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Just had an e-mail off Alamy about categories, up to now I haven't bothered, as with everyone else, been too busy trying to understand normal AIM stuff.

 

Anyway, probably too early to say, but I did wonder if anyone got any positives or negatives about categorising them so far?

 

Thanks

Chris

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I won't be bothering. I rarely use the optional page at all now it's, er, optional.

Yeah Mark, despite Alamy saying it will help, I'd like proof, may work in some categories I guess, but initially seems a bit basic and limiting

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Personally, I'd like some more categories. 'Environment' and 'Politics' are two obvious additions.

 

I do use categories in the hope that in doing so, I gain an advantage in the future. But all too often, none of the current categories really seem to fit.

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I fill out the optional fields, and I don't know if anyone has noticed, but this is what I've seen a few times. When I've chosen my supertags, I copy the caption to paste in the description on the optional page. Sometimes I add a few facts to it I couldn't fit in in the caption. Then I fill out the other fields and choose the category. An image that was in the orange sometimes turns green when I've done the Optional.

 

Notice I didn't pad my tags trying to get in the green. I stayed on point. But I must've been close to green, and filling out the Optional field was rewarded. For whatever use the green is. I'm just doing these things because I never know what Alamy will implement with the Optional fields in the future. Or the green. Why not cover the bases now, rather than finding out 6 months from now I'm at a disadvantage to those who did fill them out.

I'm hating straightening out the mess of my legacy images enough without having to revisit everything I've done since. We had to do most of those fields with the old, I'm just continuing on. Actually, catagories are the only thing that wasn't there before in one form or another.

Betty

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The daft thing is that the categories we can choose within the new AIM are insufficient and don't match those the customer can select on the Alamy home page  :wacko:

 

I'm a bit surprised Alamy are sending out an email encouraging us to add categories, when they don't seem to have properly sorted out the categories in AIM yet (so they match the home page). I have been adding categories to my new images, but don't want to add them to my existing images because I don't want to have to go back and recategorise them when the available categories are revised.   

 

It feels like there's a disconnect inside Alamy..... A bit like the new "discoverability" scale that encourages contributors to keyword "spam" to achieve an "optimised" discoverability which will then damage their ranking and frustrate customers...

 

Now if "discoverability" was a scale that gave

 

1 point for a caption filled in

1 point for at least 5 tags

1 point for at least 1 supertag

1 point if the contributor has indicated 0 people are present, or if they indicated people are present and they have provided release(s)

1 point if the contributor has indicated no property is present, or if they indicated that property is present and have provided release(s)

 

That might actually be useful.

 

Has anyone ever seen a "category" indicated in their search report or on AoA? I haven't.

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Personally, I'd like some more categories. 'Environment' and 'Politics' are two obvious additions.

 

I do use categories in the hope that in doing so, I gain an advantage in the future. But all too often, none of the current categories really seem to fit.

 

Me too. "Environment" would definitely be a good one, even perhaps more topical ones like "Climate Change" (sorry, Donald, it really is happening) and "Diversity" would be helpful. There are lots more...

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Actually, I need to figure out a way to photograph these vents then have a category added to reflect them. ;)

 

Recently, scientists discovered at least three to six times more heat-spewing thermal vents along the seafloors where tectonic plates are pulling apart. In 2003, at least nine hydrothermal vents along the Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean were found. Arctic ice has been melting at a steady pace in recent years and may be due to the warmer than normal ocean waters. In April 2015, an underwater volcano known as the Axial Seamount, about 300 miles off the coast of Oregon, erupted for a month and added 88 billion gallons of molten rock to the ocean floor.

 

Since the 1950s, data suggests that ocean temperatures have been getting warmer. According to research at the University of Alabama in 2013, climate models indicate “a natural shift to stronger warm El Nino events in the Pacific Ocean might be responsible for a substantial portion of the global warming recorded during the past 50 years.”

