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Messages - ShadySue
13926
« on: March 19, 2011, 12:44 »
Pay attention up there at the back.
This isn't a 'bug' it's a 'feature'. RoberMexico said that in the new best match, 'most relevant' means 'median relevancy'.
New tagline; iStock repurposes the English Language.
(apparently you get the 'best' results by having the slider in the middle)
That slider is a stupid idea and a waste of IT resources. If you are typing in keywords, would you not always want the most relevant results? Why would you ever want results with "least" or even "median" relevancy to what you are searching for? Sure seems like it would waste a lot of search time.
In theory, it's not as bad as that. In theory, if buyers knew about it, and when it was working well, buyers could choose whether they wanted a close match to their search or a broader match, e.g. if searching on a concept. Depending on the designer or the project, they could choose one or the other.
13927
« on: March 19, 2011, 12:28 »
I was used to almost overnight turn around, then a spot check failed one photo.
I am used to 7 day turnaround if there is a failure.
Is there something unusual going on now, however. I have two uploads of 2 photos each that I have carefully reviewed and submitted. I submitted them on 8 March which is almost two weeks.
It was mentioned in at least two threads on their forums this week that it can be a fortnight now that rejections are 'held up'.
13928
« on: March 19, 2011, 09:59 »
They've clearly done their best match 'adjustment' as promised. My editorial files (all new, obviously) which were at the very bottom of my on portfolio by best match moved up to halfway, i.e. they were mixed in between the middle of p6 and the middle of p8 of 11 pages of a best match search.
Now they are all at the bottom of page 11.
Checked a sitewide search for Memphis. Yes, there are my new editorial files, right at the bottom (a small search) by best match.
Thanks for that, iStock.
So much for me making an effort with the new editorial programme.
13929
« on: March 19, 2011, 09:15 »
Since I'm in Bangkok now I just did a search for "bangkok" with the slider all the way to the right (most relevant isn't it supposed to be) and the second image has "bangkok" listed as the 10th most relevant keyword. This can't be correct, I know we were told there are no bugs but the most relevant images should be better than that shouldn't they?
Pay attention up there at the back. This isn't a 'bug' it's a 'feature'. RoberMexico said that in the new best match, 'most relevant' means 'median relevancy'. New tagline; i Stock repurposes the English Language.(apparently you get the 'best' results by having the slider in the middle)
13930
« on: March 19, 2011, 07:32 »
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.
13931
« on: March 18, 2011, 18:33 »
They've really duffed up.
They've lost what was great about the DV. I just did a search for Highland Cattle, which is in the CV as a phrase, and got loads of photos of cattle which weren't highland cattle. On trying to wiki three of them, it turns out they have highland (region) and cattle as separate keywords.
That's what drives me nuts about Alamy's search system, and which I thought iStock used to have (mostly) right.
:-(
Added: better still none of my five pics of highland cattle show up in a search for highland cattle, neither in my portfolio nor in the general search.
I wonder how many other keywords aren't working properly?
Added later: So I tried office manager. "Office manager" isn't in the CV, so the words went into the box on the left as office and manager below it. Only two hits.
Office AND manager has thousands of hits as you'd expect.
"Office manager" has 32.
So why is it returning hits for highland AND cattle, but missing out at least five files with "highland cattle" in them, when "highland cattle" is in the CV, but with office manager, which isn't in the CV, you have to write AND between them?
I need to go to bed right now - early start in the morning - or I'd work it out myself.
Anyone enjoy a challenge?
13932
« on: March 18, 2011, 17:55 »
[Sorry, repeated post again  ]
13933
« on: March 18, 2011, 13:34 »
best match shift is geared towards older files so successful files over 2 years old are showing up in front.
Not always. I tried a search where there were only 32 hits, and 5 of mine (film scans from 2007) were the bottom 5. Four of these five files had the highest dls in that search, by a long way.
Then had a theory that scans must be at the back, but another search proved that not to be true.
