Why I hate 500px

bike21

I've tried to like 500px, but the bots, spammers and complete lack of honesty in photography from so many accounts is tiresome. Case in point of this epic crap...

https://500px.com/photo/206581061/i-think-we-will-get-wet-by-kenan-mutlu?ctx_page=1&from=user&user_id=1424271

Anyone else tired of this or am I just cranky from going to bed at 4am?

denisegoldberg

@bike21 said:
Anyone else tired of this or am I just cranky from going to bed at 4am?

It's not you!

bike21

@denisegoldberg said:

@bike21 said:
Anyone else tired of this or am I just cranky from going to bed at 4am?

It's not you!

Glad it's not just me. They've been hurting for awhile with their automated bots and fake vote ups, but this epic PS fail was too much for me.

Cygnus Studios

A couple of years back 500px was actually a pretty decent place. Changes happened and it went steadily down hill. The rumors are that the site is up for sale and actively being shopped around. Whether that is actually true or not, I don't know, but I do know that in the last couple of years the site has been overrun by spammers and bots and fakes and let's not forget the porn.

I gave up on them a while back and deleted all but a couple of images. Every so often I'll pop onto the site and see if they have made any attempt to get the spammers and fakers under control, but sadly they have not.

[Deleted User]

I have recently closed my account on 500px. It was not worth paying for

kdog

I wish someone had gotten a picture of me and a buddy who ended up getting wet in almost the same situation. http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/article/NE/20170114/NEWS/170119801
You wouldn't have believed that shot either. Still, why blame the site for this? Should they be in the business of enforcing some sort of photographic integrity guidelines? Should Smugmug?

-Joel

Richard

@kdog said:
Still, why blame the site for this? Should they be in the business of enforcing some sort of photographic integrity guidelines? Should Smugmug?

Precisely. Photography is done for many different reasons. If you're doing photojournalism, you have to meet certain standards which don't apply at all to, say, advertising or fine art. I don't much care for exaggerated HDR processing, but I know that other people think it's visually exciting. Different strokes. I don't know whether 500px has any guidelines or not, but as a mod, I sure would hate to have to enforce any here on Dgrin.

bike21

@kdog said:
I wish someone had gotten a picture of me and a buddy who ended up getting wet in almost the same situation. http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/article/NE/20170114/NEWS/170119801
You wouldn't have believed that shot either. Still, why blame the site for this? Should they be in the business of enforcing some sort of photographic integrity guidelines? Should Smugmug?

-Joel

First of all, that's a crazy experience! Glad you guys made it out ok. The ocean can be a surly beast and you guys certainly had quite the adventure.

But this is an apples & oranges comparison isn't it? You have an honest story presented as fact, this guy tried to pass off a fake photo which now has over 700 likes. It's the failure of the company to control the bots that falsely promote crap material. They are working on it, but you see it on so many photos including my own it's frustrating. Instagram isn't much better either.

pegelli

Cygnus Studios

@bike21 said:
But this is an apples & oranges comparison isn't it? You have an honest story presented as fact, this guy tried to pass off a fake photo which now has over 700 likes. It's the failure of the company to control the bots that falsely promote crap material. They are working on it, but you see it on so many photos including my own it's frustrating. Instagram isn't much better either.

While I agree with you that the bots and spammers are an issue on 500px, fake/created images are simply someone's art. You may not like fake images, I may not like all fake images, others may not like some fake images, but obviously tons of people do love them.

I wholeheartedly wish that 500px would crack down on the spam, the bots, and the porn (not talking about nudes), but if they began cracking down on the art, that would be a whole different can of worms. By whose standards should we go by when it comes to art?

You provided one poorly photoshopped example. Is that where the line should be drawn? How about any image that has been post edited? How about any image with artificial light? What about images that were staged?

As an example: I don't care for cgi, and because of that, I don't do it. However it is not my place to tell others not to do it.

bike21

@Cygnus Studios said:

@bike21 said:
But this is an apples & oranges comparison isn't it? You have an honest story presented as fact, this guy tried to pass off a fake photo which now has over 700 likes. It's the failure of the company to control the bots that falsely promote crap material. They are working on it, but you see it on so many photos including my own it's frustrating. Instagram isn't much better either.

While I agree with you that the bots and spammers are an issue on 500px, fake/created images are simply someone's art. You may not like fake images, I may not like all fake images, others may not like some fake images, but obviously tons of people do love them.

I wholeheartedly wish that 500px would crack down on the spam, the bots, and the porn (not talking about nudes), but if they began cracking down on the art, that would be a whole different can of worms. By whose standards should we go by when it comes to art?

You provided one poorly photoshopped example. Is that where the line should be drawn? How about any image that has been post edited? How about any image with artificial light? What about images that were staged?

As an example: I don't care for cgi, and because of that, I don't do it. However it is not my place to tell others not to do it.

For me, it's honesty in presentation. Composite photos or CGI are just fine as along as they are presented as such. There was another (but much better done) composite sea/boat yesterday near the top but the artist was proper in naming it a composite. I'm ok with that 100%.

End of the day, I'm frustrated with the fake comments and bots driving subpar or fake/falsely presented photos to the top. 500px has amazing images and artists which I still enjoy, but the site just seems overran with falseness. I've managed to sell one photo on the site as well, so the utility for me isn't what it might be for others. I'll probably stick around for a bit on it and won't pay them a dime until the issues seem more under control.

bike21

I can't help myself...one for today...

https://500px.com/photo/207256399/nature-s-flashlight-by-zippy?ctx_page=4&from=popular

Looking at the comments I mean c'mon. Really?

