Flickr adding tags - is it just me?

I see their pink and blue balls favicon has changed into what looks like a turd this evening :LOL:
Edit - Sorry scrub that, looks like it was my connection being very slow due to uploading - balls are back ..
 
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Masked Bandit said:
Apologies if this is a stupid question, but does this have any bearing perhaps?
http://www.findmysoft.com/news/See-a-Beautiful-Flickr-Image-in-Chrome-s-New-Tab-Window/
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I've just installed this out of curiosity. You could have a point there because it is so random there must be some algorithm fetching these images.

After refreshing a few times I did notice that many of the images have been on Explore or have over 30,000 views. Does this mean that I wouldn't stand an earthly of being a Tab Image but if one of mine did would I then see a sudden surge of views from 120 to 120,000.

Also the tab page does not show the full image and there is no longer a search box in the centre of the page.
 
My new images are being automatically tagged. The one in the original post now has the magnificent total of 63 views. Never been on explore, never had 30,000 views. As with everything flickr I suggest that us mere mortals will never understand the reasoning.
 
1/2 of taint all!
 
Well well - I had n't noticed this but some of mine have the auto-tags on them recently - can't see it bothers me, mostly they seem to be doing a pretty good job of being accurate.
Does n't bother me at all if not - I use flickr as an off site backup and a way to share photos with friends and family - they won't care what the tags are....I do generally tag myself anyway - and have had some photographs found online through flickr which I've made a couple of quid out of....
 
Nod said:
I use Flickr as a hosting site to enable me to show them on here.
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Is the following image visible for everyone? It's set to beeing private, so no one except me can see it on flickr. And you may configure all your uploads being private at first.

17312852479_dd34c054bf_b.jpg
 
I was just scrolling through my own photostream and a picture of robbie fowler appeared, advertising property!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I may have to close my account if they're going to do that to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Thats because their algorithm detected pictures of your house and decided you need a better one.
 
well im at a loss, even uploaded new pics and see no tags, no reported changes.. nothing at all. just looks exactly same as flickr from 3-4 weeks ago.
 
ianp5a said:
Thats because their algorithm detected pictures of your house and decided you need a better one.
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Don't think so, there are only animals and birds on there .... maybe it think's I shouldn't be living in a zoo?!?!?! :D
Came up again, for Robbie Fowler Property Academy. Being a Man UTD fan and having a dislike of greedy property developers, I find the advert totally unacceptable!


I just realised I wasn't signed in, but hadn't noticed such ads before.
 
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dean messenger said:
well im at a loss, even uploaded new pics and see no tags, no reported changes.. nothing at all. just looks exactly same as flickr from 3-4 weeks ago.
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It seems, that the "friendly robot" occasionally can't figure out what's going on and therefore doesn't add any tags. The question is, if that's a sign of the pictures overall quality and if yes, is it high quality, if you've got no tags or is it low quality? ;)
 
I've just noticed it and I don't mind it. If there are any inappropriate ones, I'll just delete them. But it would be better if there was a opt out option. I bet it's just a cheap form of advertising the site.
 
I love meta data. Why anyone would not want meta data about their photographs is beyond me.

I wish lightroom would auto tag. That would save me a lot of effort.

Tagging is good, ffs it is the 21st century.
 
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Tags serve no purpose for me on Flickr. Regarding tagging in general, not specific to photographs, you mentioned 'effort', and that is one problem with manual tagging. Another problem is with Ai tagging where it gets things wrong. As we have seen on Flikr.
Tagging, as we see it today, is a poor way to add meta data. And not a shining example of something in the 21st century. Use of context will become much more useful than manual and Ai tagging. Which should manage meta data with zero effort. And bring many other benefits.
Anyway for us software and Internet users today, we have to make the best of what they give us.
I just wanted to point out that people have other reasons not to like certain current technologies other than a fear of technology or reluctance to change. I feel that we are held back by a lot of junk. I don't respect much of this 21st century technology, and feel its holding us back. I want change, if it means improvement.
 
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Incidentally, if Flikr has added tags that you like, maybe there will be a way to transfer them down to your local pictures on your PC.
 
