I don't think he would see this as an issue if relevant keywords weren't being flagged !

THANK YOU TDOES - this is correct!

The flagging system at DT allows reporting keywords with the touch of a button. It's so easy, it will be abused.

If I as a contributor am so worried about someone else's keywords (sexy apple) then I MIGHT find the time to send an email to support - case closed.

I still don't understand why such a delicate matter is outsourced to contributors as the past has shown that there are people abusing the system already.

Now, somebody brings up the case of the keyword "cat" being flagged - perfect example how the reviewers time is being wasted (and PAID BY US!!!!) for checking a perfectly valid keyword.

While 2 flags out of 10 are actually reporting keyword spamming the remaining 8 will be reviewed for nothing. I'm guessing this number based on how many of my images have been flagged in a manner like mentioned above (cat)

How could this feature be a good thing? Give me a break.

hoi ha · « **Reply #29 on:** September 11, 2009, 07:46 »

How could this feature be a good thing? Give me a break.
[/quote]

How can it be a bad thing?

click_click · « **Reply #30 on:** September 11, 2009, 07:57 »

Quote from: hoi ha on September 11, 2009, 07:46

How could this feature be a good thing? Give me a break.

How can it be a bad thing?
[/quote]

Did you read my previous posts?

It is wasting reviewer's time to check invalid flags.

As I mentioned in my post above in the case of the keyword cat for a lion it is a perfect example that someone is having other intentions towards the cat-photographer than wrong keywords.

It's so obvious - why doesn't anybody see this?

I have no problem with "flaggers" that report "sexy apples". I'm just criticizing the flagging feature as it is being abused by a lot of idiots that take resources of DT that we pay for.

hoi ha · « **Reply #31 on:** September 11, 2009, 08:01 »

Quote from: click_click on September 11, 2009, 07:57

Quote from: hoi ha on September 11, 2009, 07:46
How could this feature be a good thing? Give me a break.
How can it be a bad thing?

Did you read my previous posts?

It is wasting reviewer's time to check invalid flags.

As I mentioned in my post above in the case of the keyword cat for a lion it is a perfect example that someone is having other intentions towards the cat-photographer than wrong keywords.

It's so obvious - why doesn't anybody see this?

I have no problem with "flaggers" that report "sexy apples". I'm just criticizing the flagging feature as it is being abused by a lot of idiots that take resources of DT that we pay for.
[/quote]

But if a person flags incorrectly they lose the ability to flag files ever again ...

click_click · « **Reply #32 on:** September 11, 2009, 08:25 »

Quote from: hoi ha on September 11, 2009, 08:01

But if a person flags incorrectly they lose the ability to flag files ever again ...

This is your only argument about this issue?

And what about the hundreds of idiots that keep flagging until they lose their privilege? Some of those guys don't give a rats ass if their "flagging privilege" is taken away because they just want to piss someone else off AND waste the time of DT reviewers...

So in your view it is just a matter of time until all the bad flaggers are sorted out?

You know what? How about you offer a bigger chunk of your commission to pay for all the wasted reviews of flags that are completely useless instead of taking parts of my commission to do so?

I'm specifically talking about the questionable implementation of a feature that does not do any more good than if any of us would have sent an email to support to check someone's funky keywords compared to spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars reviewing silly flags.

Eco · « **Reply #33 on:** September 11, 2009, 08:43 »

In the case of my lion images where someone flagged the keywords "panthera" and "cat" the reviewer AGREED with the flagger and those keywords were removed and the images locked. I am unable to edit them.

DT is defending the system by stating that photographers should not be concerned with abusers of the system since a reviewer will verify the validity of the flagging. Clearly in my case this did not happen. This is where the system is flawed and subject to abuse.

stokfoto · « **Reply #34 on:** September 11, 2009, 08:44 »

dumb question but how do you know if your files get flagged. do you get notified by e-mail? I checked my folio to see if I got flagged too but I couldn't figure out ?

