Stopping abusive comments frmo "GUESTS"

[clickaway]

CJ:
As I understand it, the offensive remarks made on Ian's pages weren't just 'one-offs', they were virtually daily over a prolonged period. There is a difference between an occassional nasty remark and one of an ongoing nature.

I feel that we have to recognise that some of us are more robust than others to take this. I, for one, have a particularly sensitive nature and unprovoked personal attacks on a wife and family would probably cause me more problems than most other people. Therefore, I cannot take this issue as 'small potatoes'.

In fact, I am surprised that you have used the same word ("abuse") to cover the voting and personal attack issues. The second is FAR more serious than the other. Let's face it, don't political parties make a concerted effort to lobby for votes? That is called a campaign, not an abuse, although I do understand that what was a bit of a fun has upset a number of people.

I for one could only vote for a gallery if I thought it was worthy, and Ian's really was. The fact that many of us voted at the same time took him to the top. I like to think that some good came out of this in that it highlighted good work. I often vote for non-PAD galleries and non-PAD indivdual photos more so, primarily on their merit, but also to redress the balance of so many PADers voting within their own group.

But let us not forget the more important issue here, the one of protecting the innocent, such as Ian's wife and young daughter. I think we can all agree on that, can't we?

Ray

[lindarocks]

I've just read all the comments about the popular galleries and Ian's experiences and I feel it's important to separate the two issues (albeit that the abuse started after the popular galleries episode).

Abuse - this is totally unacceptable - to me, people posting abusive comments without identifying themselves is completely despicable and we should seek a way to prevent it from happening. Personally I'd favour an 'in-box' on every account where comments are posted so the owner of the gallery can see them before they go to the relevant photo or gallery. That way we don't have to be afraid that someone will post an offensive message and we don't see it for some time. I know this won't stop the abuse but at least it will enable the gallery owner to prevent the rest of the world seeing it.

I'd be wholly against preventing guests from posting messages. To me one of the good things in life is the simple pleasure of a total stranger passing a positive comment on something I've posted. David has sold many of his photos because guests have come onto his pages and asked to buy.

The popular galleries issue seems to me to be blown out of proportion really. I rarely vote for a photo or gallery. No reason really - that's not to say I don't admire many of the galleries on PBASE it's just that I find myself unutterably depressed when I find galleries finding their way in there that are clearly poor photos - such as ones of bits of car or granny's party where all the guests have red-eye and whited out faces where they've been full-in-the-face flashed - these clearly aren't good galleries. Equally I find myself depressed at the number of galleries that make it to the top purely because of the 'tits and arse' content.

I do occasionally have a quick look to see what's at the top and sometimes I have found myself a gem that I wouldn't have otherwise noticed, such as Ron Lutz's hawks and Jennifer.

Personally I think Ian's gallery was well-deserving of the top spot. He's an excellent photographer with consistently high standards and I have learned a great deal from him.

The way the popular galleries are voted isn't reflective of the real popularity of the gallery as far as can see - to me a better way would be to look at the number of hits on photos (I grant that wouldn't solve my personal bug-bear of tits and arse getting to the top but I'm opposed to censorship so I have to accept that) and make a popular galleries out of the number of page views in the last week, 90 days and ever. That would be more reflective of the real popularity of a gallery. I'm not a techie so I don't know whether this is possible and whether it's possible to stop someone manipulating the hits by going on to the same photos more than once.

If people want to do a voted gallery thing then maybe it'd be better to have that separately?

Anyway, whatever, it's not right that someone should be having to check their galleries every few minutes in case of an attack.

[vid64]

I was surprised to see comments about 'abuse' of the voting system in this thread. I didn't think anyone took it that seriously. Looking in the all time most popular photograph gallery, you can get on the first page with just 15 votes. The most popular ever has only 30!! From which you have to assume that very few people are actually voting at all.

So the solution is simple. The more people vote, the less the system can be abused.

[ilanphoto]

I will start off by saying that I do not know Ian nor did I ever have the pleasure of seeing his pictures.

