MicrostockGroup
Agency Based Discussion => 123RF => Topic started by: fotografer on September 30, 2011, 06:53
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To check my earnings on 123rf I was just asked to fill in a captcha. I went to another page and went back to earnings to test it and was asked to fill in a captcha again. That is a real nuisance especially for obsessive checkers like me. What's the point if we are already signed in?
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not sure of the purpose either....annoying...
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ugh - definitely annoying.
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i wanna know.
Who thought that ;D
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That is a real nuisance especially for obsessive checkers like me.
They must be create this cause of traffic you create.
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Pain in the arse...
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Hate it! What lame focus group thought this was a good idea? If my bank (Chase) doesn't need it, why does a middle tier stock agency feel the need?
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my guess is that it is to block the software that automatically checks and compiles statistics... Perhaps something like Lookstat? I think that is why SS started too. Still, a PITA.
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That is a real nuisance especially for obsessive checkers like me.
They must be create this cause of traffic you create.
LOL you're probably right!!
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First - on 123rf there's no immeadiately accessible account balance like on every other microstock agency . Second - 123rf is incompatible with the picNiche toolbar . Now you have to enter a security code every time you want an update on your earnings ?!
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I don't get this. Its a nuicance, and utterly unnecessary. Hope alex will come in and explain the reason behind it
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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=44.052654,9.836627
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Hi Everyone,
Thank you for you frank opinions. I know it's a bother but we had to look at the overall picture. There has been a lot of activity being done by 3rd party apps who retrieve these earnings and most of the time they do this simultaneously. This severely compromises our CPU time and leads to crashes and severe time outs.
Long story short: When the system crashes, you don't get sales.
To solve this problem, the captcha would still be there, however, we would be inviting providers of these software to talk to us and we will work out some ways to ensure that they can retrieve these statistics in a more CPU friendly manner perhaps through an API call.
Thank you very much for your kind understanding.
Alex.
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Hi Everyone,
Thank you for you frank opinions. I know it's a bother but we had to look at the overall picture. There has been a lot of activity being done by 3rd party apps who retrieve these earnings and most of the time they do this simultaneously. This severely compromises our CPU time and leads to crashes and severe time outs.
Long story short: When the system crashes, you don't get sales.
To solve this problem, the captcha would still be there, however, we would be inviting providers of these software to talk to us and we will work out some ways to ensure that they can retrieve these statistics in a more CPU friendly manner perhaps through an API call.
Thank you very much for your kind understanding.
Alex.
Alex, it makes sense and I agree that the software developers should get in touch with you first before bombarding your (or any agency's) hardware with such amounts of requests.
I'd rather have a captcha than no sales, that's for sure!
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Thanks Alex for looking for a solution that will work for everyone
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Now I can't see my stats at all, because I get a server not found error message right after entering the captcha: Firefox can't find the server at www.123rf.comlogin.php (http://www.123rf.comlogin.php).
I tried several times...
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Why do these sites, every single time they're (or at least they think so) becoming big, feel like it's their obligation to start pulling stunts like this. Jeez!
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I went to update my earnings for the poll and can't get the earnings page. I get the "not authorized" error.
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I must say that you should allow logins to remain active a little longer or else only require the captcha for checking download stats or something. It is a real PITA as it stands now. It is a shame that everyone has to bear the brunt of the "solution" to the problem of automated scripts to check stats.
Also the earnings page seems to have reverted to showing all earnings even when I select a specific year. I think the default should be to only show the current year. It would also be nice to be able to click on something like the $ total for that month and be taken to the most recent page of the downloads (to see what images were sold).
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Thank you very much for your kind understanding.
Alex.
Hi Alex!
Thank you for the clarification. I am the author of Microstock Report, an Android widget that shows microstock earnings. My app is installed on about 200 phones and checks the earnings twice an hour. If I imagine a rainy day scenario (each user has the phone turned on all the time, with the widget on their homepage, everyone has 123RF account enabled), it's approximately one request each 10 seconds. I have to log in, download commission_stable_ajax.php, parse it and find the earnings. That's quite a lot of work for both my app and your server, I agree with that (and that's just one little widget with really few users).
