Author Topic: Zero Tolarance---Did it work?? (Read 3910 times)

shank_ali · « **on:** February 25, 2009, 02:21 »

Way back in 2008 istockphoto announced a purge on poor keywords attached to contributors files.
A new team was employed at HQ to help contributors see the errors of their ways.
A new keyword section was introduced on the istock forum to help contributors.
So my question is why no update from istock on the situation.
BTW the problem still exsists and some contributors blantely try to cheat the system as i wiki when i see the system being abused.

hoi ha · « **Reply #1 on:** February 25, 2009, 02:38 »

But I think it has gotten much much better - in fact I would say there is rather less keyword spamming on IS as compared to the other sites now.

shank_ali · « **Reply #2 on:** February 25, 2009, 14:05 »

I do get weekly site mails at istock from the metadata team informing me of additions and corrections to keywords.

lienkie · « **Reply #3 on:** February 28, 2009, 08:28 »

Are you referring to the place where you can report bad keywords?Sorry if it's a dumb Q-I'm a newbie.
Is it anonymous?
Just did a search for "cockroach" and "food",and 11 of the 26 images on the first page has no cockroach anywhere in sight!!
Then searched "bee" and "water" and lo and behold,5 out of the 32 images on the first page has no bees in them!!
This is incorrect keywording and really ticks me off.

Anyka · « **Reply #4 on:** February 28, 2009, 10:46 »

Keyword spamming will all be over thanks to really nice contributors who wiki out images

I had an Easter photo of a marzipan duckling in an open egg (here in Belgium, you can buy all kinds of funny things made of marzipan, especially with Easter - and afterwards you can eat the model).

Only two keywords were wiki'd out : marzipan + egg. (although my description said "marzipan duckling in an open egg".
Keywords that were added : toy animal; color image; nobody; yellow;

I should be grateful that the word "duckling" was still allowed.

snaprender · « **Reply #5 on:** February 28, 2009, 11:33 »

I had a 3D image that they went through and took out the keyword 3D and added the keyword 'vector' - it clearly wasn't a vector.

tan510jomast · « **Reply #6 on:** February 28, 2009, 11:42 »

Quote from: lienkie on February 28, 2009, 08:28

Are you referring to the place where you can report bad keywords?Sorry if it's a dumb Q-I'm a newbie.
Is it anonymous?
Just did a search for "cockroach" and "food",and 11 of the 26 images on the first page has no cockroach anywhere in sight!!
Then searched "bee" and "water" and lo and behold,5 out of the 32 images on the first page has no bees in them!!
This is incorrect keywording and really ticks me off.

lienkie, reminds me of a roommate who had images of neckties accepted. she told her friends about it.they went search "necktie" but could not find her set. what they found were rabbis, businessmen, almost nudes... but no neckties.
she wrote support, they said it will be found if the words were "necktie cravat tie".
funny, i wonder what keywords they used for "rabbi, nude, businessmen"

oh well, i could tell you what support told her about iwiki ,
but i won't want to spoil your day, ...
iwiki rules...to stamp out your competition

lienkie · « **Reply #7 on:** February 28, 2009, 12:24 »

Wow,can't believe that people would actually do that

....but then again,some also steal images.
I would think-hope at least ,that the guys at IS that check these would be careful,and intelligent enough,not to let it become an image-killer tool.
Could you guys get back the relevant keywords?

jim_h · « **Reply #8 on:** February 28, 2009, 12:37 »

I recently posted a photo of an old Polaroid camera (on SS, not IS), then later did a search on "instant camera". Not until page 3 did I even see a (drawing of a) camera. The first actual photo of a camera was on page 7.

The problem with keywording is the same problem that holds back the web in general - keyword searching lacks context. There is no way to distinguish a web page that is actually "about" Polaroid cameras, from 100 others that just mention them in passing

The World Wide Web consortium is trying to address this with a concept called the "semantic web". It's a syntax for embedding contextual information in web pages that can be used by search engines. A page could actually declare its subject, and advertise the presence of information - facts - about some topic. Sure it could be scammed and abused, but it's a start.

