Image Use ethics - CC0 and photoscraping sites

Two issues 

1. what is our responsibility for proving right to use images?
2. can Google prevent photo scraping sites from landing higher in search results than original sources?

Should we say where we get an image even if it is in the public domain?

If we find an image via Google's image search with the licence Tool set to filter by Creative Commons licence?

I wanted an image to convey my mid-journey step in which I refined my plan - and I thought of orienteering with map and compass.  Found great lego orienteer images, but could not find who had made them available, (Google-search-filter)-allegedly by CC.  

The one/s I liked appeared (and I list here not really to shame, but to show how far I explored looking for the image creator):

With licence statement but no link or credit at:

• (Copyright Creative Commons CC0) ecoparent  - so I quickly checked on what CC0 means, and learned that if one is not the creator one should not label it as this site did.

with no copyright/licence statement or photo claim/credit at:

• The Glebe Primary School ,
• St Paulinus Catholic Primary School ,
• Puzzle Factory (français), 
• The Rand Athletic Club Orienteers' Strava club page 
• Italian Radio 6 INradio's Fifth Grade Tag list of posts thumbnail (but not in the post itself) 
• And Argentaweb post 
• and (eventually found with a reverse google image search using a screensnip) hundreds of other places including Jordan Tzvetkov's Twitter profile and Power of Ted 

Then I briefly thought I had found the source - where it appeared to have been released into the Public Domain with CC0...

Screensnip of the CC0 claim by scraping site, see it yourself at webarchive

 - and where EXIF data is given as if shared by the creator. But still I wondered - particularly as there is no id for the photographer even though I would have to register to download the image. Is the site (pxhere.com [ph]) legit?

So I googled that! 

 is pxhere legit

and found I was right to be suspicious: 

Photoscraping sites are not hard to detect.

Alan Levine shows how one scraping site had scraped an image from pixabay. A clue that a site is probably a scraper, he mentioned, is the lack of identification of the contributor.  Later in the post Alan discussed how a CC-BY image he had on Flickr had been picked up by [ph] who claimed it as CC0 - an outright lie.

Now I suspect [ph]'s short url indicates they've probably even renumbered photos they scrape so I couldn't just swap out the domain, so I picked a few keywords and searched pixabay. Sure enough, there the image appears to have been created and shared CC0 by Andrew Martin (aitoff) 

Image by Andrew Martin at Pixabay

Aside - I am only 90% happy with the (optional for CC0) attribution phrase pixabay provides - they link fine to the user, but not at all to the image - so I edited the html, and hope they reconsider their default setting. 

Google lets scrapers float up

Although the first image-scrape Alan discussed were images given to the public domain, the problem he describes is that Google lets photoscraper sites float to the top of their search results.  I believe Google ought to find a way to prevent that.  

Regardless, I would prefer to see everyone cite where they obtain the images they use online - particularly organisational sites like schools! Can we consider it a moral responsibility? I do. I also do not believe the difficulty of finding the true creators of public domain images releases anyone of that responsibility.  

Creators: don't join scraping sites like [ph] 

"It is impossible to delete your photos and your account, support simply ignores all requests. As a photographer, I highly do not recommend this service, a lot of photos are used with copyright infringement!" -- Danila Perevoshchikov 3 March 2020 at Facebook

 

"Ask me about pins"*

*Does anyone else think of Apprentice Postman Stanley* when they hear "Pinterest"?

Pinterest is visually appealing and as Sequeria (2011) pointed out it taps the fundamental human desires to collect and flaunt the collection. However, I wondered how likely is it that Pinterest would serve library goals of collaboration or engagement with users, and how one might evaluate its effectiveness for those goals.

Collaboration

My idea of "collaboration" is as Freed (2012, ¶ 6) defines succinctly: "Two or more people working together towards shared goals". Cooperating and sharing the same space are not the same as collaboration.

Luckily a fellow student was also curious and had friends willing to contribute to shared boards.  We quickly discovered major limitations to be worked around for collaborative use.

• No direct method to ask to join a board.
• No direct communication with contributors other than through pin comments.
• No way to remove or suspend an irrelevant pin - Even if the 'shared goal' is clearly defined in the board description, when pinning content only the board labels are displayed in a pinners' list, so it is easy for irrelevant content to be posted accidentally or through misunderstanding.

Effective Library Pinning

Of the many library boards I explored, I noticed very few showing evidence (as measurable in number of likes, repins or comments) of engagement with or appeal to their community. [... original post had form inviting contributors]

For the many others (with some interesting ones pinned at Library Pinning), perhaps sharing book covers and event photos achieves the purported value of Pinterest for driving traffic (Bullas, 2012) ** -- if so, I hope some begin writing about it

Seed a game

Simply setting a fun topic can engage users but do need workarounds to kick off. For example:

New York Public Library (NYPL)(n.d) identified pets as a popular Pinterest topic and rallies users around a theme of their signature lions. NYPL picks up relevant pins if they're tagged #NYPLLittleLion.

