Don't know where I fit in Papajay's or Andy's accounting of the past posters on this thread, but I'm still a smugmug account holder and would love it if Smugmug gave the option to opt out of indexing and smugmug searching. I'd also love it more if it could be done so that people who wanted to keep their accounts private could use features such as keywords, but I'd be happy with one step at a time too. I've generally been very happy with Smugmug, but this is an important issue to me and it's the only issue that leads me to look at other services every now and then. So far, the only other sites I've found that are better about privacy (e.g., Phanfare), do not match smugmug in terms of the other things I want. So, for now I do without keywords and keep my smugmug site password protected, but I'd really like to be able to use keywords in the future.
Don't know where I fit in Papajay's or Andy's accounting of the past posters on this thread, but I'm still a smugmug account holder and would love it if Smugmug gave the option to opt out of indexing and smugmug searching. I'd also love it more if it could be done so that people who wanted to keep their accounts private could use features such as keywords, but I'd be happy with one step at a time too. I've generally been very happy with Smugmug, but this is an important issue to me and it's the only issue that leads me to look at other services every now and then. So far, the only other sites I've found that are better about privacy (e.g., Phanfare), do not match smugmug in terms of the other things I want. So, for now I do without keywords and keep my smugmug site password protected, but I'd really like to be able to use keywords in the future.
Steve
Hi Steve, thanks for posting again. It's important that we hear from you guys on this!
We wouldn't be the company we are today without passionate customers who aren't shy about telling us what-for. We thrive on it, it's like gold to us.
This seems to be selective, Andy. Perhaps my relationship with the company is not venerable enough? Am I coming off as impertinent?
Sorry to be showing a little attention-seeking behaviour, but it's not as though I'm simply throwing in a bunch of unconstructive "me too" comments; I'm trying to actively suggest solutions in this thread (and others like it—you've been there, too) for the betterment of SmugMug but I've yet to elicit a response of any kind from the staff. I'm trying to be helpful in this discussion—apologies if that doesn't come across.
I'm very vocal in evangelizing SmugMug and I participate here because I would rather see it meet my needs than to jump ship.
This seems to be selective, Andy. Perhaps my relationship with the company is not venerable enough? Am I coming off as impertinent?
No, not in the least. We're sorry we don't answer every single post- it's sometimes hard to spend so much time doing so - but we are reading and devouring all of this. Please know that your voice matters!
Sorry to be showing a little attention-seeking behaviour, but it's not as though I'm simply throwing in a bunch of unconstructive "me too" comments; I'm trying to actively suggest solutions in this thread (and others like it—you've been there, too) for the betterment of SmugMug but I've yet to elicit a response of any kind from the staff. I'm trying to be helpful in this discussion—apologies if that doesn't come across.
I'm very vocal in evangelizing SmugMug and I participate here because I would rather see it meet my needs than to jump ship.
Thanks for this. It's very important - and keep on us. I'm adding your other recent post here, so I can reply, too:
Please let me add my voice to this. I have also been vocal about security and privacy on a few other dgrin threads but they, too, have resulted in no particular solution or declaration of intent to modify SM to date.
Read the recent posts by Baldy, that's what we've got to say as of now. We don't have any declaration of intent to give yet, I'm sorry.
Quoting a 2005 poll does not cancel the growing concern over increased privacy coupled with the desire for features to not be disabled. Flickr, at least, enables keywords once you are logged in and removes them on protected photos and sets when you're not, so it's not as though we're asking you to blaze a trail. I appreciate making this happen is complicated based on how SM is set up, but it is not impossible to do.
No, but it's a bit more difficult to change the implementation after our site has matured so. And I believe that's one of the factors in our SmugSorcerers' thinking (Onethumb, in this case). But it's certainly not the only one.
I don't understand this claim that the existence of password protection and private galleries defeats the purpose of (or obviates the need for) searching. Nonsense. Searching should still be available to those who have permission to view the content in question—full stop. What we need is a set of permissions that are easy enough to manage.
Thanks for the great feedback and again, I've made sure that folks have seen it.
Thanks Andy, I didn't mean to get cranky—I'm here to help! And I understand the foundations have been built upon and unraveling your site is probably not very appealing. Thanks for listening.
Don't you stop posting, Papa! We wouldn't be the company we are today without passionate customers who aren't shy about telling us what-for. We thrive on it, it's like gold to us.
OK, Andy...you asked for it!...just so happens I am really ticked this morning! I use Statcounter to monitor hits to my SmugMug pages...not because I want hits....but to see who is "hitting" and to draw inferences as to why (did I invite them?...fine, of course; did they stumble in?...mostly OK, I don't mind that too much; did they "search" in with provacative keyword searches?...not at all happy about that one).
You will recall that I'm a "grandpa" of no particular distinction except to my own grandkids...and that my site is "for the g-rated enjoyment of my family and friends...nothing more, nothing less".
I usually see 5, 10, 15 unique users per day on my site...tolerable. But yesterday I had 242!!!! A little detective work identified the real "culprit"...it was SmugMug! The SmugMug Browse feature captured two of my Family galleries in it's grimie little paws and invited anyone who visited SmugMug's home page to visit my galleries! And I am not at all happy about it!
"Turn your galleries to private rather than public" someone will say...as though it's a real solution. Yeah, yeah, yeah...heard that before. (and if I post a complaint in another thread that my keywords aren't working, some simpleton will offer "Turn your galleries to public rather than private"...as though that's a real solution).
It's only because of the revived interest in this thread in the past couple of days, and the brief re-appearance of Baldy to the discussion, that I have any hope this will actually do some good.