Artemis · « **Reply #35 on:** September 11, 2009, 08:57 »

You receive a comment and can see it in the "comments" area stokfoto.
My cowboy portrait was also flagged for the word "cowboy"... gebus, some peeps have so toooo much time on their hands...

click_click · « **Reply #36 on:** September 11, 2009, 09:04 »

Quote from: Artemis on September 11, 2009, 08:57

You receive a comment and can see it in the "comments" area stokfoto.
My cowboy portrait was also flagged for the word "cowboy"... gebus, some peeps have so toooo much time on their hands...

Thank god that at least a few people feel the same way about this.

I already thought I just imagined that this is a problem...

cathyslife · « **Reply #37 on:** September 11, 2009, 09:15 »

First of all, I also think that keywords should be reviewed when the photo is reviewed. If, by chance a photo slips through with a wrong keyword and someone doing a search sees an inappropriate image in their search based on a wrong keyword, I do think they should be able to flag it.

Yesterday I had an image flagged. When I first started contributing 4 years ago, the rules were WAY different than they are now. As a result, some of my older images have keywords that don't apply by today's standards. For instance, the image flagged was of an evergreen branch and I had the word snow in there. There wasn't any snow in the photo, but way back when, keywords that were related to the image were acceptable. This image, in my mind, related to Christmas, winter, snow...you see the logic. But it's not correct today. By the way, I am typically a buyer of stock photos, too, so I HATE getting wrong images in a search and appreciate the effort to clean up keywords.

I received a sitemail about it, I went to the picture and cleaned up the keywords and thanked the person who sent the email for bringing it to my attention. I'm not sure how the process works after that step.

If the process is: 1. searcher finds a wrong keyword 2. searcher flags the file and sitemail goes to contributor 3. contributor can correct or ignore sitemail, whichever they prefer 4. file is then reviewed again by reviewer and keywords approved or changed, I think that I am ok with it. I'm willing to have to play the game as long as the real keyword spammers are caught and their superfluous keywords removed.

istock has a similar process. If the reviewer happens to take out relevant keywords, you can send a message to admin and they may be put back in.

edit: I'm not sure paying the flaggers is a good idea. That just encourages all kinds of foul play, such as eliminating competition, as mentioned above. I think I don't like that. I also think uberflaggers who consistently report wrong keywords should be punished.

hoi ha · « **Reply #38 on:** September 11, 2009, 09:24 »

Quote from: click_click on September 11, 2009, 08:25

Quote from: hoi ha on September 11, 2009, 08:01
But if a person flags incorrectly they lose the ability to flag files ever again ...

This is your only argument about this issue?

And what about the hundreds of idiots that keep flagging until they lose their privilege? Some of those guys don't give a rats ass if their "flagging privilege" is taken away because they just want to piss someone else off AND waste the time of DT reviewers...

So in your view it is just a matter of time until all the bad flaggers are sorted out?

You know what? How about you offer a bigger chunk of your commission to pay for all the wasted reviews of flags that are completely useless instead of taking parts of my commission to do so?

I'm specifically talking about the questionable implementation of a feature that does not do any more good than if any of us would have sent an email to support to check someone's funky keywords compared to spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars reviewing silly flags.

What you are arguing here is that DT has made a terrible business decision by using this approach - that is, they are thowing precious financial resources at something that you view as meaningless - but what I assume, especially given that DT is one of the successful micro sites by most accounts (and by your account too since you appear to be a contributor there) is that DT realised they were possibly losing sales and buyers who were being angered and put off by bad keywording. So rather than lose business they created a system that, while perhaps painful in the short term, in the longer term would solve their keywording problem without them having to dedicate massive amounts of resources to it - rather than having their own staff go through every file looking for bad keywords, they are getting people to tell them when an image has bad keywords - so someone else is doing a lot of the work for them.

So basically I think it's actually a pretty good business decision on thier part - because as the number of files grow, if the issue of bad keywords is not adressed, it snowballs out of control, requiring more and more time and resources to deal with.

I am fairly confident that the DT management studied this carefully from a business perspective before embarking on it - bad keywords cost sites (and contributors) money - they would not have embarked on this policy if they had not come to the conclusion after financial study that the time spent by their reviewers going over flagged images (which will become less and less rather quickly over time) would cost them less money that what they faced losing from angry potential buyers.