If I could use a public API, I'd send one POST request and get a small XML back - and that's it. Less work for my app (and for my users' phones), less bandwidth for your server. And we both would benefit from such API - if your contributors can check their earnings on their phones, they don't have to log into your site to do it. And logging into your site requires far more bandwidth due to all those images, scripts and styles they need to download.
Having said that, the only question that remains is: Do you have any idea how fast you could create such API? :)
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Hi there everyone,
@Slovenian : Sorry - It's not that we're becoming big and wish to pull off stunts. We are aware how annoying this can be especially for those who check their earnings every hour or so, we are web users too and I cringe whenever I'm made to type in codes to prove I'm human.
I empathize with you - The fault is NOT yours. The parties at fault are the ones parsing the server in an automated manner.
We are going to develop an API for the 3rd party apps to alleviate this problem and shift the CPU load over to a dedicated server so that it doesn't impact the entire sites performance. We do not wish to encounter any downtimes or database timeouts due to earnings retrievals.
There is no deadline yet for this, so do bear with us. For those developers wishing access to the API, kindly write in to me at [email protected], we'll figure something out that works for everyone concerned.
Thank you for your kind understanding.
Alex.
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While I find the captchas a pain I do applaud working with companies that actually communicate with us.
It would be pretty slick to have an api for accessing your data via a 3rd party that had a separate server and a different password - that way the worst that a 3rd party program could do even if it got hacked would be to access your download data - no way to swipe your earnings.
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Hi All,
We've adjusted things so that you need only have to input the captcha once... at login. This should ease the pain a lot... :)
Hope that helps some!
Alex.
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Hi All,
We've adjusted things so that you need only have to input the captcha once... at login. This should ease the pain a lot... :)
Hope that helps some!
Alex.
Perhaps that's how it's supposed to work, but it's not happening.
I look at the download list (downloaded_stats.php, not the earnings page) and this just started having the capcha. But I don't log out ever - I close the tab or move to another site in that tab. I've had to input the captcha twice today - I checked stats once this morning and once this evening. Something other than logging out is resetting things so I have to prove to capcha that I'm human again.
I could live with once per login (which is what Shutterstock does), but having to do it every time I look at the page (given that it's a new browser session, or new tab or whatever it is that's triggered me getting the capcha again) is really irritating.
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Maybe a caching algorithm would fix all that? We did that once the stats got large and now it refreshes let's say once an hour and only if you log-in. So If you come to the page often you get it once per hour, if you come once a day you'll get immediate results. And sure the previous months/years should be cached 'forever' until there's a change such as refund or so.
Vita
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Hi Alex,
Thanks for the clarification. This works better for me, but I don't understand why it requires an extra page, and the captcha isn't on the login page itself.
Cheers
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Yeah, hope this can get sorted out soon. It is a real pain in the **** :o
I've filled in that captcha so many times the last couple of days, I now feel like putting in the box 'It's me again, don't you remember me, I am human, honestly I really am human' ;D
It does also state something like ' you won't see this again unless you log out' - but I do see it again even when I have not logged out - so that part is not working.
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Hrm.. that's funny, it should only ask for the captcha ONCE.
And that's only AFTER it detects you've logged in correctly, and that you're a contributor.
Can someone verify this? Kindly logout and then log in again...?
Much thanks,
Alex.
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@Alex: captcha pops up again if I'm closing the browser. If I leave the browser open but I only close the page and open it later, I don't see captcha.
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Maybe a caching algorithm would fix all that? We did that once the stats got large and now it refreshes let's say once an hour and only if you log-in. So If you come to the page often you get it once per hour, if you come once a day you'll get immediate results. And sure the previous months/years should be cached 'forever' until there's a change such as refund or so.
Vita
Actually the caching system saves a lot of server load.
