Facebook Plunges Again
Tumblr 101: Tips And Tricks To Get Started
ImageSpark is an open, public, more porn-y version of ffffound
So, a while ago I wrote a post about ffffound.com, and commenter joshuasbones replied with a couple of other image bookmarking services that are not invite-only. I looked into them, and one was, indeed, quite chic.
That service is Imagespark. Its interface is far slicker than Ffffound's; they have something called "mood boards," which are collections of images created (or rather curated) by members. Each board can be tagged with a "theme."
The site is currently free and is open to all. That's the good news.
Now let's look at it from another angle. Let's connect the dots here. It's free, it's open to all, and it's an image bookmarking site. That spells "porn." I'm sorry, and I don't mean to be prudish. I love genitalia as much as the next guy, but I actually had a hard time finding a "safe for work" screenshot for this post (that's an octopus, not a pair of boobs!). The service is rife with ladies in various states of dishabille.
To me, that is a problem. When I seek "creative inspiration," that's not the type of inspiration I'm looking for. There are websites explicitly for this kind of thing. Heck, there's a whole multi-billion dollar industry for this kind of thing. I know where to find it when I want it.
Bottom line: the service has the potential to be awesome, if only they enforced some sort of a sensible porn/nudity policy. Continued on its current trajectory, it seems destined to become another online porn cesspool.
(What's that rumble in the background? Is that the sound of commenters dissing me for being too uptight? Bring it on!)
[Update: After commenters claimed they don't see any porn on the service, I took another look today (Fri, May 14). And lo and behold, there was far less porn around -- it's true. Maybe it comes and goes (get it?), or maybe someone at ImageSpark listened. At any rate, I can confirm that specifically today, I could not find much porn on the service. Thank you, commenters!]
Comments
15
Subscribe to commentsrobotrockMay 13th 2010 5:50PM
My girlfriend used these constantly for her mood-board blog entries, but has been complaining more and more about the amount of porn on there....it wasn't always like that.
DrakkenfyreMay 13th 2010 6:21PM
People dissing you, or thanking you for finding them a new source of porn?
When I saw "porn" in the title, I expected it to be by Sebastian Anthony.
EdexMay 14th 2010 9:26AM
Me too. :)
The_DocMay 13th 2010 9:30PM
I typed in "women". The results come up with 20 images per page. Below is a list of the images, with an eye toward "porn"-ishness.
The first page:
--- 1 erotic, 1 slightly erotic, 18 non-erotic ---
- 1 old photo of Dali with several naked women in the background. Not erotic.
- 1 woman naked, on her stomach. Bare bottom and side-boob visible. Erotic.
- 2 women with no shirt, bare back to the camera. Artsy, not particularly erotic.
- 1 woman with nipples visible through tight shirt. Slightly erotic, but not "porn".
- 2 suggestive shots of women in tight clothing. Artsy.
- 13 other pictures with clothed women in artsy shots. Definitely not porn.
The second page:
--- 1 retro erotic, 1 duplicate erotic, 18 non-erotic ---
- 5 duplicate images from first page, including side-boob image.
- 1 woman sitting bare breasted on a couch. Reminds me of a Playboy photo from the 70's.
- 14 new non-porn images.
The third page:
--- 2 slightly erotic, 18 non-erotic ---
- 2 suggestive images of women in lingerie
- 1 duplicate image. Not porn.
- 17 new non-porn images.
The fourth, fifth and sixth pages had no porn. I gave up at this point.
The_DocMay 13th 2010 9:34PM
I will add that a filter would be nice (so you could filter out "fashion" from "women", or whatever). The ability to search multiple tags at the same time would also be nice.
ronmosesMay 14th 2010 9:03AM
I had the same experience. I didn't manage to find a single porn image in the five minutes I spent there. Sure, a few tasteful nudes, but nothing gratuitous. "I actually had a hard time finding a "safe for work" screenshot"...? I'm not sure WTF the author is talking about, we must be looking at different websites.
nikescarMay 14th 2010 12:16AM
I went through the first 10 pages of "Library" and half a dozen pages of "Moodboards" (not actually clicking to open each board) and I found ZERO pictures that could be classified as porn. WTF are you talking about when you say you had a hard time finding that screenshot?
Besides that it seems like a decent site. I like fffound's format better.
jfjbMay 15th 2010 8:51PM
I second your opinion after viewing more than 45 pages (ahem... )
I did this only to make a point : the writer's opinion is only an opinion, NOT a fact.
jfjbMay 15th 2010 8:56PM
P.S. I should know : I'm a writer too, and I've been caught with my hands holding more than a pen ;-)).
DrakkenfyreMay 14th 2010 3:23AM
When I went and tested it, typing in "women" did bring up a few pics described like above. But when I typed in "porn", it brought up exactly one pic that was porn. The rest was crap like motorcycles, and record covers.
I didn't go thru extensive words, but from that, I don't see how this could be all that bad. Maybe if I searched for something like "mood" or "love", but the stuff didn't seem so bad to me. I have seen much worse on Google Image search searching for innocent stuff, with the safe search filter off.
Erez ZukermanMay 14th 2010 4:05AM
I didn't need to type anything in. I didn't _look_ for porn -- the default display was full of it.
ronmosesMay 14th 2010 3:24PM
In the interest of clearing up the debate, I respectfully ask you, or anyone, to post a screenshot (nsfw bits obscured, of course) of this default display full of porn. I encountered no such thing, and apparently neither did most visitors, so I'm curious to see what those few people are seeing.
Erez ZukermanMay 14th 2010 1:25PM
Fair enough, Ron and all. I've looked at the site again, and today it was indeed clean. I updated the post to reflect that.
smthbllsmthMay 14th 2010 4:02PM
I have nothing against octopi, but I generally find well-formed boobs more attractive. Perhaps I am odd.
Geoff TeehanMay 17th 2010 12:59PM
Just came across this post and thought I'd chime in. We created Image Spark for us to use internally - to store and share the stuff that inspires us (it ain't porn). We really wanted it to be an open self-moderated community, but sadly it has its moments.
When it first launched we had a few people internally monitoring it for porn (and lol cats) and deleting the images in an effort to set the tone for the site and keep it SFW. As time went on though, this became quite a chore so we introduced a tool that lets any logged in user mark any image as NSFW. If you hover over any image and click that NSFW link it will mark it as private so only the original uploader will see it. However, even after months of it being implemented most people don't moderate the site on behalf of others. This came as a surprise to us because our greatest fear was that people would abuse the system and mark non-porn as NSFW thus hiding quality images from the user base.
Additionally, it is a free service that costs us a few grand a year to keep going - which we're totally okay with. We just don't/can't have staff dedicated to keeping it SFW. If any of you guys are users I want to first thank you for being a part of our little project. We love for users to start moderating it. If you see a porn image, or even something that borders on it, mark it as NSFW. I mark anything NSFW that I wouldn't want my colleagues 'catching' me look at in the office - many wouldn't consider it porn.
Lastly, we know the site needs an update - one of the major flaws with it now is that the raw feed from the community isn't the greatest way to show the library (it usually contains porn or some general poor examples). Search terms almost always yield incredible results. We need to explore better default glimpses into the database other than just reverse chronological.