Now if DT goes broke over this then you were right and I am wrong, yes?

hoi ha · « **Reply #39 on:** September 11, 2009, 09:28 »

Quote from: cclapper on September 11, 2009, 09:15

If the process is: 1. searcher finds a wrong keyword 2. searcher flags the file and sitemail goes to contributor 3. contributor can correct or ignore sitemail, whichever they prefer 4. file is then reviewed again by reviewer and keywords approved or changed, I think that I am ok with it. I'm willing to have to play the game as long as the real keyword spammers are caught and their superfluous keywords removed.

istock has a similar process. If the reviewer happens to take out relevant keywords, you can send a message to admin and they may be put back in.

edit: I'm not sure paying the flaggers is a good idea. That just encourages all kinds of foul play, such as eliminating competition, as mentioned above. I think I don't like that. I also think uberflaggers who consistently report wrong keywords should be punished.

That is exactly how it works - and they do pay 2cents but only if your flag was correct and only if you are the only person who has flagged it - if it has been flagged before, then you get nothing ... so in the end even the most voracious flagger is not likely to earn more than 20 cents or so a month if that ...

Oldhand · « **Reply #40 on:** September 11, 2009, 09:29 »

Quote from: Eco on September 11, 2009, 08:43

In the case of my lion images where someone flagged the keywords "panthera" and "cat" the reviewer AGREED with the flagger and those keywords were removed and the images locked. I am unable to edit them.

DT is defending the system by stating that photographers should not be concerned with abusers of the system since a reviewer will verify the validity of the flagging. Clearly in my case this did not happen. This is where the system is flawed and subject to abuse.

Hi again

To play devils advocate - the reviewer was being over zealous. Panthera Leo is the latin name for lion, but inserting panthera also means all panthers are going to show up. Cat is appropriate, but 99.99% of people who search for, "cat", don't want lions.

Problem here - it's not the reviewers call - they are second guessing the search strings people will use. If you could put in double quotes, the problem would be avoided.

As for the bad flaggers, some feedback from DT would be good.

Oldhand

lisafx · « **Reply #41 on:** September 11, 2009, 09:37 »

Personally, I don't object to the idea of cleaning up keywords. I have no problem with the DT system of flagging as long as:

1. The flagged items are carefully reviewed by admins and only removed if they are incorrect.

2. My keywording privileges are not suspended based on incorrect flags.

3. There is some penalty for people who incorrectly flag keywords.

If those three conditions are met, then this seems like a good program. Although to be honest, I don't think there should be any money offered to flaggers. It gives incentive to flag willy-nilly. The only incentive should be to clean up the searches.

FWIW I didn't have a problem with the idea of istock's wiki system either, until I saw that it was basically a rubber stamp. As Madelaide pointed out, very relevant keywords were often removed from images, which implied that the promised admin review of wiki'd files was not taking place. That seems to have improved recently.

Fred · « **Reply #42 on:** September 11, 2009, 09:45 »

Quote from: madelaide on September 10, 2009, 19:55

Quote from: click_click on September 10, 2009, 18:50
Quote from: Whitechild on September 10, 2009, 18:36
For 2 cents.....my God.... that's sad.... looks like economic crisis still rocks

You see - it's not about the money. It's about pissing other contributors off.

Who . has the time to make the effort of flagging people???

I can't tell about the others, but for me it's certainly not for the money. I come accross an image with wrong keywords, I report it. It's not like I keep looking for images to report, and if people do that I am certain DT can detect that easily.

Yeah, I don't really see the problem with this. If someone wants to spend their time for $.02 what do I care? Seems to be some paranoia in the air.

fred

Microstock Posts · « **Reply #43 on:** September 11, 2009, 10:00 »

I had the word 'labourer' flagged, this is British English and was appropriate for the image. The person who flagged was British and had no images. He didn't flag the American version of the word. I deleted the word because he obviously needs the money more that I do. Not impressed with this, very annoying.

hoi ha · « **Reply #44 on:** September 11, 2009, 10:06 »

Quote from: Komar on September 11, 2009, 10:00

I had the word 'labourer' flagged, this is British English and was appropriate for the image. The person who flagged was British and had no images. He didn't flag the American version of the word. I deleted the word because he obviously needs the money more that I do. Not impressed with this, very annoying.

