There has been lately some discussion going on regarding User Interaction in Panoramio, and it is for this reason I thought it was a good moment to clarify the team’s position in this matter. In Panoramio we believe in open communication, and this is the reason we believe in our current system of comments, a system that allows each member of the Panoramio community to comment in any photo within Panoramio.
The way users interact with each other and the way users use features and functionalities is a very fascinating world. Lately Panoramio users have converted the Like and Starring functionalities of Panoramio together with contest votes into a kind of badging/reward system. Some users are very excited about this while others are completely annoyed and here is where the problem comes: perception. While some users perceive this as a fun way to reward the quality of other users photos, there are some users who consider this way of interaction as spam.
There has been many suggestions you all have given us in order to improve and minimize the negative effects of this. Some of them were in the line of reducing functionality within Panoramio ( we will not go this way ) and some of them were nice suggestions that we will consider to include in Panoramio. Meanwhile we keep working to make Panoramio better I would just repeat what it is already written in our help content:
Not everyone perceive comments or User interaction in the same way.
1. If you receive a comment and you are unhappy with it delete the comment from your photo and notify that user by sending a Private Message (always with respect. I am sure that user did not bother you intentionally)
2. If the same user ignores your message and keeps commenting in your messages in the same way, please send a message to spam@panoramio.com explaining the situation and we will try to find a solution
I hope we can find together a balance with the different perceptions on how Panoramio comments should work so we can all keep enjoying this fantastic tool. This fantastic community is what it built the fantastic product we have today and I hope this will continue being this way for many more year.
P.S.: Please leave a comment with your thoughts, LIKE, UNLIKE, YS, +1, -3 or whatever you want... I will be more than happy to hear that ;)
Translated into Spanish.
ReplyDeleteHola Gerard, estoy totalmente de acuerdo con tu comentario y por supuesto en contra de eliminar funcionalidades. Las críticas que yo tengo hecho van encaminadas al sistema que se utiliza en el concurso.
ReplyDeleteMi propuesta para dicho concurso, con algunas matizaciones sería:
- Una primera fase en la que un jurado, que podría estar compuesto por usuarios voluntarios (a determinar el número), haga una primera selección (por ejemplo, 50 fotografías por categoría).
- Las fotografías seleccionadas podrán verse y votarse en una página independiente, no en las galerías de los usuarios participantes. Estas fotografías no tendrán enlaces a las páginas de sus propietarios y viceversa, a fin de evitar suspicacias.
Saludos.
Google traslator...
Hi Gerard, I totally agree with your comment and of course contrary to remove functionality. The criticism that I have made are directed to the system used in the contest.
My proposal for the competition, with some qualifications would be:
- A first phase in which a jury could be comprised of volunteer users (to determine the number), make a first selection (eg 50 pictures per category).
- Photographs can be selected and voted on a separate page, not the users participating galleries. These photographs will have links to the pages of their owners and vice versa, to avoid suspicion.
Greetings.
The question of spam on Panoramio has been around a long time. This is exactly the problem; there's not much we can do about what we see as spam without restricting all users' freedom to post comments, yellow stars and likes, and to vote in the contest.
ReplyDeleteExcept for a very few shameless "contest spammers" who spread messages fishing for votes, I really don't think most people who use the features in this way intend to spam or offend. Gerard has hit the nail on the head for what we as users should do: if another user's style of commenting annoys us, we ought to quietly remove the comment and send a polite note explaining why. If enough people do this, hopefully the spamming users will have an incentive to write more thoughtful comments.
That's my hope anyway!
Jessica G.
YS!! :)
ReplyDeleteHow many people follow the herd, vs how many read the rules!!!
ReplyDeletePanoramio could employ a blocker system as per Messenger apps.
I enjoy sincere mutual visits, mutual likes and comments from fellow members. However, they must all be based on geographic interests and/or photographic excellence. Any spamming for the purposes of self promotion and contest / popularity manipulation should be strictly punished if proven. I also enjoy the contest and participate in it every month. As a result of recent forum discussions regarding such matters, I decided to put my contest photos under the tag CONTEST (NO SPAMMING). It seems to be working quite well based on the first couple of days of the new month. Having said that I still hope the team can eventually come up with a better contest.
ReplyDeleteDoes it seem to anyone else that commenting on a photo and liking a photo are somewhat redundant? If a photo inspires me to leave a comment, generally I really like it...
ReplyDeleteGerard,
ReplyDeleteI'd include a feature similar to that of flickr: when you delete an unwanted [spam] comment, you are prompted with the possibility to prevent this user from commenting on your pics in the future:
"Are you sure you want to delete this comment? [yes] [cancel]
[tick box] Block this user from commenting on your stuff in the future."