In Kansas City Public Library's contest *** , members created their own "Perfect Library" board, emailing in the URL (Harper, 2012).  Following this example, Pinterest might be used among other tools to brainstorm with the community prior to a redevelopment.

I wonder if workarounds increase the barriers and reduce the number of participants?
---

This has been a response to the first optional OLJ Task (Module 2); evaluating my use of Pinterest as a social bookmarking tool, critically evaluating the effectiveness of different features and/or functions; and briefly stating different ways an information organisation may be able to use Pinterest to support information services, learning and/or collaboration of users and/or employees. The switch from Delicious to Pinterest approved by Lyn Hay in the Facebook group on July 25, 2012.

* Until you've read Terry Pratchett's Going Postal, nevermind. --^--

**Thanks Dale. --^--

*** Thanks librarygal. --^--

References

Bullas, J. (2012, February 8). Pinterest drives more traffic than LinkedIn and GooglePlus. jeffbullas.com. Retrieved from http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/02/08/pinterest-drives-more-traffic-than-linkedin-and-google-plus/

Harper, J. (2012, April 9). Pin your perfect library Pinterest contest. Kansas City Public Library Blog. Retrieved from http://www.kclibrary.org/blog/kc-unbound/pin-your-perfect-library-pinterest-contest

New York Public Library. (n.d.). Little Lions. Pinterest. Retrieved September 27, 2012, from http://pinterest.com/nypl/little-lions/?timeline=1

Sequeira, N. (2011, December 11). [Answer to:] What’s special about Pinterest? Why do some people find the site maddeningly addictive? Quora. Retrieved July 25, 2012, from http://www.quora.com/permalink/Ojxauw7Hm

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Part of my Wordpress→Blogger journey, this post copied 10 Jan 2021 in republication of my 27 September 2012 post at my experimental self-hosted Wordpress where it achieved 23 views.

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Zotero does more than I thought...

What have I been missing?

I've used Zotero for several assignments so far, gathering citations into sub-collections and creating bibliographies (grumbling at how many times I have to fix the title field).
! But fancy, I had not picked up that I could Shift+drag to create an intext-citation!

I've even created notes, although I don't remember whether I've looked back at them. It just occurred to me: if I could somehow Show in the middle ONLY my notes - that might help somehow, but AFAIK not yet possible.

But notes! there's more:
Standalone notes - I guess I could create some for questions, keywords yet to search, passing thoughts to pursue later ... How do YOU use them?

Annotating

When I heard "annotation" before I assumed this meant either editing the Abstract field or creating notes - but no, those snapshots I've been ignoring can be highlighted and sticky-noted. Now this might be useful IF I can export such annotations for mixing, how?

Hm, for a sub-collection I think I might like to export reference + abstract + my Notes + sticky notes + "highlighted bits". Why? Well, until I get a super large monitor or interactive projection or interactive table display upon which I can spread my individual notes to physically shift and shuffle, probably to print for that process.

What about reports? No, neither highlights nor annotations appear in reports.

Please tell me: How / does Zotero's highlighting and sticky notes work into your study process?

But ... reports with the excess stuff excluded by Jason Priem's fix; offers a way for me to gather notes to print and shuffle perhaps. Unfortunately, I can't work out why the author sorting wouldn't work.

Other filetypes like images

getting_stuff_into_your_library [Zotero Documentation] via kwout

Aside from snapshots and pdfs that don't come with good metadata (I really want to learn more precisely how metadata storage and grabbing works with pdfs) - I haven't stored anything in Zotero. The above makes me wonder whether the option has productive value? For example, I'm thinking IF my research involved obtaining/using images + IF I attached it to metadata = could I then drag both image and metadata over to my document with Zotero styling the metadata as caption the way APA likes?

If nothing so fancy, it doesn't seem worthwhile, afterall Dropbox offers more storage for free. It now occurs to me that this "automatic snapshot" is what has filled my free Zotero storage - even while I haven't been using the darn things. If I switch that off, would I remember to take a snapshot when it would be useful to do so?

Tags?

I'm finding the automatic tags a real nuisance. They can be hidden. Even so, I haven't been using tags ... @Zotero users: how do tags help with your study processes?

Sorting! Ta Da: Research Diary!

Wow, Finally I discovered what I can do with

finding_and_sorting [Zotero Documentation] via kwout

Sort by Date Added and include Standalone Notes and we could have something on the road to a research diary.