IMHO you should not have deleted it - by deleting it you keep alive a bad flagger ... let DT suspend the flagger - the best thing to do if you believe your keywords are correct is simply to ignore the flag completley - DT will take care of it ... they are only going after blatant spam (although I accept that what is one person's spam is another person's creative keywording).

click_click · « **Reply #45 on:** September 11, 2009, 10:16 »

Quote from: Fred on September 11, 2009, 09:45

Yeah, I don't really see the problem with this. If someone wants to spend their time for $.02 what do I care? Seems to be some paranoia in the air.
fred

Fred, I'm well aware that not everybody feels like me.

However you can read clearly that others don't agree with you either.

Removing "cat" from a lion image is ridiculous. Why?

Simple: somebody wants an image of a lion or a panther or a jaguar why would it be wrong to use the keywords "wild" and "cat"? So somebody looks for "wildcat" and somebody looks for "wild cat" which is totally appropriate in my opinion but maybe I'm just some crazy lunatic who dares questioning a fantastic flagging system...

And how many millions of images would have to be re-keyworded to fall into the proper quotation category??? Talking about disambiguation here aren't we?

This is literally shooting birds with cannons (not CANONs)

I'm more than happy to see the flagging system being USED appropriately for images that contain severe keyword violations. But from my experience looking at the flags that I got, too many people just take shots in the dark to get $.02 - that is what I'm referring to about wasting DT's resources.

Microstock Posts · « **Reply #46 on:** September 11, 2009, 10:23 »

Quote from: hoi ha on September 11, 2009, 10:06

Quote from: Komar on September 11, 2009, 10:00
I had the word 'labourer' flagged, this is British English and was appropriate for the image. The person who flagged was British and had no images. He didn't flag the American version of the word. I deleted the word because he obviously needs the money more that I do. Not impressed with this, very annoying.

IMHO you should not have deleted it - by deleting it you keep alive a bad flagger ... let DT suspend the flagger - the best thing to do if you believe your keywords are correct is simply to ignore the flag completley - DT will take care of it ... they are only going after blatant spam (although I accept that what is one person's spam is another person's creative keywording).

Ok. I didn't know what to do. The one thing I didn't want to do is spend any time on the issue. Didn't want to reply, as it's just silly having a conversation about something so small. Next time I will ignore it, if I feel I have been wrongly flagged. What I don't like about this is, I don't want to go on DT and start disliking other members because they flagged my keywords.

click_click · « **Reply #47 on:** September 11, 2009, 10:25 »

Quote from: Komar on September 11, 2009, 10:23

... What I don't like about this is, I don't want to go on DT and start disliking other members because they flagged my keywords.

These are the things I'm talking about.

These are my long-term predictions that will cause trouble for both members as well as DT management as you can argue forever about certain keywords.

hoi ha · « **Reply #48 on:** September 11, 2009, 10:29 »

Quote from: Komar on September 11, 2009, 10:23

Quote from: hoi ha on September 11, 2009, 10:06
Quote from: Komar on September 11, 2009, 10:00
I had the word 'labourer' flagged, this is British English and was appropriate for the image. The person who flagged was British and had no images. He didn't flag the American version of the word. I deleted the word because he obviously needs the money more that I do. Not impressed with this, very annoying.

