What the hell is this?! Part 2

[amul]

Guys,

 

<P>Give it up. Photo Net has stated it's policy. It has stated it's plans for the future. It is not ASKING for volunteers. It is not suggesting that the only thing preventing them from implementing a filter is lack of manpower.

 

<P>And I quote (please note that I do not, in any way speak for the organization. I've only highlighted the passages I feel Mark G is willfully ignoring):

<blockquote><I><U>I don't want to be sued</U> because somebody claims we promised to filter out nudes and didn't.

 

<P>In addition, <U>it already takes a lot of time and trouble to police the Galleries</U> to remove offensive images and ratings abuse. <U>We don't need yet another grounds for people to come running to the moderators</U> to complain about other people's behaviour on the site, and another rule that we have to enforce.

 

<P>The current situation is that photo.net is a site where people will regularly see photos involving nudity. Even though there is a policy prohibiting them, and a practice of removing them when they are observed or reported, photo.net is also a site where there is a chance of seeing pornographic images and other images that are offensive. The only way to prevent that is for us to review and approve every image before it is displayed. </I><U>That isn't how the site operates, and we aren't planning on operating that way.</U>

 

<P><I>People who cannot abide images of nudes are not compelled to visit this site.</I></blockquote>

 

<P>The people worth arguing this point to have <b>stopped listening</B>. They have heard your arguments, and ours, and <B>neither</B> viewpoint has changed their intentions. They already had plans to implement a system which would address your concerns. They did not need to sit and hold our hands and walk us through their choices, but they took the time to do so, anyway. They did not ask for your opinions, they certainly didn't ask for mine, and as we have just seen, <b>they didn't need to</B> because they've already come up with a solution that satisfies both sides.

 

<P>This has reached levels of absurdity I cannot fathom in people intelligent enough to spell. If you want to volunteer your time to photo net, then you shouldn't be so petty as to demand what that time will be spent on. It is not your decision to choose priorities, because no one chose you to pick those priorities. That's Brian Mottershead's job. And whatever his qualifications to run this place are, it certainly involves the ability to determine what is important for the growth and development of Photo Net.

[james_oneill]

2 Observations on Marc's rather silly suggestion. (a) If it happens, put me down to do 2 hours per day for 90 days, that's more than 10% of the work load. But you have to accept MY definition of "family freindly". If you have a panel of 30 or 50 people rating, then you would get 30 or 50 opinions.

(b) Vincent can't classify the stuff he has a problem with. So before he can get to work classifying someone needs to classify it all. But then Marc asking for people to look at all the images that ofend them so they can avoid being ofended.

[mg]

Oh my...! How I wish you guys would learn a bit of logic... Your objections are all invalid, but it apparently doesn't stop anyone from being insulting.

<p>

Let me just clarify 1 thing, and I won't even bother answering the rest anymore. I have "willfully ignored" nothing of what was inderlined above, and certainly I wouldn't tell Brian what to do. This is nevertheless a FEEDBACK forum, meant to make suggestions. That's what I did.

<p>

James, your refutation of my suggestion doesn't work for the following reasons:

<p>

1) Vincent is Vincent and if he doesn't want to classify images that he wishes to ignore himself, that's his buiseness. Doesn't mean all photonetters would make the same objection. For example, I personally find NOTHING offensive to my own eyes - although there are things I do not "like" to see. Another example: the person who posted this thread has volonteered, because HE is prepared to do it so that HIS DAUGHTER doesn't see this or that.

<p>

2) Yes, you would have 50 different opinions if you had 50 different people who are extremists in their views - no matter what side. BUT... many folks are detached enough from this subject to be able to FOLLOW guidelines set by the site as for what falls in which category.

<p>

I did mention above, I think, that I wouldn't expect the classification to be perfect. Brian posted elsewhere that there is a difference between a filter and a category. Yes indeed. He posted here that he doesn't want to be sued. Understandable. The point is that you can't get sued for not doing something that you don't promise. Nobody is talking here about a perfect system that guarantees anything at 100%. If people can find what they want and not see what they don't want in 70% or 80% of the cases (no matter what that is), I believe it's called a step forward.