Maybe Panoramio could determine a number of received blocks, after which the user may receive a warning, and if he/she continues spamming will have his/her account deleted.
Anyway, there isn't so much spam as it used to be in the heydays of contest spamming and I'm glad that some serious and interesting conversations using the comment feature have resumed since.
regards, zerega
"Spam is a high quality meat product." (James May)
@David: A tweak on contest voting is on the works
ReplyDelete@Zerega: We thought about "blocking allowance" in comments and we decided not to implement it as of yet as we prefer to have open communications. This said it is something we considered and that we may still consider.
Mr.Gerard,
ReplyDeleteIt seems some of the community members here in Panoramio are not very happy with the Monthly Contest and its functioning and they make a big noise on the matter here and in the Forum also. They forget that here a good majority of the members are not professional photographers or highly trained in photography. A vast majority of them are amateurs who take Photographs in their spare time or while holidaying and became members of this forum as a hobby and to show their available skills to other members and get some satisfaction out of the same. In that they will also only be too happy to read if somebody make a small valuable comment under their photo which may help improve their skill in due course.
The main opposition for the contest is the way the Monthly photo Contest photos are judged and many a time photos which get prizes are not of highest standards on its technical qualities.
Here what we forget is that the majority of the photos are taken by amateurs and they themselves are the judges as it should be in a most democratic way. As the photos are selected in the most democratic way as is done here we may not always get the best of the photos as winners.
We know how many of the Democratic Countries in the world are ruled by the best administrative talents in the country. May be NONE. There those who get the maximum votes will win and they get away with the prize. It is one of the inherent character of a democratic set up.
So are the Contest Photos here. Most of the Photos are taken by amateurs and they judge them and rightly so with their limited ability in a most democratic way and the winners are announced. And for a Forum like this that is the best way to encourage members.
Those professionals and highly technical photographers who are members of the community can also participate in the various Photographic Contests conducted by various Professional organizations in the world which will be judged by the highest Photographic talents in the world.That doesn't mean that their photos should not be included here.
Everywhere for any game some rules are specified and it should be conducted as per the rules of the Game. Here the winners are selected by a democratic voting system and it works reasonably well also.
And the members communicate each other through their comments under the members’ uploaded photos which is the most practical way available and many of us I can say enjoy them also. And the fact is that only when you visit others it will encourage them to visit your photos. And after all, what is the harm in that. Hence in my opinion unless it has come to a spamming level (for which you have given some clarifications on what is Spam) the visits to others photos and comments on others’ photos should not be curtailed in anyway. Unless it has become a nuisance nothing should be considered as spam and what is spam -you have already defined.
Regarding Likes YS etc. what is the harm if members give their remarks as they like?
Because you have invited comments from community members I am writing this and it is only my opinion and it may only be taken like that.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteWhy do we need ..Like.. function? When I write the comment it is because I like it.
I don`t think tha many users will write: this is a bad picture.
About the comments I think the most importend for users is to get the clicks and clicks and clicks.
Example: If there are 100 comments on a pictures I think at least there are 30% or more because users are looking again if the other user was saying ..thank you..
Many comments are also about privat conversation and it`s like playing with a tennisball. Right, left, left right.
100 comments, 101:comment goes to the other hundred users. And so on. Like a snowballsytem.
I like Pano very much because I can show a little of my world on the m a p s.
Not for conversations like in a coffeeshop.
Thanks to Pano-Team for great jobb.
Kind regards from Sweden
¤ ¤ R©my ¤ ¤
Ante todo dejar claro que en mi primera intervención comenté que estoy en contra de cualquier eliminación de funcionalidades.
ReplyDeletePanoramio hace tiempo que dejó de ser solamente un lugar donde ver el mundo a través de fotografías para convertirse en una auténtica red social y yo me alegro de ello. Somos muchos y muy diferentes y no podemos ajustarlo a nuestros gustos personales; a unos nos gustará hablar de técnica fotográfica, a otros nos interesarán los temas sociales; todos debemos tener nuestro espacio, y para eso elegimos nuestros «favoritos». Hasta aquí, todo me gusta en Panoramio.
Mis críticas hacen referencia al concurso. Entiendo que se pretende premiar a las mejores fotografías o, en todo caso, a las más interesantes, al margen de que hayan sido realizadas por un profesional o un aficcionado. Lo que no comparto es que se premie al «fotógrafo» por ser más o menos popular; para eso se podría crear una nueva categoría.
Como todos vosotros, esto es una opinión particular. Saludos.
Google traslator...
