No nothing like that. I sent an email last night directly to Oleg telling him that even though I had recently resumed uploading there after evaluating the effect their sub sales where having on my bottom line that I was going to once again cease adding new content because of the current bait and switch tacttics they were subjecting us to. I like a great many other contributors who have been there a long time was on the threshold of evelvatring to Emerald and based on current sales level the new allocation needed to reach that level would push that goal 3 years down the road for me. I told Oleg that I felt this move on their part was purly motivated by greed.

Chad called me this morning and with no discussion informed me that Fotolia had choosen to cease doing business with me as it was obvious that they did not operate their business in a way that I could favorably agree too.

BTW even after all the brewhaha's I have had with Oleg, Chad and Matt I was Never banned from their forums.

Hi
I found this part of movie "Any given sunday" connected with all things around FT (and all microstock agencies)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4tIrjBDkk

well i would have to say i agree with azurelaroux and say that fotolia banning photoshow was hardly on a single post, but rather on a long standing attitude and after direct emails.

It seems as though you are merely trying to stir up trouble hilary, everything in your last post is untrue, it seems you are twist the facts and create a culture of fear. Seeing how you seem to be quite active in the yahoo group discussion in direct conversation with matt and chad, I would expect you to have more of the facts straight.  Photoshow was never banned from the fotolia forum (he said so himself in the quoted thread) additionally, it appears that Photoshow said he was removed from fotolia after his DIRECT email to fotolia, not forum posts.

And yes, I agree Photoshow is not the subject of this thread..., it is the change in ranks at fotolia and our thoughts about it, i am not sure how much longer this thread should be let to run wildly... It seems we are just going in circles, people are claiming untrue statments and we are getting no where in any sort of discussion.

Quote from: kgtoh on December 05, 2008, 06:47

Quote from: Fred on December 05, 2008, 05:33

Quote from: kgtoh

...
Where Bobby says this:
"Yes Chad it is true I called you Greedy *insult removed* and that was / is
the truth. I did not call you fuckers and rapists even though the
truth is you are raping your contributors. And Chad you NEVER GAVE ME...

I thought that english was your native language perhaps I was mistaken.  The quote you site is what I meant and it seems perfectly clear to me.

He says he did not call them "...rapists" and then does exactly that in the rest of the sentence.  - i.e. "the truth is you are raping your contributors..." that is unambiguously calling them rapists.

The degree of offense taken by someone due to being called a "greedy *insult removed*" is not up to you or me or bobby to determine it is up to the person offended as with any other epithet.

And as far as my providing evidence I make no claims that require any more than what is in the threads (but you do have to read them - sometimes carefully.)  You all seem to accept whatever bobby says as gospel but in fact we have only his word as to how offensive he was or what else transpired in the telephone conversations mentioned.

This seems to me to be somewhat analagoous to a business manager/owner stopping into a bar where one of his employees is mouthing off about how his greedy so-and-so boss(es) are cheating him.  How that would be handled is completly up to the manager and has nothing to do with free speech.

fred

Regarding "Rapists":

Let me break down my argument into bite-sized numbered chunks:
in chronological order:
1. Chad / Fotolia claims Bobby called him/Fotolia a) F*kers b) *insult removed* c) Rapists publicly
2. This is an accusation of Libel
3. Based on this alleged Libel, Fotolia terminates its relationship with Bobby
4. Therefore, in my mind, as the termination is based on an alleged act of libel, Fotolia should satisfactorily prove this act of Libel before the action they took
5. As a reaction to Fotolia's accusation, and under provocation, Bobby then called them rapists. This was not a smart thing to do (please refer to my previous post re: children's tactics)
6. This does not, in my mind, remove the need to see evidence of Bobby calling them F*kers and Rapists before the accusation was made (you cannot make an accusation of misdeed, then provoke said misdeed)

All I am asking is for you to show evidence of Bobby's statements from before the accusation.

You say I am taking what Bobby says as gospel. I could accuse you of the same. What I'm looking for is logical evidence, based on what is publicly available.
You could say that this is unnecessary, but I like to think "Innocent until proven guilty".

Regarding offensiveness of "Greedy *insult removed*"

Yes, Fotolia took offense to Bobby, and they reacted in a certain manner. Does this reaction improve their standing in my eyes, or does it reinforce any negative perceptions that I had?

I could, as a terrorist, blow up a car bomb and kill people because a particular author spoke badly about my religion.
I am severely offended. Nobody can argue against that ("no, you are not offended"). It's perfectly in my right to be offended, and many like-minded people will feel similarly offended and that I am fully justified in any actions I do.  There will be others who feel my actions were not fully justified.

Also, extending your boss - employee anology. If an employee mouthed off about me, and I fired him, it's within my rights. (let's just ignore any existing discrimination / employee rights issues for the moment).  The issue here is how do the other employees feel. In this situation, some of the "employees" side with the guy who got fired. Some of the employees are siding with the employer, quite vocally so.

By the way, No, English is not my native language.. so you are correct on that point.

"It also seem perverse that the lower rankings are being riled up against a policy that mostly effects the upper rankings that can't be bothered to do it for themselves."

I am in complete agreement with you on this one. As I mentioned before, I think fulltimers who are in the upper rankings actually have the most to lose in the longterm by not acting.

Oh, I agree the quote does not provide any direct evidence of bobby having called FT management  rapists before they removed his account.  The whole thing is just a matter of his word against theirs - I know of no other direct evidence.  However, the careless (devious?) way in which bobby used the language in his reply to call them rapists, indirectly indicates to me that he may have done so in the past.

The matter of Libel is clearly up to some court somewhere to decide - do not think it would work in the U.S. - not really my concern.

FT certainly needs to be concerned about how this affects their relationship with contributors but I really think that only a small percentage of their contributors are even aware of this case.  My understanding is - I am possibly mistaken - that a very small percentage participate in this or any other forum.  So I would hope they would concentrate their energies on improving the business, especially given current world economic conditions.

FT's reaction to the offense was up to FT and I don't think any of us really know the nature or frequency of the offense or if a warning was given - just their word vice bobby's word.  It would have been much better if this were all in writing that FT could produce - and should have been ( a big strike against FT management if there is no written record.)  But telephone conversations can get heated and perhaps this is the reason for their action.   

I don't think FT is too worried about the reaction of the contributors to bobby's removal - most won't even be aware as I stated above - but they probably do have legal concerns and probably have everything documented.  However, they are unlikely to publish it unless it is beneficial to any legal action that may result.

I must say your english seems as good as mine (not necessarily a compliment I guess) and certainly much better than I would do in any other language.

fred