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Artificially Inflated Popularity
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November 06, 2009 at 11:30:41 AM
#1
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116 |
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Salt Lake City |
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Dear Fellow Members,
I've struggled with an issue of what I
perceive as dishonesty for a couple of days now, and I commiserated
with a couple of trusted members on the matter. I realize dishonesty is going to
happen in our work-a-day worlds, and for the most part it is something
I overlook. But when I see it is something I can address proactively,
I have to step forward.
When I visit ImageKind each day, among
the many things I do -- check my fan's new images and leave comments,
thank people who've left comments on my work, visit the groups, look at
new art -- I check the front page under "Popular Art". There are often
artists who pop up on these pages whose work I've missed and that I
would perhaps like to follow. I was particularly startled the other
day to see an image rise to the top so quickly.
I
visited the work and examined the stats to discover that aside from
one member who had left a comment and favorited the work, the others had no art portfolios, image avatars or profile
descriptions, and their "favorites" collections contained
nothing but this artist's images. In addition, they had no fans or people
that they were following as a fan. I'm not going to set forward any of
my own assumptions and allow the readers of this discussion to come to
their own conclusions.
Naturally I became suspicious and curious to do further research, which revealed that not only was there another image on the first page by this same artist, but that the same disturbing pattern existed there as well. More investigation showed the same scenario in
numerous cases in this artist's portfolio. In the cases of the works that appeared on the first page of "Most Favorited" work, this individual's work
would not be in these positions were it not for the favoriting of the mysterious accounts, and artist's works that
dangle off into page two would have the visibility they deserve.
I
pondered long and hard on this. I know that some artists and
photographers have promoters and that promoters will do whatever it is
they do to see to it that their client's work has high visibility, but this
particular instance didn't seem to be a professional tactic of doing
that type of thing. I can't begin to tell you the "well maybe's" that
ran through my mind, trying to find a just and fair reason this type of
thing would occur. And I found myself arriving at the conclusion that
this is over the line, into a very dark gray area of artificially
inflated popularity.
As someone who spends a long time on this
site reviewing the images of artists whose work I am following, looking
at their images closely and giving well-thought-out comments, placing
their images in my favorites because I am interested in seeing them
succeed, I am sure you can understand why this would prompt me to ask
you to take a look at the situation and form your own conclusions.
I
will tell you that I dropped a message in this artist's box to let them
know of my suspicions, that I was deeply disappointed, and had removed
myself from their fan list and would no longer leave comments on their
work. I am so saddened because this individual's photography in a few
cases has been positively outstanding.
I had to get this off my
chest. I welcome your considered and thoughtful input on this. I am
NOT asking anyone to take any of the actions I took. Please don't
misunderstand. I do, however, want you to be aware and consider your
own support of this type of activity by supporting an artist's work that bears patterns like this. In
some ways I suppose I would consider it like buying coffee from a
merchant that participates in the exploitation of growers and workers,
though certainly not that serious.
Thank you for your attention.
Edited by DebiPeralta About 2 weeks ago.
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November 06, 2009 at 12:34:16 PM
#2
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1019 |
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6/26/2007 |
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Seattle |
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Posted in reply to DebiPeralta's post
Hi Debi,
Let me say we are looking into this now.
Nate
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November 06, 2009 at 12:35:47 PM
#3
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116 |
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8/28/2009 |
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Salt Lake City |
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Posted in reply to natejelovich's post
Thank you, Nate. We all appreciate this. I know there are several silent members behind me on this issue. I appreciate you making an appearance on the issue here.
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November 06, 2009 at 12:55:51 PM
#4
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29 |
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11/10/2008 |
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Posted in reply to DebiPeralta's post
I honestly can't believe that someone has so little faith in their work that they need to resort to something so underhanded and wrong. It can't feel very good! I had wondered about the same images but thought they must have a lot of friends.. I guess they did. I am not one to bash anyone in the forums and I trust IK will do their job and investigate this. I know of a similar situation on another site and that person was removed but they also fixed a few contests too!
Nate,
Thank you for looking in to this the profile names alone should be enough for you to question these members because I believe they are copyright names that are being used on at least some of them.
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November 06, 2009 at 4:12:46 PM
#5
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12 |
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3/2/2007 |
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navarre, fl |
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Posted in reply to cbeharriell's post
I never thought of doing something like that. Now if only I had more time in a day I could push the rank of my pictures up higher too ;)
Maybe something that would help would be a model more like Flickr's Interestingness where it doesn't matter just how many comments/faves but by whom. Flickr keeps their system shrouded in secrecy however, but I bet users who have no images of their own would count for pretty much nothing when commenting on or favoriting work.
Edited by eszra About 2 weeks ago.
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November 06, 2009 at 4:35:07 PM
#6
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172 |
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4/19/2009 |
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Toronto |
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Wow (or is that "woe"). It doesn't surprise me, but I guess I never thought about how these things were ranked. I've had one image appear on the front of IK (I took a screenshot!) but I thought it was based on a "juried" process where IK staff found their fave 10 (or whatever), met in a big board room, and hashed out their top picks.
I rarely comment on images, even if I think they are extraordinary, and it never occurred to me that my comment (or absence thereof) might affect that person's sales.
What a great post, very informative for those of us who are naive. And thanks for keeping the rest of us honest folk in mind.
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November 06, 2009 at 4:50:09 PM
#7
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25 |
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12/15/2006 |
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Trumbull CT |
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this is hilarious, please spill the beans about who it was.
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November 06, 2009 at 5:03:24 PM
#8
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403 |
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11/20/2007 |
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Cuautitlán Estado de México (Mexico City Suburb) |
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I noticed that someone was abusing the system when I browsed the popular page. You don't need to ask because it is SO obvious they were cheating. There are all these images by the same "artist", but they are not very good and they had the same number of comments each and every one. Considering the odds of all of your images getting MANY comments and the same number of comments in the same time period...
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November 06, 2009 at 5:39:51 PM
#9
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116 |
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8/28/2009 |
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Salt Lake City |
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Posted in reply to SueMolyneaux's post
The FRONT page is a juried process. This is the link on the left column of the front page titled "Popular Art". That process is ranked according to the tabs you see on the top of the page -- Most Favorited, Most Commented and Most Viewed.
And commenting or favoriting a person's work should never be a political decision at any time. But if you see a piece that catches your eye and you want the artist to know, I think it's a very proper thing to do to comment -- let them know someone saw it and appreciated it. If it's something you'd like to see succeed or you just want to save it for future reference, by all means favorite the work, too.
For me it's about being an active part of the community. I'm not saying everyone should do it. But from where I stand and my feelings on the whole process, I want other artists to know I'm looking at and appreciate their work. From the time I put myself on their fan list throughout their posting of images, I devote myself to a continued interest in their work. That's just how the process works for me. It's not that way for everyone, and it shouldn't be because we are all individuals.
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November 06, 2009 at 9:03:32 PM
#10
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10 |
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4/1/2009 |
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Mesa, Arizona |
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Posted in reply to DebiPeralta's post
I just checked this out for myself out of curiosity and sure enough under stats you see who has favorited a particular image. The one I chose had 6 or 7 "favorites" but when you clicked on their profile, their galleries were either empty or had the same images favorited in a repeating cycle....
unbelievable that people would actually do this. I think this is dishonest.
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