IMHO you should not have deleted it - by deleting it you keep alive a bad flagger ... let DT suspend the flagger - the best thing to do if you believe your keywords are correct is simply to ignore the flag completley - DT will take care of it ... they are only going after blatant spam (although I accept that what is one person's spam is another person's creative keywording).
Ok. I didn't know what to do. The one thing I didn't want to do is spend any time on the issue. Didn't want to reply, as it's just silly having a conversation about something so small. Next time I will ignore it, if I feel I have been wrongly flagged. What I don't like about this is, I don't want to go on DT and start disliking other members because they flagged my keywords.

well that is a concern for both sides - flaggers don't want someone to dislike them either - I think the key thing is for people not to take this personally - there really is no reason to.

cathyslife · « **Reply #49 on:** September 11, 2009, 11:51 »

But from my experience looking at the flags that I got, too many people just take shots in the dark to get $.02 - that is what I'm referring to about wasting DT's resources.

Yeah, I agree with you there.

I remember lots of discussion when istock first implemented this, too. Everyone thought the world was ending. I'm going to put on my rose-colored glasses now and say that for the most part, I think contributors and buyers alike just want images keyworded properly. That equals more sales. There will always be cheats in the world and there are bound to be some on DT. Hopefully the bad flags and the bad flaggers will be weeded out and all will be right with the world again. <Birds singing and butterflies flying around here>

Fred · « **Reply #50 on:** September 11, 2009, 14:00 »

Quote from: click_click on September 11, 2009, 10:16

Quote from: Fred on September 11, 2009, 09:45
Yeah, I don't really see the problem with this. If someone wants to spend their time for $.02 what do I care? Seems to be some paranoia in the air.
fred

Fred, I'm well aware that not everybody feels like me.

However you can read clearly that others don't agree with you either.

Removing "cat" from a lion image is ridiculous. Why?

Simple: somebody wants an image of a lion or a panther or a jaguar why would it be wrong to use the keywords "wild" and "cat"? So somebody looks for "wildcat" and somebody looks for "wild cat" which is totally appropriate in my opinion but maybe I'm just some crazy lunatic who dares questioning a fantastic flagging system...

And how many millions of images would have to be re-keyworded to fall into the proper quotation category??? Talking about disambiguation here aren't we?

This is literally shooting birds with cannons (not CANONs)

I'm more than happy to see the flagging system being USED appropriately for images that contain severe keyword violations. But from my experience looking at the flags that I got, too many people just take shots in the dark to get $.02 - that is what I'm referring to about wasting DT's resources.

Well taking your last statement first. My understanding is that no one gets paid until the reviewers decide if the flag was appropriate. If the DT reviewers get upset at too many mis-flagged words I am sure they will take whatever action they think is necessary.

Yes, this is disambiguation which is a reasonable process and cost wise this seems a very reasonable way of doing it. No sweat from contributors (unless they are spamming) and little reviewer time.

If you are not spamming what are you worried about? Some twit flagging one of your keywords? So what? If they flagged it wrong the reviewers will catch it if they caught one of your mistakes you have a chance to fix it.

Just don't fall victim to the "confirmation bias" inherent in what you read about the process. You are likely to only see posts about stupid keyword flagging errors because people like to complain about it. The corrected keywords will be a lot more frequent but few people willl post some story about how someone flagged one of their stupid keywords.

fred

cascoly · « **Reply #51 on:** September 11, 2009, 15:28 »

So the system is actually more open and fair than it has been in the past - but if you don't spam keywords you have nothing to worry about - being flagged has no impact whatsoever on a contributor unless he/she is spamming. If you are not spamming, you have not been harmed in any way.
p
spam and confirmation bias are highly subjective which is why i dont think this system is a good use of time. the lion - cat example is excellent, and part of a broader category. in these discussions, many seem to think there's only 1 way t search and 1 type of searcher - but buyers are going to differ in their knwledge, needs and searching ability, so we have to be ready for all f them -- when i post a orang or gorilla picture, i use 'monkey' as a tag - scientifically incorrect, but check out how often you hear it while taking thse pix in the first lace!

a lot of the confusion could be eliminared if sites used the description in the search [some do, most dont]. then specific info lke panthera, lcatin details, etc can still be found, and the tags can be reserved for more exact keywords.