It may be as others have said..."a huge undertaking"...it may be as "other others" have said..."impossible". (Both assertions cannot be right). If it's the former, then the answer to me is simple..."Just Do It!". If it's the latter..."Tell me (Officially, from the top, once and for all), so I can find another place to store/share my photos).
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Don't know where I fit in Papajay's or Andy's accounting of the past posters on this thread, but I'm still a smugmug account holder and would love it if Smugmug gave the option to opt out of indexing and smugmug searching. I'd also love it more if it could be done so that people who wanted to keep their accounts private could use features such as keywords, but I'd be happy with one step at a time too.
If I'm not mistaken, there is pretty good alignment between what's least difficult to do and what has the most impact.
In order of difficulty, least to most:
1. Opting out of Google search.
2. Opting out of SmugMug browse and search.
3. Opting out of public keywords.
4. Searching & keywords in private & passworded galleries.
3 is difficult from a programming point of view, 4 is difficult because of patent trolls. I have heard Yahoo has fought the patent trolls but I have no idea what the resolution is or if there is one yet.
We love to have subscribers who we can please but we don't want to make life miserable for subscribers we can't. If #3 and #4 are important to you, much as we dislike saying it, the honest answer is we probably won't be able to accomodate you in a time frame you'd find reasonable.
OK, Andy...you asked for it!...The SmugMug Browse feature captured two of my Family galleries in it's grimie little paws and invited anyone who visited SmugMug's home page to visit my galleries! And I am not at all happy about it!
I've never looked at the SmugMug Browse from the homepage. I did just now. Today's "Most Active Keywords" include: bath, beach, dancing, girl, party, playing, school and sisters. Nice to know how internet strangers are using SM's keyword functions to find our family galleries, isn't it?
Regarding posted comments the last few days: being able to stop search bots from indexing sites is a decent first step. It's like locking the front door of your house. Stopping the search bots while keeping the SM search feature active is like leaving the back door unlocked while the front door is locked. Yes, it'll probably reduce burglar traffic...but no sane person would sleep comfortably at night with such house "security". So yes, I'll agree that SM should let us lock the front door....but I hope not to see any help page update trumpeting a great security breakthrough, and I'd hope that SM doesn't put this topic to sleep for another 2 years.
Regarding SM's help desk helping people find "their friends": boy, every stockbroker and other salesman in town would love to have SM serve as secretaries. Did you ever consider that perhaps "grandma" is actually "Fred" trying to find his ex-wife and their children despite a court order for him to keep away? Helping strangers find your customers is not, I would think, in the best interest of your customers or your company.
Regarding comments that "most Smuggers are happy": I remind you that I was "happy" since joining in 2004. You've improved SM since then....yet I'm now very unhappy. I'm unhappy because I've learned things that were not made clear to me when I signed up, nor made clear as I and my friends and family used SM for 2.5 years. Some of the information may have been buried in the help pages. While I commend you for having lots of information available....I confess that RTFM is not first on the list of things I do when buying a product or using a service. Manuals and fine print make lawyers happy, but they don't help customers nearly so much as companies may want to believe. That's why we buy and use simple and elegant interfaces, not complicated UI's regardless of the detailed explanations made available. Please stop equating a lack of complaints from unaware customers as a happy customer base.
I've never looked at the SmugMug Browse from the homepage. I did just now. Today's "Most Active Keywords" include:
Those are kewyords on today's uploaded photos, not searches made by the public.
boy, every stockbroker and other salesman in town would love to have SM serve as secretaries. Did you ever consider that perhaps "grandma" is actually "Fred" trying to find his ex-wife and their children despite a court order for him to keep away? Helping strangers find your customers is not, I would think, in the best interest of your customers or your company.
Duck, we don't give out personal info. Period.
Please stop equating a lack of complaints from unaware customers as a happy customer base.
Those are kewyords on today's uploaded photos, not searches made by the public.
Hmmm....but the list then provides a detailed map to the public for how to best find photos. Still troubling if I've uploaded keywords for my family to find such words without being aware of the words being publicly accessible.
According to Baldy, thousands of people contact your help desk to find us...and you point them to our galleries. "I'm not saying we won't provide the option to remove searching for your name, but we'll need to figure how to tell thousands of people we've taken that away and can no longer tell them how to see their grandkids." Pointing "grandma Fred" to his ex-wife's galleries can show him where the kids now live, go to school, etc etc.
Further, you and DMC have discussed DMC's discomfort with SM having made our names searchable - he's tried to change that, but you acknowledged not knowing if it would have any impact.
Sounds like the "period" is more of a "comma" with some unwanted exceptions.
According to Baldy, thousands of people contact your help desk to find us...and you point them to our galleries. "I'm not saying we won't provide the option to remove searching for your name, but we'll need to figure how to tell thousands of people we've taken that away and can no longer tell them how to see their grandkids." Pointing "grandma Fred" to his ex-wife's galleries can show him where the kids now live, go to school, etc etc.
Duck, if John Q Public has a public site, and public photos, we'll certainly show his admirers how to find his publicly available site. We do not give out private information or private sites or private galleries.
Further, you and DMC have discussed DMC's discomfort with SM having made our names searchable - he's tried to change that, but you acknowledged not knowing if it would have any impact.
Sounds like the "period" is more of a "comma" with some unwanted exceptions.
Be seeing you,
Duck
Duck, I learn more about our system every day. Hardly surprising, is it?
Search indexing and database un-indexing etc takes time.
...
