John Mitchell Posted November 25, 2016 Share Posted November 25, 2016 I don't use quotation marks that often in my keywords, but when I do I tend to put them around phrases at the end of my main keywords. However, I'm noticing that if I have two or more phrases next to each other, each in quotation marks, Alamy only identifies the first one as a phrase. The other phrases get broken up into individual keywords. e.g. "... grilled cheese sandwich" "whole wheat bread" "dill pickle" becomes ... bread, dill, grilled cheese sandwich, pickle, wheat, whole (or something similar) Does anyone know what's going on here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M.Chapman Posted November 25, 2016 Share Posted November 25, 2016 That's why I use commas as well as quotes.... Belt and braces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joseph Clemson Posted November 25, 2016 Share Posted November 25, 2016 I use phrases in quotations a lot but I can't say I've noticed any problem with them. A quick look in Manage Images seems to show everything as I inputted it, both phrases and single keywords. The keywords look also OK when I look at the images o the main Alamy website. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHP Posted November 26, 2016 Share Posted November 26, 2016 I think when this happens it may mean you have either an extra quotation mark or missing quotation mark. Also, maybe a stray comma? I've experienced all these ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted November 26, 2016 Author Share Posted November 26, 2016 I think when this happens it may mean you have either an extra quotation mark or missing quotation mark. Also, maybe a stray comma? I've experienced all these ... Could be in some cases. Quotation marks often seem more trouble than they are worth. What is the current Alamy wisdom concerning the use of quotation marks? I can no longer find any reference to them in the contributor resources pages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imageplotter Posted November 26, 2016 Share Posted November 26, 2016 Geoff - what are the guidelines on square brackets now? Just curious as I am still using them occasionally, and wasn't aware that they should be removed (not looking forward to that job...). I was hoping that square bracketed words would be converted into phrases in the new input tool. Is anyone on the new input tool yet and can confirm/clarify? Many thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niels Quist Posted November 26, 2016 Share Posted November 26, 2016 That's why I use commas as well as quotes.... Belt and braces. I also use commas instead, normally at the end of the keyword string. If you mix them into the individual keywords you should have at least 4 (I thnk, but I put 5) between the two phrases, otherwise they can glue the individual keywords together to an incomprehensible long phrase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NYCat Posted November 26, 2016 Share Posted November 26, 2016 I had four words "glued" recently so better put five or put all at the end or beginning. Paulette Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted November 26, 2016 Author Share Posted November 26, 2016 Many of my older images are still a mess of brackets and quotation marks. I'm hoping that the new system will dispense with the need to add all this clutter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted November 26, 2016 Author Share Posted November 26, 2016 Many of my older images are still a mess of brackets and quotation marks. I'm hoping that the new system will dispense with the need to add all this clutter. Although I don't have access to it yet, I'm pretty sure the new system won't allow you to type extra characters. From looking at the screenshot in Alamy's blog article, the tags are all entered independently rather than in any sort of text box. So if you were to add other characters, they would either be ignored or would act as part of that tag. If you want to add more than one word together, then you'd use multi-word tags. So you'll lose the functionality of using square brackets - Although the system has never taken any notice of those anyway (unless things were different before I joined). Geoff. Sounds good. Hope you're correct. I remember when the square brackets were introduced but don't know if they ever functional. Adding them was a pain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinS Posted November 26, 2016 Share Posted November 26, 2016 If you mix them into the individual keywords you should have at least 4 (I thnk, but I put 5) between the two phrases, otherwise they can glue the individual keywords together to an incomprehensible long phrase. Fortunately this doesn't happen on my images. I've only ever used a comma followed by one space between a keyword or a string of keywords (phrase). Phrases next to each other or next to single keywords have remained intact. I plan to continue this way until the new tools come my way. I think the problem arises when quote marks are used without the comma. The software didn't distinguish between the beginning and end quote marks, but treated them as just a mark with no direction forward or backward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted November 27, 2016 Author Share Posted November 27, 2016 If you mix them into the individual keywords you should have at least 4 (I thnk, but I put 5) between the two phrases, otherwise they can glue the individual keywords together to an incomprehensible long phrase. Fortunately this doesn't happen on my images. I've only ever used a comma followed by one space between a keyword or a string of keywords (phrase). Phrases next to each other or next to single keywords have remained intact. I plan to continue this way until the new tools come my way. I think the problem arises when quote marks are used without the comma. The software didn't distinguish between the beginning and end quote marks, but treated them as just a mark with no direction forward or backward. I thought of that too and tried putting in quotation marks and commas -- e.g. "... grilled cheese sandwich" ,"whole wheat bread", "dill pickle", ... but it didn't help matters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niels Quist Posted November 27, 2016 Share Posted November 27, 2016 If you mix them into the individual keywords you should have at least 4 (I thnk, but I put 5) between the two phrases, otherwise they can glue the individual keywords together to an incomprehensible long phrase. Fortunately this doesn't happen on my images. I've only ever used a comma followed by one space between a keyword or a string of keywords (phrase). Phrases next to each other or next to single keywords have remained intact. I plan to continue this way until the new tools come my way. I think the problem arises when quote marks are used without the comma. The software didn't distinguish between the beginning and end quote marks, but treated them as just a mark with no direction forward or backward. I thought of that too and tried putting in quotation marks and commas -- e.g. "... grilled cheese sandwich" ,"whole wheat bread", "dill pickle", ... but it didn't help matters. I don't think adding both will help anything, on the contrary perhaps. Try putting your phrases at the end of your other keywords. Add a comma and a space at the end of the last single keyword - add the first phrase with a comma at the end, right after this a space and the next phrase ending with a comma and a space. Your last phrase should also end with a comma. I have added seven phrases like this in this example: http://tinyurl.com/j2lagnc Try to move your mouse cursor along the lines of keywords and you can see each alphabetized keyword or phrase underlined one a time - not gluing at all. Niels PS Edited: I have no commas between the normal keywords only a space. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted November 27, 2016 Author Share Posted November 27, 2016 If you mix them into the individual keywords you should have at least 4 (I thnk, but I put 5) between the two phrases, otherwise they can glue the individual keywords together to an incomprehensible long phrase. Fortunately this doesn't happen on my images. I've only ever used a comma followed by one space between a keyword or a string of keywords (phrase). Phrases next to each other or next to single keywords have remained intact. I plan to continue this way until the new tools come my way. I think the problem arises when quote marks are used without the comma. The software didn't distinguish between the beginning and end quote marks, but treated them as just a mark with no direction forward or backward. I thought of that too and tried putting in quotation marks and commas -- e.g. "... grilled cheese sandwich" ,"whole wheat bread", "dill pickle", ... but it didn't help matters. I don't think adding both will help anything, on the contrary perhaps. Try putting your phrases at the end of your other keywords. Add a comma and a space at the end of the last single keyword - add the first phrase with a comma at the end, right after this a space and the next phrase ending with a comma and a space. Your last phrase should also end with a comma. I have added seven phrases like this in this example: http://tinyurl.com/j2lagnc Try to move your mouse cursor along the lines of keywords and you can see each alphabetized keyword or phrase underlined one a time - not gluing at all. Niels PS Edited: I have no commas between the normal keywords only a space. Thanks very much for the examples. I'll check them out. I currently keyword in Photo Mechanic, and the commas in my keywords disappear when ingested by Alamy's current system. At this point, I think I'll wait to see what things look like after the new contributor tools are in place before doing more experimentation. Things may look a lot different then. Hopefully it will be a pretty picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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