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ianp5a said:
Tags serve no purpose for me on Flickr. Regarding tagging in general, not specific to photographs, you mentioned 'effort', and that is one problem with manual tagging. Another problem is with Ai tagging where it gets things wrong. As we have seen on Flikr.
Tagging, as we see it today, is a poor way to add meta data. And not a shining example of something in the 21st century. Use of context will become much more useful than manual and Ai tagging. Which should manage meta data with zero effort. And bring many other benefits.
Anyway for us software and Internet users today, we have to make the best of what they give us.
I just wanted to point out that people have other reasons not to like certain current technologies other than a fear of technology or reluctance to change. I feel that we are held back by a lot of junk. I don't respect much of this 21st century technology, and feel its holding us back. I want change, if it means improvement.
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There are a lot of words there, yet somehow none of them including a reason or even a description of a reason why you wouldn't want this, or what is actually wrong. Nor an attempt of explaining how 21st century activities should be done better.

Yup just a lot of words, yet not saying anything.
 
ianp5a said:
Incidentally, if Flikr has added tags that you like, maybe there will be a way to transfer them down to your local pictures on your PC.
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It does, although it doesn't work great and doesn't get entered in a tag hierachy. I prefer to apply the model that the source data doesn't get updated externally. That way you maintain data integrity where it counts.

I may look into it and see if I can build an add on tool to manage the flat structure and map it to a hierachy.
 
dejongj said:
There are a lot of words there, yet somehow none of them including a reason or even a description of a reason why you wouldn't want this, or what is actually wrong. Nor an attempt of explaining how 21st century activities should be done better.

Yup just a lot of words, yet not saying anything.
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All words carefully chosen. First I responded to your comment that tagging is good, and that it does not help me at all on Flikr. So why should I want it?
Secondly you appeared to me with your ffs comment to believe tagging is some great thing that we should all embrace. Whereas I have a different view. And that you should expect much better things to come with, for example, context. I'm reluctant to go into detail as it's hard for me to get my head around it anyway, and I feel the only way to explain it to some people is by demonstrating it. I didn't mean to sound secretive. And sorry it was so long.
 
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THESE are a few that have been completely mis-tagged. The tiger is tagged as a dog, the jaguar as an insect, the barn owl as food, the splashing wave as snow (the B&W tag is almost understandable, although it is a colour shot), the star trail as a plant and the bike tank emblem as electronics. Out of 322 photos I have on there, I would guess at over 20 being completely mistagged with several others being almost understandably so. If I wanted or needed them to be tagged, I would want them correctly tagged!
 
Nod said:
If I wanted or needed them to be tagged, I would want them correctly tagged!
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Exactly.
Woopdie-do for those who have no problem with it, but an opt out should be provided.
If I want my images tagging, I'll do it...not some Flickr retard.
 
Tags are overrated anyway. They may help in getting you to Explore, but they don't really make any differences to views.

I did a little experiment a while back. A few days uploading images that would normally get a very predictable number of views/favourites. For a couple of days I added them to groups as normal, but gave no tags. Then I did the reverse - had all the tags, but didn't enter it into any groups. Results (for me, at least) showed that tagging/no tagging had no impact on the number of views I had, but being in groups or not had a big impact on the number of views/favourites.
 
GlennW said:
Tags are overrated anyway. They may help in getting you to Explore, but they don't really make any differences to views.

I did a little experiment a while back. A few days uploading images that would normally get a very predictable number of views/favourites. For a couple of days I added them to groups as normal, but gave no tags. Then I did the reverse - had all the tags, but didn't enter it into any groups. Results (for me, at least) showed that tagging/no tagging had no impact on the number of views I had, but being in groups or not had a big impact on the number of views/favourites.
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It depends what folk are searching for though & if your tag is actually interesting to whoever is searching.

My images may get a couple of hundred views on average, but to prove a point (I've mentioned this before) I tagged one as `Busy threesome` ;) .........nearly 3 thousand views! (mainly disappointed I presume :LOL: )

So tagging can make a huge difference, if that's what you want.
 
When was the last time Flickr actually made a change that improved the service I'm certainly scratching my head!
 
dejongj said:
When it gave away for free what you previously had to pay for?
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While at the same time removing some paid for features from new subscriptions (ie stats) I'm never quite sure what drives flickr for example everytime I think they have finally got the mobile app right they do something crazy like the new camera roll which is a horrible way to view your own photostream or the fact it took them about two years to make an ipad version of the app (ie resize the screen) leaving us with a choice of dodgy third party ones or the website which was hardly mobile optimised!

Don't get me wrong I think the service they provide is great especially for the price but it could be so much better if they had a clear strategy and actually listened to the community!
 