Saved Searches

Thanks to people sharing their libraries like Paolo Cardullo, I got the word from Lincoln Mullin on how Saved Searches (and Tags) in Zotero can help with research workflow. (He also mentioned the value of Collections, but I thought that'd be obvious).

Do I really need or want a start page? Do you?

I first experimented with start pages because I use a variety of computers and I was hoping there would be a way for me to access my most regular sites just as quickly from another computer as I would from home. Not a realistic hope I guessed, because any such service I would have to still have to sign in to at any computer I cannot customise for myself, and surely it would be quicker just to use the browser’s search box. Still, what is life without experiment?

I tried igoogle: mmf, (yes I love you google, but you don’t need that much space on my start page. I won’t forget you. Yes rooly truly I begin and usually end any search with you… you’re my default – and at computers not my own I even check and switch the engine in the browser’s search box to google). I tried protopage – great but then came ads. I tried delicious (not suited as a startpage). I tried pageflakes – and for some reason the location of ads in pageflakes didn’t bug me the way the top banner ad did in protopage.

Each time I set one up with my quick links I also spent time exploring a few of the other things that the “start page” could do – because I wondered whether such tools might prove useful to my volunteer organisation or workplace or study group or homeschool. However none of my other hats really needed what start pages offer, and while I did use my quick links regularly I would rarely touch a game unless I was procrastinating.

But for the past week pageflakes has refused to load. So now I’m looking back and beyond – do I gather up my frequent links and set up another start page? If I do, will I try iGoogle again, or netvibes, start.io or something else? Don’t bother suggesting zenstart: it doesn’t have the links I need.

Perhaps in the meantime I might just start using the browser’s Bookmarks again.

I am still curious and love to hear how such tools are used by libraries (like when Eddie Byrne wrote how Dublin City Public Libraries use Netvibes) OR volunteer groups, homeschoolers and when I find examples I tag them (although how did I tag those others – did I?)

web design curiosities

Have you seen anywhere the cute little tick or ✓ next to a link indicating you have already viewed it (rather than an alternate colour)?
For example, from Man with no blog (which blog I surfed by today after following one of Kathryn Greenhill's tweets)



My first guess is that effect might be achieved with CSS - including the tick maybe as a .gif in the style for visited links?

Naturally to share and discuss this piece of cuteness I tried to kwout it first rather than PrintScreen & edit. I say "naturally" because kwouting is so quick and it is a new game for me. However one who understands how kwout works might amend "naturally" with "ignorantly" because whatever kwout is grabbing, it is not precisely what you're seeing.

For example: This that I first tried to kwout but for you to see what I saw (the cute tick next to the Twitter link) I had to cut from a PrintScreen:



when kwouted looked like this:

Man with no blog » Twitter Lemmings via kwout

Note kwout didn't capture the visited link style (which is fine, that style isn't important to anyone except me), and then I noticed that site colours and images are different too, compare
This cut of screenshot:


With two of different kwout grabs of the same page:

Man with no blog » Twitter Lemmings via kwout

And another time:

Man with no blog » Twitter Lemmings via kwout

and I haven't been able to get kwout to grab the same kwouted appearance I first saw for that page, but this is the style it had:

Man with no blog » Twitter Tours via kwout

Could someone resolve my curiosity about why that happens?

Visual search engines

Silvia Tolisano's (Langwitches) review of kids Quintura caught my curiosity (thanks Bloglines & RSS). As my only experience of a visual search engine has been Pagebull (which I still love for its superbare search box screen and visual results), I thought I'd see whether there have been any significant developments in visual search engines (as in visual presentation of results of regular textual search rather than engines to find images).

Not with Quintura. Silvia's review: looking cool, and embeddable, with dubious results. MMM, I guess embedability is a desirable feature. But for a supposedly a visual search engine - What is visual about it? Aside from the overly cutesy picture background?

A cloud of words. Hm.


But google's top result (on: visual search engine) was KartOO.

KartOO uses Flashplayer to present the gathered and compiled results in a series of interactive maps - like concept maps. Stronger results (not necessarily most relevant) appear slightly larger. Mouse hovering over results displays lines to, I guess other pages to which it is linked, at the same time displaying more information about the site in the sidebar. Hovering over underlying association terms (eg 'lessons') gives different lines, and changes the sidebar list of associated topics with which you might like to refine your search. Icons you've perused are marked with a "/".

I still love Pagebull (Google's second result).
I like getting a preview of the top 12 results. It allows the resulting pages to speak for themselves - particularly helpful to people who absorb information visually rather than textually (ie people who register logos or icons more quickly than the point in words, or who recognise a word more quickly when in its familiar font/shape/colour)