Further, you and DMC have discussed DMC's discomfort with SM having made our names searchable - he's tried to change that, but you acknowledged not knowing if it would have any impact.
hey.. I just tried smugmug search on my last name (after changing it on my account settings a week ago) and it has finally stopped bringing up my site! woohoo.
hey.. I just tried smugmug search on my last name (after changing it on my account settings a week ago) and it has finally stopped bringing up my site! woohoo.
According to Baldy, thousands of people contact your help desk to find us...and you point them to our galleries. "I'm not saying we won't provide the option to remove searching for your name, but we'll need to figure how to tell thousands of people we've taken that away and can no longer tell them how to see their grandkids." Pointing "grandma Fred" to his ex-wife's galleries can show him where the kids now live, go to school, etc etc.
Hey Duck,
The customer is always right but I definitely don't want to be misquoted as saying that.
What I said was thousands of people use SmugMug search every day to find their families. You also quoted me as saying the help desk cannot tell them how to find their grandkids once search is disabled, which is correct. Is there something we disagree on?
I have a lot of respect for your concerns and that's the reason I'm spending time in this thread trying to get a clear understanding of your needs—and marshalling engineering resources.
I think we have a working plan that should please most people except for the complexities these options are going to add to the user interface. Sorry in advance to papajay...
I know this is a very emotional issue and I certainly understand why. It must be really frustrating to see the time it's taking us to get clear on these issues... It's an adjustment for me at least, because we're under so much pressure from most customers to get them more traffic, make them easy to find, get their Google relevance up.
This is not too different from the position Google finds itself in. Google is an enormously popular company because it helps people find and be found, much to the understandable consternation of some people with privacy desires.
In any case, we're working on opt in/opt out for the key things; it's going to require a database architecture change and new hardware along with the UI changes, so I can't promise quick fixes.
I think we have a working plan that should please most people except for the complexities these options are going to add to the user interface. Sorry in advance to papajay...
Maybe it could be as easy as this:
Choose a privacy level for your site:
Low (recommended for most users)
Medium
High
Complete and total lockdown OMGWFTZBBQ!!!1!!1!!!!eleventy!!!
Okay that last one was just for giggles.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
... I think we have a working plan that should please most people except for the complexities these options are going to add to the user interface. Sorry in advance to papajay....
Even an old curmudgeon like me can appreciate and learn to live with a bit of "complexity" if it addresses a need (real or even just "preceived", as in this case)...no apology necessary, Baldy.
... it's going to require a database architecture change and new hardware along with the UI changes, so I can't promise quick fixes.
Good things take time, Baldy. Reasonable people (and believe it or not, I include myself in that group) know that it's true, even if we huff and puff about a perceived lack of progress.
Until now, it's been a perceived lack of a public commitment to actually implement a change that had me most frustrated. The excerpts from your post above I think demonstrate that you are, in fact, committed now to making whatever changes are necessary to address the concerns expressed by a growing number of us. And I, for one, appreciate that you did it in such a public forum.
Once you've got a plan in place, it would be equally appreciated to have some idea as to the time-frame we're talking about...hopefully expressed in months, not years.
Once you've got a plan in place, it would be equally appreciated to have some idea as to the time-frame we're talking about...hopefully expressed in months, not years.
I'll shut up now, and let you get to work.
We won't give time frames, Papa. You can draw your inferences from Baldy's postings. Know that it's something we're working on. But we do not give dates, sorry.
We won't give time frames, Papa. You can draw your inferences from Baldy's postings. Know that it's something we're working on. But we do not give dates, sorry.
One of the worst childhood memories I have is a fear of the darkness.
I appreciate the sentiment, and Marshall Field III taught the world to “give the lady what she wants’, but I acknowledge that customers are right significantly less often than “always”!
Nor do I want to misquote. Perhaps I used the wrong sentence when trying to quote what you said. I was thinking of, but didn’t properly use, your 2/27 11:58am reply to jfriend. Jfriend said, “I honestly can't imagine that viewers would email smugmug to ask you where my site is. If they do, I'm don't think you should give it to them anyway.”, and you replied “It happens all day every day. And they frequently add, "don't make me ask my son; he already thinks I'm a computer idiot."
So, I apologize if I used your 7:24pm quote out of context. My point, and concern, remains that strangers emailing SM should not be provided personalized help finding sites via the helpdesk based on a complete stranger saying please don’t make me ask the account holder. Andy has a good point though, that for public galleries, SM is not technically providing personal information. It comes down, perhaps, to expectations of privacy – we often use “personal” and “private” interchangeably, and the two words are rarely synonymous. I consider the price I paid for my house, and my mortgage information, personal and private – my state legislators, many of whom are in real estate and finance fields, disagree and make home sales and mortgage data information legally public and non-private. I don’t like it, but at least I know it.
I sense that SM wants transparency so that we too understand when “personal” may mean “public” rather than “private”, and perhaps SM has even thought this distinction has already been provided to-date more clearly than many of us feel. As this sometimes heated discussion shows, there remains room for improved clarity as well as improved technical solutions.
I have a lot of respect for your concerns and that's the reason I'm spending time in this thread trying to get a clear understanding of your needs—and marshalling engineering resources.
I recognize and appreciate your concern and efforts, and I respect you for the openness you’ve injected on behalf of SM. Please excuse the occasional testiness I’ve conveyed; you deserve better. If my own small efforts have contributed to this 2-year concern finally moving forward then I certainly don’t want to taint your receptiveness to our concerns by being a poor messenger.
I think we have a working plan that should please most people except for the complexities these options are going to add to the user interface.
