Useless Filename Keywords

SPK64

Is there a way to delete the hundreds of useless numeric keywords that were created when the site automatically did this for some time?

Really makes the keyword page a cluttered mess.

Opening each keyword is not an option.

Andy

Hi, you can go to edit captions and keywords, and remove them there. That's the only way I know of.

Allen

Andy, I think Dev? said he could do this in bulk if you contacted him.

SPK64

Andy wrote: »

Hi, you can go to edit captions and keywords, and remove them there. That's the only way I know of.

You're kidding!
Hundreds if not thousands of images.

SPK64

Allen wrote: »

Andy, I think Dev? said he could do this in bulk if you contacted him.

This is what really needs to happen
All numerics accept 2001-2010 since they are valid.
Or any numeric that matches the filename it was stripped from.

SPK64

If anyone cares to see how silly the keywords page is.
Link removed as my keywords are now clean. Was going to save a screen shot just could had trouble when it was many many pages long.

I said hundreds of images but it is thousands along with thousands of keywords that provide zero value. This came about when Smugmug decided it was in my better interest to extract this information from the file name and insert it in my keywords.

You be the judge and see what value it adds.

If they can be removed in bulk by one of the heros that would be great. Like I mentioned above if the numeric keyword is matching the same number in the file name then send it to the trash.

Thanks,

WinsomeWorks

SPK64 wrote: »

If anyone cares to see how silly the keywords page is.
Check it out here.

I said hundreds of images but it is thousands along with thousands of keywords that provide zero value. This came about when Smugmug decided it was in my better interest to extract this information from the file name and insert it in my keywords.

You be the judge and see what value it adds.

If they can be removed in bulk by one of the heros that would be great. Like I mentioned above if the numeric keyword is matching the same number in the file name then send it to the trash.

Thanks,

I agree... this move was absolute insanity imho. I have had SO-oO-O much work cleaning them up, and I'm still finding the stupid useless filename keywords. It's made searches here very ugly, and most people's keyword pages just one big eyesore... not to mention it takes forever to load these ridiculously long pages. I just cannot fathom what someone was thinking when they suddenly decided "On" by default was a good idea. I can't have anyone clean mine up for me, either, because I have lots of valid dates/years as keywords. I also have product shots from which there are filename keywords. Sometimes I look at my keywords (and other people's) and just almost cry. I'm not kidding. It's just such a shame when a site does something so thoughtless as this to thousands of its pros. It's like the Exxon Valdez and the BP leak... it'll be years til we've got the mess truly cleaned up. And not really, because every day people are joining with no clue that this is happening... there was one here on the forums just a few days ago. :cry So basically, unless policy changes for the better, we'll be seeing this ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

WinsomeWorks

SPK64 wrote: »

This is what really needs to happen
All numerics accept 2001-2010 since they are valid.
Or any numeric that matches the filename it was stripped from.

And here, I think you mean you want to get rid of "All numerics except 2001-2010, since they are valid." Just clarifying, since I've heard of people's keywords getting cleaned up, & if someone did that to me I'd want to know precisely what they were cleaning up.

SPK64

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

And here, I think you mean you want to get rid of "All numerics except 2001-2010, since they are valid." Just clarifying, since I've heard of people's keywords getting cleaned up, & if someone did that to me I'd want to know precisely what they were cleaning up.

Yes or the best solution is to see if a numeric matches part of the filename then get rid of it.

SamirD

I bet there is a way to use the API to do this, but I'm no programmer...

devbobo

The majority have been cleaned up.

Cheers,

David

devbobo

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

It's just such a shame when a site does something so thoughtless as this to thousands of its pros. It's like the Exxon Valdez and the BP leak... it'll be years til we've got the mess truly cleaned up. And not really, because every day people are joining with no clue that this is happening... there was one here on the forums just a few days ago. :cry So basically, unless policy changes for the better, we'll be seeing this ad nauseum, ad infinitum.

umm, you might want to get your facts right, before jumping on your soap box.

SPK64

devbobo wrote: »

The majority have been cleaned up.

Cheers,

David

That is awesome! clap
I knew you guys would pull through on this.

Thanks,

WinsomeWorks

devbobo wrote: »

umm, you might want to get your facts right, before jumping on your soap box.

I'm not sure what's not right? I wasn't talking about one individual here... I was talking about the whole site. People join all the time who don't know this is going on, and this will keep happening, right? As I said, there was a flustered person on the forums here recently, wondering what was going on. On my own site, no one else can clean it up, and it would be even more upsetting if they did (already said why). The fact is that while some get cleaned up here & there, more & more are pouring in all the time.

