MicrostockGroup

Of course we all wish higher commissions and more sales but that's not the point here - there are already many other threads for that.

Please list here your suggestions for sites improvement from a strictly technical point of view, and as general principles valid for all sites.

I'll start with mine - including those I already mentioned on other threads/forums now and then:

- UPLOAD. Please avoid all unneeded steps. Pictures uploaded through FTP and with complete IPCT data should go directly to the review queue, or at least require no more than one (1) click to submit ALL uploaded pictures. This is particularly important for new/minor sites. Things have already improved lately: many have a "Submit" button to send 20 pictures at a time, but why not send ALL? (Shutterstock is an exception: they require some manual intervention on site, but their submission process is so good, and sales are so good, that it's acceptable)

There was an interesting discussion on iRockStock forum regarding pros and cons of FTP vs Java Uploaders. I like FTP, some don't, and sometimes we need the old basic web form uploader when we're on a slow connection or an old pc or weird OS, so the best thing is having all methods.

- STATISTICS. Many of us keep monthly statistics of sales/earnings; it takes a long time to log in to all sites and check statistics. A monthly e-mail sent on 1st day of month by each agency with previous month statistics.

- SAFETY. A different password for sensitive areas (account settings, payment, deleting pictures) and for FTP / statistics. I completely trust Lightburner, Microstock Analytics, Microstock Charts, PicNiche Toolbar,  MicrostockSubmitter and similar, and they are doing everything possible to keep our login safe. But what if they get hacked nonetheless? A single hacker could get all our passwords. These services only need to access FTP and/or statistics.

- CAPTCHA. Only for sensitive areas (account settings, payment, deleting pictures). No need to ask each time.

- IPTC IMPORT. If a "bad" word is found (e.g. some sites don't like numbers, or special characters) simply remove that word without requiring manual intervention, instead of stopping upload process. Or at least process the following pictures and put the incomplete ones at the end of the list.

- MODEL RELEASES. If one forgets to attach a release, please allow to add lately without reuploading.

- ISSUES. When a site has an issue, e.g. FTP not working, pictures disappearing from search, exceptionally long review queue... they should publish a clear list of current issues, and what they are doing to solve them, with an updated status. It makes no sense - for us and for them - to contact them individually asking the same thing over and over.

And while we're here, also a requirement for digital camera makers (all it's needed is a new firmware):

- BLACK & WHITE. A real b&w mode with proper conversion profiles, simulating real film. Simply turning colour to grayscale is NOT the way to go, and leads to ugly results. I know this can be done with raw and post-processing, but sometimes it's nice to have things done quickly in camera.

Appreciate the goal of this thread, but if you want the agencies to react, might be more useful to provide an agency by agency score card in your initial post.  Something like this

Veer
uploading
Pro: no categories, FTP, upload via browser
Con: CV keywording with little transparency, no keyword check boxes so list of keywords updates between each keyword deletion which slows editing to a crawl,
statistics
Pro:  Good summary of monthly statistics
Con:  No monthly summary email
and so on.

Obviously this will require you to do some work, but would be a big benefit to MSG and to contributors overall.

Think separating "upload' from "upload method" might be too much detail. 

For model releases, I think the ease or difficulty in adding a release to an image would be very helpful.  For example I find 123RF's system maddening.  Why do I have to go to the master model release page to add a release, why can't I add the model release to a given image when I'm looking at that image?  It is counter-intuitive and getting to the model release page is not easy.   

Would also like to see things like can/can't delete/edit an image in the review cue.  Going back to Veer, if they reject the first uploaded image in a series for lack of a property release, I'd like to be able to delete the rest of the series, rather then accumulate a whole bunch of rejections, since you never know how a site might use acceptance ratio in the future.

I'd like to see keywords used to purchase the image, like DT has.  Also like to see credit pricing transparency, again like DT, which shows the age of the credits used to purchase the image. 

Do you shoot stockphotos with your mobile phone?