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Actually, I need to figure out a way to photograph these vents then have a category added to reflect them. ;)

 

Recently, scientists discovered at least three to six times more heat-spewing thermal vents along the seafloors where tectonic plates are pulling apart. In 2003, at least nine hydrothermal vents along the Gakkel Ridge in the Arctic Ocean were found. Arctic ice has been melting at a steady pace in recent years and may be due to the warmer than normal ocean waters. In April 2015, an underwater volcano known as the Axial Seamount, about 300 miles off the coast of Oregon, erupted for a month and added 88 billion gallons of molten rock to the ocean floor.

 

Since the 1950s, data suggests that ocean temperatures have been getting warmer. According to research at the University of Alabama in 2013, climate models indicate “a natural shift to stronger warm El Nino events in the Pacific Ocean might be responsible for a substantial portion of the global warming recorded during the past 50 years.”

 

The thing is, Betty, that human activity is accelerating what is obviously a complex natural and man-made process. It's irresponsible and dangerous to pretend for bogus economic reasons that we can keep on burning fossil fuels like there's no tomorrow. Mr. Trump and friends actually know this. They also realize that the future (economic and otherwise) lies in the development of new, cleaner technologies, not digging for more coal that soon nobody is going to want, so I do have some hope.

 

Back to the category list. I agree, it's not sophisticated enough for today's photo-buyers. Additional categories are needed.

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I do choose categories for my new images, just in case I gain something in the future. 

 

I am already in that screen anyway filling in the location and other optional fields.

 

It's not because fields are optional that we shouldn't specify the number of persons, etc. What if a photo researcher filters on number of persons in the picture?

With so much fierce competition, I feel that being lazy is not an option. But that's just me.

 

Gen

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I do choose categories for my new images, just in case I gain something in the future.

 

I am already in that screen anyway filling in the location and other optional fields.

 

It's not because fields are optional that we shouldn't specify the number of persons, etc. What if a photo researcher filters on number of persons in the picture?

With so much fierce competition, I feel that being lazy is not an option. But that's just me.

 

Gen

+1. I'm with you, girl. I want every advantage offered. Edited to add...this came in my email today

 

 

 

 

Hi Betty

 

Increase your exposure by adding categories to your Alamy images.

 

Why bother? Adding a category to your images will help us understand the type of content you're uploading. It will also help us identify the gaps within our collection and then we'll let you know the gaps to fill.

 

And if we get enough images categorised we can create a useful filter for our customers to make it easier for them to find the images they're looking for.

 

How to apply categories:

 

Using Alamy Image Manager you can add up to two categories per image in the 'optional' tab.

If your images all fall in to one category (or one category per pseudonym) e.g. food then we can do it for you. Email our Image Management team and they'll apply the relevant category to your images.

 

 

Top tip: It's important that the categories you choose are relevant to your images just like captions and tags. This will help get your images to the right customers.

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I do choose categories for my new images, just in case I gain something in the future. 

 

I am already in that screen anyway filling in the location and other optional fields.

 

It's not because fields are optional that we shouldn't specify the number of persons, etc. What if a photo researcher filters on number of persons in the picture?

With so much fierce competition, I feel that being lazy is not an option. But that's just me.

 

Gen

+1

 

I'm filling these in on new images too. But am still waiting for the dust to settle before going back through my older images.

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I don't care for the categories at all. I just keyworded photos of the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial and picked

 

1) Archive or historical

2) Celebrations or life events.

 

I'm not too sure about my choices, but couldn't think what else would fit. Am I way off base here? Anyone else have a better idea?

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I don't care for the categories at all. I just keyworded photos of the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial and picked

 

1) Archive or historical

2) Celebrations or life events.

 

I'm not too sure about my choices, but couldn't think what else would fit. Am I way off base here? Anyone else have a better idea?

Celebrations or life events. I really don't know what this means. Is it granny's 80th birthday or a wedding?

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I don't care for the categories at all. I just keyworded photos of the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial and picked

1) Archive or historical

2) Celebrations or life events.

I'm not too sure about my choices, but couldn't think what else would fit. Am I way off base here? Anyone else have a better idea?