Andy

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

I'm not sure what's not right? I wasn't talking about one individual here... I was talking about the whole site. People join all the time who don't know this is going on, and this will keep happening, right? As I said, there was a flustered person on the forums here recently, wondering what was going on. On my own site, no one else can clean it up, and it would be even more upsetting if they did (already said why). The fact is that while some get cleaned up here & there, more & more are pouring in all the time.

You have filenames as keywords turned off in your control panel settings, so there should be no more being made by us on your site.

WinsomeWorks

Andy wrote: »

You have filenames as keywords turned off in your control panel settings, so there should be no more being made by us on your site.

Like I keep saying... not talking about me... talkin' about the whole useless-keyword-pollution of the whole site. Yes, I slowly keep working on my own & turned it off as soon as I learned that I could... but it's a long process.

Andy

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Like I keep saying... not talking about me... talkin' about the whole useless-keyword-pollution of the whole site. Yes, I slowly keep working on my own & turned it off as soon as I learned that I could... but it's a long process.

Hi Anna Lisa, filename keywording is off by default - people have to turn it on in Control Panel, settings tab to use it. So nobody is getting them now that doesn't specifically want them.

SPK64

Just a quick refresher from my point of view.
When I first started with Smugmug ~4 years ago. There was no automatic keywording from filenames. Then one day it started happening I promptly posted this in Dgrin (My Response) and the response was it was a bug that it was not already happening. (Andy's response June 2008)There was no option to turn it off. This went on for sometime (December 2009) before an option was finally added in the control panel.
Mine was turned off right away but I was left with the mess created with roughly 18 months of automatic file name keywording before I had a choice.
It took me longer to circle back and try to clean up my keywords.

Thanks,

PS
Here is the entire thread back when the "bug" was fixed on filename keywording.

pilotdave

SPK64 wrote: »

Just a quick refresher from my point of view.
When I first started with Smugmug ~4 years ago. There was no automatic keywording from filenames. Then one day it started happening I promptly posted this in Dgrin (My Response) and the response was it was a bug that it was not already happening. (Andy's response June 2008)There was no option to turn it off. This went on for sometime (December 2009) before an option was finally added in the control panel.
Mine was turned off right away but I was left with the mess created with roughly 18 months of automatic file name keywording before I had a choice.
It took me longer to circle back and try to clean up my keywords.

Thanks,

PS
Here is the entire thread back when the "bug" was fixed on filename keywording.

I've been very opposed to the filename keywording all along, and was very happy when that "feature" broke for a while. But luckily I tended to clean up nuisance keywords even before numeric keywords showed up, so I never had a lot of cleaning to do. But I'm glad to hear SmugMug finally turned that feature off by default. I bet there are performance hits due to the huge number of useless keywords that have been indexed. And not all of them are numeric and easy to remove. The search feature on SmugMug was really affected by so many "off topic" keywords.

Dave

WinsomeWorks

Andy wrote: »

Hi Anna Lisa, filename keywording is off by default - people have to turn it on in Control Panel, settings tab to use it. So nobody is getting them now that doesn't specifically want them.

I never heard an announcement that filename keywording is now off by default-- this is certain? I had to turn it OFF in control panel (but that was some time ago). My sincere apologies if that's been changed-- if so, it's another thing that needs re-wording in the keywords help section. It talks about automatic filename keywording in there, and I couldn't find anything clear about what is the default. If this was changed at some point, I wish I'd have seen the announcement of it. I can't find any threads here that mention it-- only threads mentioning "On" by default being a problem.

I know you can go into "Gallery settings" and do it per gallery as well, but lots of those gallery settings aren't retroactive, and I don't know if that one is. But again, I wasn't as concerned about my own mess as I am about the whole site's search. So I do hope this is definitely correct-- that it's now "Off" by default. If so, say it from the mountaintops!

Andy

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

I never heard an announcement that filename keywording is now off by default-- this is certain? I had to turn it OFF in control panel (but that was some time ago). My sincere apologies if that's been changed-- if so, it's another thing that needs re-wording in the keywords help section. It talks about automatic filename keywording in there, and I couldn't find anything clear about what is the default. If this was changed at some point, I wish I'd have seen the announcement of it. I can't find any threads here that mention it-- only threads mentioning "On" by default being a problem.

I know you can go into "Gallery settings" and do it per gallery as well, but lots of those gallery settings aren't retroactive, and I don't know if that one is. But again, I wasn't as concerned about my own mess as I am about the whole site's search. So I do hope this is definitely correct-- that it's now "Off" by default. If so, say it from the mountaintops!