Anyway, I had 1 DL yesterday, 1 so far today. Can't get much worse for me.
13934
« on: March 18, 2011, 13:32 »
I would like to point out that iStock is also not indispensible... ;-) Works both way, right?
True, dat.
13935
« on: March 18, 2011, 12:49 »
By not uploading you only hurt yourself, nobody else. The agencies dont care, they can replace anyone tomorrow, nobody and I mean nobody is infallable, ( did I spell taht right)?
I think you meant indispensible?
http://www.ellenbailey.com/poems/ellen_323.htm
Yeah thats what I meant, still its true though, isnt it?
Absolutely: iStock, sadly, is not infallible and we, sadly, are not indispensible. ;-)
13936
« on: March 18, 2011, 12:29 »
By not uploading you only hurt yourself, nobody else. The agencies dont care, they can replace anyone tomorrow, nobody and I mean nobody is infallable, ( did I spell taht right)?
I think you meant indispensible? http://www.ellenbailey.com/poems/ellen_323.htm
13937
« on: March 18, 2011, 12:21 »
[double post]
13938
« on: March 18, 2011, 08:24 »
I'm glad that you guys are not uploading. Keep the competition at a lower level  .
Go to go now to upload some more 
Some people are uploading. The queue is at 93319, but seems to be at a standstill. None of my uploads have been even 'locked for inspection' for well over 36 hours now, other than a 'stuck and released-by-Support' one from the 6th.
13939
« on: March 18, 2011, 07:14 »
Sigh.......................... Well it will probably change again and again and again until its a total mess, as usual. Certainly wont be in our favor, thats for sure.
It has to be in somebody's favor. A best match change can't cause everybody to go down unless IS sales overall go down.
The fact that JJRD said "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." surely means that overall sales must be well down. They don't care if 'my' sales or 'your' sales go down, only at the overall figure. http://www.istockphoto.com/forum_messages.php?threadid=314342&page=22#post6117472
13940
« on: March 18, 2011, 07:00 »
Isn't it odd that it's still the description, not the caption which shows when you hover over an editorial image? Someone posted about this in the editorial thread and got no replies that I noticed.
So essentially, you have to insert mostly the same (expanded, contracted or slightly tweaked) information three times: title (for Google), Caption (for when it's wanted) and description (for hovering over).
All this, and they won't allow buyers who really need the accuracy (caption and unedited image) to filter on editorial alone, and it seems that editorial files are right in the middle of any search.
Usual iStock lack of joined-up thinking.
13941
« on: March 18, 2011, 06:35 »
hi, i took the test and submitted the manditory images for initial review almost 2 weeks ago to istock. just how long does this process take? i havent received any confirmation email and it says my images are still out for review and i'll be notified. jeeeeeeeeeeeeez!
Two weeks was about right when I started. It could be much longer now. The 'normal' queue is now the longest I've ever seen it, so I suspect they're short of inspectors at the moment, or they're having a go-slow, or goodness knows what. You'll just have to be patient, I'm afraid. Some queue inspections are taking a fortnight.
13942
« on: March 18, 2011, 06:32 »
That quote wasn't actually from me, but from Jen.
As far as tiny mistakes, they do the same with keyword rejections for independents. I won't argue that they try on purpose to make certain things difficult to encourage (as they see it) submitters to be very careful.
However, rejections are a part of uploading. You either make your peace with them, warts and all, or move on and stop uploading there. Getting mad about it doesn't help your blood pressure and IS has shown itself virtually impervious to contributor complaints in this area, so it makes no sense to hope they will change.
Unpleasant perhaps, but that's just how it is
Sadly, true. And total inconsistency makes it that much more difficult. (I probably posted this in another thread. New readers start here)I got loads of rejections because my date "should have been month-date-year". My first couple of appeals were overturned, but since than, hard cheddar. One I got a month-date-year rejection, and they told me it was because I had put London, England, UK, and England and the UK are the same. After I'd counted to ten, I pointed out that a) that wasn't the rejection b) England is not synonymous with 'UK' and c) I'd already had lots accepted as Glasgow, Scotland, UK and Edinburgh, Scotland, UK and one accepted as London, England, UK. No dice, had to resubmit. The next time I got a 'should have been month-date-year' rejection, I again queried it and was told it was because I didn't have a comma between the month and the year. Again, not what the rejection said. I pointed out that I have over 140 acceptances without the comma, and that I had followed an official exemplar date format, I got a snippy note back that I should follow normal English language convention for dates. While it was true that we were taught to put a comma between the month and the year in Primary School, that was back in the days when you put your home address on a letter over at the right hand side, indenting every line, as you did with addresses on envelopes, with a comma after each line. Sometime before 1970 (I can be very, very precise about that, because that's the year I started Secretarial Studies at High School) that had gone completely. Fully left-justified letters/envelopes, no commas in the date (or address). Icing on the cake: I had an editorial image 'pending executive' for weeks. It was accepted sans comma. My acceptance rate has dropped over 2% since editorial started, mostly for caption problems (and some for my usual 'flat light'). Trouble is you can only Scout outright rejected images (sidenote: I doubt if I've Scouted ten images over 4+ years, and now I have my 3 Scout tickets in for this month) so you have no other right of appeal. JoAnn's right - you just have to play their game, no matter how stupid. I'm just trying to remember to stick in that stupid comma, though as I'm fighting years of muscle memory, and you can't edit captions after submission (that pat answer about how 'just like you have to get the photo right at submission you have to get the caption right' is codswallop, of course. They could easily lock the caption at inspection) I've had to cancel and resubmit a lot of pending files. ( A propos of nothing, I see the queue shot up c1500 overnight,)
13944
« on: March 17, 2011, 13:14 »
There's a thread up now...
Thank you for that post.
13945
« on: March 17, 2011, 12:55 »
Interesting that Dreamstime puts a heavy interest on Titles, whereas I've been told that Titles never show up in iStock searches. Only keywords show up there.
Yes, titles don't count in istock searches, but they do count for Google searches. I have no idea how many people looking for an image to buy go to Google first.
13946
« on: March 17, 2011, 11:19 »
^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.
13947
« on: March 17, 2011, 08:54 »
I took time off to send my 5D to Canon for sensor cleaning but now back at it. Still a long way to go to make some impact but iStock is where the buyers are IMO. Just shut down my Dreamstime and Shutterstock accounts and submitted for IS exclusive. SO, yeah, I'm in it for the long haul
Gosh - unusual choice these days. Good luck!
13948
« on: March 17, 2011, 08:21 »
I'm still trying to work out what it means when he says they are aiming to restore trust but not the same kind of trust as before.
How many kinds of trust are there?
On iStock, editorial is really editorial-lite (TM, sjlocke) So maybe 'Stock trust = 'trust-lite'.
13949
« on: March 17, 2011, 08:14 »
Well I think its time to go back to waiting and seeing for me - not much any of us can do about the fallout either way!
You're totally right. My sales have spiralled so low anyway, I'd hardly notice any difference unless they stopped altogether.
13950
« on: March 17, 2011, 08:12 »
That's always been what's been said on the iStock forums, hence the constant obsessing over Best Match.
Always surprised me, because when I was teaching, I spent hours (of my own time!) scouring e.g. Microsoft clip art for images for my presentations and worksheets, as did most of my colleagues.
On Alamy only today, I saw someone had viewed almost 9000 images, and zoomed on 185 on a very broad search term. I often see broad searches there go into the thousands, but of course others that look only on the first page (usually on narrower searches)
Maybe people working on tight budgets or deadlines presumably do view fewer files.
Interesting that they would move to another agency rather than keep going on the file.
The new iStock best match (as it currently stands) is going to h*ck them off, majorly.
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