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Author Topic: Another identical week at SS!  (Read 11753 times)

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« Reply #25 on: April 23, 2017, 06:17 »
+4
There's plenty of evidence of sales manipulation on SS.

Really? 
So how do they do it? Seriously. What method could they use to manipulate sales?


How on earth would I know how they do it?


Well, there are  two ways, aren't there? Constantly change the search (which is not happening) so that buyers see files from the people whose turn it is to have a sale, or simply not to report sales that have happened once the individual target is reached -- which is fraud.

Since people all seem to have different numbers that crop up repeatedly I suppose that someone there is going through the contributor list one-by-one to give everyone a different ceiling. Ridiculous idea, isn't it?

Or it could be that probability is levelling things off a bit, given the search ranking of various people, and the human tendency to see a pattern where none exists accounts for the rest.


« Reply #26 on: April 23, 2017, 06:47 »
0


How would they do it?
Extremely easy: in the algorithm put something like:
IF artist(x) has > x sales in the last x days THEN shut door


In this case, i'm very happy not to be artist number one.  :P

derek

    This user is banned.
« Reply #27 on: April 23, 2017, 07:40 »
+1
There's plenty of evidence of sales manipulation on SS.

Really? 
So how do they do it? Seriously. What method could they use to manipulate sales?


How on earth would I know how they do it?


Well, there are  two ways, aren't there? Constantly change the search (which is not happening) so that buyers see files from the people whose turn it is to have a sale, or simply not to report sales that have happened once the individual target is reached -- which is fraud.

Since people all seem to have different numbers that crop up repeatedly I suppose that someone there is going through the contributor list one-by-one to give everyone a different ceiling. Ridiculous idea, isn't it?

Or it could be that probability is levelling things off a bit, given the search ranking of various people, and the human tendency to see a pattern where none exists accounts for the rest.

yes but have a long good look at my stats in the OP!  and this reflects the similarity of a period of three months. It differs in cents!  wouldnt you agree that the odds of this being coincidence are astroniomical, just astronomical. I mean you have to dig really, really deep to come up with some logical mathematical explanation.

« Reply #28 on: April 23, 2017, 09:50 »
+3
There's plenty of evidence of sales manipulation on SS.

Really? 
So how do they do it? Seriously. What method could they use to manipulate sales?


How on earth would I know how they do it?


Well, there are  two ways, aren't there? Constantly change the search (which is not happening) so that buyers see files from the people whose turn it is to have a sale, or simply not to report sales that have happened once the individual target is reached -- which is fraud.

Since people all seem to have different numbers that crop up repeatedly I suppose that someone there is going through the contributor list one-by-one to give everyone a different ceiling. Ridiculous idea, isn't it?

Or it could be that probability is levelling things off a bit, given the search ranking of various people, and the human tendency to see a pattern where none exists accounts for the rest.

yes but have a long good look at my stats in the OP!  and this reflects the similarity of a period of three months. It differs in cents!  wouldnt you agree that the odds of this being coincidence are astroniomical, just astronomical. I mean you have to dig really, really deep to come up with some logical mathematical explanation.

I assume your weekday figures fall in a range of say $20 to $60 and that 40-ish is somewhere near the middle and so has a fairly high frequency in your stats. It's not as if there is an infinite range of numbers you could get, so the chances of this coincidence probably aren't astronomical at all, maybe somewhere in the range of rather unlikely - and rather unlikely things do happen.
Added to which the difference in the figures you cite isn't a matter of mere cents, it's a matter of a couple of dollars from top to bottom over five days, which is something like variation within a 5% range.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2017, 09:54 by BaldricksTrousers »

« Reply #29 on: April 23, 2017, 10:28 »
+2
There's plenty of evidence of sales manipulation on SS.

Really? 
So how do they do it? Seriously. What method could they use to manipulate sales?


How on earth would I know how they do it?


Well, there are  two ways, aren't there? Constantly change the search (which is not happening) so that buyers see files from the people whose turn it is to have a sale, or simply not to report sales that have happened once the individual target is reached -- which is fraud.

Since people all seem to have different numbers that crop up repeatedly I suppose that someone there is going through the contributor list one-by-one to give everyone a different ceiling. Ridiculous idea, isn't it?