Also the style of the earnings displaying system can be improved. Those who look frequently to the stats (robots, humans) are looking for the final sum (= the actual earnings). At 1234rf there's a huge table which completion really needs a serious database access. Instead of this, it's enough a single, hourly refreshed amount.
You may bury the very detailed stats to the 3rd level so contributors will check only if the actual amount is changing dramatically (slow)... Captcha is enough for this detailed table access...
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@Slovenian : Sorry - It's not that we're becoming big and wish to pull off stunts. We are aware how annoying this can be especially for those who check their earnings every hour or so, we are web users too and I cringe whenever I'm made to type in codes to prove I'm human.
I empathize with you - The fault is NOT yours. The parties at fault are the ones parsing the server in an automated manner.
We've adjusted things so that you need only have to input the captcha once... at login. This should ease the pain a lot... :)
Tnx for your reply and empathy. But to reply the question you've asked after ppl reported the implementations you've made are not functioning, it's just the same in my case. I know such bugs are a pain in the a$$ to fix so I empathize with you. I'll also witheld from checking my stats a few times a day. Perhaps this is a good thing :) . OTOH I won't stop uploading (I have a shoot tomorrow), since my earnings are on the rise. Just keep doing the good work. We, the happy contributors can understand such glitches (not sure I understand the implementation of captcha, I would understand it if it was necessary to fill in when logging in). However we wouldn't understand, nor forgive any monetary "glitches" or better said unsustainabilites ;)
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The list of downloaded images updates no more since yesterday
Maybe a caching algorithm would fix all that? We did that once the stats got large and now it refreshes let's say once an hour and only if you log-in. So If you come to the page often you get it once per hour, if you come once a day you'll get immediate results. And sure the previous months/years should be cached 'forever' until there's a change such as refund or so.
Vita
Actually the caching system saves a lot of server load.
Also the style of the earnings displaying system can be improved. Those who look frequently to the stats (robots, humans) are looking for the final sum (= the actual earnings). At 1234rf there's a huge table which completion really needs a serious database access. Instead of this, it's enough a single, hourly refreshed amount.
You may bury the very detailed stats to the 3rd level so contributors will check only if the actual amount is changing dramatically (slow)... Captcha is enough for this detailed table access...
+1
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+2
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I have an offtopic question (but it's still regarding earnings), I'll ask it here so that I won't open a new thread just for this simple question; what does CEL stand for? I sure like the return, 123RF you * rock! ;)
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I have an offtopic question (but it's still regarding earnings), I'll ask it here so that I won't open a new thread just for this simple question; what does CEL stand for? I sure like the return, 123RF you rock! ;)
Hey Slovenian,
CEL stand for Comprehensive Extended License. You can view the license details at http://www.123rf.com/license.php?type=enhanced (http://www.123rf.com/license.php?type=enhanced) .
Have a pleasant day.
Cheers,
Anglee
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Maybe a caching algorithm would fix all that?
That's a sound advice straight from the experts that took the concept "caching (http://www.microstockgroup.com/dreamstime-com/dreamstime-going-after-distributors-who-violate-terms/)" to new heights. ;)
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So is 123rf going to fix this so we see the capcha only once per login? It is extremely annoying to see this every time (albeit only twice a day now as I can't stand more capchas).
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Like JoAnn, I only check a couple of times a day, but the captcha appears even though I haven't logged out. And it is a PITA.
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Yes same here.
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When I check my earnings in www.123rf.net (http://www.123rf.net) , I will see this error message "You are not authorized to view this page" after inputing the captcha.
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I am a Lightburner user, and this morning I noticed that I cannot upload to 123rf through Lightburner. LB has no problems with Shutterstock however.
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Also only check a couple of times a day. Don't log out or close the browser. Asks for code each time.
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Maybe a caching algorithm would fix all that?
That's a sound advice straight from the experts that took the concept "caching ([url]http://www.microstockgroup.com/dreamstime-com/dreamstime-going-after-distributors-who-violate-terms/[/url])" to new heights. ;)
:D
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Here is sequence from yesterday/today.
Logged out.
Logged in.
