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So, I can choose to see only un-cropped images on my TL, and the author can see a preview of the algorithm's crop before they tweet -- but a glaring omission is

by cmckn 5y ago

So, I can choose to see only un-cropped images on my TL, and the author can see a preview of the algorithm's crop before they tweet -- but a glaring omission is simply exposing a crop tool to the author. The model works by choosing a point on which to center the crop. Why can't you give user's a UI to do the same? "Tap a focal point in the image, or let our robot decide!" The blog post mentions several times how ML might not be the right choice for cropping; but their conclusion was...to keep using ML for cropping. I hope someone got a nice bonus for building the model!

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jawns 5y ago
I can't really see any down side, besides maybe a little bit of developer time, to allowing users to see a preview of the crop and optionally override. It's done all the time in other places.
- mattacular 5y ago
  It's probably a bit harder at Twitter's unique scale. They have an incredibly high throughput of new posts and a large portion of these posts include between 1-4 images that need cropping.
  - kixiQu 5y ago
    I dunno, that just means it's a pain for the user, not for Twitter
  - bavell 5y ago
    Isn't this just a UI change and wiring that up to the backend? The cropping happens either way, it might actually be faster considering that if the user providers the crop info, Twitter does't have to burn CPU cycles on figuring out the "optimal" crop dimensions.
    - rabuse 5y ago
      You can crop images with JS. I've had to implement it a couple times.
  - Spivak 5y ago
    /s? I mean we’re talking about a client-side feature here. If phpbb forums can do per-image cropping I think Twitter can manage.
    - mattacular 5y ago
      Well, no it wasn't sarcasm... if Twitter can offload image attach and crop entirely onto the client, I figure they would be doing that. Certainly their frontend engineers understand how to. But they must have some reasons for involving the server. Because they do! If you go attach an image to a new tweet, you will see it gets uploaded right then and there, whether or not you ever hit post. Who knows what happens from there. Allowing clients to demand more crop work, at will, on top of the one that is automatic seems like it would have some implications at twitter's scale. At the very least, it would probably undo some optimizations they've made around image handling.
- jcims 5y ago
  People are going to game it. Cute puppy nose -> click -> porn ad.
  - choxi 5y ago
    You could do that right now though: Mitch McConnell -> click -> porn ad
    - ackbar03 5y ago
      Wait, is the idea here to serve more porn ads or get more clicks for Mitch McConnell in the hopes of getting served porn ads
nightpool 5y ago
> but their conclusion was...to keep using ML for cropping My takeaway from the article was that their conclusion was to remove cropping from the product, starting incrementally on iOS. (I got cropping removed on Android as well recently). That seems like the opposite of "keep using ML for cropping"?

by cmckn 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jawns 5y ago

I can't really see any down side, besides maybe a little bit of developer time, to allowing users to see a preview of the crop and optionally override. It's done all the time in other places.

mattacular 5y ago
It's probably a bit harder at Twitter's unique scale. They have an incredibly high throughput of new posts and a large portion of these posts include between 1-4 images that need cropping.
- kixiQu 5y ago
  I dunno, that just means it's a pain for the user, not for Twitter
- bavell 5y ago
  Isn't this just a UI change and wiring that up to the backend? The cropping happens either way, it might actually be faster considering that if the user providers the crop info, Twitter does't have to burn CPU cycles on figuring out the "optimal" crop dimensions.
  - rabuse 5y ago
    You can crop images with JS. I've had to implement it a couple times.
- Spivak 5y ago
  /s? I mean we’re talking about a client-side feature here. If phpbb forums can do per-image cropping I think Twitter can manage.
  - mattacular 5y ago
    Well, no it wasn't sarcasm... if Twitter can offload image attach and crop entirely onto the client, I figure they would be doing that. Certainly their frontend engineers understand how to. But they must have some reasons for involving the server. Because they do! If you go attach an image to a new tweet, you will see it gets uploaded right then and there, whether or not you ever hit post. Who knows what happens from there. Allowing clients to demand more crop work, at will, on top of the one that is automatic seems like it would have some implications at twitter's scale. At the very least, it would probably undo some optimizations they've made around image handling.
jcims 5y ago
People are going to game it. Cute puppy nose -> click -> porn ad.
- choxi 5y ago
  You could do that right now though: Mitch McConnell -> click -> porn ad
  - ackbar03 5y ago
    Wait, is the idea here to serve more porn ads or get more clicks for Mitch McConnell in the hopes of getting served porn ads

nightpool 5y ago

> but their conclusion was...to keep using ML for cropping My takeaway from the article was that their conclusion was to remove cropping from the product, starting incrementally on iOS. (I got cropping removed on Android as well recently). That seems like the opposite of "keep using ML for cropping"?