<p>

I would love to see for example all portraits available on PN, and I can't. To me, browse through 80% of them would be fantastic, eventhough I find a few other shots in the portrait category. I don't care much personally about all this sex issue at all, but I believe that we could "help" to some extent (70-80%) all folks on this site to find what they want and not what they don't want. You are never going to convince me that such effort IN GENERAL wouldn't work, because 0% (no categories) is NOT superior to 70 or 80% perfection.

<p>

The trouble is that if people always want 100% of the cake or no cake at all, they get no cake at all, or they get a war. It really takes a strange kind of perfectionism to refuse to walk in the right direction because it may be too far or it may rain or...

<p>

Doing nothing has never helped anyone. And again, I'm not talking about this issue especially, but in general. The feedback forum really sucks, that will be me my conclusion. Should have known better and stayed out of it. All the best: fight well.

[james_oneill]

<b>Marc</b>, I think you've misunderstood something. The categories thing is to allow people to select top rated in any of the existing request for critque categories. If people can select say, top architecture, that means they get what interests them and not guts and gore, not nudity etc. Everything that has ever been put up for critique is already categorized. We're not talking about going back and retro-classifying things as "OK for families" / "Not OK for families". That idea is dead, the funeral has been held, the body cremated and the ashes scattered at sea. <p>

If someone volunteers to become a "keeper of the public morals", they can't choose what they rate and what they don't. That's all I meant about Vincent's <i>"I would not want to classify images that I have obvious issues with"</i> comment. I'm not sure if you're calling me an extremist, but 50 people with 50 views about what is acceptable -wouldn't give consistency. And the people who want the filter to catch most sit on an extreme. If you only want people in the statistical middle there wouldn't be enough people who cared enough to do the job.

[mottershead]

Well we have four volunteers, including one who wants the filter already to be implemented so he doesn't have to look at any nudes while classifying nudes, and that person is one of the most persistent people talking about this problem.

 

As I said in a recent post on this, there is a bit of psychological problem here. Where are we going to find enough people so troubled by nudes on the site that they are willing to spend dozens, if not hundreds, of hours looking for them and classifying them? And in the unlikely event that we find enough of volunteers to be able actually to do the task, what assures that we will have any consistency?

[vincetylor]

I don't think you will have much success asking those that prefer NOT having nude images on their screen, to volunteer for the purpose of searching for these nudes (which they prefer not to look at...again) to categorize them.

 

In other words if you ever did desire to install a non nudes/erotica filter, and wanted volunteers to search out all of THOSE images (exclusively) to properly categorize....I'm afraid that I would not be your man! But I guess you already knew that. However, if you wanted a volunteer, to go through a portion of the database classifying all images but these ones deemed objectionable, I too would be more than willing. For some reason I doubt I will be asked to do that however!

 

I must admit it was a clevor post, followed by a good laugh! Could always use more of that!!

 

In all seriousness, the idea of categories would indeed give all persons visiting the site an opportunity to have more control over what type images they view. Whether it's landscapes, portraits, architecture or whatever. If nude images ARE categorized, you will also alow people the opportunity to either view them exclusively (which should make Dear James and others quite happy) or allow some such as myself and others the freedom to not view these in particular and other types of images as well. It would not be labeling any one type of image in derogatory manner. By by categorizing ALL images you allow the inividual viewer to opportunity to label any particular category as he wishes. Plenty of people are sick of flowers, cats, bugs, (architectural Nudes??) etc. The more categories the better. Once again, allowing any viewer a greater amount of control over the TYPES of images they spend time viewing on the site is nothing but a good idea!

[._._z]

<i> we have four volunteers, including one who wants the filter already to be

implemented so he doesn't have to look at any nudes while classifying nudes, and

that person is one of the most persistent people talking about this problem.

