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Totally Wrong Information!


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From what I have encountered in the past, it seems some people take the whole set of images they took that day, select them all and give them captions and keywords that match most of the images cause basically, they are lazy.

 

Jill

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If you suspect that it's likely to be something that a customer would use when searching for that subject, then yes! I'm thinking predominantly of misspellings here, but there are doubtless other examples where this might be acceptable or useful. 

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14 minutes ago, losdemas said:

If you suspect that it's likely to be something that a customer would use when searching for that subject, then yes! I'm thinking predominantly of misspellings here, but there are doubtless other examples where this might be acceptable or useful. 

 

Right. I sometimes include creative spellings of words and phrases with differing word orders, but it's tough to see how "alternative facts" help the cause.

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1 hour ago, Jill Morgan said:

From what I have encountered in the past, it seems some people take the whole set of images they took that day, select them all and give them captions and keywords that match most of the images cause basically, they are lazy.

 

Jill

 

Yup, I have noticed this while searching for images used in the papers.

 

However I also batch keyword, and, despite reasonably due diligence, very occasionally the odd one slips through with some inappropriate keywords.

 

Then there is this AIM system which allows you to select multiple images inadvertently. It's then all too easy to apply the keywords intended for photo A additionally to photo B. I understand why it is configured that way, but still think that the conventional approach would be much better!

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12 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

I'm not talking about misspellings or alternate spellings or any spellings. I'm talking about misinformation. 

 

I can't see any reason why anyone would do this deliberately Ed. Do you have examples of such devious practice?

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54 minutes ago, Bryan said:

 

I can't see any reason why anyone would do this deliberately Ed. Do you have examples of such devious practice?

 

I do, Bryan -- a bunch. But I decided not to point a finger at any particular contributors. 

 

And of course you're right. Everybody makes mistakes. I used to work as a copy editor; mistakes were my business. I think Jill has got it right. Some contributors are just lazy and make no real effort to do research when they do their keying. 

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I messed up when I did the info on some of my photos because I had others clicked without realizing it. It was pointed out to me and I fixed it all (at least I hope I got it all.) It's frustrating on both sides of it I'm sure, looking for a photo of a lizard, and you get a thistle in the mix :rolleyes:. And things not showing up in the proper searches because you missed a click, and possibly a sale...

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I batch keyword with locations to get images on sale then revisit to do them properly when time allows, but since the new AIM it has become a right royal pain!

I do see lots of images with completely wrong info, but hopefully any of mine would be simple mistakes as I know it's stupid and would floor my CTR.

Unfortunately, with the new AIM I am less inclined to trawl through legacy images due to eye strain and a clumsy and clunky IU which I can't even use at all on my phone or tablet!

 

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6 hours ago, arterra said:

 

You mean like calling a "frog" a "toad" - which I would consider a lack of knowledge - or you mean "really" deliberately like calling the interior of your local church that of "Westminster Abbey"? 

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

Mistaking a frog for a toad or a turtle for a tortoise could be a subtle error, one you would not make, Philippe, but others might. Putting Big Ben in Fulham or Chelsea or listing a BMW when there are no cars to be seen is more what I'm talking about.

 

Mick, you may make errors but obviously you're making an effort to correct them. Hopefully most of us do that. 

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I saw a picture of Houghton watermill on the TV weather forecast couple of days ago and they said it was Ramsey mill????

 

Allan

 

 

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This reminds me of a side issue, Allan. With the demise of print (newspapers and magazines) comes the shrinking or doing away with certain departments. Reporters with cellphones have replaced photographers and copy editing has all but disapeared. They just accept more mistakes. 

 

The TV weather error you saw is due to a reduction in researchers and copy editors. 

 

My copy editing job was a part-time retirement job at Time Warner Publishing. In the financial crash of 2008 half the copy room was let go, including me. Before that I had spent over 30 years as a photographer. 

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Are we talking about cations or keywords?

 

Maybe people are supplying other agencies who don't have a ranking system based on accuracy as Alamy does, where getting as many pics as possible viewed as much as possible doesn't count against you - and they keep the same captions / keywords for their Alamy submissions.

 

And yes, some people who keyword their pics in batches do seem to all the keywords for all the images on EVERY image. 

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2 hours ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

 Putting Big Ben in Fulham or Chelsea or listing a BMW when there are no cars to be seen is more what I'm talking about.

 

 

I've led a sheltered life Ed, and can't figure out why this would be a deliberate ploy . Are you going to enlighten us?