 

Celebrations or life events. I really don't know what this means. Is it granny's 80th birthday or a wedding?
Yes, birthdays, weddings, births, holiday picnics or holiday anything, wedding and baby showers. Anniversaries. Funerals. Laying a wreath on a grave. Opening a gift. Starting a new job...business first, life events second. Selling a home, moving out, packing up, and so on.

Betty

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Thanks everyone, I do fill out all the stuff and like I did in the old Alamy, also like Betty, I copy my caption data into additional, but I've not noticed anything go green yet.

 

That was my issue, some categories don't fit & seem need more than two & whilst I understand adding some may give you a gain, some may be in the wrong category depending on how the client searches, so that was why I was wondering if anyone knew if it made a difference or not, but I guess like most of it, who really knows?????

Chris

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Thanks everyone, I do fill out all the stuff and like I did in the old Alamy, also like Betty, I copy my caption data into additional, but I've not noticed anything go green yet.

 

That was my issue, some categories don't fit & seem need more than two & whilst I understand adding some may give you a gain, some may be in the wrong category depending on how the client searches, so that was why I was wondering if anyone knew if it made a difference or not, but I guess like most of it, who really knows?????

Chris

Agreed. It's easy with my animals and plants. It's easy for my storefronts/business type images. It's easy for those I listed above and food.

But there are enough images that I can't figure out what to assign. I think there are definitely some missing categories. Trouble is, where do you stop? What we have now can be a bit cumbersome to scroll through.

Betty

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Just noticed On the new Alamy AIM instructions PDF  http://www.alamy.com/myupload/help/AIM-InstructionManual.pdf

 

 

It does say "Primary and secondary categories 4. Assign categories to your images. Alamy may use these in the future to point users to specific collections"

 

They also used to tell us they were going to support the use of square brackets in our keywords, and then never actually did.....

 

I'd like to see the categories available in AIM improved and an agreement between the categories offered to customer on the homepage before I spend time categorising my older images. Otherwise, I fear I'll just end up having to recategorise them all again later when Alamy get it sorted. With the revenue per image at such low levels, doing a job more than once is hard to justify. 

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Just noticed On the new Alamy AIM instructions PDF  http://www.alamy.com/myupload/help/AIM-InstructionManual.pdf

 

 

It does say "Primary and secondary categories 4. Assign categories to your images. Alamy may use these in the future to point users to specific collections"

 

They also used to tell us they were going to support the use of square brackets in our keywords, and then never actually did.....

 

I'd like to see the categories available in AIM improved and an agreement between the categories offered to customer on the homepage before I spend time categorising my older images. Otherwise, I fear I'll just end up having to recategorise them all again later when Alamy get it sorted. With the revenue per image at such low levels, doing a job more than once is hard to justify. 

 

Yeah I think I'll be waiting until there is some proof it helps

Chris

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Just noticed On the new Alamy AIM instructions PDF  http://www.alamy.com/myupload/help/AIM-InstructionManual.pdf

 

 

It does say "Primary and secondary categories 4. Assign categories to your images. Alamy may use these in the future to point users to specific collections"

 

They also used to tell us they were going to support the use of square brackets in our keywords, and then never actually did.....

 

I'd like to see the categories available in AIM improved and an agreement between the categories offered to customer on the homepage before I spend time categorising my older images. Otherwise, I fear I'll just end up having to recategorise them all again later when Alamy get it sorted. With the revenue per image at such low levels, doing a job more than once is hard to justify. 

 

Yeah I think I'll be waiting until there is some proof it helps

Chris

 

 

Or maybe even does something unwanted.

 

About those brackets: Alamy has stated that all interpunction has been interpreted as separation of two tags.

I am not sure I have ever used the brackets. Maybe once to try them out, so I am unable to see if that's how it functions.

I did see some unwanted ones in the very beginning with apostrophes or hyphens producing some very weird tags.

Must confess I have not gone back to all of them. Seeing most of it reversed at some point, I merely hoped for the best.

 

wim

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