First of all make clear that in my first speech I said that I oppose any removal of functionality.
Panoramio long ago ceased being just a place to see the world through photography to become a real social network and I am glad of it. We are many and very different and we can not match our personal tastes, we enjoy talking about photographic technique, other social issues we are interested, all we need our space, and we choose our "favorites. " So far, everything I like in Panoramio.
My criticisms refer to the contest. I understand that is to reward the best pictures and, in any case, the most interesting, apart from that have been made by a professional or an amateur. We do not share is that they reward the "photographer" to be more or less popular for that you could create a new category.
As all of you, this is a personal opinion. Greetings.
I will quote two different comments as paradigmatic examples:
ReplyDelete1.
Is this your son? What a magical moment! You just caught him pointing out to something he discovered, something that attracted his imagination at an age when everything is new, everything is to be discovered and conquered. The fabulous time of childhood, full of dreams and adventures. It is a very nice picture, children and animals look best photographed at their own level.
Thank you for sharing this lovely portrait. On Panoramio we have a great place to share even though this kind of photos are not suitable for Google Earth.
Best regards!!
This comment seems to be addressed to a particular photo and it would be ridiculous to copy and paste it to any photo. It is not a comment made by a professional photographer with technical jargon too difficult to grasp.
2. "VOTED LIKE" Greetings, user xxxxx
This is found on several photos. Very simple: copy & paste.
Mind you: the second is done by someone whose mother tongue is English and you can find identical comments in every language.
Which of the two comments sound sincere, heartfelt?
Hi All
ReplyDeleteInstead of counting the number of Like, Star, 1 whatever, what about a mark/grade (0 to 10). I believe a lot of spammers will put 10 on the spammed photos but I think some of them will also put 0. So the average will reflect the quality and not only a number of votes (friends...)
I think some winners don't deserve...
Hi peolpe !
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, please excuze me for my poor english.
I was contested some houres ago becouse I just make some similar comments under the liked photos. And IM GLAD becouse I was contested.
I am one of thoose who really like to make and watch pictures. I am agree with Draken. Let me quote Jessica G's words :
_"Except for a very few shameless “contest spammers” who spread messages fishing for votes, I really don’t think most people who use the features in this way intend to spam or offend."_
I used to see that a lot of "contest spammers" are really do that. But we have other's who are just trying to "communicate" without writing dow for each picture that he like it....or vote it so they use the CopyPaste function ....well I done it myself. But after Draken gives me some kicks over my head I understant that this is not correct.
If WE are trying to be onest with each others in contests than I say we have to enter some new rules !
Ok. We have the YS, Like and Vote buttons.
If we want to stop contest spammers than we have to apply one HARD rule like that :
" In comment's is not allowed to use this words : Liked, Voted, YS"
I think it is important to be introduced some rules like these. They are simple and will reduce a lot the activity of the Spammers.
Light be with you !
Szente from Transylvania, Romania
A different approach could involve two assessment systems the user could choose which one to use.
ReplyDelete1. Similar to existing system, users comment on individual picture pages.
Popularity of pictures and contest influence by spam.
2. Users comment only on a thumbnail page- difficult to reference picture for spamming etc but unfortunately difficult to talk constructively about a specific picture
Popularity influenced by spam to a much lessor degree
Depending on which system in use, the popularity would be different and contest winer [sic] different.
If the user searched for a place the results would be different depending on what system the user want to see!
Users would need to be apprised of the differences and either choose one system as a profile option or switch between the two at any time using a results toggle.
Possibly the user could interact (comment) in either system and could switch back and forth at whim to observe the differences.
It's quite simple to me - i wouldn't leave a comment with **like** if i would be able to just click 'like it' and return later to liked photos or see users who liked given photo.
ReplyDeleteI just would like to see other photos liked by people who seems to have likes similar to mine, because there's a chance to find more photos i'll like.
Yeah, i know favorite photos works like this, but i see a huge difference between 'it's my favorite' and 'i like it' and in my opinion comments are used to tracking users 'likes' because it's missing functionality.
Adding likes tracking functionality would turn comments back to way it should be used in my opinion(i mean discussion on photo's contents so we would be also able to learn something about places of our interests)
Through both the Comments and the Forum, I have made many on-line friends in Panoramio and I am grateful for that. Recently I toured through my friends' latest photos leaving comments, but to my dismay I noticed a contest spammer was leaving cut and paste messages on the same photos, so, not wishing to attract spammers to my friends' galleries, I have had to curtail my comments. The proliferation of these insincere spams is unfortunately spoiling the Panoramio experience for many people.