i incude detailed location & sci names w all my images - but on many sites no one will find my peru pix unless i include 'peru' in the tags too. somene viewing a market scene might object to using Peru [one reviewer actually removed images claiming location was irrelevant for stock!] and flag the image, wasting a revieweer & my time. yet someone who needs market scenes for a blog/article on peru wouldnt want images from bolivia

essetially the keyword system has to cover a wide range of ssearches and each site has to determine whether they want to control type I or type II errors - you can't easily do both -- so do you have as system that fails by returning some images that are not relevant? or fails by NOT returning some images that ARE relevant?

madelaide · « **Reply #52 on:** September 11, 2009, 16:01 »

Quote from: Komar on September 11, 2009, 10:00

I had the word 'labourer' flagged, this is British English and was appropriate for the image. The person who flagged was British and had no images. He didn't flag the American version of the word. I deleted the word because he obviously needs the money more that I do. Not impressed with this, very annoying.

- Do we get to know who flagged the image?
- Does DT tell us images have been flagged, or do we need to find it?

lisafx · « **Reply #53 on:** September 11, 2009, 16:11 »

Quote from: madelaide on September 11, 2009, 16:01

- Do we get to know who flagged the image?
- Does DT tell us images have been flagged, or do we need to find it?

Yes, the flags show up as "comments" on the images. And like other comments, the person commenting is shown.

hoi ha · « **Reply #54 on:** September 11, 2009, 20:58 »

Quote from: cascoly on September 11, 2009, 15:28

i incude detailed location & sci names w all my images -

while i agree that scientific names are relevant keywords, detailed location of where your images were shot may not be relevant at all ... I assume you are referring here to images that show the geographical location? Because if you shoot a cup and saucer isolated on white, for example, the geographical location is not relevant at all and should not be in the keywords.

cascoly · « **Reply #55 on:** September 12, 2009, 12:38 »

Quote from: hoi ha on September 11, 2009, 20:58

Quote from: cascoly on September 11, 2009, 15:28

i incude detailed location & sci names w all my images -

while i agree that scientific names are relevant keywords, detailed location of where your images were shot may not be relevant at all ... I assume you are referring here to images that show the geographical location? Because if you shoot a cup and saucer isolated on white, for example, the geographical location is not relevant at all and should not be in the keywords.

exactly - that's one extreme that doesnt need location -- however, esp'ly for editorials, there's a large middl ground where location deends on the user -- eg, a picture of a moose with a forest background, or snowplows working dring a snowstorm - someone looking for those objects won't care where it was taken. but someone doing a project on grand tetons and wyoming won't be interested in a moose from glacier NP or a snowplow in oregon.

this is where mst keywrd complaints fail - the reviewer is thinking in too narrow a sense

s

NancyCWalker · « **Reply #56 on:** September 14, 2009, 08:28 »

IS tried to implement a similar system but it had several flaws.

1. Groups of contributors would create "ratings rings". Person A (no images - blank account) would flag the word "apple" on an image of an apple on white. This would push the image back in the search results (can't reward "spammers"). Then Person B would upload images of an apple on white which would now come earlier in the search because the other images were pushed back.

2. Relevant keywords were often removed because the reviewer didn't know what they were looking at. The previously mentioned Panthera Leo case is a good example. If I search for "large Cat" I won't find that image because "cat" was deemed to be irrelevant. The door swings both ways on this one. You may have contributors who don't know to use Panthera Leo for a Lion but you also have reviewers who are looking at the image of the lion and saying "It's not the astrological sign 'Leo' so it's an irrelevant keyword".

3. Reviewer overload. Once this catches on - particularly by those trying to dupe the system - the reviewers get so bogged down that it takes months before they can review things. IS had to set up a separate set of reviewers just for flagged keywords. When they get overloaded they stopped having the time to properly research the flag and just make snap decisions. This is part of what leads to number 2 on this list. Long wait times result in frustrated buyers (they just told you that the keyword was irrelevant why is still showing up a day later?) and pissed/panicked contributors (my image was flagged - I can't edit my image - why is it taking so long to realize that the flag is irrelevant - how is this affecting my sales/search placement?)