Had to enter captcha
Left site
Came back in
No captcha
Today entered site
No captcha
Check earnings
Change date to check earnings for yesterday
Change date to check earnings for today
Had to enter captcha
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Which browsers do you use? I have to do the captcha thing only once every time I log in with Firefox.
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Firefox 7.0.1 Mac 10.6.8
I have to provide the capcha each time I create a tab and navigate to the site (I don't log out when I leave; I don't think closing the browser happens more than 3 or 4 times a week and I still get asked for the capcha)
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Firefox 7.0.1 Mac 10.6.8
I have to provide the capcha each time I create a tab and navigate to the site (I don't log out when I leave; I don't think closing the browser happens more than 3 or 4 times a week and I still get asked for the capcha)
Most (proper) websites will auto log you out if there was no activity from you IP address for a per-determined time (determined by the web developer for security purposes). So even if you did not press the log out button, you will get logged out after the specified time, due to non activity. Creating a tab to link the the site also implies connecting to the website. If you have been logged out by the system, opening the tab will require a re-log in and hence the need to provide the captcha again, as it needs to establish now again if you are a real person or a software application which try to obtain access.
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Using Chrome. Not opening new tab, reusing existing. It lets me view my sales stats, so I hope I'm logged in or they have a bigger problem. Only when I navigate to a specific date does it ask me captcha code.
123 has never used session variable before. I and others here have remained logged in for days/weeks. Also, it's not asking me to log in, it's only asking for captcha code.
Browser shouldn't matter. A website should be tested and work on the big 3
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123 logs me out after about an hour of inactivity, which means I get to re-login plus do the captcha. - a PITA for sure. I'm on Firefox.
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123 logs me out after about an hour of inactivity, which means I get to re-login plus do the captcha. - a PITA for sure. I'm on Firefox.
My experience as well and I do not have to enter the captcha more than once within any active session, no matter where in the site I am browsing or which data I am extracting. Only the 123RF technical staff will be able to clarify this one.
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Firefox 7.0.1 Mac 10.6.8
I have to provide the capcha each time I create a tab and navigate to the site (I don't log out when I leave; I don't think closing the browser happens more than 3 or 4 times a week and I still get asked for the capcha)
Most (proper) websites will auto log you out if there was no activity from you IP address for a per-determined time (determined by the web developer for security purposes). So even if you did not press the log out button, you will get logged out after the specified time, due to non activity. Creating a tab to link the the site also implies connecting to the website. If you have been logged out by the system, opening the tab will require a re-log in and hence the need to provide the captcha again, as it needs to establish now again if you are a real person or a software application which try to obtain access.
I see no indication of any logging in (thus leading me to infer that I haven't been logged out) on each visit to the site.
As far as "most" web sites, that varies a lot with the security level - my bank has a short timer and many low-security sites allow you to specify that you stay logged in for 2 weeks or permanently. If 123rf has some sort of auto-logout, I think it should tell us what that is. In all the cases I'm aware of a logout, even when I've told firefox to save the user name and password for me I still have to click OK or login to start the process. I see nothing of the sort from 123rf.
Bottom line is that I used to be able to check stats twice a day with no hassle. Now it's a pain in the butt. If there are nuisance site scrapers or bots or whatever they put the capcha there to guard against, can't they id the ip addresses they're coming from and block them or give them a capcha and leave those of us who aren't causing a problem alone?
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Don't bother using the contact us form. Here is their response.
It is our new functions to make the website save to be reviewed while you logged in.
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Is that response in English? It makes no sense to me.
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I think it is supposed to read like this:
It is a new function to make the website safe to be viewed while you are logged in ;D
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At least when you check twice a day and have to add the stupid captcha you get to see sales. I don't exist at 123. My account is at 90 cents for the month!
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At least when you check twice a day and have to add the stupid captcha you get to see sales. I don't exist at 123. My account is at 90 cents for the month!
How where your sales before? I questioned my low sales this month (from a BME last month) in another post and every one made me feel like I am the only exception..... ???
