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Author Topic: captcha to see your earnings!!!!!  (Read 25646 times)

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« 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?


« Reply #1 on: September 30, 2011, 06:58 »
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not sure of the purpose either....annoying...

« Reply #2 on: September 30, 2011, 08:23 »
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ugh - definitely annoying.

ayzek

« Reply #3 on: September 30, 2011, 08:46 »
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i wanna know.
Who thought that  ;D

ayzek

« Reply #4 on: September 30, 2011, 08:48 »
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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.

« Reply #5 on: September 30, 2011, 08:51 »
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Pain in the arse...

« Reply #6 on: September 30, 2011, 08:58 »
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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?

« Reply #7 on: September 30, 2011, 09:10 »
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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.

« Reply #8 on: September 30, 2011, 09:39 »
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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!!

eggshell

« Reply #9 on: September 30, 2011, 10:43 »
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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 ?!

« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2011, 16:44 »
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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


---
I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=44.052654,9.836627


« Reply #12 on: October 02, 2011, 22:54 »
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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!

« Reply #13 on: October 03, 2011, 04:26 »
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Thanks Alex for looking for a solution that will work for everyone

« Reply #14 on: October 03, 2011, 04:53 »
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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.

I tried several times...

Slovenian

« Reply #15 on: October 03, 2011, 07:49 »
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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!

« Reply #16 on: October 03, 2011, 12:42 »
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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.

« Reply #17 on: October 03, 2011, 12:52 »
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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).

« Reply #18 on: October 03, 2011, 12:56 »
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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? :)
« Last Edit: October 03, 2011, 13:20 by peterpolak »


« Reply #20 on: October 03, 2011, 20:43 »
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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.


« Reply #22 on: October 03, 2011, 23:54 »
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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.


« Reply #24 on: October 04, 2011, 02:13 »
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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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