The K.I.S.S. principal should rarely be applied to security issues. You can probably minimize complexities by making them an optional alternative to a simple default. During account sign-up, explain that you offer the opportunity to fine-tune the ability for friends, family and strangers to find and view photos to meet different needs and expectations of customers, and that the default is to make photos easily available to everyone, including through Google and SM search engines.
I know this is a very emotional issue and I certainly understand why. It must be really frustrating to see the time it's taking us to get clear on these issues... It's an adjustment for me at least, because we're under so much pressure from most customers to get them more traffic, make them easy to find, get their Google relevance up.
Your support for pros appears unmatched, and I can understand their emphasis on site traffic. If your customer targets are pros, then it makes sense to help them and their photos to be found, to focus security on preventing copyright abuse, and to help them differentiate the look of their sites with extensive customization. “Private” is an economic issue to professionals. You’ll probably hear from professionals frequently and will get good feedback of what’s working or not at SM. They’ll measure you effectively by how many sales are generated at SM, and they’ll quantify the results of site tweaking. They’ll focus on potential customers finding their photos and buying prints with superb image quality and speedy delivery.
If your customer targets are enthusiasts, then you’ll be serving hobbyists. “Private” photos means photos of vulnerable loved ones, rather than “for sale – I want you to have this photo but I want you to pay for it”. “Personal” to an enthusiast is not the economic value of a unique personal vision expressed through photography, but is a record of everyday life. We feel uncomfortable if strangers stand on the public sidewalk watching us in our homes through open windows, even if we did not draw the drapes to transform our personal space to private space. Enthusiasts are less likely to be concerned with customization minutia that is significant to pros. Enthusiasts are also less likely to have time and interest to learn HTML, CSS, JAVA etc, nor are they likely to bother signing up to Digital Grin to provide feedback about something they don’t use. Enthusiasts will focus on ease of getting photos into SM, ease for sending links of photos and galleries to family and friends, ease for family and friends to view photos, and comfort that no-one is watching through the windows.
Thanks, Baldy, for the meticulousness of your efforts. I hope that Smugmug and your customers benefit from the voices and efforts of those on this thread.
Enthusiasts will focus on ease of getting photos into SM, ease for sending links of photos and galleries to family and friends, ease for family and friends to view photos, and comfort that no-one is watching through the windows.
The Duck
I think anytime you put something, anything on the internet, even if you are not drawing attention to it (keywording), it is similar to putting something in your front yard. It is there for anybody that travels past, whether purposely, randomly, or accidentally.
For example I can put www.smugmug.com/photos/xxxxxxx-M.jpg replacing the xxxxxxxx with numbers I can get to any photo, evetually that isn't in a password protected gallery. I just did this and on the fourth time changing the numbers around I got a picture of mine. I am usually good about putting passwords on any nonpublic gallery, but I guess I need to check things on my site.
"A photo is like a hamburger. You can get one from McDonalds for $1, one from Chili's for $5, or one from Ruth's Chris for $15. You usually get what you pay for, but don't expect a Ruth's Chris burger at a McDonalds price, if you want that, go cook it yourself." - me
I think anytime you put something, anything on the internet, even if you are not drawing attention to it (keywording), it is similar to putting something in your front yard. It is there for anybody that travels past, whether purposely, randomly, or accidentally.
My hope and belief is that this is old-school internet, not the direction for the future.
When I was a kid, we had a telephone party-line. Even though Al Gore didn't invent it, it was the original internet. Limited bandwith shared by all, and anything said was heard by anyone listening....and BOY did some folks listen! Business phones were virtually never a party-line because privacy was not only important, but it was obviously important. Over time, residential party lines were phased out and made private.
The still-young traditions and expectations of internet use are evolving with technological changes and with user expectation changes. One day, I'm convinced, we or our children will look back and say "what do you mean anyone in the world could find your emails or your photos??" I hope Smugmug is part of this evolution and is not buried by it.
Be seeing you,
The Duck
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited March 6, 2007
Lots of good posts here. We're busy working on this but to give a few quickie responses to various:
Good idea wrt low, med, high privacy. We played with it for awhile in hopes of making the choices simpler but it turns out when you add up the various privacy options it's hard to map them that way in practice. So after some messing around, we decided we could make them clear by describing them.
Wrt being willing to step up and accomodate the guy with 2 terrabytes of photos, that was actually quite a bit cheaper than this because it was just hardware, no engineering. This is both hardware (we bought two new Sun database servers to handle the performance repercussions), engineering, help desk, etc.
Papajay, we think months not years because we're actively working on it, But... (There's always a but... :cry) It's very hard to say what the performance ramifications are on the live site and it's hard to simulate in testing. 5 keywords/photo x 135 million photos on the ~1,000 busiest Internet site = Hmmmm.... We may have some false starts.
Duck, it sounds like we're very much on the same page, so no worries. Our view of the future is quite different than yours but it doesn't matter because we're doing this, so everyone has choice.
My personal view is the sites that are exploding are about being found: MySpace, Flickr, Google, the blogosphere... The Internet was conceived as a public network and it's much more adaptable to being found than to being private. And the migration over the last 20 years is stunning: people used to refuse to buy things on the Internet, to do email, etc., and now by the billions they embrace it.
We're not doing this because it makes business sense or makes us appeal to the masses, but because it feels like the right thing to do for the peace of mind for our customers who care about privacy for their family sites. We can well respect the need for privacy when you have a 13-year old daughter, no matter where the Internet goes in the future.
