[SledgeHammer]

Have you tried it yet? The Google Image Labeler? It's fun and addictive.

The idea of the project is to get real people (as opposed to computers) to look at pictures and decide label them as to what they are of, so as to make Google Image Search more accurate.

The process is set up as a game. You are matched with someone else online at the same time. Over the course of 90 seconds, you and your partner are shown the same set of images, one at a time. You each input labels until one matches, then it's on to the next picture. You earn 100 points for each image for which you match a label. If you have a Google account, you can keep a running tally of your points. There is no actual point to the points, but it's fun all the same.

I warn you though, do not start playing if you do not have time to waste.

My current total is 34,300 points, and I only started doing this last night.

[ZacMoose]

As much fun as that sounds, I don't know that I could give up bubble wrap as my number one time waster...

I was just reading what the little emoticon stands for and it says "I have cancer".


http://forums.applenova.com/showthread.php?t=20363

[dfiler]

I've always thought image tagging needed a dictation interface.

Just run a slide show and say the words to associate with each picture. It would be pretty reliable as long as you had a predefined and relatively small dictionary to pull from.

I soooo wish iPhoto had this. As it is right now, none of my images are tagged.

[Yonzie]

This is annoying. I only have 500 points after somewhere between 5 and 10 sessions... Seems like it's filled with lusers that only type 1 word and then want to pass...

[jdcfsu]

Originally Posted by Yonzie This is annoying. I only have 500 points after somewhere between 5 and 10 sessions... Seems like it's filled with lusers that only type 1 word and then want to pass...

Yeah, I agree. Most of the people I'm paired with are idiots. But the idea is kind of cool. I'd be interested to see if it actually improved search results.

[Kickaha]

Wow, I got Dumb and Dumber there... first partner I get did nothing but request passing. On every image.

Lame!

[Yonzie]

I got a better idea than this.
Basically the same thing, except no pairing and something like the top 5 (or x%) keywords out of all submissions are used when searching.

[alcimedes]

Bright yellow corvette and they couldn't match on anything other than "car"
fucktards.

[alcimedes]

Actually the more I think about it the worse the idea seems to me. It's a way to almost ensure that you'll never get intelligent labeling of images. The odds of two people who have any depth of knowlege about an image seeing it and labeling at the same time are slim to none.

Instead you'll get the lowest common demoninator always winning out.

[Yonzie]

Ahh, finally got something going. 2x500 and 1x300 (in only 30 secs) and 1xpass pass pass...

[Shades of Blue]

Originally Posted by alcimedes Actually the more I think about it the worse the idea seems to me. It's a way to almost ensure that you'll never get intelligent labeling of images. The odds of two people who have any depth of knowlege about an image seeing it and labeling at the same time are slim to none. Instead you'll get the lowest common demoninator always winning out.

I thought about that, and then I assumed that the really obvious words would be done quickly and then put in the "off-limits" column, and then people would be forced to come up with better ones.

But yeah, I liked the idea but after maybe 15 sessions, I had 3 pairings that were actually worthwhile. Most of them were idiots. It'd be nice if it would only pair you with people with similar scores or something.

[PKIDelirium]

Cumulative Score: 4500.

[johnq]

Anyone know how it generates your nickname at the beginning?

Mine was uncanny. It said "begin as Guest" but then changed to "buddhism", which I study voraciously. Did it glean it from my gmail mail? Or did I fill out a field somewhere in preferences and forget?...hm...

Cool slash creepy.

[jdcfsu]

Originally Posted by johnq Anyone know how it generates your nickname at the beginning? Mine was uncanny. It said "begin as Guest" but then changed to "buddhism", which I study voraciously. Did it glean it from my gmail mail? Or did I fill out a field somewhere in preferences and forget?...hm... Cool slash creepy.

Google probably figured it out about you. A friend of mine did a related:www.insert_his_domain_here.com search and my site came up. I do not, and never have, linked to his site yet somehow Google knows...

[ZacMoose]

That is kind of scary about how it could pick something like that up. Reminds me of the way the game Black And White scans your user name and then waits till your computer clock says it's the early hours of morning before whispering your name menacingly. That was quite a surprise

[Bryson]

Your partner wants to pass

What? On every goddam picture? Why bother doing it at all?

Edit:

I mean, WTF?:


Have you never been outside?

[Luca]

Hmm... can be fun, but it was annoying when a picture of Mars showed up and the best they could come up with was "planet." I had put Mars in there right at the start and waited about 20 seconds before I gave up and entered "planet."

Then there was this one. I don't know what the other guy's suggestions were, but he must not know his basic geography too well:

[Yonzie]

I think I got it... I got an image of a car, the "off-limits" part said diphospatesomethingorother...
Spam bots.
Don't you just love them?

[Bryson]

I find that a bizarrely high number of seemingly unconnected images have "Carcinoma" as an off-limits.

There also seems to be an unusually high percentage of pictures of ladies sportswear on dummies. Or was that bizarre coincidence?

[Wrao]

I think I'm starting to like google less these days.

[SledgeHammer]

the idiots are annoying, but I still find it a good time waster. Also, I just discovered that you can see what your partner entered after your done. Mouse over the pictures and it will show you. A lot of pictures have carcinoma, bequeathed, and a couple other odd words attached to them. I'm not sure what's up with that. When someone really gets on my nerves I just type insults at them. Now that I know you can see what your partner was inputting, I may stop doing that.

[joveblue]

I think the carcinoma and bequeathed tags are probably just people typing that in for every single pic in the hope that they're partnered with someone doing the same and they can build their points up. They must feel so cool.

I agree, it might seem like a good idea in theory, but in practice, it's just not useful. All the cars are labelled car, all the maps are labelled map, all the buildings are labelled building etc... and if it's something that requires an iota of 'expert' knowledge, it's rarely if ever going to get a worthwhile label.

[Yonzie]

Originally Posted by joveblue I think the carcinoma and bequeathed tags are probably just people typing that in for every single pic in the hope that they're partnered with someone doing the same and they can build their points up. They must feel so cool.

Bingo.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by alcimedes Instead you'll get the lowest common demoninator always winning out.

That, and there's obviously already quite an amount of jerks deliberately labelling pictures incorrectly just to earn points.

Teh suck™

A more sophisticated voting system would work a lot better.