Author Topic: Email from SS - Regarding Repeated Words and Phrases in Image Titles (Read 52003 times)

Chichikov · « **Reply #175 on:** July 01, 2016, 04:39 »

Obviously it is a direct consequence of the Brexit…

Groman · « **Reply #176 on:** July 01, 2016, 04:39 »

This is the problem!

Check this:
http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=U6_2pyTyp6LW1nin2RGoXA&searchterm=website&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=

This is the spamming. Relevant images just icons? Check the titles of this images:
Website Icon, Website Icon Vector, Website Icon Flat, Website Icon Sign,
Website Icon App, Website Icon UI, Website Icon Art, Website Icon Logo,
Website Icon Web, Website Icon JPG, Website Icon EPS

If you do not this, you are OK.

Stockmaan · « **Reply #177 on:** July 01, 2016, 04:47 »

What is this? My active clips and images decreased now for 2 images or clips

No notification, just happened.

Folks check your active clips and images number right now!

Maui · « **Reply #178 on:** July 01, 2016, 04:52 »

I think I am missing some images, too. I sent them several emails about his.
They must be getting some ten thousand emails now from angry contributors.
Hope their servers break down.

Artist · « **Reply #179 on:** July 01, 2016, 04:54 »

Quote from: Groman on July 01, 2016, 04:39

This is the problem!

Check this:
http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=U6_2pyTyp6LW1nin2RGoXA&searchterm=website&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=

This is the spamming. Relevant images just icons? Check the titles of this images:
Website Icon, Website Icon Vector, Website Icon Flat, Website Icon Sign,
Website Icon App, Website Icon UI, Website Icon Art, Website Icon Logo,
Website Icon Web, Website Icon JPG, Website Icon EPS

If you do not this, you are OK.

agree for them as spam, but this could also be a debatable topic.

When at shutterstock you get:
92,071,028 royalty-free stock images / 929,674 new stock images added this week

How can a person be creative, new and non-spammy with titles and keywords..?

You bring a new title, but hey thats already used.

click_click · « **Reply #180 on:** July 01, 2016, 04:55 »

It's Shutterstock's right to do the housekeeping on their own site, as long as the contributors are made aware of the guidelines appropriately and so they can react and fix issues before Shutterstock feels the need to remove content.

Most importantly I am irritated that apparently content is being removed without sending out notification emails including the image IDs and a link to a thumbnail so we can follow up and check what the issue might have been.

As of now, content is being removed without a notification email nor do we know which content exactly it was and why it's deleted. Cearly, SS's definition of SPAMMING appears not to be the same as what we think it means.

Total fail. $:-\$

StockPhotosArt.com · « **Reply #181 on:** July 01, 2016, 05:01 »

Deleted.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #182 on:** July 01, 2016, 05:28 »

http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-2677336.html

Title example: Sun icon, Sun icon eps10, Sun icon vector, Sun icon eps, Sun icon jpg, Sun icon picture, Sun icon flat, Sun icon app, Sun icon web, Sun icon art, Sun icon, Sun icon object, Sun icon flat, Sun icon app

what can't they at least start by contacting these people directly. I mean that is blatant spamming and it looks like there are some massive portfolios doing it. With this scattergun approach they are making life more difficult for everyone including themselves.

roede-orm · « **Reply #183 on:** July 01, 2016, 05:37 »

I'm absolutly sure, that I don't have any picture with repeated words or other kind of spam in title, description or keywords. Nuts! Must be some kind of attack anyway.

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #184 on:** July 01, 2016, 05:38 »

Are they just so scared off offending these factories that they'd rather send emails out threatening everyone than risk offending the people who are really the problem?

Stockmaan · « **Reply #185 on:** July 01, 2016, 05:39 »

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on July 01, 2016, 05:28

http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-2677336.html

Title example: Sun icon, Sun icon eps10, Sun icon vector, Sun icon eps, Sun icon jpg, Sun icon picture, Sun icon flat, Sun icon app, Sun icon web, Sun icon art, Sun icon, Sun icon object, Sun icon flat, Sun icon app

what can't they at least start by contacting these people directly. I mean that is blatant spamming and it looks like there are some massive portfolios doing it. With this scattergun approach they are making life more difficult for everyone including themselves.