</i><p>

 

The Vatican Library categorizes the world's largest collection of pornography. <p>

 

Well, actually they don't ( http://www.snopes.com/risque/porn/vatican.htm ) but the

idea of someone opposing something so vociferously then spending so much time

with that thing is weirdly amusing and compelling.

[vincetylor]

I am not sure which has been more hilarious, some of the lamest excuses I have ever heard as to why a choice should not be available, or Baileys nitpick attacks on the PEOPLE who want to see an option. Aside from the *technical reasons* most of these others have been a joke!

 

I was also thinking if you'd like to increase the volunteers from 4, to quite a few more. Why not put this request/issue on the Photo.net homepage...bet you'd hear from a few more people.

[james_oneill]

Vincent, I'm no more interested in viewing nudes than another kind of photograph - with the possible exception of kittens. I'm pretty sure you know that, but you can't resist the dig can you. You know and I know that 90% + of nudes are put in the fine art category, but fine art isn't 90% nudes. We don't want a way of viewing only nudes as that will produce more load on the site from people who are not photographers.

[vincetylor]

No dig meant James....I probably should have not used your name in there. Sorry.

 

The point is categories might work for all sides for the reasons mentioned above. Hoping for a more peaceful week this week. Aloha.

[root]

"You know and I know that 90% +

of nudes are put in the fine art category, but fine art isn't 90% nudes. We don't want a way of viewing only

nudes as that will produce more load on the site from people who are not photographers."

 

So how do we deal with that issue? The point of categories is that uploaders are compelled to pick one. Fine Arts is so broad as to be meaningless, so it has to go. This kind of obstacle is what I was trying to address in my thread, but we're still discussiong nudes and more nudes which, I fear, will probably kill the whole idea.

 

Regardless of how we solve this, why can't a heading on each search result state clearly that the site can not guarantee that all images found in the search are suitable, etc., etc.. Why won't that be a sufficient deterent to a law suit?

[james_oneill]

<b>Carl</b>, if we create a "place for nudes" we go back round the same old loop of having to define exactly what a nude is, forcing people to stuff in a place they don't want to put it, kicking people off the site who won't play by the rules. Have we clubbed that one to death yet ? Good :-)<p>

There are some strange anomolies with the categories. We have pets, we have nature. Where do farm and zoo animals go ? Why does nature not distinguish plants and animals. (So I'd have plants and animals, not pets and nature). Why "Other" and "Unclassified", I can't tell the difference. Landscape is one of the biggest areas of photography, but do landscapes go in nature or fine art. etc <p>

 

But, this is important : No category for nudes. No ghetto, no magnet for an undesirable element. Those who want to learn about photography in the sense of Landscape, Architecture, (fully clothed architecture) and yes Roses and kittens can do so without venturing into a pot luck category (and you could merge "other", "Uncategorised", and "Fine art" into "Pot luck") where they may see something they don't like - and not just human flesh. <p>

 

And yes, the idea putting "Photo.net doesn't check uploads posted here, if you see anything that shouldn't be here [click here] to report it" on every page is a good one. <p>

 

<b>Vincent</b> Apology accepted. Lets get back to taking pictures, and the occasional amicable disagreement.

[root]

I'm not reinventing the wheel here. Animals are separated into wild and domestic. Same with plants. Same with landscapes. Check out your PSA descriptions.

 

If you have any kind of catch all categories, I predict it would become the largest by far, thus destroying the whole point of this effort. The idea is to come up with an even distribution of images throughout each category. How many ways can you think of to divide shots of people?

[vincetylor]

I doubt he is in any hurry to reply on that one Carl. How can anybody agree to categorize all images....except just nudes?? He perhaps realized just how *silly* (happy words here) that actually sounded.

 

If categories will indeed be implemented, a nude category would obviously need to be included. I am curious to know how extensive a list of different categories you feel would be needed to make this work?