We're not doing this because it makes business sense or makes us appeal to the masses, but because it feels like the right thing to do for the peace of mind for our customers who care about privacy for their family sites. We can well respect the need for privacy when you have a 13-year old daughter, no matter where the Internet goes in the future.
I for one and happy that you came to that conclusion. This is what separates SM from some other sites that feel like they're being run by a bunch of post-adolescents without a care in the world. The desire to "explode" is obviously important and I hope you can have your cake and eat it, too.
Lots of good posts here. We're busy working on this but to give a few quickie responses to various:
Good idea wrt low, med, high privacy. We played with it for awhile in hopes of making the choices simpler but it turns out when you add up the various privacy options it's hard to map them that way in practice. So after some messing around, we decided we could make them clear by describing them.
Please don't do low, med, high etc.... you will have to constantly translate what each does, etc. Have options, but be explicit...
Like this:
Allow Google to index your Account? [N] (Y/N)
Allow Smugmug's Public Search tool to access your pics? [N] (Y/N)
Allow Smugmug's Public MapThis show your pics [N] (Y/N)
My opinion regarding a photo sharing site (not photographer's selling site) is that the site be totally private by default... then as users want to share, they open it up explicitly with the above example options.... If there was a "Family Share Smugmug", the keywords, MapThis, Popular photo's, Search, Browse, would only relate to your site only, nothing to do with anybody elses pictures. People only find my site by my invitation. If a password is required (to keep lookyloos out), fine, but I don't want to loose all the cool Smugmug features.
Papajay, we think monthsnot years because we're actively working on it, But... (There's always a but... :cry) It's very hard to say what the performance ramifications are on the live site and it's hard to simulate in testing. 5 keywords/photo x 135 million photos on the ~1,000 busiest Internet site = Hmmmm.... We may have some false starts..
Baldy. I'm very glad to see that SmugMug's policy ("we don't give date estimates") is being relaxed a bit in this instance. As I told Andy, being left completely in the dark is no picnic, so thank you for a "real" answer (not slamming you, Andy...you followed protocol...no problem). I appreciate it.
We can well respect the need for privacy when you have a 13-year old daughter, no matter where the Internet goes in the future.
This helps restore/maintain the faith some of us still have that not all corporations are just out to maximize bottom line income regardless of potentially negative consequences to a niche segment of its customer base. Again, thank you for publicly stating a principled viewpoint.
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BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
Please don't do low, med, high etc.... you will have to constantly translate what each does, etc. Have options, but be explicit...
Like this:
Allow Google to index your Account? [N] (Y/N)
Allow Smugmug's Public Search tool to access your pics? [N] (Y/N)
Allow Smugmug's Public MapThis show your pics [N] (Y/N)
You've done a great job of making your wishes clear—consistently. Hopefully we can pull this off reasonably quickly without running into some issue.
The current design has two concepts: World searchable and Smug searchable.
You can turn off world searchable (don't let Yahoo and Google find me) for your entire site or on particular galleries. I didn't want to complicate this with a per-gallery option, but we have some customers who want to turn it off for their children's galleries and on for their travel galleries. They know that you could find their children by searching for Paris and then noticing that they also have kids galleries, but they're not worried.
Smug searchable is a pull-down menu with 5 options:
1. Yes (everything will behave as it does now).
2. Local (you are an island, but on your site search and browse work and you get your own keyword cloud. When you're logged in, the keyword cloud, searching, and browsing includes private and passworded galleries; when you're logged out, it doesn't include private and passworded galleries).
3. Local user (same as #2 but they can search for you by name, nickname and bio. This is the don't thwart your grandmother option.)
4. No. (Don't allow searching or keywords on my local site either.)
5. No local user (let them find me as in #3, but don't let them search my photos). I dunno why anyone would want this option.
Currently we plan to leave #1 as the default because it seems to be what a large majority of our customers want. As one told me yesterday, "Why would I care if someone sees a photo of my child? I take them to the mall, I let them go to movies, I let them be seen in my neighborhood... That's where it's dangerous for them to be seen."
"Why would I care if someone sees a photo of my child? I take them to the mall, I let them go to movies, I let them be seen in my neighborhood... That's where it's dangerous for them to be seen."
That's why this thread is so fascinating to me. But hey, chalk yet another one up to SmugMug pWning customer service. I said it before and I'll say it again. SmugMug has the best customer service of any organization of any kind that I've ever encountered.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
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Don't know where I fit in Papajay's or Andy's accounting of the past posters on this thread, but I'm still a smugmug account holder and would love it if Smugmug gave the option to opt out of indexing and smugmug searching. I'd also love it more if it could be done so that people who wanted to keep their accounts private could use features such as keywords, but I'd be happy with one step at a time too. I've generally been very happy with Smugmug, but this is an important issue to me and it's the only issue that leads me to look at other services every now and then. So far, the only other sites I've found that are better about privacy (e.g., Phanfare), do not match smugmug in terms of the other things I want. So, for now I do without keywords and keep my smugmug site password protected, but I'd really like to be able to use keywords in the future.
Steve
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This seems to be selective, Andy. Perhaps my relationship with the company is not venerable enough? Am I coming off as impertinent?
Sorry to be showing a little attention-seeking behaviour, but it's not as though I'm simply throwing in a bunch of unconstructive "me too" comments; I'm trying to actively suggest solutions in this thread (and others like it—you've been there, too) for the betterment of SmugMug but I've yet to elicit a response of any kind from the staff. I'm trying to be helpful in this discussion—apologies if that doesn't come across.
I'm very vocal in evangelizing SmugMug and I participate here because I would rather see it meet my needs than to jump ship.