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Admittedly, very bad. 123 used to bring in between 2-4% of my overall earnings but since June they have made way less than 1% each month. Last month I had 25 sales but the RPD was $0.367 which doesn't add up to much at all. So I'm really glad some people are successful there. I love the fact that they are climbing the ranking, even though I don't understand how. I am a huge fangirl of DT and SS though, RPD at DT is over $5 this month.
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A big zero for me in September. Not even worth the time needed to enter tha captcha code! ;D
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On the up side, you guys/ladies are at least making me feel better with my meager income from them this month (at least I am over the $3 mark at this stage - quite a bit to go to last month's $34)! ::)
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Sales are good, but captcha is freaking annoying!!!
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Now I'm not only having to enter the captcha code, I'm getting logged out between visits. Every site has its trouble vs worth ratio, and this one is sliding quickly toward the wrong end of the scale.
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This Captcha is definitely a nuisance although I understand where 123rf is coming from. Sept was my BME but Oct has started really weak. Wonder if it has anything to do with the rather annoying captcha? I imagine 123rf buyers have to go through the Captcha verification as well when they log in and if indeed so, that might be have been frustrating to the buyers and deter them from coming to the site often for the downloads.
Alex, Anglee, what about putting captcha not on the entry login/landing page but on the second level pages where earnings/downloads etc are located for contributors?
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I can't believe they make buyers do the captcha thing, they might as well just give up if that is the case.
As implemented now, I must say SS's captcha is way way less of a pain. Basically every time I go to 123RF I have to deal with the captcha and since it is random you have to carefully make sure you have every letter and number right - as opposed to the SS captcha which is longer but usually close to real words.
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I hope they don't consider this a definitive solution . It would be a big turnoff
On top of the captcha now my downloads page updates a day or two after the earnings sheet .
While they're fixing this they should consider a complete overhaul of the contributor's interface - as it is now it looks clunky and rudimentary . Look at DP for example - sure they don't have the same load as 123rf but their site is fast , clean and easy to use .
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Sales have basically stopped the last 2 days, so maybe they do all to captcha.
Tonight I could accept the new agreement, but to look at my stats I had to log in and captcha. Making less sense.
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Hi Everyone,
Just to clarify:
1. Captcha doesn't affect sales. Our system detects if you're a contributor (with an active portfolio) then it will ask for captcha.
2. We are working on a new display for your convenience that will not load the servers as much, and you can be assured that no captcha PITA will be experienced after that. Do give us about a month to launch this new feature.
3. October sales has always been strong at 123RF. There are no indications that there is any deviation to the sales trend. We have not tinkered with the search algorithms and anything that will affect your search rankings. Please make full use of all the tools to ensure good exposure of your images.
4. I have not yet received ANY emails from any 3rd party providers of stock submission and analysis tools. If you are in touch with these folks, please ask them to write in: alex[at]123rf.com.
Thank you very much, I hope this helps!
Alex.
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Hi Alex
Thank you for the feedback. Have you considered that the site might have been attacked by malware or hackers (like microstockgroup did)? I know of at least one other site which also suddenly started having "server problems" at the same time as you started experiencing problems.
Interesting about the sales, as a number of us has experienced substantial drop in sales since the captcha was introduced (you can check my stats).
Looking forward to the updated site, the news will hopefully calm a lot of nerves here!
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Alex, the providers of analysis tools are not contacting you because they're simply displaying a little window with 123rf's captcha, it's programmable. Then they go and fetch all the data they need.
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And hate to pile on, but the day view isn't working any more - that's why I thought I had no sales. If I pick October and scroll to the bottom, I have sales today. If I pick the 13, it shows I have no sales.
Also, captcha may not affect sales, but I had more sales on Sunday than the rest of the week put together. On track for worst month in over a year.
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Hey what happens to 123rf lately? First of all the captcha, as o today I'm not able to see my own earnings anymore... (Earnings
You are not authorized to view this page)
Are you serious?
