Gorilla Dave Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 I did a test on my small pseudonym. All 66 images show when I’m logged in. Only 63 show when I’m not logged in. The three that don’t show are two pictures of a five bar gate and a picture of an old willow tree. These three are from the same upload, but other images from that same upload do show. I don’t think it’s to do with keywords or captions or with censorship by the browsers. When I’m not logged in and I search for one of the images by image-id, what I get in return is a screen from the Alamy system saying… Sorry, we can’t find anything for your search term • It’s possible that we don’t have any imagery, but check your spelling or try changing your keywords • If you’ve searched using an image ID, it might be that the image is not available for sale in your country or it has been removed from the collection and is no longer for sale My guess is that the second part of this message is the key. The Alamy search CAN find the image for a logged in user, but says it CAN’T find it when the user is not logged in, suggesting to me that something went wrong at the time the image was stored. The Alamy search engine is thinking… “ I can findthe image but …you’re not logged-in so this image is not available for sale in your country.” A way to test this might be to resubmit one of the images that are currently not being found. If the image storage fault is an intermittent one, there's a chance the new upload of the image will go ahead normally and it will be visible to both logged-in and logged-out users. Or Alamy IT could take a close look at one of the images suggested in this thread to see if there are any flags set on the image that might prevent it from being shown to a not-logged-in user. GD (retired software tester) (!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 (edited) 3 hours ago, Gorilla Dave said: Or Alamy IT could take a close look at one of the images suggested in this thread to see if there are any flags set on the image that might prevent it from being shown to a not-logged-in user. I think that's going to be the key if they consider it worth their time. It's interesting what you say but I don't think that it explains the mysterious 'Sotwell Incident'. In that case searching for 'sotwell' brings up 92 images from a variety of different contributors and obviously uploaded at different times. Six of them are mine but they are from two different batches. Logged out then only one comes up, the map section. Also 'sotwell' is to me at least without any possible age-sensitive, or indeed region-sensitive connotations so I agree that it doesn't really fit into the narrative about possible sensitivities. It's a mystery. Edit: Mind you I don't think that 'sotwell' has any existence apart from being part of the village name 'Brightwell cum Sotwell' so that brings us back to Michael's theory, I think that all those images relate to that village. What I wonder is the difference with the map section image: www.alamy.com/2GERNHF Bingo, they call the village just 'sotwell', the contentious 3 letter word between Brightwell & Sotwell is missing. So if they are going to all this trouble how come it doesn't matter if you use Edge? Could it be filtered by the browsers themselves, is that even possible? Edited June 21, 2023 by Harry Harrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 Wikipedia page on filtering. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 Did some testing yesterday and after the database update I can confirm it's the keywords. So identifying the culprit and removing that keyword is enough. No results yet on the image content. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 4 minutes ago, wiskerke said: Did some testing yesterday and after the database update I can confirm it's the keywords. So identifying the culprit and removing that keyword is enough. No results yet on the image content. wim Thanks Wim, difficult to remove the name of an entire village though I suppose I could just call it Brightwell Sotwell, bonkers really. I read your Wiki link, I don't understand it enough to say whether it is Alamy who are doing this. Clearly I can search for these trigger words on the internet as a whole so I suppose it must be, but why not with Edge? At least I know what the Scunthorpe problem is now, that was new to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 (edited) 19 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said: Thanks Wim, difficult to remove the name of an entire village though I suppose I could just call it Brightwell Sotwell, bonkers really. I read your Wiki link, I don't understand it enough to say whether it is Alamy who are doing this. Clearly I can search for these trigger words on the internet as a whole so I suppose it must be, but why not with Edge? At least I know what the Scunthorpe problem is now, that was new to me. AFAIK having the word in description is no problem. Which is weird. Check AoA if clients ever search for the offending term. In my test image it was the word shitting in the keywords. It's still in the description. wim edit: found this online. There will be more I'm sure. Edited June 21, 2023 by wiskerke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 (edited) 37 minutes ago, wiskerke said: AFAIK having the word in description is no problem. Right, I've removed the full name of the village as a keyword, I'll check tomorrow, added Brightwell and Sotwell separately but I doubt anyone searches for those names on their own. Edited June 21, 2023 by Harry Harrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StokeCreative Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 17 hours ago, wiskerke said: That's because AE3NWP is a keyword in AE56WJ. Which image is not censored out. Why is a tango orchestra verboten? No idea. The female violinist? The suggestive lights? The dark trees have scary as a keyword. The plush willy is obvious, but it could be it's not those words, but rather proud gay man. It's not pride, because some pride images are being shown. What baffles me most is the toy cab. One passes and one fails. The censored one has the keyword sad-faced. That could be it. The keywords are very similar for both images, but these are the extra keywords in the one that does not show up: accident accidental bender blemish blemished blemishes bumper crash damage damaged dent looking looks mark paint sad-faced scratch scratched scruffy used well worn Beats me. I notice my images came without a link. Let me see if I can fix that. (So if anyone wants to look for offending keywords he/she can have a go at it.) wim "bender" old slang for gay person in UK? maybe considered offensive? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 (edited) 2 minutes ago, StokeCreative said: "bender" old slang for gay person in UK? maybe considered offensive? Ah right. Thank you! I'll test it. wim edit: done; will report back tomorrow. Edited June 21, 2023 by wiskerke 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IKuzmin Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 3 hours ago, wiskerke said: So identifying the culprit and removing that keyword is enough. One of the major reason I keep with Alamy is the flexibility of working with keywords and captions. In other places (including the one where I experience the same disappearing images if not logged-in) the captioning and keywording is performed by staff, which supposedly should make contributor's life easier and keywording stronger, but certainly it is not (and moreover, they do not update the obsolete scientific names). I can just do nothing with my images rather then look at them... and cry 😥 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted June 21, 2023 Share Posted June 21, 2023 Amsterdam Pride logged in: 6697 logged out: 1992 missing: 4705 = 70.26% gay pride logged in: 248180 logged out: 70547 missing: 177633 = 71.57% Who is this to please? And why let so many through? The percentage is remarkably consistent. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted June 22, 2023 Share Posted June 22, 2023 (edited) Morris Minor Woody logged in: 114 logged out: 0 Morris Minor logged in: 5,670 logged out: 0 That filter needs a shrink. wim Edited June 22, 2023 by wiskerke image added Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 22, 2023 Share Posted June 22, 2023 (edited) 4 hours ago, wiskerke said: That filter needs a shrink. This might be a diversion but if you search for 'minor' when logged out you just get 266 images, when logged in you get 861,488 These 266 images are all from a number of hearings at the US Capitol from a particular agency (well I haven't checked them all but it looks that way), as far as I can see 'minor' doesn't appear in the caption or keywords, only 'minority' but Alamy doesn't do stemming? Edited June 22, 2023 by Harry Harrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 22, 2023 Share Posted June 22, 2023 (edited) For me removing 'Brightwell cum Sotwell' as a keyword wasn't enough to allow an image to appear when not logged in, it looks like it has to go from the caption as well. It did allow 3 images to now be found when 'Brightwell-cum-Sotwell' had only been in the keywords but not in the caption (it was the nearest place of habitation to the location). Google has no such scruples when finding Alamy images of that village. Edited June 22, 2023 by Harry Harrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 22, 2023 Share Posted June 22, 2023 In my 'Sotwell' example I'm not searching using the offending word, it's just that the caption or keywords of the image contain the offending word and so they are blocked unless the user is not logged in. The same goes for 'minor', Morris Traveller comes up with 181 images if you are not logged in but 668 if logged in. The difference is that the missing images have 'Morris Minor' in the caption or keywords. I'm not really suggesting that this 'feature' is going to have a major impact on sales (though it could have for potential buyers casually searching to buy images of Brightwell cum Sotwell, or Morris Minors!). No really I'm just trying to understand what on earth is the point of it and why have the IT Team not been able to explain it to us, they must know about it surely. Perhaps they're too embarrassed, I've embarrassed myself just testing for it, what is wrong with Gorilla Dave's 'five-bar gate' images for example, I dread to think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted June 22, 2023 Share Posted June 22, 2023 1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said: In my 'Sotwell' example I'm not searching using the offending word, it's just that the caption or keywords of the image contain the offending word and so they are blocked unless the user is not logged in. The same goes for 'minor', Morris Traveller comes up with 181 images if you are not logged in but 668 if logged in. The difference is that the missing images have 'Morris Minor' in the caption or keywords. I'm not really suggesting that this 'feature' is going to have a major impact on sales (though it could have for potential buyers casually searching to buy images of Brightwell cum Sotwell, or Morris Minors!). No really I'm just trying to understand what on earth is the point of it and why have the IT Team not been able to explain it to us, they must know about it surely. Perhaps they're too embarrassed, I've embarrassed myself just testing for it, what is wrong with Gorilla Dave's 'five-bar gate' images for example, I dread to think. Just a minor impact then. Sorry couldn't resist. The caption is traveling with(in) the files, just as the keywords are in the IPTC fields. In most cases anyway. Whereas the description is only present on the zoom page on Alamy. The more words that are socially undesirable, the more slang words and street talk we're getting. That's a simple law, I would say of nature. See words like bent and woody from this thread alone. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IKuzmin Posted June 22, 2023 Share Posted June 22, 2023 Am curious. Most of us have "Alamy portfolio page" which we can share with anybody, presumably including people who do not have Alamy account. So, if get to this portfolio page logged out, can one still see and search all images, or some would be missing? I cannot check on my port because I do not know which mine are not shown in logged-out searches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 22, 2023 Share Posted June 22, 2023 1 hour ago, IKuzmin said: So, if get to this portfolio page logged out, can one still see and search all images I might try that, I've just created a lightbox of these Sotwell images and you don't need to be logged in to see them but maybe that is because you, as an account holder, have made the decision to share them. It's a different matter I suppose if someone not logged in to Alamy or without an account at all should accidentally stumble across a picture of a Morris Minor Traveller. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted June 22, 2023 Share Posted June 22, 2023 23 hours ago, StokeCreative said: "bender" old slang for gay person in UK? maybe considered offensive? 23 hours ago, wiskerke said: Ah right. Thank you! I'll test it. wim edit: done; will report back tomorrow. Removing bender did not fix it. Not on it's own anyway. Maybe wait another 24 hours to be sure. Now I'm looking into keywords for Miffy (the rabbit doll). I've removed the word bunny. Then there are 2 images of The White House; and many of my Gay Pride Amsterdam Canal Parade images. Some image with a string of pearls. My guess is it's the word string. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 22 hours ago, IKuzmin said: can one still see and search all images I suppose this could be classed as an anomaly but if you are not logged in and you do a search on Alamy and find one of your own images as a result then clicking on your name (or pseudo) seems to bring up all the images, including those excluded. It seems to be only when you do a search that these exclusions are applied. I suspect that your portfolio pages would therefore be unaffected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harry Harrison Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 (edited) 18 hours ago, wiskerke said: My guess is it's the word string. Some do seem baffling, certainly Gorilla Dave's five bar gate and willow tree, and since Allan shared his 2M7MDWK I don't see anything obvious here: Cosy Club sign over doorway at night, Lincoln 2022 cosy club sign over doorway at night fancy logo illuminated sign lincoln 2022 logo red leaves reflections in glass wheat ears Oh, wait though, 'fancy'. 630418 logged in, 549,166 logged out. With Rico's carnival images then 'cleavage' is probably enough for the naughty step but I haven't checked. Edited June 23, 2023 by Harry Harrison Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 (edited) My test result of today: Log in. Check an image that does not appear when you're logged out. Now open the same image in AIM. Compare the keywords. My guess is that the offending keyword or phrase is not present in the keywords shown on the zoom page. One word in a phrase seems to dismiss the other words in the phrase. So be careful with grouping (unrelated) words as a key phrase. My other result is not a test result, but a quicker way of finding offending/missing images: First start with a search, filtering for one of your pseudos, while logged in and while logged out. Note the amount of results. If the numbers are identical, all images in that pseudo are cleared. If there are images not being shown while logged out: Find a keyword that yields a reasonable amount of images in that pseudo. Do a search for that keyword while logged in and while logged out. Both with the pseudo name in the Contributor: filter. Note the amount of results. If the numbers are identical, all images are cleared. If there's a difference, open Alamy in two windows. I even use two browsers. One while logged in; one logged out. Compare the pages. It works best on two monitors the same size next to each other, or two windows on a very wide monitor. This is much quicker than trawling through all one's images, even by pseudo. wim edit: prepositional idiom Edited June 23, 2023 by wiskerke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Bell Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 (edited) 6 hours ago, Harry Harrison said: Some do seem baffling, certainly Gorilla Dave's five bar gate and willow tree, and since Allan shared his 2M7MDWK I don't see anything obvious here: Cosy Club sign over doorway at night, Lincoln 2022 cosy club sign over doorway at night fancy logo illuminated sign lincoln 2022 logo red leaves reflections in glass wheat ears Oh, wait though, 'fancy'. 630418 logged in, 549,166 logged out. With Rico's carnival images then 'cleavage' is probably enough for the naughty step but I haven't checked. Thanks for running 2M7MDWK again Harry and finding the culprit. I will remove "Fancy" and see what happens. Allan Just realised I have a second image of Cosy Club taken later 2R603WE which does not have "fancy" in the caption or keywords. Ran that one both logged in and logged out and it appeared in both occasions. That confirms your finding I believe. I am going to remove "fancy" from the original image. ITMA I have removed "fancy" but will have to wait till Alamy's updated their system. HOWEVER There is another key word phrase with 2M7MDWK and that is "Relaxed dining and drinking with a touch of timeless glamour". It could be "glamour" is the culprit. We shall find out tomorrow. ITMAA Relaxed dining and drinking with a touch of timeless glamour Relaxed dining and drinking with a touch of timeless glamour Edited June 23, 2023 by Allan Bell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allan Bell Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 Once we find these keywords which are causing images to be omitted from searches we should make a "Words not to be used as keywords" list. That should be fun. Allan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiskerke Posted June 23, 2023 Share Posted June 23, 2023 20 minutes ago, Allan Bell said: Once we find these keywords which are causing images to be omitted from searches we should make a "Words not to be used as keywords" list. That should be fun. Allan Index verborum prohibitorum. Or INDEX for short. Now find a nice way to make I.N.D.E.X. into a funny acronym. wim Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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