Cygnus Studios

@bike21 said:
End of the day, I'm frustrated with the fake comments and bots driving subpar or fake/falsely presented photos to the top.

I get that. Most of us have been frustrated in some way or another when it comes to photography. Many moons ago when I was first getting started in the business I would see lousy images in the same magazines that would turn away my submissions. It frustrated me to no end, but in time I learned that it had very little to do with the actual images.

Popular photo sharing sites also work on this premise. It's all about followers and friends. If you are popular, your images become popular. This inspires the bots and spammers to come up with ways to game the system. Yes it is sad when those spammers routinely get around the most amazing images, but it is what it is.

You either allow it to bother you or you don't, and that is a choice only you can make.

bike21

True enough, currently bothered though normally Dude-like for most things. Oh well, I'm on vacation for 3 weeks starting today so time to make some fresh photos of my own and fuggedaboutit.

Fujijitsu

But are there any good photo sharing sites now? Flickr is just a free dumping ground, 500px is bot infested, Dpreview is just a place to argue, Instagram is for teenage selfies, Facebook is for commercial viral videos of cats and the photography forums seem to only have two or three active posters.

I try to maintain a 10:1 ratio (near enough) of comments on others photos to posting my own images, but many people on the major hosting sites seem to just be obsessed with how many likes tbey can get. They post all their crap, and use bots to increase their social network to get more likes. Attention seeking is a 21st Century epidemic.

Cygnus Studios

It depends on what you want out of one.

Most seem to be dying on the vine, and the few active ones that I've stumbled across are more about general chit chat (open talk) than actual photography. There are some where "nice shot" comments still rule, but active knowledge sharing is kind of rare.

I'm not aware of a good critique site any longer.

Social media groups seem to be the norm now, where any camera owner can post whatever, whenever without regard.

kurzvorzwoelf

As a complete rookie in the field of photography (and its digital ecosystem or communities), I was wondering about the initial comment regarding bots & spammers on 500px.

I have looked at various places/sites since I bought my first camera a couple of weeks ago and finally decided on SmugMug for a "home base" (best decision so far :smiley: ) and 500px for getting a daily dose of inspiration. I think there are a lot of good photographers posting their pictures there, and I mean not only those with pics in the rank of >1000 likes. It's unfortunately true that the comments mostly consists of "well done" or "great pic" like shorties - rarely I've seen comments that go into detail of the shot.

On flickr, I noticed very obvious automated comments. On 500px, it does not seem so obvious to me. I hope that question does not sound too stupid, but can you give me some hints on how to spot whether interaction is originating from a bot or a spammer on 500px?

Cygnus Studios

It's not so much the comments that are the issue with 500px, it's the bots, pornographers and spammers posting images. There are still some good photographers who hang out there and some great images being posted. Some sections are far worse than others of course. I used to quite enjoy their "commercial" section a couple years back, but if you glance at it now most of the daily images are stretched out screen grabs of international ads.

It used to be a whole lot better when their management cared.

lmery

Why not think about the main advantage of 500px - Lots of inspiring photos, it's visibility and sales is growing faster and faster. :) But the link is not yours.

David_S85

@lmery said:
Why not think about the main advantage of 500px - Lots of inspiring photos, it's visibility and sales is growing faster and faster. But the link is not yours.

What do you mean?... "the link is not yours."

willard3

@Cygnus Studios said:

@bike21 said:

Popular photo sharing sites also work on this premise. It's all about followers and friends. If you are popular, your images become popular.

This is true of Digital Grin as well. It is an exclusive club that excludes any but the insiders.

This causes people not to join the forum and makes the forum smaller til it disappears.

I have seen many forums cease to exist because the club excludes those who would participate. It is happening on this forum as we speak.

Richard

@willard3 said:
This is true of Digital Grin as well. It is an exclusive club that excludes any but the insiders.
This causes people not to join the forum and makes the forum smaller til it disappears.
I have seen many forums cease to exist because the club excludes those who would participate. It is happening on this forum as we speak.

We try to keep Dgrin accessible to everyone except spammers. What makes you say that we are excluding people?

bike21

So I'm back on the 500px train, I had a long hiatus but stepping back in to see how warm the water feels. Like any other social media these days, you take it with a grain of salt. Hoping to see less BS pics but will tell.

mardy

A problem I have with 500px is that they stopped providing an API for developers; well, they probably still have an API, but only for selected (paying) customers. I'm afraid that this will contribute to make their website less and less popular.

greenfly

@bike21 said:
I've tried to like 500px, but the bots, spammers and complete lack of honesty in photography from so many accounts is tiresome. Case in point of this epic crap...

https://500px.com/photo/206581061/i-think-we-will-get-wet-by-kenan-mutlu?ctx_page=1&from=user&user_id=1424271

Anyone else tired of this or am I just cranky from going to bed at 4am?

Dang.. same clouds in different locations...

ian408

@Richard said:

@willard3 said:
This is true of Digital Grin as well. It is an exclusive club that excludes any but the insiders.
This causes people not to join the forum and makes the forum smaller til it disappears.
I have seen many forums cease to exist because the club excludes those who would participate. It is happening on this forum as we speak.

We try to keep Dgrin accessible to everyone except spammers. What makes you say that we are excluding people?

I've been thinking a bit about this. Forums require you know they exist. Social Media have the platform and easy ways to find groups you're interested in. In the end though, a group on FB is no more or less exclusive than a forum. Oh. But the social media sites aren't anywhere near as picture friendly than forums.