Or it could be that probability is levelling things off a bit, given the search ranking of various people, and the human tendency to see a pattern where none exists accounts for the rest.

yes but have a long good look at my stats in the OP!  and this reflects the similarity of a period of three months. It differs in cents!  wouldnt you agree that the odds of this being coincidence are astroniomical, just astronomical. I mean you have to dig really, really deep to come up with some logical mathematical explanation.

If everyone was seeing the same thing, I would agree there is probably some manipulation going on.  And if I had your stats I would be pretty suspicious,  but there don't seem to be a lot of people reporting making about the same amount every day.  If there was intentional manipulation by SS I would think most or all of us would be seeing it in our stats.

  For those of us with large, diverse portfolios who've been at this a long time,  it only makes sense that our sales would be somewhat predictable.  I average roughly the same amount per month on each of the bigger sites, accounting for seasonal fluctiations.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2017, 10:34 by PixelBytes »

derek

    This user is banned.
« Reply #30 on: April 23, 2017, 11:46 »
0
There's plenty of evidence of sales manipulation on SS.

Really? 
So how do they do it? Seriously. What method could they use to manipulate sales?


How on earth would I know how they do it?


Well, there are  two ways, aren't there? Constantly change the search (which is not happening) so that buyers see files from the people whose turn it is to have a sale, or simply not to report sales that have happened once the individual target is reached -- which is fraud.

Since people all seem to have different numbers that crop up repeatedly I suppose that someone there is going through the contributor list one-by-one to give everyone a different ceiling. Ridiculous idea, isn't it?

Or it could be that probability is levelling things off a bit, given the search ranking of various people, and the human tendency to see a pattern where none exists accounts for the rest.

yes but have a long good look at my stats in the OP!  and this reflects the similarity of a period of three months. It differs in cents!  wouldnt you agree that the odds of this being coincidence are astroniomical, just astronomical. I mean you have to dig really, really deep to come up with some logical mathematical explanation.

I assume your weekday figures fall in a range of say $20 to $60 and that 40-ish is somewhere near the middle and so has a fairly high frequency in your stats. It's not as if there is an infinite range of numbers you could get, so the chances of this coincidence probably aren't astronomical at all, maybe somewhere in the range of rather unlikely - and rather unlikely things do happen.
Added to which the difference in the figures you cite isn't a matter of mere cents, it's a matter of a couple of dollars from top to bottom over five days, which is something like variation within a 5% range.


Well jeez! bit far fetched and I dont buy it but anyway like many other oldies I am also down by about 40% but before the cuts I was having quite different stats weekdays.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2017, 11:49 by derek »

« Reply #31 on: April 23, 2017, 13:44 »
+1
Well jeez! bit far fetched and I dont buy it but anyway like many other oldies I am also down by about 40% but before the cuts I was having quite different stats weekdays.

Are you really saying that every weekday for 12 weeks has been between $39 and $41, or do you just get that for a few days in a row every now and again and a broader spread at other times? Last time you posted about this you only listed four consecutive days, not five.

derek

    This user is banned.
« Reply #32 on: April 23, 2017, 14:21 »
+1
Well jeez! bit far fetched and I dont buy it but anyway like many other oldies I am also down by about 40% but before the cuts I was having quite different stats weekdays.

Are you really saying that every weekday for 12 weeks has been between $39 and $41, or do you just get that for a few days in a row every now and again and a broader spread at other times? Last time you posted about this you only listed four consecutive days, not five.

More or less it fluctuates between lets say 39-45 or something like that and for the past three months but I have a couple of friends and its exactly the same. I mean although I'm down its still a healthy sum I just find it strange thats all.

« Reply #33 on: April 23, 2017, 15:00 »
+2
Well, I'll agree that's odd. I've had three successive days this month with quite good sales where the earnings were within 1% of each other (achieved in an assortment of ways) - but that's exceptional, I've had days with four times that amount and days with a third of that, it's generally all over the place. Your sales are better than mine, though, and the higher the sales volume the less variation you will see, you'll start hitting a statistical average.

derek

    This user is banned.
« Reply #34 on: April 23, 2017, 15:06 »
+1
Well, I'll agree that's odd. I've had three successive days this month with quite good sales where the earnings were within 1% of each other (achieved in an assortment of ways) - but that's exceptional, I've had days with four times that amount and days with a third of that, it's generally all over the place. Your sales are better than mine, though, and the higher the sales volume the less variation you will see, you'll start hitting a statistical average.

Youre right and that could of course be whats happened here!  I also have some really strange single-sales I've never seen before like $ 1.37, 0.58, 0.99 etc. Just strange dont you agree.

dpimborough

« Reply #35 on: April 23, 2017, 16:35 »
+1
OK lets flip this on it's head with say a few thousand photos in a portfolio out of 135million then statistically you should have zero days during the week in fact quite frequently.

The real problem is that that rarely ever happens.

The odds of it happening are as Derek puts it also astronomical.

The real sales are taking place behind closed doors in SS Premier and who knows how images are being presented to those giant consumers of images.

« Reply #36 on: April 23, 2017, 16:49 »
+4
There's plenty of evidence of sales manipulation on SS.

I've been tracking sales data for 5 years and it is definitely become more apparent since 2014.

They are probably trying to share the "wealth" to encourage contributors to hang around.

I also get such odd sales for old files of really common subjects that have sold when they should have been drowned out long ago yet when I search for the same image it's no where to be seen anywhere in the results.

I think that they are manipulating Search Result to give each contributor a standard earning based some contributors porfolio parameters...

derek

    This user is banned.
« Reply #37 on: April 24, 2017, 01:13 »
0
Sammy!  I tend to agree but why SS Premier that seems to be exactly the same blaha blaha as the ordinary SS?  only they do pretend its for ad agencies and corporations and so on.
Content wise its almost a carbon copy of the SS main agency.

« Reply #38 on: April 24, 2017, 01:53 »
0
I think that they are manipulating Search Result to give each contributor a standard earning based some contributors porfolio parameters...

That's the only way to control the portfolios buyers go to - and even that would be a bit hit and miss - the thing is, there are people who watch the search results like hawks and they don't report a constant shuffling to distribute sales in a certain way.

It's also worth asking why SS would bother to take the trouble to try to control submitters' earnings. There doesn't seem to be much in it for them.

derek

    This user is banned.
« Reply #39 on: April 24, 2017, 02:46 »
+1
I think that they are manipulating Search Result to give each contributor a standard earning based some contributors porfolio parameters...

That's the only way to control the portfolios buyers go to - and even that would be a bit hit and miss - the thing is, there are people who watch the search results like hawks and they don't report a constant shuffling to distribute sales in a certain way.

It's also worth asking why SS would bother to take the trouble to try to control submitters' earnings. There doesn't seem to be much in it for them.

I dont know but if they could control the search results which in fact can not be too difficult that would in effect mean they could also control in which direction they like the money to go.
I know quite a few being with Offset and they are certainly not happy with present earnings and Premier I know nothing about but lets say they like to feed what ( somebody else mentioned) poorer countries or factories?

« Reply #40 on: April 24, 2017, 03:50 »
+2
I think that they are manipulating Search Result to give each contributor a standard earning based some contributors porfolio parameters...

That's the only way to control the portfolios buyers go to - and even that would be a bit hit and miss - the thing is, there are people who watch the search results like hawks and they don't report a constant shuffling to distribute sales in a certain way.

It's also worth asking why SS would bother to take the trouble to try to control submitters' earnings. There doesn't seem to be much in it for them.

I dont know but if they could control the search results which in fact can not be too difficult that would in effect mean they could also control in which direction they like the money to go.
I know quite a few being with Offset and they are certainly not happy with present earnings and Premier I know nothing about but lets say they like to feed what ( somebody else mentioned) poorer countries or factories?
Yes, it should be easy enough to weight a portfolio so it gets a better (or worse) ranking. After all, iStock did it with exclusives. But they couldn't do it to a large number of suppliers because there are only so many front-page slots. Right now, there seems to be a heavy weighting in favour of new material, which will, I suppose, favour factories that constantly upload. But that's hardly sinister.


 

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