Read the recent posts by Baldy, that's what we've got to say as of now. We don't have any declaration of intent to give yet, I'm sorry. No, but it's a bit more difficult to change the implementation after our site has matured so. And I believe that's one of the factors in our SmugSorcerers' thinking (Onethumb, in this case). But it's certainly not the only one. Thanks for the great feedback and again, I've made sure that folks have seen it.
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OK, Andy...you asked for it!...just so happens I am really ticked this morning! I use Statcounter to monitor hits to my SmugMug pages...not because I want hits....but to see who is "hitting" and to draw inferences as to why (did I invite them?...fine, of course; did they stumble in?...mostly OK, I don't mind that too much; did they "search" in with provacative keyword searches?...not at all happy about that one).
You will recall that I'm a "grandpa" of no particular distinction except to my own grandkids...and that my site is "for the g-rated enjoyment of my family and friends...nothing more, nothing less".
I usually see 5, 10, 15 unique users per day on my site...tolerable. But yesterday I had 242!!!! A little detective work identified the real "culprit"...it was SmugMug! The SmugMug Browse feature captured two of my Family galleries in it's grimie little paws and invited anyone who visited SmugMug's home page to visit my galleries! And I am not at all happy about it!
"Turn your galleries to private rather than public" someone will say...as though it's a real solution. Yeah, yeah, yeah...heard that before. (and if I post a complaint in another thread that my keywords aren't working, some simpleton will offer "Turn your galleries to public rather than private"...as though that's a real solution).
It's only because of the revived interest in this thread in the past couple of days, and the brief re-appearance of Baldy to the discussion, that I have any hope this will actually do some good.
It may be as others have said..."a huge undertaking"...it may be as "other others" have said..."impossible". (Both assertions cannot be right). If it's the former, then the answer to me is simple..."Just Do It!". If it's the latter..."Tell me (Officially, from the top, once and for all), so I can find another place to store/share my photos).
In order of difficulty, least to most:
1. Opting out of Google search.
2. Opting out of SmugMug browse and search.
3. Opting out of public keywords.
4. Searching & keywords in private & passworded galleries.
3 is difficult from a programming point of view, 4 is difficult because of patent trolls. I have heard Yahoo has fought the patent trolls but I have no idea what the resolution is or if there is one yet.
We love to have subscribers who we can please but we don't want to make life miserable for subscribers we can't. If #3 and #4 are important to you, much as we dislike saying it, the honest answer is we probably won't be able to accomodate you in a time frame you'd find reasonable.
I hope this helps.
Thanks,
Baldy
I've never looked at the SmugMug Browse from the homepage. I did just now. Today's "Most Active Keywords" include: bath, beach, dancing, girl, party, playing, school and sisters. Nice to know how internet strangers are using SM's keyword functions to find our family galleries, isn't it?
Regarding posted comments the last few days: being able to stop search bots from indexing sites is a decent first step. It's like locking the front door of your house. Stopping the search bots while keeping the SM search feature active is like leaving the back door unlocked while the front door is locked. Yes, it'll probably reduce burglar traffic...but no sane person would sleep comfortably at night with such house "security". So yes, I'll agree that SM should let us lock the front door....but I hope not to see any help page update trumpeting a great security breakthrough, and I'd hope that SM doesn't put this topic to sleep for another 2 years.
Regarding SM's help desk helping people find "their friends": boy, every stockbroker and other salesman in town would love to have SM serve as secretaries. Did you ever consider that perhaps "grandma" is actually "Fred" trying to find his ex-wife and their children despite a court order for him to keep away? Helping strangers find your customers is not, I would think, in the best interest of your customers or your company.
Regarding comments that "most Smuggers are happy": I remind you that I was "happy" since joining in 2004. You've improved SM since then....yet I'm now very unhappy. I'm unhappy because I've learned things that were not made clear to me when I signed up, nor made clear as I and my friends and family used SM for 2.5 years. Some of the information may have been buried in the help pages. While I commend you for having lots of information available....I confess that RTFM is not first on the list of things I do when buying a product or using a service. Manuals and fine print make lawyers happy, but they don't help customers nearly so much as companies may want to believe. That's why we buy and use simple and elegant interfaces, not complicated UI's regardless of the detailed explanations made available. Please stop equating a lack of complaints from unaware customers as a happy customer base.
Be seeing you,
The Duck
Duck, we don't give out personal info. Period.
We aren't. Thanks for posting, Duck!
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Hmmm....but the list then provides a detailed map to the public for how to best find photos. Still troubling if I've uploaded keywords for my family to find such words without being aware of the words being publicly accessible.
According to Baldy, thousands of people contact your help desk to find us...and you point them to our galleries. "I'm not saying we won't provide the option to remove searching for your name, but we'll need to figure how to tell thousands of people we've taken that away and can no longer tell them how to see their grandkids." Pointing "grandma Fred" to his ex-wife's galleries can show him where the kids now live, go to school, etc etc.
Further, you and DMC have discussed DMC's discomfort with SM having made our names searchable - he's tried to change that, but you acknowledged not knowing if it would have any impact.
Sounds like the "period" is more of a "comma" with some unwanted exceptions.
Be seeing you,
Duck
Duck, I learn more about our system every day. Hardly surprising, is it?
Search indexing and database un-indexing etc takes time.
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hey.. I just tried smugmug search on my last name (after changing it on my account settings a week ago) and it has finally stopped bringing up my site! woohoo.
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The customer is always right but I definitely don't want to be misquoted as saying that.
