Istock F5 epic fail

[Artemis]

*Yadayadayada...*
What is important to realize is that today's release is the most important change we ever made to how iStockphoto serves files to clients, all over the world.

And what is critical to understand is that we always keep a severe and rational eye on Best Match with the interests of contributors and clients alike. We are all in this together and we want to assist you in licensing as many relevant assets as possible... for the benefit of all involved.

The new code that we released today is faster and more robust... most of you should be able to realize that even at this very early stage. What is critical to understand here is that it is 100% scalable and will adapt, over time, to the needs of the clients. And what is good for iStockphoto clients is ultimately good for us as a community of contributing artists.

*Yadayadayadayada sniff sniff small violin*

The most important change ever made at istock on how to serve files, but not important enough to communicate with us in advance!?!
The mob got angry again, quick lets post some soothing tearjerking words?
*yaaaawn* its getting really old. Putting your ass on the line is waaaaaay overdue mista JJ.

[Jo Ann Snover]

Apparently new uploads are no longer automatically available for EL.  If I could find my control panel I would re-select ELs for my whole port every time I got new images approved. 

But I have no idea where the control panel has been hidden away.  Can someone tell me?  Thanks!

The UI on this is abysmal. I always have a hard time finding it. On the bottom left, click My Account, then select Preferences from the menu, then click on the My uploads tab. Near the bottom there are all-on all-off buttons for ELs.

Deep Meta just applies this preference to every upload. Very handy given the site's busted. I do all my keywording in Photoshop, but let DM read it and then disambiguate there. Even for an independent, it might be a time saver.

[ShadySue]

^Send a mail to contributor relations.  

Different note, I just had some files rejected as editorial that said I should remove logos and resubmit as regular RF but the photos were of paintings that I think are not nearly old enough to be public domain, what am I supposed to make of that?  It's funny after all the images of things in the public domain being rejected for copyright I get this.

I got one of these. I wrote to Scout explaining why I thought the image should be editorial, and am awaiting a reply since 13th Feb.
I believe there was someone who wrote early on in the editorial forum about an image he'd had rejected from the main collection because of IP a while back, which he submitted as editorial and was told to place it in the main collection.
I had another editorial submitted rejected saying that 'set up' photos should go to the main collection. Well, firstly, it wasn't a set up photo, essentially it was a grab shot, in that I was photographing a friend casually (I guess consensual candid' would cover it) when her husband, who was also photographing her, shouted her name and she turned and smiled. She is happy for her photo to be used in editorial, but not for other uses. Thirdly there are three Cessna planes in full view in the photo. I guess I'll need to get it released by Support and send it to Alamy.

[lisafx]

But I have no idea where the control panel has been hidden away.  Can someone tell me?  Thanks!

The UI on this is abysmal. I always have a hard time finding it. On the bottom left, click My Account, then select Preferences from the menu, then click on the My uploads tab. Near the bottom there are all-on all-off buttons for ELs.

Deep Meta just applies this preference to every upload. Very handy given the site's busted. I do all my keywording in Photoshop, but let DM read it and then disambiguate there. Even for an independent, it might be a time saver.

Thanks JoAnn.  I never would have found it without your help.

I have tried DeepMeta, but it didn't really fit well with my workflow.  I am probably the only person who feels that way, but I don't want to have to upend my workflow just to accomodate Istock's idiosyncrasies. 

[CurtPick]

@Curt

my sympathies. But most forum bans are temporary, they are more of a time out to take a step back and refocus. The world is bigger than istock :-)

Also keep in mind that the istock forums are very diverse and not everyone has the same type of humour. Some artists are extremely sensitive and read "critical" language as strong insults, not just on istock, but on themselves. They will then complain to the moderators. Other contributors, especially those with poorer English language skills, will just avoid the forums alltogether if they see "all that emotion". And it is not just the exclusives that withdraw. I live in Germany so the very direct "in your face talk" suits me fine, but people from other countries or cultures react differently.

Moderators have to find a balance to allow as many people as possible to take part in the forums. Plus it�s a company forum, not a free for all student board.

FWIW, I hope you have fun here in the meantime and can get in touch with Lobo, when the time is right.

My Ban was needed Cobalt. I said what I had to say. If they want to listen thats their prerogative.  It was Lobo who canned me not JJRD.  I don't think I will ever again have the need to speak to them. But time will tell. One thing for sure, there will be no apologies in any form or fashion from my end if thats what they are looking for. Any who !!!    Thanks !

[Risamay]

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=314342&messageid=6107312

JJ is writing and promises to post about the search issue. I am (literally) holding my breath. I so look forward to his posts

JJ's posts are consistently the very definition of ... Not good. Let's just say, not good.

[loop]

There's is also an EL Opt In-Opt Out in the home page f every contributor, near the bottom right.

[ShadySue]

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=314342&messageid=6107312

JJ is writing and promises to post about the search issue. I am (literally) holding my breath. I so look forward to his posts

He said:
"Greetings. After hours of discussions & after looking at every possible angle, the first tweaks of the actual values will be completed today, and pushed at next server sync."
http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=314342&page=22#post6117472
Which means sales must be well down overall. They don't care one iota if 'my' sales or 'your' sales are down, over if the whole site's sales are down, so I guess the first iteration of the 'improvement' counts as an epic fail.

[ffNixx]

My previous post about this got lost in the noise it seems, so once again: check your XXL and XXXL files, there's a problem with some of them, the XXL setting appears before XS, with no pixel dimensions. It isn't just me.

[caspixel]

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=294962&page=6#post6123282

Yeah, it sure is interesting how iStock can so efficiently execute the clawback but has so many problems with getting the money that it owes to contributors.