I hope he also got email about spamming ...

kaboom · « **Reply #186 on:** July 01, 2016, 05:40 »

I still didnt receive the email but I went through my portfolio anyway. I have a bit less then 1000 images, it took me about 3 hours. I found around 5 old images where I had the same word repeated twice in description - not spamming of course :-/, just coincidence. At one point I found myself deleting also twice repeated "a", "the", "and"... and I felt like the biggest idiot in the galaxy :-/ I dont understand what they are actually forcing us to do??

I have such a bad feeling from all this, the way they chose to deal with spamming is so amateur it hurts :-/ We all know who the real sinners are - the huge ports with "icons, icons, icons, icons, background, background, background, background...... blah, blah, blah..... so sick of it!!

Justanotherphotographer · « **Reply #187 on:** July 01, 2016, 05:45 »

Quote from: Stockmaan on July 01, 2016, 05:39

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on July 01, 2016, 05:28
http://www.shutterstock.com/gallery-2677336.html

Title example: Sun icon, Sun icon eps10, Sun icon vector, Sun icon eps, Sun icon jpg, Sun icon picture, Sun icon flat, Sun icon app, Sun icon web, Sun icon art, Sun icon, Sun icon object, Sun icon flat, Sun icon app

what can't they at least start by contacting these people directly. I mean that is blatant spamming and it looks like there are some massive portfolios doing it. With this scattergun approach they are making life more difficult for everyone including themselves.

I hope he also got email about spamming ...

Well if he did then any impact of the email has been completely watered down by the fact almost everyone got it. They aren't going to be scared into sorting their act out as they haven't had any targeted response. SS aren't going to ban everyone from the site so they know they can carry on.

On a side note, I just tried going through some of my images, that part of the site wasn't working, no doubt because everyone is trying to do the same thing, so the real spammers couldn't sort it even if they wanted to, thanks again to the untargeted approach SS has chosen to take.

Maui · « **Reply #188 on:** July 01, 2016, 05:48 »

Isn't 4th July a holiday in the US? So it is a long weekend and there will be no one available so sort out this mess until Tuesday?

Shelma1 · « **Reply #189 on:** July 01, 2016, 05:49 »

I think the problem stems from SS themselves. Over the past year they've been uploading huge portfolios all in one day without the images going through review. That opened up the floodgates to huge numbers of spammy titles and spammy images...thousands of identical icons in different colors with "icon" appearing 10 times in the title and keywords.

Then some regular contributors noticed and complained.

So SS, in their wisdom, decided to punish regular contributors for SS's own decision to mass upload spammy ports. Kill the messenger.

I think a few of my images may have been removed, yet these sun icons are still on the site.

That's a big Bronx cheer to us from Shutterstock.

ShadySue · « **Reply #190 on:** July 01, 2016, 05:52 »

It's very odd that they would consider e.g Grus Grus as mentioned already, or crex crex or Bora Bora etc etc as spam but don't seem to care about totally inaccurate and misleading keywords which are as rife on SS as elsewhere, made worse by the way their search system splits keyword phrases (also as others do).

klsbear · « **Reply #191 on:** July 01, 2016, 06:04 »

Quote from: Teddy the Cat on July 01, 2016, 02:24

But hey!!

It's free pizza Friday YAY!!

Many companies in the U.S. will close early today as it is a holiday weekend and they are closed Monday. Probably cancelled the pizza party today.

But seriously, with a reduced staff due to summer vacations and likely early closing plus Monday holiday this silence could continue for several days.

cathyslife · « **Reply #192 on:** July 01, 2016, 06:15 »

removed duplicate post, see below.

cathyslife · « **Reply #193 on:** July 01, 2016, 06:20 »

Quote from: Groman on July 01, 2016, 04:39

This is the problem!

Check this:
http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&autocomplete_id=&search_tracking_id=U6_2pyTyp6LW1nin2RGoXA&searchterm=website&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=

This is the spamming. Relevant images just icons? Check the titles of this images:
Website Icon, Website Icon Vector, Website Icon Flat, Website Icon Sign,
Website Icon App, Website Icon UI, Website Icon Art, Website Icon Logo,
Website Icon Web, Website Icon JPG, Website Icon EPS

If you do not this, you are OK.

I have NEVER done that, yet some of my images have been removed. So they are deleting other kinds of titles, too. But i will have no clue what i have done wrong, because i have NO clue what was deleted!

kaboom · « **Reply #194 on:** July 01, 2016, 06:20 »

So - they ran some automated process which I suppose gave them some results - I suppose they should be able to see the difference between a contributor with 5000 images, out of which all 5000 have description where the same words repeats 10 times.

