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Author Topic: Flagged keywords - what ???  (Read 21977 times)

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« Reply #25 on: September 11, 2009, 06:12 »
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For 2 cents.....my God.... that's sad.... looks like economic crisis still rocks :D

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. 


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

« Reply #27 on: September 11, 2009, 07:08 »
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>...
<...
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 !

« Reply #28 on: September 11, 2009, 07:35 »
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>...
<...
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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.

« Reply #29 on: September 11, 2009, 07:46 »
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How could this feature be a good thing? Give me a break.
[/quote]

How can it be a bad thing?

« Reply #30 on: September 11, 2009, 07:57 »
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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. 

« Reply #31 on: September 11, 2009, 08:01 »
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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 ...

« Reply #32 on: September 11, 2009, 08:25 »
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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.



 

« Reply #33 on: September 11, 2009, 08:43 »
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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.

« Reply #34 on: September 11, 2009, 08:44 »
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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 ?

« Reply #35 on: September 11, 2009, 08:57 »
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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...

« Reply #36 on: September 11, 2009, 09:04 »
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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...

« Reply #37 on: September 11, 2009, 09:15 »
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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.
« Last Edit: September 11, 2009, 09:20 by cclapper »

« Reply #38 on: September 11, 2009, 09:24 »
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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?

« Reply #39 on: September 11, 2009, 09:28 »
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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 ...

« Reply #40 on: September 11, 2009, 09:29 »
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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 »
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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.

« Reply #42 on: September 11, 2009, 09:45 »
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For 2 cents.....my God.... that's sad.... looks like economic crisis still rocks :D

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

« Reply #43 on: September 11, 2009, 10:00 »
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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.

« Reply #44 on: September 11, 2009, 10:06 »
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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).

« Reply #45 on: September 11, 2009, 10:16 »
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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...  :P

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)  :-X

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.

« Reply #46 on: September 11, 2009, 10:23 »
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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.

« Reply #47 on: September 11, 2009, 10:25 »
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... 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.

« Reply #48 on: September 11, 2009, 10:29 »
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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. 

« Reply #49 on: September 11, 2009, 11:51 »
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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>


 

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