What I said was thousands of people use SmugMug search every day to find their families. You also quoted me as saying the help desk cannot tell them how to find their grandkids once search is disabled, which is correct. Is there something we disagree on?
I have a lot of respect for your concerns and that's the reason I'm spending time in this thread trying to get a clear understanding of your needs—and marshalling engineering resources.
I think we have a working plan that should please most people except for the complexities these options are going to add to the user interface. Sorry in advance to papajay...
I know this is a very emotional issue and I certainly understand why. It must be really frustrating to see the time it's taking us to get clear on these issues... It's an adjustment for me at least, because we're under so much pressure from most customers to get them more traffic, make them easy to find, get their Google relevance up.
This is not too different from the position Google finds itself in. Google is an enormously popular company because it helps people find and be found, much to the understandable consternation of some people with privacy desires.
In any case, we're working on opt in/opt out for the key things; it's going to require a database architecture change and new hardware along with the UI changes, so I can't promise quick fixes.
Thanks,
Baldy
Maybe it could be as easy as this:
Choose a privacy level for your site:
- Low (recommended for most users)
- Medium
- High
- Complete and total lockdown OMGWFT
ZBBQ!!!1!!1!!!!eleventy!!!
Okay that last one was just for giggles.http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
I read this ("marshalling engineering resources") as a VERY positive statement!
Even an old curmudgeon like me can appreciate and learn to live with a bit of "complexity" if it addresses a need (real or even just "preceived", as in this case)...no apology necessary, Baldy.
...As above, this is a huge step forward!
Good things take time, Baldy. Reasonable people (and believe it or not, I include myself in that group) know that it's true, even if we huff and puff about a perceived lack of progress.
Until now, it's been a perceived lack of a public commitment to actually implement a change that had me most frustrated. The excerpts from your post above I think demonstrate that you are, in fact, committed now to making whatever changes are necessary to address the concerns expressed by a growing number of us. And I, for one, appreciate that you did it in such a public forum.
Once you've got a plan in place, it would be equally appreciated to have some idea as to the time-frame we're talking about...hopefully expressed in months, not years.
I'll shut up now, and let you get to work.
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One of the worst childhood memories I have is a fear of the darkness.
It is ok. You are protected by 20 Superheroes!.
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Nor do I want to misquote. Perhaps I used the wrong sentence when trying to quote what you said. I was thinking of, but didn’t properly use, your 2/27 11:58am reply to jfriend. Jfriend said, “I honestly can't imagine that viewers would email smugmug to ask you where my site is. If they do, I'm don't think you should give it to them anyway.”, and you replied “It happens all day every day. And they frequently add, "don't make me ask my son; he already thinks I'm a computer idiot."
So, I apologize if I used your 7:24pm quote out of context. My point, and concern, remains that strangers emailing SM should not be provided personalized help finding sites via the helpdesk based on a complete stranger saying please don’t make me ask the account holder. Andy has a good point though, that for public galleries, SM is not technically providing personal information. It comes down, perhaps, to expectations of privacy – we often use “personal” and “private” interchangeably, and the two words are rarely synonymous. I consider the price I paid for my house, and my mortgage information, personal and private – my state legislators, many of whom are in real estate and finance fields, disagree and make home sales and mortgage data information legally public and non-private. I don’t like it, but at least I know it.
I sense that SM wants transparency so that we too understand when “personal” may mean “public” rather than “private”, and perhaps SM has even thought this distinction has already been provided to-date more clearly than many of us feel. As this sometimes heated discussion shows, there remains room for improved clarity as well as improved technical solutions.
I recognize and appreciate your concern and efforts, and I respect you for the openness you’ve injected on behalf of SM. Please excuse the occasional testiness I’ve conveyed; you deserve better. If my own small efforts have contributed to this 2-year concern finally moving forward then I certainly don’t want to taint your receptiveness to our concerns by being a poor messenger.
The K.I.S.S. principal should rarely be applied to security issues. You can probably minimize complexities by making them an optional alternative to a simple default. During account sign-up, explain that you offer the opportunity to fine-tune the ability for friends, family and strangers to find and view photos to meet different needs and expectations of customers, and that the default is to make photos easily available to everyone, including through Google and SM search engines.
Your support for pros appears unmatched, and I can understand their emphasis on site traffic. If your customer targets are pros, then it makes sense to help them and their photos to be found, to focus security on preventing copyright abuse, and to help them differentiate the look of their sites with extensive customization. “Private” is an economic issue to professionals. You’ll probably hear from professionals frequently and will get good feedback of what’s working or not at SM. They’ll measure you effectively by how many sales are generated at SM, and they’ll quantify the results of site tweaking. They’ll focus on potential customers finding their photos and buying prints with superb image quality and speedy delivery.
If your customer targets are enthusiasts, then you’ll be serving hobbyists. “Private” photos means photos of vulnerable loved ones, rather than “for sale – I want you to have this photo but I want you to pay for it”. “Personal” to an enthusiast is not the economic value of a unique personal vision expressed through photography, but is a record of everyday life. We feel uncomfortable if strangers stand on the public sidewalk watching us in our homes through open windows, even if we did not draw the drapes to transform our personal space to private space. Enthusiasts are less likely to be concerned with customization minutia that is significant to pros. Enthusiasts are also less likely to have time and interest to learn HTML, CSS, JAVA etc, nor are they likely to bother signing up to Digital Grin to provide feedback about something they don’t use. Enthusiasts will focus on ease of getting photos into SM, ease for sending links of photos and galleries to family and friends, ease for family and friends to view photos, and comfort that no-one is watching through the windows.