"We also look at the filenames of your images. If your filename is "Alvin_Birthday3.jpg", for example, we'll add the keywords "Alvin" and "Birthday" automatically. If your filename is the common format of "IMG_1234.jpg" or "DSC_1234.jpg", etc., we'll ignore it. You can always enable or disable this feature in the settings tab of your Control Panel."

http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags

I'll ask schmoo to make it even more clear.

WinsomeWorks

Andy wrote: »

"We also look at the filenames of your images. If your filename is "Alvin_Birthday3.jpg", for example, we'll add the keywords "Alvin" and "Birthday" automatically. If your filename is the common format of "IMG_1234.jpg" or "DSC_1234.jpg", etc., we'll ignore it. You can always enable or disable this feature in the settings tab of your Control Panel."

http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags

I'll ask schmoo to make it even more clear.

Yeah, I know the mechanics of the differences. But-- so what you're saying is that now, keywording from filenames is still on by default, but only the parts that appear to be words-- such as Alvin & birthday. And if you don't want that happening, you have to turn it off. BUT the typical formats of numbering that come straight from camera are off unless you enable them?

Do I have that right? And there's no way to have one feature (keywords from parts of the filename that are actual words) turned on while the other feature (in-camera filenames) is turned off... right?

Andy

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Yeah, I know the mechanics of the differences. But-- so what you're saying is that now, keywording from filenames is still on by default,

No, it is not.

Andy

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

BUT the typical formats of numbering that come straight from camera are off unless you enable them?

Do I have that right? And there's no way to have one feature (keywords from parts of the filename that are actual words) turned on while the other feature (in-camera filenames) is turned off... right?

you have it right, and no, you can't have it both ways, I'm sorry.

jfriend

WinsomeWorks wrote: »

Do I have that right? And there's no way to have one feature (keywords from parts of the filename that are actual words) turned on while the other feature (in-camera filenames) is turned off... right?

The original problem with the keyword from filenames feature was that it was trying to figure out what was a word and what was a camera generated filename and it was frequently wrong, thus giving you lots of junk filenames. So, Smugmug either decided that they couldn't develop an algorithm smart enough to ferret out just the words or they just took the foolproof solution and let you decide whether you want it on or off. When it's on, I think they still try to ignore camera generated stuff like DSC_3333.jpg, but if you modify the filename (either with camera settings or in post processing), all bets are off for what it will think is a legitimate word.

So, I'm perfectly happy now. I turned the unreliable word guessing from filenames off and Smugmug only indexes keywords that I purposely put on my images. Of course, it took awhile to clean up the mess from years of improper guessing (and Smugmug helped some with the cleanup), but now it's fixed up again and I control the keywords entirely.

SPK64

jfriend wrote: »

So, I'm perfectly happy now. I turned the unreliable word guessing from filenames off and Smugmug only indexes keywords that I purposely put on my images. Of course, it took awhile to clean up the mess from years of improper guessing (and Smugmug helped some with the cleanup), but now it's fixed up again and I control the keywords entirely.

I am also content with turning it off. I would imagine the vast majority of people seriously using keywords are entering their own.

I have just spent several hours today cleaning up everything David could not in his mass cleanup for me.

Finally getting a keyword page that is respectable.

WinsomeWorks

Andy wrote: »

No, it is not.

Wow, this is confusing. So if even that part (getting words from filenames) is not on by default, the meaning of "automatic" or "automatically" both in the "Help" section and in your post is--- "automatic only if the user has that turned on in control panel" ? Ok, I think I have it now. Correct me if I'm wrong! But I sorta think most people, when they see the word "automatic" (here and in Help) would assume that means automatic as in "by default". That's what I thought, and I haven't had any drinks today except caffeinated ones.

WinsomeWorks

Andy wrote: »

you have it right, and no, you can't have it both ways, I'm sorry.

That's ok. I realized the only part that I was wanting was to turn on filenames as captions in my archives, which I can still do... so that's cool with me.

GPaulson

Need FileName Keywords removed
Well, somehow I must have messed up my settings and turned filename keywording on.

Is it possible to get them removed by someone with real power or must I go through 5,000 photos and remove them by hand?

Thanks in advance.

Gary

rainforest1155

Gary,
I'll see what can be done. It may take a couple of days before I hear back.

rainforest1155

Gary,
So there's no special behind the scenes tool to remove numeric keywords. I did fix up your galleries manually with the "remove numeric keywords" feature from the caption / keyword tool in the Tools button of any gallery.

I hope this helps.

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