4. IS didn't pay flaggers. Instead you got a "wiki warrior" icon during a "wiki spree". Several people asked that the icon be removed because they were getting retaliation flags. ie you flagged my apple so I'll flag yours. Others requested that it be removed because they didn't want to be associated with the program when it really started going down hill with all the complaints of invalid flagging and reviewers removing relevant keywords.

5. Language barriers caused multiple issues. Contributors who didn't speak English well felt that they were getting punished for bad keywords (girl instead of woman) because flagging the keyword caused it change location with in the search results. Reviewers who didn't speak the same language as the contributor had a hard time judging subjective keywords. ie removing "knickers" or "bloomers" from a set of girls "panties" because they didn't know that all 3 words mean the same thing.

6. Personal experience. Every time someone wikied one of my images I would write a note to support explaining that the removed keywords were relevant and the words would be reinstated within a day or two. I don't know if DT has a system in place to reinstate keywords that should be there or not but they should. Reviewers don't know everything. It's not physically possible to know everything. And they don't usually have the time to properly research the difference between "wigwam" and "teepee".

click_click · « **Reply #57 on:** September 14, 2009, 08:44 »

@azurelaroux

Well said.

This addresses concerns I had all along.

Microstock is evolving all the time so many things have changed. Prices, commission, quality requirements and download numbers... (unfortunately).

The business hasn't become any easier and it will be important for the agencies to ensure that their contributors are working with them and not against (e.g. by keyword spamming).

It's impossible to edit out every single, not directly relating keyword out of every image online but notorious hardcore spammers should feel some serious consequences.

It's not the "lion" example that causes buyers to freak out. It's the contributors that use the keyword apple when the image shows a pear.

I think at some point the agencies will implement something like a "3 strikes and you're out" system. If spammers don't get punished for their actions they will keep doing it.

And locking someone's keywords it no punishment in my opinion...

cathyslife · « **Reply #58 on:** September 17, 2009, 06:54 »

I did not know there were that many problems with the IS plan, azurelaroux. I have noticed a decline in keyword rejections. They have moved on to disabling for lack of model/property releases now.

I also discovered another thing this morning. I had another image flagged on DT for a bad keyword. And I agree, the keyword needed to be removed. I went in and cleaned up the keywords on the image. Went back to the comments page to thank them, and the comment was gone and so was the comment that I got a couple of days ago from my first flagged image. Maybe they are removing them now because flaggers are already getting retaliation?

Yeah, this is probably going to end up like istocks plan.

But as a buyer I know it is very frustrating to search for a cow and get pictures of hotels in there (just an example, you get my drift). Something needs to be done.

lisafx · « **Reply #59 on:** September 17, 2009, 16:57 »

I just had another batch of keywords flagged. Some 4 year old images of spaghetti sauce ingredients (tomatoes, garlic, etc.) flagged for "pasta" and "sauce". Those words are definitely spammed by today's standards and I went ahead and removed them.

But I also images of a woman undergoing treatment for breast cancer flagged for the word "breast". Without being able to key in phrases together, words can appear to be spam individually, but when taken as a phrase they can be legitimate.

I don't blame the person who flagged them. If I were looking at a search for "breast" and my bald chemotherapy lady showed up I would think it was spam too.

There really should be some better way to include phrases if individual words are going to be deleted.

madelaide · « **Reply #60 on:** September 17, 2009, 17:05 »

Quote from: lisafx on September 17, 2009, 16:57

There really should be some better way to include phrases if individual words are going to be deleted.

Composed keywords is something sites should consider - but may it's too late. StockXpert used to, but then they moved the opposite way.

click_click · « **Reply #61 on:** September 17, 2009, 17:11 »

I'm hearing a lot of suggestions how the system could be improved.

However I'd consider the aforementioned cases as given requirements for a proper stock image agency to have IF they implement a flagging system.

After all the discussion here I still believe this flagging feature is not working efficiently at all.

Again, I am all for removing keywords that are not even remotely related to the subject in the image. But I also received flags that I had to ignore because the reported keywords directly relate to the image.

There is so much time wasted on both the contributors' and agency's side with this. The agency should handle it on their own.

madelaide · « **Reply #62 on:** September 17, 2009, 17:20 »

If an image is flagged, does it lose something in search results while they have not been reviewed yet?