ReplyDeleteI would hope that the team have some ideas to stop these selfish people. If it happens I may even enter my own photos, but currently I perceive it to be a waste of time because I don't have the time or inclination to market my entries to the community.
About this problem, we must understand that there are people, "AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHERS", (as Unnippillai said) from many countries, who don't know english very well, and so always they use the same words. And they don't know very well the terms of spamming and fishing, or they cannot use the '"translation tool". By the way "Google translation" make a lot of mistakes between languages not very "common". ( I tried to find in english the word "receiver" and it translated from greek to english "recipient")
ReplyDeleteAnother problem is, that if you write something, that you beleive is funny, it is not very sure that the other side can understand it, and a lot of misunderstandings may occur. So it's more easy to have stereotypes phrases and use them.
From the other side, there are a lot of similar photos into the same gallery of a member, that makes the sender to repeat the same message.
Two days before, I received about 20 similar messages on my photos from the same person - and I respond with "thanks" to all without complain about it. And today I visited one gallery, which in his first page had the same type of photos (buildings and perspective), a realy good gallery. I sent him, in 4-5 of his photos, the same message. After that he complained to me for spamming and fishing, NOT by sending a message in a photo of my gallery, but in his OWN photo!!! I saw it accidentally and I was responding to him, that I had no intention to do that.
Panoramio, I think, offers the possibility not to accept e-mails in our Outlook, if we don't like to respond in any message. It is like TV. If we don't like a programm, we can close it.
The other solution should be: NO CONTESTS.
It depends to every user to manage the way he likes to use every site, generally. Otherwise, Internet should be a closed world and not a tool for learning about things, news, countries, people, customs, landscapes, techniques of photography and other.
Sincerely yours.
If Panoramio, were to adopt a dual system as outlined above maybe the default search would yield the data set associated with the thumbnails comments, not the spammed comments.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, a no comment system in addition to the present one.....the no comment system the default for Google Maps and Panoramio.
But easiest way to despam the contest is allow only voting from randomly gen contest page...no links allowed.
Many ways to deal with this problem.
I think people enjoy spamming in this way...let them do it, its a community, but they neednt control the direction of the default popularity or contest!
Maybe if people realized that spamming would be ineffective in achieving their goal to manipulate the default popularities they wouldn't do it, or at least to a lesser degree!
It appears that Google Maps and Panoramio already use different popularity parameters. Zooming to same level seems to display different sets of photos!
ReplyDeleteMy pictures in Panoramio are seldom seen, this is partly the result of my poor pictures but also that pictures from rural Thailand et al, are very unlikely to get any hits....why would someone be looking there!
ReplyDeleteThis is where, community discussions of any type, SPAM, participation in the forum etc can play a significant factor in getting someone to take note.
Voting from a slideshow would also be beneficial so pictures not having bold motifs and bright colors maybe seen. These pictures would never even be viewed if the user had so pre-select from a small thumbnail. There are too many choices to pay attention to insignificant looking thumbnails.
thank you for consideration
regards Googolar
I saw your avatar picture, in optician shop, you sure you own that pic! ;-)
ReplyDeleteOne more comment (finally) ;-)
ReplyDeleteWhen someone makes a comment on one of my pictures, and if I feel its genuine I want to reciprocate. I go to that users portfolio and take a look,
if I like what I see no problem. Comment easy
if I'm not impressed I try to find something I like and say something positive.
if cant find something I like I want to encourage, but have trouble saying something I dont really feel, this is where my comment may appear as spam. Something like "Nice pic" or comment on location or topic.
There are so many good picture here, one's taste is skewed toward the high side, and less like to appreciate typical photo's, become a photo snob that subsequently effect your judgment and comments!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI have already written my opinion about likes-lies-contest-spams and all these...in the forum.
ReplyDeleteI will try to express it one more time.... "Favorite=yellow star" is good to be clear and to see who has put a star on our photos...
"Like" in my language is a common word for everything...so it is like to say good morning every day...When we go to write a comment in a photo it is obvious that we like the photo...but it is different to see it like a photo so special to push the button that had a meaning before..."Best of" it was a clear button that you might pushed it only if you liked a lot one photograph...The meaning has changed now
by the word "Like"...
Proposal ...when we push the button of "Vote" and we may see that is pushed by a number like the "like" shows us now ...then may something would change...
Another thought is for us to be able to push only one button per time...so to be obliged to visit again one photo if we want to put "Best of" (I hate the word "like" as it is so common)...
And one more...what about a choice from the moderators for the winners?...to see the best photographs and then to decide if a photo has been promoted by spams or not and decide to give the prize in a photo that has a real value to
win?
Kind regards to all
Sylvietsak