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Hey what happens to 123rf lately? First of all the captcha, as o today I'm not able to see my own earnings anymore... (Earnings
You are not authorized to view this page)
Are you serious?
had that a few minutes ago, logout and login LOL not anymore.. same issue
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very annoying this captcha when you're drunk!
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Is it possible for 123Rf to send out an email to those contrib who want it when an image is sold. This would stop me checking the earnings on a regular basis and therefore reduce server load ??
Lots of other sites do this and I prefer it.
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Is it possible for 123Rf to send out an email to those contrib who want it when an image is sold. This would stop me checking the earnings on a regular basis and therefore reduce server load ??
Lots of other sites do this and I prefer it.
+1
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ditto
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+1
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From last week they require to fill captcha to upload as well. And every time to see earnings although the msg says I'm going to have to enter it only if I log out which I never do. Really weird and a pain in the a$$ as well.
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I wish they would just keep you from auto logging out every hour or so. Make a login last 24 hours, or at least 12.
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SS was also bothering us with captcha, but it only happened if you didn't log in for longer than 24h (or even more, I'm not sure), but now you only have to do it if you log out manually. That's the only logical way to use captcha IMO. And I really can't understand why you have to do it for ULs.
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Yes, please fix it so it isn't necessary so often. It's breakin' my stride man...
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You can get round it if instead of looking at your entire earnings you just open the page for the current month's earnings. You can refresh that as often as you like without captcha popping up.
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How can I get authorization to view my own earnings? Does it require legally stamped documents from several official offices? *feeling a bit like kafka here*
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You can get round it if instead of looking at your entire earnings you just open the page for the current month's earnings. You can refresh that as often as you like without captcha popping up.
Yeah I know that, but from time to time I'd like to know the sum of my current month's earnings. And there's no going around uploading. Well there is but...Yeah just don't upload and save your nerves ppl ;D
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2. We are working on a new display for your convenience that will not load the servers as much, and you can be assured that no captcha PITA will be experienced after that. Do give us about a month to launch this new feature.
Alex, any news about this feature? The captcha is sooooooooo annoying!
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You can get round it if instead of looking at your entire earnings you just open the page for the current month's earnings. You can refresh that as often as you like without captcha popping up.
Yeah I know that, but from time to time I'd like to know the sum of my current month's earnings. And there's no going around uploading. Well there is but...Yeah just don't upload and save your nerves ppl ;D
The current month's earnings are the bottom right figure on the monthly (non captchad) page. It's annual earnings and comparisons from month to month that are more difficult.
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unless the "monthly page" is different from
http://www.123rf.com/submit/commission_daily.php?mth=2011-11 (http://www.123rf.com/submit/commission_daily.php?mth=2011-11)
I have to fill in the captcha to see that too.
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unless the "monthly page" is different from
[url]http://www.123rf.com/submit/commission_daily.php?mth=2011-11[/url] ([url]http://www.123rf.com/submit/commission_daily.php?mth=2011-11[/url])
I have to fill in the captcha to see that too.
That's the one. I'm browsing with Firefox and I don't get Captcha on that page at all.
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unless the "monthly page" is different from
[url]http://www.123rf.com/submit/commission_daily.php?mth=2011-11[/url] ([url]http://www.123rf.com/submit/commission_daily.php?mth=2011-11[/url])
I have to fill in the captcha to see that too.
That's the one. I'm browsing with Firefox and I don't get Captcha on that page at all.
I'm getting it too and that was exactly what I was talking about. No captcha under downloads, but there is under earnings (that I check once a week, but it's still annoying on top of entering it for ULs which I do a few times a week).
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+1
I log into FT only once month to record my monthly sales in a spreadsheet. Other than that I use the emails from sales to gauge where I am. Same with DP.
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I don't mind this at all. I only visit the site a few times a month, if this adds a bit more security, that's good. I wish all the sites increased their security. Never had a problem with this captcha, its legible, unlike some others.
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Sorry but I do mind it. I am checking my stats several times per day (with good reason) and it's the only website where seeing your earnings is a pain in the behind. If other agencies could make stats / earnings pages without overloading their servers, I don't understand why 123RF can't.