Keyword Spamming Again

That would take an enormous amount of manpower to go through each image and check to see if the keywords matched the image, unless there's an automated way of doing that.

"There needs to be a quicker way to report incorrect keywording, both for buyers and sellers."

I suppose it is possible, but I'm not convinced buyers would take the efforts to do this, unless they were an artist here. Can you imagine how many artists might want to try and take advantage of ridding the competition with false reports? Staff could go crazy chasing false leads. Not that it cant happen either way, but making things easier could potentially see a rise in abuse.

Honestly speaking, we have been down this road so many times with threads, that it is literally beating a dead horse discussion. I'm not being facetious, but rather honest.

As of now, the only thing you can do is to keep reporting the old fashioned, if you choose. They will be looked at.

Well, the easiest way to prevent false reporting would be to penalize people for doing it.

Not policing it makes keyword searching useless.

As far as buyers doing it, I've done it on ebay and I'm sure other people would if seeing too many irrelevant images wasted their time.

It gets policed, trust me. With seven million images, though, and how rather quickly artists can update images...you get the picture. It is dealt with when discovered.

Not everything that looks like keyword spam, is keyword spam. Words can have totally different meanings in different languages. I know it doesnīt apply here, but letīs take "golf" as an example:
Golf = German car (Volkswagen), golf = Large bay (e. g Golf von Mexico), Golf-Katzenhai (Gulf catshark), ...

Edit: And take the words "still" and "life". I am sure I have pictures with this words, that have nothing to do with "golf".

I have never seen keyword spamming as big issue here. Most images do not even have the keywords that belong much less ones that don't belong. There is little incentive to be in searches where the art does not fit. It is policed and dealt with.To inspect every image would not be very effective as long as it is possible to edit files. Most of what looks like spam is just sloppy keywording or just inadvertent . But I do agree a file tagged golf should be related to golf in some way. I am sure it will be dealt with as time allows. In two years of being active here every day I only found one spammed image in the searches that matter to me and it was an obvious copy and paste error. It was promptly removed after I reported it.
While I do see images that don't belong in the "golf still life" search, I don't see them as spam. There will always be a certain number of images that do not match what the searcher is looking for. That does not make them spam.

Actually, there could be an automated way of doing it by ranking complaints about individual keywords. Set a minimum threshold of, say 5 or 10 complaints per keyword from unique i.p.s, ignore duplicate reports to flag an image and and if one hits 20 or 30, it moves to the top of the list for review.

Bradford

Look at the keyword lists for the abstract and surrealistic paintings. It goes further than just golf.

(Deliberate) spamming is an issue, but the vast number of tags people can add is an even bigger one I think; this encourages people to add anything that is even vaguely related. Let's say someone has a bird image and also adds egg as a keyword. Not wrong per se, but not relevant to searches. Instead of using tags to help buyers, artists here use it to help themselves show up in as many searches as possible, no matter how slight the relevance. Five to ten tags should be more than enough, forcing artists to carefully think about which keywords are best suited to the image.

If FAA is serious about spam, it should have a report spam button under each image. Press it, add the tag which you feel is spam and press send. An accurate search engine benefits customers (and therefore FAA) as well as artists here. The current reporting system is cumbersome and inefficient.

"... but the vast number of tags people can add is an even bigger one ..."

I agree! But I must confess, that Iīm also guilty of using to many keywords. For example: I have a picture with a very popular site in Venice, showing some gondolas and the Island San Giorgio Maggiore. My keywords are:

colin utz,europe,gondel,gondeln,gondola,gondolas,italia,italian,italy,la dominante,pier,san giorgio maggiore island,serenissima,unesco world heritage site,venedig,venetia,venetian,veneto,venexia,venezia,venice,fog,foggy,medieval,mist,misty,mole,overcast day,rain,raining,rainy day,tourism,travel,wharf,winter,www.colinutzphotography.com

Honestly, what would you search for, if you want a picture like this? I would search for Venice (Venedig, Venezia), gondolas, San Giorgio Maggiore. I would not search for "La Dominate" or "Serenissima".

Colin, I do the same but its more because others are doing it that I feel forced to do the same so as not to disadvantage myself.

ideally its easier to find the biggest person doing the spamming and report just them. otherwise they have to police the search themselves.

maybe if the system was set up so only certain people could report it - a person that wouldn't take advantage of the system, they would be a NARC. however with the stemming issue, more and more words are coming up as spam (not so much other sports though).


---Mike Savad

Colin - that would be GULF of Mexico.... if you find Golf of Mexico, that'd be a typo or a mexican golf game seach. haha

@heather - in german it is Golf von Mexiko