And then you have a contributor with 5000 images, out of which for example 100 accidentally repeat the same word twice!

Cant they check their results better and distinguish between these two examples before sending the offending email to almost everyone? Suggesting that almost everyone is a spammer? Unbelievable and so unprofessional. Who came up with that?

cathyslife · « **Reply #195 on:** July 01, 2016, 06:23 »

Quote from: PhotoDude on July 01, 2016, 02:31

I do not want to scare you guys, but there seems to be more to it. Like you, I was very happy to find "spammygate" email from Shutterstock in my inbox today. Like you, I claim it is a bogus accusation and a result of some poorly designed bot malfunction because I have never spammed my titles. Most likely, I have some images with repeated words in the title, but those are well justified like many of the examples already posted in this thread. After reading this thread, I was just going to ignore the whole thing, let the dust settle, and laugh at the incompetence of SS bot programmers in the meantime. However, after checking my portfolio in SS I found that it has 10-30 images less now than it used to have just a few days ago (I am not giving exact number here so SS cannot figure out my contributor identity). I am 100% certain of that because I keep detailed statistics after each upload cycle. But I imagine for some of you who have huge portfolios with 10K+ images, losses of 50-100 files could have gone unnoticed. It seems SS not only ran the bot to scan our images for supposed spammy titles, but what is worse, they actually silently deleted some images. And the worst part is that they did not even tell us which ones they deleted and there is no way to figure it out because it is not reported anywhere. I urge you to check your portfolio because this stuff is getting really ugly.

Unfortunately I think you are right about having already deleted images. when i checked yesterday, i had about 878 images in my port. that was bugging me, but i am not good at remembering numbers. but now that you mention it, i think i had 950+ before*. so they already removed some, without even telling us which ones? sounds to me like they might be trying to cull the herd. what do they care if they lose tens of thousands of images, or hundreds or thousands of contributors, even if you have been there almost since the beginning? Acceptable losses.

i am thoroughly disgusted with this company who used to be the best. it is just a matter of time before they all start treating their suppliers like crap, even worse than they already are.

*I will check later

marilyna · « **Reply #196 on:** July 01, 2016, 06:29 »

Yep I got the email too and I never use spam in my titles.
Really upset about all this.
Ive got nearly 10,000 images at SS and Ive never had a problem in the past. Id like to know just how I would even change my titles if they tell me which ones because I cant work out how to do it .
Someone earlier said go into Image Gallery Stats but all I see there are the photos with the description and keywords. No sign of a title at all. Id at least like to be able to look at the titles.
Help please.

WaterView · « **Reply #197 on:** July 01, 2016, 06:32 »

I got this email about spammy titles last night just found this morning. I do not set out to create any spammy titles and am always very careful in how I describe my images. So I wrote asking for clarification. With all these people writing for clarification and specifics of their actual image titles it will probably take weeks to get a response.
I will read their article and go through my images anyway just to be extra careful and safe.

H2O · « **Reply #198 on:** July 01, 2016, 06:33 »

They must have sent thousands of these emails, maybe every contributor received one, perhaps they could tell us exactly how many of these emails they have sent out, I have found it quite an upsetting piece of communication.

I have just checked the Shutterstock Forum and there are massive amounts of replies and views as there are here.

Looks like somebody at SS have made a big mistake, personally I am really unhappy with the tone of the letter.

It would be good if they could actually tell us which images they consider to have these repeated words in.

It would also be a good idea if they came on the Forum’s to explain themselves.

BaldricksTrousers · « **Reply #199 on:** July 01, 2016, 06:54 »

Quote from: Maui on July 01, 2016, 05:48

Isn't 4th July a holiday in the US? So it is a long weekend and there will be no one available so sort out this mess until Tuesday?

The mess seems to be that they upset us all and perhaps deactivated some files. It's not the sort of thing where a few days delay will make a big difference, it just puts everything on ice.

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Author Topic: Email from SS - Regarding Repeated Words and Phrases in Image Titles (Read 52003 times)

Chichikov

Groman

Stockmaan

Maui

Artist

click_click

StockPhotosArt.com

Justanotherphotographer

roede-orm

Justanotherphotographer

Stockmaan

kaboom

Justanotherphotographer

Maui

Shelma1

ShadySue

klsbear

cathyslife

cathyslife

kaboom

cathyslife

marilyna

WaterView

H2O

BaldricksTrousers

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