Thanks, Baldy, for the meticulousness of your efforts. I hope that Smugmug and your customers benefit from the voices and efforts of those on this thread.
Best regards,
The Duck
I think anytime you put something, anything on the internet, even if you are not drawing attention to it (keywording), it is similar to putting something in your front yard. It is there for anybody that travels past, whether purposely, randomly, or accidentally.
For example I can put www.smugmug.com/photos/xxxxxxx-M.jpg replacing the xxxxxxxx with numbers I can get to any photo, evetually that isn't in a password protected gallery. I just did this and on the fourth time changing the numbers around I got a picture of mine. I am usually good about putting passwords on any nonpublic gallery, but I guess I need to check things on my site.
My hope and belief is that this is old-school internet, not the direction for the future.
When I was a kid, we had a telephone party-line. Even though Al Gore didn't invent it, it was the original internet. Limited bandwith shared by all, and anything said was heard by anyone listening....and BOY did some folks listen! Business phones were virtually never a party-line because privacy was not only important, but it was obviously important. Over time, residential party lines were phased out and made private.
The still-young traditions and expectations of internet use are evolving with technological changes and with user expectation changes. One day, I'm convinced, we or our children will look back and say "what do you mean anyone in the world could find your emails or your photos??" I hope Smugmug is part of this evolution and is not buried by it.
Be seeing you,
The Duck
Good idea wrt low, med, high privacy. We played with it for awhile in hopes of making the choices simpler but it turns out when you add up the various privacy options it's hard to map them that way in practice. So after some messing around, we decided we could make them clear by describing them.
Wrt being willing to step up and accomodate the guy with 2 terrabytes of photos, that was actually quite a bit cheaper than this because it was just hardware, no engineering. This is both hardware (we bought two new Sun database servers to handle the performance repercussions), engineering, help desk, etc.
Papajay, we think months not years because we're actively working on it, But... (There's always a but... :cry) It's very hard to say what the performance ramifications are on the live site and it's hard to simulate in testing. 5 keywords/photo x 135 million photos on the ~1,000 busiest Internet site = Hmmmm....
Duck, it sounds like we're very much on the same page, so no worries. Our view of the future is quite different than yours but it doesn't matter because we're doing this, so everyone has choice.
My personal view is the sites that are exploding are about being found: MySpace, Flickr, Google, the blogosphere... The Internet was conceived as a public network and it's much more adaptable to being found than to being private. And the migration over the last 20 years is stunning: people used to refuse to buy things on the Internet, to do email, etc., and now by the billions they embrace it.
We're not doing this because it makes business sense or makes us appeal to the masses, but because it feels like the right thing to do for the peace of mind for our customers who care about privacy for their family sites. We can well respect the need for privacy when you have a 13-year old daughter, no matter where the Internet goes in the future.
I for one and happy that you came to that conclusion. This is what separates SM from some other sites that feel like they're being run by a bunch of post-adolescents without a care in the world. The desire to "explode" is obviously important and I hope you can have your cake and eat it, too.
Like this:
Allow Google to index your Account? [N] (Y/N)
Allow Smugmug's Public Search tool to access your pics? [N] (Y/N)
Allow Smugmug's Public MapThis show your pics [N] (Y/N)
I have it all here:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?p=365605#post365605
My opinion regarding a photo sharing site (not photographer's selling site) is that the site be totally private by default... then as users want to share, they open it up explicitly with the above example options.... If there was a "Family Share Smugmug", the keywords, MapThis, Popular photo's, Search, Browse, would only relate to your site only, nothing to do with anybody elses pictures. People only find my site by my invitation. If a password is required (to keep lookyloos out), fine, but I don't want to loose all the cool Smugmug features.
thanks for listening!
Baldy. I'm very glad to see that SmugMug's policy ("we don't give date estimates") is being relaxed a bit in this instance. As I told Andy, being left completely in the dark is no picnic, so thank you for a "real" answer (not slamming you, Andy...you followed protocol...no problem). I appreciate it.
This helps restore/maintain the faith some of us still have that not all corporations are just out to maximize bottom line income regardless of potentially negative consequences to a niche segment of its customer base. Again, thank you for publicly stating a principled viewpoint.
The current design has two concepts: World searchable and Smug searchable.
You can turn off world searchable (don't let Yahoo and Google find me) for your entire site or on particular galleries. I didn't want to complicate this with a per-gallery option, but we have some customers who want to turn it off for their children's galleries and on for their travel galleries. They know that you could find their children by searching for Paris and then noticing that they also have kids galleries, but they're not worried.
Smug searchable is a pull-down menu with 5 options:
1. Yes (everything will behave as it does now).
2. Local (you are an island, but on your site search and browse work and you get your own keyword cloud. When you're logged in, the keyword cloud, searching, and browsing includes private and passworded galleries; when you're logged out, it doesn't include private and passworded galleries).
3. Local user (same as #2 but they can search for you by name, nickname and bio. This is the don't thwart your grandmother option.)
4. No. (Don't allow searching or keywords on my local site either.)
5. No local user (let them find me as in #3, but don't let them search my photos). I dunno why anyone would want this option.
Currently we plan to leave #1 as the default because it seems to be what a large majority of our customers want. As one told me yesterday, "Why would I care if someone sees a photo of my child? I take them to the mall, I let them go to movies, I let them be seen in my neighborhood... That's where it's dangerous for them to be seen."
That's why this thread is so fascinating to me. But hey, chalk yet another one up to SmugMug pWning customer service.
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/