Just had a flick through my stream and most of the tags they have added seem pretty accurate which isn't bad for an algorithm, like many I'm not sure of the value of adding the tag outdoor to photos but it's hardly the end of the world. I've got a couple of funnies though:


Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro by Alex Booth, on Flickr

Tagged with 'people' which some might disagree with for an image often dubbed a fictional character!


Solar Eclipse Sheffield by Alex Booth, on Flickr

'Depth of field' Not a tag I really understand but in this case the depth of field is pretty massive!


Iguazu Falls by Alex Booth, on Flickr

Think this one confused the system 'ocean' 'wave' 'shore' 'coast' and 'beach' are probably not relevant in the middle of a South American jungle!
 
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I just had to delete the "insect" tag Flickr decided to add to my image of a spider :rolleyes:
 
Nitpicker! :D
 
TimmyG said:
I just had to delete the "insect" tag Flickr decided to add to my image of a spider :rolleyes:
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Look at the image 1:1 I'm sure I saw a leg of an insect sticking out of the spiders mouth. :p
 
I presume that if you correct any wrong tags, the algorithm learns from that. And over time it will become more accurate.
 
dejongj said:
Look at the image 1:1 I'm sure I saw a leg of an insect sticking out of the spiders mouth. :p
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Maybe the algorithm has an X-Ray mode and it can see what's in the digestive tract. Clever!

ianp5a said:
I presume that if you correct any wrong tags, the algorithm learns from that. And over time it will become more accurate.
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I hope so. Or I'm going to have to spend a lot of time managing these tags if I want my images to be taxonomically correct!
 
Just gets your keywords right before you upload and you won't have to be concerned about things like that.

I just add "Kelly Brook" "Topless" to all of mine. Works a treat for the old view count.
 
Masked Bandit said:
Simples! Just delete the light grey tags.
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I've just noticed them on my photos on Flickr.

I have nearly 4,000 images uploaded to the service since 2006 and I've carefully selected the tags that I add to all my photos in Lightroom.

Now I find that on Flickr
  • Numerous images of the River Thames are tagged with 'sea'.
  • Several images without a border have been tagged with 'photo border'.
  • A photo of the Royal Courts of Justice was tagged 'train track'.
  • A photo of a building that is not a gatehouse has been tagged 'gatehouse'
  • East Croydon station and Tottenham Court Road have been tagged with 'water' and 'waterfront'
  • An exterior shot of a restaurant has been tagged 'florist' and 'garden'
  • An image of the Kingsway subway has been mysteriously tagged 'sport' (apparently this also happened to photos of the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps)
  • Umpteen inappropriate 'skyscraper' and 'skyline' tags, theatres labeled as 'shop', buses and buildings tagged 'train', bicycles labeled 'motorcycle', etc.

This is just a selection from the first few tens of photos that I've looked at. Now I have to go back through all 3,700 of them, one at a time, to check that Flickr's bot has got it right.

So, no, it is not a 'simple' exercise to delete them. It's going to take a lot of my time to sort out the mess that Flickr have created with something that is a Beta feature.
 
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Musicman said:
I've just noticed them on my photos on Flickr.

I have nearly 4,000 images uploaded to the service since 2006 and I've carefully selected the tags that I add to all my photos in Lightroom.

Now I find that on Flickr
  • Numerous images of the River Thames are tagged with 'sea'.
  • Several images without a border have been tagged with 'photo border'.
  • A photo of the Royal Courts of Justice was tagged 'train track'.
  • A photo of a building that is not a gatehouse has been tagged 'gatehouse'
  • East Croydon station and Tottenham Court Road have been tagged with 'water' and 'waterfront'
  • An exterior shot of a restaurant has been tagged 'florist' and 'garden'
  • An image of the Kingsway subway has been mysteriously tagged 'sport' (apparently this also happened to photos of the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps)
  • Umpteen inappropriate 'skyscraper' and 'skyline' tags, theatres labeled as 'shop', buses and buildings tagged 'train', bicycles labeled 'motorcycle', etc.

This is just a selection from the first few tens of photos that I've looked at. Now I have to go back through all 3,700 of them, one at a time, to check that Flickr's bot has got it right.

So, no, it is not a 'simple' exercise to delete them. It's going to take a lot of my time to sort out the mess that Flickr have created with something that is a Beta feature.
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Does it even need sorted though? Does it make any difference to you if they have incorrect tags added?
 
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