Spam in photo comments

[Draken]

I am disgusted to see spam in photo comments continue.

The Help file (http://www.panoramio.com/help/spam_comments) reads:

In a comment, you link to your own photos or to an external website. You can add links to your own photos, but not to another person's photos.

If my interpretation of the rule is correct it means that a user can't comment on someone else's photo and add a link to his own photos (or user page, or particular tag, or whole gallery, etc.)

The solution the Help File gives is:

1. Delete the spam comment.
2. Add a comment to one of the spammer's photos, and include a link to this topic. The link to this topic is: http://www.panoramio.com/help/spam_comments The spammer will receive you comment through email notification and will typically stop spamming after one or two comments.
3. If the spamming continues, notify sp...@panoramio.com with the username of the spammer and some links or screenshots of examples.

As this practice is widespread, very few or nobody notifies it and too many seem to be comfortable with it, although in my opinion it weakens the community bonds rendering the community exclusively driven to a give and take insincere exchange of "I visit yours, you visit mine", I would suggest:

1. Delete the above-mentioned rule

2. Enforce the rule

Otherwise, we have a rule too many don't comply with.

[davidcmc58]

Draken, this spam situation is like highway speed limits. Many people violate the speed limit and only a few get caught. Should we abolish all speed limits simply because strict enforcement is not feasible? I don't think so. My vote is to keep the "no spam" rule and try to enforce it better. However, there is simply not enough manpower to do aggressive enforcement. Personally, I always ignore the spams and make a point not to visit the spammers' gallery / photo.

[CliveM]

Rather than delete the rule, it would be better to make it less ambiguous. As it is currently phrased, it seems to say "you may not link to your own photos, but you may link to your own photos". In the first part of the rule I take it that "to" is supposed to indicate the destination of the link, whereas in the second part of the rule "to" refers to the location of the link. The distinction between the verb "link" and the phrase "add links" does not really help understanding. I am a native English speaker, and I had to look at it several times before I worked out the meaning. On a site where many users are not native English speakers, and where any translation of the rules will have been done by people who are not native English speakers, is it a surprise to find that the rule is disregarded when people probably can't understand it?

 

How about:

"In a comment on another person's photos, you add a link to your own photos or to an external website."

 

Even here, the "external website" rule might be considered unduly restrictive, and ought to be enforced with commonsense. Linking to an external website publicising the commenter's photos or business is spam, but a link to something like a Wikipedia article giving more information on the subject of the picture isn't.

[CliveM]

I've just tried looking at the rule in a number of different languages and note that:-

 

1. The "Help" link at the bottom of the page is always in English, whatever language you are viewing the site in.
2. In some languages the translation is incomplete. For example in German only parts of the "Spam in comments" section is translated, and this particular rule is still in English (probably because the translator thought it was too ambiguous to translate).
3. If the distinction between "link to" and "add links to" is supposed to help understanding (which it doesn't), then this is lost in those languages (e.g. Spanish), that translate both with the same words.

[Draken]

Needless to say, I also endorse a better enforcement.

Clive

Indeed the wording doesn't help. However, I wonder if a better wording and better translations will be of any help to improve the situation. Anyway, it is advisable not to have any ambiguity at all.  Thanks!!

[CliveM]

I agree that not understanding the rules is an excuse only for people who have bothered to read them in the first place!

[Javerburg]

I confess I read those rules for the first time today, and now find myself guilty of (occasional) spamming. I checked the Dutch translation of the rules, and they truly do not make sense. The translation is incorrect, but I think the way it is written in English is not very smart to begin with. I would be a lot clearer to state: Posting comments to promote you own photos during a contest, is considered spamming, instead of
We define your comment as spam if it meets these conditions: During a contest, you post comments that promote your own photos.

Personally I have quite an ambiguous opinion on this: I consider links to photos in comments on my own photos spam if they are made by people that I don't 'know'. But when my regular contacts put in those links I think it is OK. But that would make it even harder to capture in a clear text.

The clearest rule would be: you can only put links in comments on your own photos.
Effectively that is already what the rules say: in comments on someone elses photo's you can't put links to your own photos, and you can not put in external links. So what is left? In comments on someone elses photo's you can only post links to photos by any other photographer. But who would want to do that more than occasionally?