So - what I see missing in stock keyword schemes is a way to declare the subject of a photo, as opposed to just concepts it might relate too. In other words "this is a photo of a camera", in addition to being an image that suggests snapshots, parties, film, the 60s, retro technology and so on.

tan510jomast · « **Reply #9 on:** February 28, 2009, 19:12 »

Quote from: jim_h on February 28, 2009, 12:37

I recently posted a photo of an old Polaroid camera (on SS, not IS), then later did a search on "instant camera". Not until page 3 did I even see a (drawing of a) camera. The first actual photo of a camera was on page 7.

The problem with keywording is the same problem that holds back the web in general - keyword searching lacks context. There is no way to distinguish a web page that is actually "about" Polaroid cameras, from 100 others that just mention them in passing

The World Wide Web consortium is trying to address this with a concept called the "semantic web". It's a syntax for embedding contextual information in web pages that can be used by search engines. A page could actually declare its subject, and advertise the presence of information - facts - about some topic. Sure it could be scammed and abused, but it's a start.

So - what I see missing in stock keyword schemes is a way to declare the subject of a photo, as opposed to just concepts it might relate too. In other words "this is a photo of a camera", in addition to being an image that suggests snapshots, parties, film, the 60s, retro technology and so on.

syntax and semantic ! hmm, jim_h , good point. so, that's the reason why when you keyword "mother teresa" you get pages of porn, and no mother teresa until item 998

jim_h · « **Reply #10 on:** February 28, 2009, 19:28 »

Quote from: tan510jomast on February 28, 2009, 19:12

that's the reason why when you keyword "mother teresa" you get pages of porn, and no mother teresa until item 998

Exactly. The microstock companies no doubt understand this quite well, and must hear all the time from buyers saying "but I actually just wanted a picture OF a such-and-such, not all this supposedly related stuff, why is that so hard?" And it isn't, all it would take would be one extra field to fill in at submission, namely whatever it is that "this picture contains". Reviewers could easily enforce this. And searching would be more effective, and everyone would be happier, right?

So why isn't it happening? I don't know. I suppose part of the problem is - what do you do with the 5 million photos you already have?

RacePhoto · « **Reply #11 on:** March 02, 2009, 11:40 »

Quote from: tan510jomast on February 28, 2009, 19:12

syntax and semantic ! hmm, jim_h , good point. so, that's the reason why when you keyword "mother teresa" you get pages of porn, and no mother teresa until item 998

CV on IS is working and making the searches better.

Have you ever tried "Saint Teresa" on IS for example?

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?text=saint+teresa&action=file

Good search words, produce good results.

bittersweet · « **Reply #12 on:** March 02, 2009, 13:34 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on March 02, 2009, 11:40

Good search words, produce good results.

Exactly... and that reminds me of the seemingly endless stream of rants that sound something like:
"I just had clipping path removed from my image that has a clipping path! iStock stinks and I hate them because they are so stupid and they just want me to be exclusive!!!!"

What they fail to mention is that they had not entered the PHRASE "clipping path" but they had copied and pasted their list from another site which only used single words so it listed as two separate words, "clipping" which defaults to "cutting", and "path" which gives no default but 3 choices, none of which are equivalent to "clipping path (Cutout)".

madelaide · « **Reply #13 on:** March 02, 2009, 17:53 »

Quote from: RacePhoto on March 02, 2009, 11:40

Have you ever tried "Saint Teresa" on IS for example?

http://www.istockphoto.com/file_search.php?text=saint+teresa&action=file

Good search words, produce good results.

It is dependable on the contributor and on the words available in CV. Names are rare and many locations are missing. Also there are many words that some may consider stretcches, some don't.

Saint Teresa is a neighbourhood in Rio, but it isn't a choice in CV - the image is not of a saint, though.

One image has Teresa, not Saint Theresa, yet they appear in the result. Oh, wait, this is a HultonArchive image - who disambiguates their images? Marie is disambiguated as groom, Therese as St. Theresa. I see...

Regards,
Adelaide

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Zero Tolarance---Did it work?? (Read 3910 times)

shank_ali

hoi ha

shank_ali

lienkie

Anyka

snaprender

tan510jomast

lienkie

jim_h

tan510jomast

jim_h

RacePhoto

bittersweet

madelaide

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors