Post your Flickr Explored images!

I actually didn't expect such a boring subject (my own house) to make it to explore, but it did, with the highest position #63:

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/pMXW​SP

suchimoh wrote in post #17297777
Morning :

Flikr

Wow, amazing shot!! Love it

Are you sure it's on Explore though? Only 11 views....

This one of mine did well. The best-performing so far...

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/qeiR​hZ

A couple of questions for you Explored folks...

I read a thread on Flickr that account created roughly June 2012 and newer are not included in Explored. I go through the Explored images every few days and have not seen a newer account in there - no, I don't look at every image, just a small sample. Is this really true?

And the other question, lately I see 3-5 photos from one user account in Explore on the same day. I thought the "algorithm" didn't allow for multiple photos from the same user on the same day. Let me know if this assumption is wrong.

Thanks!

My question is, since there is no group of people selecting Explored photos, can a machine really determine what is a good photograph? If you look at the top 100 or so Explored pics on any day, there are some truly remarkable ones. Somehow they came up with criteria in a software program that judges art. I think that's amazing, or maybe I'm missing something. Perhaps it's just a participation award.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/movB​f2

tshred wrote in post #17308730
My question is, since there is no group of people selecting Explored photos, can a machine really determine what is a good photograph? If you look at the top 100 or so Explored pics on any day, there are some truly remarkable ones. Somehow they came up with criteria in a software program that judges art. I think that's amazing, or maybe I'm missing something. Perhaps it's just a participation award.

It's not so much judging art, a BIG portion of the algorithm is based on people's reactions to the image (# of favorites, how many views, # of comments, all of that elapsed over a series of time frames.. EXIF and location data, etc..)

tshred wrote in post #17308730
My question is, since there is no group of people selecting Explored photos, can a machine really determine what is a good photograph? If you look at the top 100 or so Explored pics on any day, there are some truly remarkable ones. Somehow they came up with criteria in a software program that judges art. I think that's amazing, or maybe I'm missing something. Perhaps it's just a participation award.

It's an algorithm that's largely based on the activity of Flickr viewers. It looks at more than a few factors, including:

How descriptive your tags and description are (it seems like the more wordy you are, the more likely you are to be Explored, but I'm not clear on whether this is directly figured in to the algorithm or if this is because it drives search results and increases views/favs/comments)

Gaming the system isn't as easy as it once was, but it's still not hard: fav a lot of photos and follow a lot of users in the hopes that they will reciprocate, be wordy, take halfway decent photos.

edit: to keep the thread on-topic, here's one of mine -

Canon EOS 5D • Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM @21mm • 1/50 • f/4 • ISO 400

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/nD7W​Zs

Bowing for Tips by heightsfidelity, on Flickr

I tend not to add any tags, or a description other than my homepage, and I don't enter my photo into any groups. Yet some still get into explore.

Crazy?

Harm wrote in post #17308798
I tend not to add any tags, or a description other than my homepage, and I don't enter my photo into any groups. Yet some still get into explore.

Crazy?

No, not crazy, doing the aforementioned increases your odds, but being Explored isn't dependent upon it. I think that there's a LOT of leeway built in, but I'm not exactly sure how. This shot, for example, was not much more than a snapshot, but it's still in Explore for the day that it was uploaded, with only 11 favs and 2 comments and it's in "too many" groups. Very weird to me.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/pMiV​nD

I actually did quite a bit of web mining and processing of the explored photos data from Flickr a few years back, to better understand the algorithm. (I basically downloaded all the metadata - number of views, likes, groups, current total number of photos in those groups, for every explored photo every day.) At that time, it looked like

- the more likes / views / comments your photo gets, the better the chance to be explored (as expected);
- if you post in more than one group, you have to divide your views likes etc by the number of the groups, so if you are a member of a few groups it makes sense to post only in one - the one which is the most active, or otherwise your stats will be watered down;
- huge number of groups are banned from explore (usually the ones who force you to comment/fave other photos if you post your; or the groups designed to game the explore algorithm) - so don't post in those!
- other, most obvious (larger) groups give a very small chance to get to explore (because the photostream moves so fast, and per photo these groups actually have very low activity);
- the most successful groups are usually small ones, where you know many other members (through their photos there); also groups who only allow posting on a certain day of the week seem to be the most explore-friendly;
- if somebody faves/comments on your photo, and then you fave/comment back his/her today's photo, you nullify both his/her faves and yours, so don't do that. The better strategy is instead to simply be very active one of those one-day-a-week groups, commenting / faving all the nice photos on that day - and one day they will start doing that to you as well.

I used this strategy successfully to get 15 of my photos to explore (highest position #24).

pulsar123 wrote in post #17312357
I actually did quite a bit of web mining and processing of the explored photos data from Flickr a few years back, to better understand the algorithm. (I basically downloaded all the metadata - number of views, likes, groups, current total number of photos in those groups, for every explored photo every day.) At that time, it looked like

- the more likes / views / comments your photo gets, the better the chance to be explored (as expected);
- if you post in more than one group, you have to divide your views likes etc by the number of the groups, so if you are a member of a few groups it makes sense to post only in one - the one which is the most active, or otherwise your stats will be watered down;
- huge number of groups are banned from explore (usually the ones who force you to comment/fave other photos if you post your; or the groups designed to game the explore algorithm) - so don't post in those!
- other, most obvious (larger) groups give a very small chance to get to explore (because the photostream moves so fast, and per photo these groups actually have very low activity);
- the most successful groups are usually small ones, where you know many other members (through their photos there); also groups who only allow posting on a certain day of the week seem to be the most explore-friendly;
- if somebody faves/comments on your photo, and then you fave/comment back his/her today's photo, you nullify both his/her faves and yours, so don't do that. The better strategy is instead to simply be very active one of those one-day-a-week groups, commenting / faving all the nice photos on that day - and one day they will start doing that to you as well.

I used this strategy successfully to get 15 of my photos to explore (highest position #24).

Interesting observations, thank you for sharing!

This one got into Explore and got a total of 24,209 views on the 22nd of November, and I have absolutely no idea why. It was just a quick snapshot as I was passing that I thought might make an OK stock photo.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/pRCJ​T2

Just this morning... going viral and I'm loving every second of it...

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/q25X​KZ