[QuentinUK]

If there is an absolute ban on adding links to comments under other people's photographs then this is a job for the Panoramio programmers. 

While adding a comment to another user's photos, just under the text entry edit box there is link to Want to use bold, italic, links?, that facility shouldn't be there if it is not allowed. There wouldn't be a need for a rule if the links weren't enterable on comments for other user's photos.

[Draken]

Quentin

I agree your idea/suggestion would be the best solution. No enterable links on comments for other user's photos.

[hvbemmel]

The spam policy is made in the time the contest got out of hand. I think there can be reasons to give a link in a comment, in fact I occasionally did when someone asked a question in his comments under his photos, where I knew the answer. I remember a German user asking for coordinates of photos he made in Amsterdam, which I gave him, with links to street view. I also remember a very interesting "discussion" about the eleanor crosses in the UK, where I gave several links to articles about those crosses. 

So, should my account be deleted for being helpful, I don´t think so. As always it´s the intention of the rules, in this case not to bother other users with unsollicited crap to promote yourself. In the forum discussion we had when this spam rule was introduced it also was said by Eduardo with so many words, that this rule was not about Wiki, but about getting rid of all those messages that only were there to get votes. 

[Lady GooGoo La La]

Easy enough  just disable linking URLs, people could still place an url as text in a comment, but unless they copied it into the address bar it  wouldnt work. 

Users wouldnt be bothered to copy and paste to go to a users page, but would copy and paste for useful info.

[davidcmc58]

Lady, your suggestion is so obvious and so right. Unfortunately, I also believe that Google wants certain "spamming tools" in their products for their own agenda. The success of Facebook has been built upon massive spamming. The folks at Google+ know it well. Actually, it seems that both Picasa Web Album and Panoramio are slowly becoming mere satellite sites of Google+....... The biggest spammer might be no one other than Google itself!

[hvbemmel]

Lady, David

I certainly will not defend Google, too much is not working properly (needless to say i.e. this "forum") and too many good features are thrown away (i.e. Igoogle, RSS reader). 

however, the comments as they are and with that the linking possibility were implemented by the original Panoramio team. I know they didn´t think Panoramio would grow as it did and I think they will not have considered the combination of linking and spamming. I also can not imagine that later on Google interfered in forcing the team by keeping this linking possibility. 

I ask myself what the difference is between giving a clickable link and just a link I can paste, does that alter the spam when a link is given with "bad" intentions? not in my eyes.

As for Google+ (AKA the Borg) Picasaweb doesn´t exist any more, is assimilated. The team assured us that Panoramio is too important for Googles geographical collection and will stay as standalone photo site (always sceptic I add: for now)  

[Wim Constant]

Sometimes (not very often), when I see a photo of a, for me, familiar place, I comment with something like this: "Nice photo, I know the surroundings. I was there xx years ago and made this photo [link to my photo]". Is this also considered as being spam?

[Draken]

Wim

The key word is "sometimes". A link from time to time is not spam. A pattern of adding a link to every comment someone makes is. So, you are on the safe side.

[CliveM]

Another use of links in comments, which fortunately doesn't seem to be covered by the rule, is including a link, in a comment on another user's picture, to a third user's picture. For example, I participated in a discussion on a picture of a church in the USA that mentioned the possibility of influence from a place in the UK. I put in a link to someone else's picture of the UK church because I thought it was relevant to the discussion, and also put in a link on the UK church photo to the USA church photo so that the owner was aware that their picture was being discussed.

 

I think this is probably an acceptable use of links, but a slight drawback of Quentin's suggestion is that it would prevent it.

 

I think what is required is a bit of commonsense and a willingness to report to the team those who post what are obviously spam comments.

[Hans Sterkendries]

Draken, for me the key word is "intention". 

I don't see any harm in inviting people to discover a certain picture or even a certain gallery. I also don't see the harm in linking to informative external websites. 

However, when it's your intention to sell/promote something it becomes a whole other story... Even when you're promoting yourself rather than a product or service, although with the "new" contest rules I don't see what benefit can be gained from that.

[Draken]

Yes, it is all about "intention".

Regarding your question about the benefit to be gained by promoting yourself (your gallery) the answer is... views. We know users would do anything to get more views. This, in the end, is the story.