MicrostockGroup

Wonder how easy is it to rig the earnings poll?  I would guess that poll results influence where people upload with companies that move up in rankings getting a burst of uploads.

Leaf, is there any data you track or can share that would help the community identify trends that might be a bit suspicious?  Graphs over time showing the number of votes per company, so a big spike in votes one month to the next would be easy to spot?  Information about the number of voters that only vote for one company?

Know some people don't like/care about the poll, but as somebody else pointed out, what else do we have?

I'd think you'd need quite a few people to rig it. I've never seen my vote even make a dent in the numbers. That and some of the illustration only sites languish at the bottom despite regularly outperforming sites in the low, middle and top tier.

If you can't even get illustrators to have any influence on it, I don't think a few people with an agenda have much of a shot.

Something I did suggest in the past (which is actually easily obtainable data) is a percentage indication per income category. You can then see out of the total number of people supplying an income vote in respect of specific agency, what percentage has indicated 1, 2, 3, etc.

Apart from making very interesting reading, one should be able to pick up if there is a sudden percentage rise in the high income category and or lack of middle income indicators. Just a thought... 

If the illustration sites have less voters that doesn't change the amount of earnings. If a site has 50 people and someone votes $10, that's the same as six people on the top sites voting $10.

In other words, one high vote on an illustration site, counts for six times more than one high vote on a top tier site.

294 votes SS
275 votes IS
300 votes DT
275 votes 123RF
294 votes FT
26 votes ClipartOf (each vote counts 11 times what a SS, DT or FT vote counts)
177 votes DP
58 votes PhotoDune
250 votes CanSTock
49 votes Pond5
49 votes Veer
260 votes BigStock

So I might guess that as PhotoDune gets more members and ClipArtOf gets more members, it might level off a little instead of having a small number of very happy members?

DT has more than SS and FT by a small number, but still, it's more.

This is true.  My metrics don't necessarily line up with what MSG shows, so there are inherent differences probably based on portfolio type, quantity, quality, and N where N=data points being measured. 

thanks for all the thoughts.

Yeah - the number of voters does affect the rating by nature.  PhotoDune's sales (according to my stats) have increased every month but their rating has dropped quite a bit this month.  Simply because more people (with lower earnings) are voting for the site.  That said, where they currently appear in the list on the right is pretty accurate to my own experience.

The reason a site needs 51 votes to appear in the top area with the up / down arrows is exactly this reason - with very few votes a site can easily be 'spammed' to the top of the results.  With 51 votes it is pretty hard and if things start to look fishy I'd go in an look at the votes  - so far that hasn't ever been a problem.  I don't put the number of votes on the main page to keep things simplified.  If people want more detailed info, it is easy to follow the link on the bottom of the resutls or the link in the top menu.

Now - after all that is said.  I also feel it is time for a reworking of the voting system so people can vote more accurately and a nice history is also shown.

And just in case, I have no complaints, it's nice to look at. I never paid attention to the number of voters before. Kind of surprised that DT has the most.

Speaking of voting, how does Paxxion get 16 votes, when the site is invisible and appears to be shut down?

Sorry Microstock Posts, can not say I agree with your viewpoint.

Firstly, you are trying to state guesswork as fact "Finally, it is NO coincidence that 123rf got ideas about reducing commissions once they saw themselves in the Top Tier". Do you have insider info at 123RF? It is as much a co-incidence as it was one that it was the end of the year, when most businesses re-asses their positions. The whole industry has being dropping their commissions for quite a while now. So it is not so OBVIOUS that you can link their change to anything else than following an industry trend.

Secondly, it does not make business sense to change your recipe for success as soon as you start tasting it. There would have been 10x more reason for 123RF not to change what they where doing, based on their success. So deciding to drop their commission could not have been one easily taken.

Thirdly, I think a business like 123RF will trust their own business intelligence, own income and expenditure statements much more than a self admitted "inaccurate" website poll.

In my opinion, the poll is fine an serve the purpose it has been designed for and that is to give a broad guidance of general success for the majority of contributors represented here. Any improvement in accuracy will help and I fail to see that this pole can move a major player in the industry to change its business direction.

Will also still love to see the number of votes for every scale category. If, out of 10 votes 7 is on 7 and 3 on 1, it should tell you something. 

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