Board index PBase Feature Requests Stop people rorting the gallaries page to distort popularity

Feature Requests

Stop people rorting the gallaries page to distort popularity

Request changes or modifications.
jbviajero
 
Posts: 14

Stop people rorting the gallaries page to distort popularity

Post Mon Aug 11, 2003 5:17 pm


Hi,

The galleries page - http://www.pbase.com/galleries - is updated to show who has added a new gallery. However, the design of this page is such that a "new" gallery is ALSO shown when somebody adds one or more photos to an existing gallery. This fact is being exploited by some to generate a lot of visiting traffic to their own pages by deleting and then reposting a photo out of each of their galleries EACH DAY. By doing this, their galleries are often displayed on the galleries page, and curious people are thus clicking on the photos and hence just contributing to the poularity spiral (by subsequently voting for a gallery).

In all honesty, my own photos are not of the highest quality so it would make no difference to me if people are using loopholes to leverage their popularity all not - people won't be voting for my galleries. However I do enjoy looking at other peoples photos and I therefore feel it is quite unfair for one person to push themselves forward at the expense of another. I'd rather be looking at new & fresh work rather than seeing the galleries page clogged up with a few people with nothing better to do than churn their photos.

I know people will simply exploit alternative loopholes if one is blocked off, but I still feel it is better to have fewer loopholes, not more.

Cheers,

JB

jchambers
 
Posts: 357


Post Thu Aug 14, 2003 6:43 am


But what can you do?

I mean, I usually process my photo's manually from RAW. This takes quite a lot of time, so at the end of each session, I may only have a handful to add to the gallery - then continue a few hours later, or the next day.

The only time I ever get hits, is when I update a gallery. I suppose my pictures arn't that great (as I never made it into the popular galleries) but I wouldn't want my only chance at getting hits taken away just to stop a few people from exploiting the system.

Of cause, it's pretty sad if someone is removing pictures and adding them just to get hits, but surely this must be only a few people?

I'm off to London in two days, and when I get back, I'm gonna completely revamp my photo's. Re-process them and save them at the standard large size to save both HD space, bandwidth and the aweful blurring of my pictures when viewed outside of "Original". This will take me months, and in this case, it may appear that I am removing pictures, only to replace them again.

But I assure you, that in this case, it is for improving my gallery, not to muster more hits.

areid
 
Posts: 55


Post Mon Aug 18, 2003 4:03 pm


I post a link to many of my photos on another site where I have the shots critiqued. Many times I'll tinker with my photos to make them look better after getting advice on photoshop techniques, etc. Yes, I'll re-upload the same picture, but it's because I've done work on it.

Should I be penalized for that?

jjacquie11
 
Posts: 21


Post Mon Aug 18, 2003 11:24 pm


:) You don’t get into the popular galleries just because someone clicks on one of your pictures. You get in the popular galleries when someone actually places a “vote” for your gallery. You vote for a gallery by clicking on the link called “vote for this gallery”. Who ever gets the most votes this way makes it to the popular galleries.

I do think that some people remove and replace pictures so more people will see their gallery. If they have a good gallery people will vote for it. But if they don’t have a good gallery, it doesn’t matter how many times they do this, no one will vote for it, and it won’t make it to the popular galleries.

When ever I go to the recent galleries I always vote for the ones I like. I don’t know if very many people do this. If you see a gallery you like vote for it. Even if there are just a few pictures you like. That way they can be shared with everyone. And the new galleries you vote for will replace the old ones already in the popular galleries.

minoltaman
 
Posts: 2089


Post Tue Aug 19, 2003 12:46 am


I'm pretty sure Slug has caught someone doing this already and actually 'punished' them. Could be wrong though. I think the recent list works pretty good as it is. I also upload photos as I manipulate them and may do many uploads of NEW images everyday. I was lucky enough to make it to the popular galleries once. Don't matter cuz it was last week and now it's gone with Slug's currupt database. :cry: If it comes back I'm still screwed cuz those images ain't been gettin any hits the last few days cuz 37 images from that gallery are MIA. Just cryin little bit, pardon me.

monoprint
 
Posts: 14


Post Sat Aug 23, 2003 3:17 pm


I don't particularly care about hits, I have a Pbase account mainly so I can post images here and show them other places, though it's always nice to get comments from people here.

But the popular thing does raise an interesting question for me: Almost every time I come to the main page, I see one or another of a relatively small selection of galleries. I've looked at the ones that interest me and some are really good, but I'm getting bored with seeing the same ones over and over.

If the galleries that are displayed on the first page are the result of voting or some other means of selection, wouldn't it be possible to occcasionally reset the counters so that a fresh bunch would be displayed?

Bill

camera0bug
 
Posts: 1221
Location: San Diego

You Mean.....

Post Sat Sep 27, 2003 2:24 am


...people are actually trying <b>to cheat???
what's this world coming to.....? :evil:

andesheng
 
Posts: 43


Post Sat Sep 27, 2003 3:47 pm


I am another user who is “guilty” of continually re-working my photos, and posting new versions of images on pbase, and then keeping the one that looks better. For example, a couple of months ago I ran across a suggestion that the ideal color space to use on the Web was sRGB – and none of my photos were in that format – most in Adobe RGB. So I have been gradually updating existing images to conform to the sRGB color space. The difference being that sRGB on a monitor looks a bit brighter, and is a wider color space.

However, it is also true that if I post photos, they show up in the Recent Galleries list, and many more people take a look at them than if I weren’t posting on a regular basis. I would like to get people to look at my photos, beyond my own circle of family and friends. It seems to me that is a legitimate point of the pbase site.

There are other methods whereby Slug could create new “portals” into the galleries. For example, the World Database is a great new portal for finding images of interest. However, as a photographer from the US, I am only one of thousands listed. Here are my other ideas for new “portals” into galleries:

1. expand the World Database to include US state

2. create a feature that I call “Best of Pbase.” Basically this would permit registered users to create favorite photo pages. We all know that the Popular Galleries are not necessarily representative of the best quality of galleries on pBase. I would like a place to showcase what I think are my best photos. One way to make this work would be to create categories for the Best of Pbase listing – landscapes, people, kids, glamour (yep, this would get the most hits), black & white, abstractions, etc., etc. I would also suggest that for each 100MB of space paid for that you’d get one page. So if I was paying for 300 MB of space, I’d have three pages available to me. A suggestion would be to limit the number of images per page, perhaps to a dozen.

3. create a travelogue option. If you look at Slug’s Kilimanjaro gallery, he makes a reference to “writing more of a description of the climb itself after I finish implementing a better travelogue/story mode for pbase.” So at least at one time that was on the to-do list, and I think it would be an interesting feature addition.

Each of these, ultimately, is designed to accomplish one thing – to make it easier for people who visit the pbase site to find photos that interest them. I think many of us want to share our work with others, but with such a volume of users and photos on the site, it is helpful to have alternative ways of finding interesting photos.

gpwed
 
Posts: 21


Post Mon Sep 29, 2003 12:25 pm


What would be the benefit to someone if their gallery gets "hits"?

thresholdprod
 
Posts: 575


Post Mon Sep 29, 2003 2:26 pm


Ego boost. That's about it. No one gets to see your hit counts except the overall on the profile page.

ottosphotos
 
Posts: 13


Post Wed Oct 01, 2003 11:02 pm


as much fun as it is to see my hit count go up, i'd rather have comments and suggestions to help me improve my photography.

a positive comment, now that's an ego boost for me 8)

thresholdprod wrote:Ego boost. That's about it. No one gets to see your hit counts except the overall on the profile page.


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