Firstly - removing your pictures is punishing yourself and others for the action of one individual - cut your nose to spite your face comes to mind. I don't think you should give in to him at the moment you can still delete all his comments. A solution should be found to stop this abuse, I personally "enjoy" some comments from guests some I have deleted when it was aimed directly at the model and some I have left when they were general statements. Banning guests is not the right way to go about it and on the other hand having the comments wait for the owners approval is also a bit of a turn off as it gives me the understanding that I must say good things or shut the f**k up. And I want honest comments not just good job, that I can get from my mother.

Regarding abuse: abuse is abuse any which way you look at it, the system is in place for us to use to go around it is abuse.
Is it serious? no, not really.
Could it harm somebody? Yes, the person who is working within the system. We all know what I am talking about - it's like a traffic jam with you waiting in line to advance slowly and other cars are overtaking you from all sides including the shoulders....

Two wrongs don't make a right and I am much more against the cowardly action of leaving anonymous comments but punishing oneself and the rest of the world is an IMHO an over reaction.

Ilan

[brother_mark]

I'd really not like to have to pre-approve comments before they can go up on my photos. That would kill the spontaneity of comments commenting on earlier comments. Probably the simplest and least troublesome to the various pbase users is an option on each gallery to permit or not permit postings by unregistered users. Many will simply leave things as they are, thus changing nothing, but someone being repeatedly harassed by a "guest" will be able to stop that problem. (Much like letting everyone see your e-mail address or only pbase users, or no one.)

Voting--really, more people simply have to vote when they see a good photo. With 31,000 photographers here, a few people should not be able to "influence" the popular galleries page. Problem is most people aren't getting around to many galleries but PAD people are. When they vote, wham, you get a new popular gallery. Especially when it only takes few votes.

[aevoegels]

So back to my original suggestion -
lets solve a problem that we can solve.
Give the owner the choice of moderating posts in his own galleries _only_if_he_wants_to (ie make that as a choice in your profile).....
regds
arjun

Seems to me we already have that choice. I mean, unless I'm wrong, if there's any comment to any of my images which I might find offensive, the option is there to delete that comment.

And I certainly find it easier to delete an occational offensive comment rather than to have to make an active effort to approve the text of every comment which gets posted.

And so long as I have what I have now -- the option to delete any comment posting which I might find excessive or offensive -- that seems option enough without a changing of structure which might make more work for myself (or any of us for that matter).

CJ

Actually I beleive we don't. To delete something after the fact is not the same as not letting it beallowed to be posted in the first place, period. Why not allow each decide if they would allow guest posts or not?

[aevoegels]

I'd really not like to have to pre-approve comments before they can go up on my photos. That would kill the spontaneity of comments commenting on earlier comments. Probably the simplest and least troublesome to the various pbase users is an option on each gallery to permit or not permit postings by unregistered users. Many will simply leave things as they are, thus changing nothing, but someone being repeatedly harassed by a "guest" will be able to stop that problem. (Much like letting everyone see your e-mail address or only pbase users, or no one.).

Exactly! I can't see how anyone can be against that!

[aevoegels]

"]

My reply to this is a sincere apology. I had NO idea that people took the popular galleries SOOO seriously. I am here to improve my photography and have fun.

I didn't even know about the voting thing until very recently (and I don't think I ever voted on anyhting due to my ignorance on how pbase works - this is not photosig!).

Anyone who takes Pbase.com voting seriously and has the need to be on top, really needs something more important to do in life! (As those who put upsetting posts as a untrackable guest).

Alfred

[sheila]

I have been a paid up member of this great site for over two years. I was only aware of the Popular Galleries about a year back when I received a comment on one of my galleries that she had seen my images in the Popular Galleries. From time to time I have perused the Popular Galleries and, as others have said, found that a fair few of them did not, in my opinion, merit being there at all. As Slug says, the cream will come to the top but when galleries can be manipulated, the cream can be diluted pretty quickly When I go into some PG galleries, I am curious why, in many case, there are absolutely no comments on any of the images in that particular gallery or on the gallery itself.