[gostwyck]

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=314342&messageid=6107312

JJ is writing and promises to post about the search issue. I am (literally) holding my breath. I so look forward to his posts

Me too. When JJ posts I always touch my monitor, just to feel the warmth of his sincerity.

[wiser]

Still can't find the frickin slider, I must be blind.

But I will say the search is working better, I can enter more than one word in the main search box and then drill down with the secondary box. Too bad it took two months of pain to get his to work right.

[wiser]

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=314342&messageid=6107312

JJ is writing and promises to post about the search issue. I am (literally) holding my breath. I so look forward to his posts

Me too. When JJ posts I always touch my monitor, just to feel the warmth of his sincerity.

I just touch myself. Oops did I say that out loud.

[PeterChigmaroff]

The site is missing a lot of letters and replacing some of them with weird symbols. I guess someone didn't pay the rent.

[OhGoAway!]

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=314342&messageid=6107312

JJ is writing and promises to post about the search issue. I am (literally) holding my breath. I so look forward to his posts

Me too. When JJ posts I always touch my monitor, just to feel the warmth of his sincerity.

I just touch myself. Oops did I say that out loud.

Hahahahahha

[ShadySue]

The search is randomly throwing up nil results. (i.e. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
E.g. I searched on 'duck' and changed best match to Age.
No results "Tell us more".
Started again, duck, best match.
Clicked on photos, no results, "Tell us more".
This doesn't always happen. It was happening apparently randomly last night and that one again this morning.
I think I've read somewhere that a random problem is more worrying (harder to nail down and fix) than a replicable problem.
Maybe there's a random 'piss off the customers' feature thrown in to the algorithm.

[OhGoAway!]

The search is randomly throwing up nil results. (i.e. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
E.g. I searched on 'duck' and changed best match to Age.
No results "Tell us more".
Started again, duck, best match.
Clicked on photos, no results, "Tell us more".
This doesn't always happen. It was happening apparently randomly last night and that one gain this morning.
I think I've read somewhere that a random problem is more worrying (harder to nail down and fix) than a replicable problem.
Maybe there's a random 'piss off the customers' feature thrown in to the algorithm.

Well, the random "piss off the customer" feature should be very easy. We've had 2 years of beta testing on continual "piss off the contributor" feature

[Jo Ann Snover]

The search is randomly throwing up nil results. (i.e. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't...

This happened to me a lot yesterday when I was testing things. I couldn't find anything reproducible so I didn't add it to the list of bugs I stuck into the faceted search bugs post.

I also thought that when I went back one page in a search I found myself with a page of someone's portfolio I had previously been looking at, but I couldn't reproduce that either.

They don't appear to be acknowledging any of the bug posts regarding search, so I think I'm just going to leave it for a bit - feels to me as if I'm wasting my energies as they're just ignoring what they're being told about breakage anyway.

[ShadySue]

Deactivated files are showing in lightboxes, though unpurchasable.
E.g. here's one - the images were accepted last year, then deactivated for IP, I have reuploaded them as editorial, so two of several images are showing.
http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/7851533/#10c45393
I'll leave it like this for illustrative purposes, then I'll take them out of the lightbox in a few days. I clearly didn't think to bother to take them out of the lightbox when they were deactivated.
Might affect other people too: I saw a post in the iStock forums. I don't think they're showing in ordinary searches.

[cathyslife]

Deactivated files are showing in lightboxes, though unpurchasable.
E.g. here's one - the images were accepted last year, then deactivated for IP, I have reuploaded them as editorial, so two of several images are showing.
http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/7851533/#10c45393
I'll leave it like this for illustrative purposes, then I'll take them out of the lightbox in a few days. I clearly didn't think to bother to take them out of the lightbox when they were deactivated.
Might affect other people too: I saw a post in the iStock forums. I don't think they're showing in ordinary searches.

Yes, my deactivated images are showing that way in lightboxes as well. I would have thought that once an image is deactivated, it disappears from wherever it might be, since it doesn't show in the general search.

[ShadySue]

Deactivated files are showing in lightboxes, though unpurchasable.
E.g. here's one - the images were accepted last year, then deactivated for IP, I have reuploaded them as editorial, so two of several images are showing.
http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/7851533/#10c45393
I'll leave it like this for illustrative purposes, then I'll take them out of the lightbox in a few days. I clearly didn't think to bother to take them out of the lightbox when they were deactivated.
Might affect other people too: I saw a post in the iStock forums. I don't think they're showing in ordinary searches.

Yes, my deactivated images are showing that way in lightboxes as well. I would have thought that once an image is deactivated, it disappears from wherever it might be, since it doesn't show in the general search.

Oh, I've just realised (d'uh!) that I can't get them out of the lightbox because you can't go in and edit deactivated files.
I see there's a second thread about it in the Help forum: I noticed one a few days ago.

[ShadySue]

Update: it seems you can edit them if you go into MyUploads>Deactivated files

[caspixel]

Looks like we've got another imminent fail looming on the horizon. Getting near the end of the first quarter and still no word on the 2012 RC targets, and according to Lobo, there is no timeline he is aware of. No timeline? Then what was "January"? And then it got pushed back to "end of the first quarter"? That sounds like a timeline to me. Though now I suspect it will be "by the end of June" and then "by September", since now, suddenly, there seems to be no timeline.

http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=309592&page=3#post6155972

[photoagogo]

Good job we've got haters like you to keep us informed.

[Maui]

Perhaps they became aware how much those targets can tell about the sales performance of the different tiers.