If you find a wrong flagging, like Lisa mentioned, what are we supposed to do, is there some way to automatically explain it to DT reviewers before they cut the keyword?

Has anyone had the experience of having a wrong flagging accepted by DT?

click_click · « **Reply #63 on:** September 17, 2009, 17:43 »

Quote from: madelaide on September 17, 2009, 17:20

If an image is flagged, does it lose something in search results while they have not been reviewed yet?

If you find a wrong flagging, like Lisa mentioned, what are we supposed to do, is there some way to automatically explain it to DT reviewers before they cut the keyword?

Has anyone had the experience of having a wrong flagging accepted by DT?

Good questions.

I'm not sure if images will be pushed back that have pending flags. I strongly don't hope so, because that would cause a major flood of flags of contributors who want to knock out the competition even if it's just for a little while.

If you think your flagged images were flagged inappropriately (correct keywords) then there is nothing further you have to do. It was mentioned on the DT message boards that the reviewer will most likely agree that it was an unnecessary flag anyway. I'm holding my breath on my flagged images to see if how the reviewers will decide. That's why I think this system is flawed. Too much time spent on unnecessary reviewing.

Wrong flagging has occurred as it was mentioned in this thread earlier before. At least I consider the lion - big cat thing as wrong flagging. It's not like someone used the keyword "sexy girl" for an image showing a lion...

Pixart · « **Reply #64 on:** September 17, 2009, 18:50 »

So, am I supposed to be reciprocal and flag the flagger's bad keywords? Would that be the best way to show my sincere gratitude?

click_click · « **Reply #65 on:** September 17, 2009, 18:56 »

Quote from: Pixart on September 17, 2009, 18:50

So, am I supposed to be reciprocal and flag the flagger's bad keywords? Would that be the best way to show my sincere gratitude?

That's what was trying to say. When I checked the images of the people who flagged mine I could have flagged almost their entire portfolio if their interpretation of my wrong keywords would have been applied.

Naturally, this power will lead to some nasty situations between contributors. Watch it.

madelaide · « **Reply #66 on:** September 17, 2009, 19:33 »

Quote from: click_click on September 17, 2009, 17:43

Wrong flagging has occurred as it was mentioned in this thread earlier before.

Yes, but has anyone experienced having correct keywords that were inadequately flagged being removed by DT. THAT would be a concern, and it has happened in IS.

Randy McKown · « **Reply #67 on:** September 19, 2009, 18:01 »

Actually I had a image flagged for the keyword business .. it was a financial concept involving money. LOL yeah my new plan is that every time somebody with no experience, a crap portfolio and no sales attempts to correct my keywording I'm going to flag 10 of their images for every 1 of mine flagged .. just because I can.

abimages · « **Reply #68 on:** September 20, 2009, 04:07 »

Quote from: xposurepro on September 19, 2009, 18:01

Actually I had a image flagged for the keyword business .. it was a financial concept involving money. LOL yeah my new plan is that every time somebody with no experience, a crap portfolio and no sales attempts to correct my keywording I'm going to flag 10 of their images for every 1 of mine flagged .. just because I can.

LOL I think most peoples reactions would be similar to yours. However such action could land you in hot water with the DT admins!

Dreamframer · « **Reply #69 on:** September 20, 2009, 04:20 »

This is not DT, but please look at this FT video clip and look at it's keywords....

http://www.fotolia.com/id/16993659

Randy McKown · « **Reply #70 on:** September 20, 2009, 15:37 »

Quote from: abimages on September 20, 2009, 04:07

Quote from: xposurepro on September 19, 2009, 18:01
Actually I had a image flagged for the keyword business .. it was a financial concept involving money. LOL yeah my new plan is that every time somebody with no experience, a crap portfolio and no sales attempts to correct my keywording I'm going to flag 10 of their images for every 1 of mine flagged .. just because I can.

LOL I think most peoples reactions would be similar to yours. However such action could land you in hot water with the DT admins!

I don't see how .. I wasn't talking about just going in and flagging words at random

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