I have always believed that those with the most hits and comments in their galleries and/or Guestbooks are the galleries most likely to be worthy of "Popular" Galleries. Maybe Slug could look into a top hit/comment list as well as the popular galleries.

I have sold a lot of images through this site. Most of the time, prospective buyers contact me by email rather than through the galleries and those buyers are not members of PBase. When Slug suggested awhile back that he would limit the search engine to PBase members only, I emailed him that this would preclude photographers from selling their images to "Guests". What I am saying in a somewhat convoluted way is that I don't think we should stop Guest comments. Just delete the inane comments and, as others have said, get on with your life.

Cheers
Sheila

[aevoegels]

I have been a paid up member of this great site for over two years. I was only aware of the Popular Galleries about a year back when I received a comment on one of my galleries that she had seen my images in the Popular Galleries. From time to time I have perused the Popular Galleries and, as others have said, found that a fair few of them did not, in my opinion, merit being there at all. As Slug says, the cream will come to the top but when galleries can be manipulated, the cream can be diluted pretty quickly When I go into some PG galleries, I am curious why, in many case, there are absolutely no comments on any of the images in that particular gallery or on the gallery itself.

I have always believed that those with the most hits and comments in their galleries and/or Guestbooks are the galleries most likely to be worthy of "Popular" Galleries. Maybe Slug could look into a top hit/comment list as well as the popular galleries.

I have sold a lot of images through this site. Most of the time, prospective buyers contact me by email rather than through the galleries and those buyers are not members of PBase. When Slug suggested awhile back that he would limit the search engine to PBase members only, I emailed him that this would preclude photographers from selling their images to "Guests". What I am saying in a somewhat convoluted way is that I don't think we should stop Guest comments. Just delete the inane comments and, as others have said, get on with your life.

Cheers
Sheila

Again, the idea is to let each one decide if they allow guest comments or not. If you like it, go for it, but if I don't I would like to click somewhere that would not allow guest comments. Everyone could choose what's best for them.

Alfred

[slug]

ok.
added some new options for comments.

this is still only the account level (can't yet have different settings for a particular gallery)

now instead of the Comments or Not
there are four choices.
-Anybody can post comments including guests.
-Must be logged in to PBase to comment.
-Must be a PBase subscriber. (paid, not a trial account)
-Nobody can post.

This can be set on the "account settings" page. http://www.pbase.com/account

Hopefully this will help somewhat.
Eventually there may be blacklists too.

On the topic of comments. I've been planning a complete rewrite of the comment system. Actually the comments in the camera database are using the new code while testing. When finished will replace the existing comment system with the new system.
The main difference will be speed, but will also fix some bugs. (specifically the problem where not all your comments are shown in your list of all comments)

-slug

[slug]

Here is one suggestion as a feature request:

Add a third option:

c) Moderated guestbook.

regds
arjun

wise.
this would also be good or better.
and easy to add as part of the new comment system.

thanks,
-slug

[cjmorgan]

ok.
added some new options for comments.
this is still only the account level (can't yet have different settings for a particular gallery)
now instead of the Comments or Not
there are four choices.
-Anybody can post comments including guests.
-Must be logged in to PBase to comment.
-Must be a PBase subscriber. (paid, not a trial account)
-Nobody can post.
This can be set on the "account settings" page. http://www.pbase.com/account ...
-slug

Thank-you Slug.
CJ

[ziggers]

Thank you slug!

You really come through for your PBase users

[jeannius]

Thank you SLUG for your response. I knew there would be a way to fix this.

Again, I want to reiterate that NO ONE involved in the voting effort EVER thought it would cause such a "problem". We have all become good friends and were just enjoying each other here.

I am confident that it won't happen again and once again want to apologize to anyone who felt wronged by it.

I like the option of being able to choose your own "filter system" and look forward to using it.

Thank you again, Slug, you run a wonderful site here and I have met some DEAR friends.

Jeanne