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Who does this hurt? It hurts Alamy and all of us.

 

Picture this: a buyer is in a hurry. The buyer goes on Alamy and looks for a subject using logical tags in a search . . . but suddenly finds  that he/she is in the weeds. So maybe they go elsewhere next time to look for what they need? 

 

I'm not blaming Alamy for this. With their mega collection they can't police this kind of thing. But stupid, lazy behavior hurts us all. 

 

And, Bryan -- I did not say it was deliberate. I asked if it was. 

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It might well be deliberate in some cases. I think that some contributors mistakenly believe that having their images come up in as many different search results -- even irrelevant ones -- as possible is a good thing. Perhaps they are hoping that buyers looking for images of sea lions will end up settling for ones of seagulls instead, or maybe they are seeking more "exposure" for their images. The new "discoverability" thing probably isn't helping either as I'm sure many new contributors now try to cram in as many tags as possible with little regard for accuracy.

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9 hours ago, arterra said:

 

You mean like calling a "frog" a "toad" - which I would consider a lack of knowledge - or you mean "really" deliberately like calling the interior of your local church that of "Westminster Abbey"? 

 

Cheers,

Philippe

Just in case this was directed at some of my images.  A local 'church' in Mission, British Columbia, is indeed called "Westminster Abbey" and so my pictures of the interior are correctly captioned and keyworded.

 

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14 hours ago, Bryan said:

 

Then there is this AIM system which allows you to select multiple images inadvertently. It's then all too easy to apply the keywords intended for photo A additionally to photo B. I understand why it is configured that way, but still think that the conventional approach would be much better!

 

Ah, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has problems with that. I have a lot of batches where I need the same keywords for an image early on in the batch to match those of a few others further down in the batch. So far down, that a bit of scrolling is involved and hey presto, I accidentally apply the wrong keywords to the next image when I forget to untick one. It's not often the full set of keywords as I do most of the keywording in Lightroom or Photomechanic, but the fine tuning still happens in AIM. 

 

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4 minutes ago, imageplotter said:

 

Ah, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has problemss with that. I have a lot of batches where I need the same keywords for an image early on in the batch to match those of a few others further down in the batch. So far down, that a bit of scrolling is involved and hey presto, I accidentally apply the wrong keywords to the next image when I forget to untag one. It's not often the full set of keywords as I do most of the keywording in Lightroom or Photomechanic, but the fine tuning still happens in AIM. 

 

I've had problems with this type of thing as well, so much so that I now seldom work with batches -- especially large ones -- in the new AIM. It's too easy to screw up.

Slow and steady, one image at a time, is time-consuming, but it's the most reliable way to go.

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29 minutes ago, Chexy said:

Just in case this was directed at some of my images.  A local 'church' in Mission, British Columbia, is indeed called "Westminster Abbey" and so my pictures of the interior are correctly captioned and keyworded.

 

 

That's a good point. Sometimes there really are "alternative facts".

 

For instance, there's a Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Vancouver. I believe there is also one in Victoria, BC, plus in several other Canadian cities. Then of course there's that famous one in Oxford...

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13 minutes ago, arterra said:

 

But why don't you do the fine tuning also on beforehand? In AIM I only have to select the supertags and some stuff on page two (number of people / location / etc.).

 

Cheers,

Philippe

 

I keyword beforehand but always think of additional keywords to add in AIM. In fact, fine-tuning never seems to stop for me. Sometimes I go back to images years later and add new stuff.

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I try to think about how the client will search including common mistakes.

For instance there is a city in Ontario Canada called London. I would never use the keyword London. I would use instead keyword phrases, London Ontario, London Canada, because someone searching for London Ontario and only using “London” would narrow on a second search using “London Ontario” or “London Canada”.

I keyword common mistakes like using out of date scientific names for nature subjects. Keyword both the old incorrect and new correct versions.

Use the vernacular even if it is wrong.

“Rouge Park” is a common mistake. “Rouge Urban National Park” is a common mistake, “Rouge National Urban Park” is correct. Keyword all three.

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I do wish there was a way to alert Alamy to real abuses. I was just checking out an image that Alamy is featuring and saw wrong information in the tags. I checked the photographer's other work and it is gorgeous but he puts three or four different African countries in tags. Sometimes I suppose it doesn't matter but in one instance it is an animal that is very specific to a location. Lots of misinformation in every image I checked.

 

Paulette

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