Author Topic: DT dead since November 12 (Read 15503 times)

stockastic · « **Reply #25 on:** November 27, 2012, 15:24 »

My sales also stopped in the middle of November - like a switch was flipped.

I'm convinced some sort of rotation is in effect. I've had periods of weeks where I make only subscription sales; and periods of weeks where I make only credit/on demand sales; and now I've had a couple of weeks where I get no sales at all.

dbvirago · « **Reply #26 on:** November 27, 2012, 16:03 »

Average month there for me. No weekday without sales.

stockastic · « **Reply #27 on:** November 27, 2012, 16:37 »

Looking at the DT site, I just found out I got tagged for bad keywords back on the 12th of November - by a guy who signed up recently with a very fake-y looking portfolio of 20 images and who nevertheless already has 947 message board posts. Some hyperactive scammer or weirdo.

My photo was a glass of whiskey, and the disallowed keywords included "bar" and "pour".

I'm wondering if this is what killed my sales.

WarrenPrice · « **Reply #28 on:** November 27, 2012, 16:53 »

Quote from: stockastic on November 27, 2012, 16:37

Looking at the DT site, I just found out I got tagged for bad keywords back on the 12th of November - by a guy who signed up recently with a very fake-y looking portfolio of 20 images and who nevertheless already has 947 message board posts. Some hyperactive scammer or weirdo.

My photo was a glass of whiskey, and the disallowed keywords included "bar" and "pour".

I'm wondering if this is what killed my sales. I guess if DT has sunk this low, I might as well forget about it as an agency.

That keyword crap is what got me banned from the forum.
And, later, I got reported for the Keyword "Owls" on an editorial image of the Owls Head Transportation Museum in Owls Head, Maine.
No Owls in my picture.
I ignored the report and lost my editing privileges.
I protested and my edit privilege was returned ... along with an apology from a DT representative who also failed to see an Owl in my image.

LOL

PS: That had nothing to do with me being banned. That happened long before the "Owl" incident.

stockastic · « **Reply #29 on:** November 27, 2012, 16:56 »

Warren,

I just TinEyed one of this guy's photos and found it on what appears to be someone else's travel blog (unfortunately in Arabic). He was also, on the DT forum, promoting a scheme for contributors to buy each other's images.

I'd like to contest this like you did. Who did you complain to?

WarrenPrice · « **Reply #30 on:** November 27, 2012, 18:11 »

Quote from: stockastic on November 27, 2012, 16:56

Warren,

I just TinEyed one of this guy's photos and found it on what appears to be someone else's travel blog (unfortunately in Arabic). He was also, on the DT forum, promoting a scheme for contributors to buy each other's images.

I'd like to contest this like you did. Who did you complain to?

I responded to a DT email telling me that my edit privileges were revoked.
I had ignored it until receiving that email.
Not sure how to rebut the spam report?

stockastic · « **Reply #31 on:** November 27, 2012, 18:48 »

Quote from: WarrenPrice on November 27, 2012, 18:11

I responded to a DT email telling me that my edit privileges were revoked.
I had ignored it until receiving that email.
Not sure how to rebut the spam report?

More weirdness here. On the flagged photo there's a note saying "At this time you can add more keywords only through the key-mentoring system." But I found I can still add keywords to other photos.

Apparently the way this works is that some bozo/scammer/jerk flags some randomly chosen keywords and you get a 'comment' as notification. Then if you don't respond, at some point DT accepts the claim and removes the keywords, and your new friend gets his tiny reward. It's probably all automatic and, of course, I never look at my DT comments so I never had a chance to respond.

I appealed via the online contact form - maybe DT will clean this up, and if they look at this guy's account it should raise some red flags.

red · « **Reply #32 on:** November 27, 2012, 19:38 »

No, that's not how it works. If you have an image flagged and you don't respond it goes into a queue that is extremely long and a keymaster takes a look and decides if any words should be removed. Even if you do respond it still goes into that same queue. Many times these reports are legit and the note to the person is helpful because they might have pasted in words from another photo that are indeed wrong. This gives them a chance to remove the bad words. The image still goes into that queue and if you removed the bad words the keymaster sees this and just ignores the report. If someone is trying to make money they will have to wait many months to get their 2 cents per report. Believe me, the queue is very, very long (up to a year) because this is at the bottom of their priorities. Keymasters are tasked to keyword images from contributors who are paying to have them keyworded first and only a few of them are even allowed to work on spam reports.

Mantis · « **Reply #33 on:** November 27, 2012, 19:49 »

Has anyone ever tested the Keymaster quality? Wondering how different a second set of eyes makes and what a "specialist" might deem appropriate that I wouldn't, or the other way around. I wonder if there are people out there who have had their Keymaster "key worded" images flagged?

stockastic · « **Reply #34 on:** November 27, 2012, 20:38 »

I'm not naming the guy who flagged me, but I looked at some of his DT forum posts and to me he appears to be some combination of flake, hustler and scammer. Who knows what he's actually doing, or thinks he's doing.

stockastic · « **Reply #35 on:** November 27, 2012, 21:03 »

Quote from: cuppacoffee on November 27, 2012, 19:38

No, that's not how it works. If you have an image flagged and you don't respond it goes into a queue that is extremely long and a keymaster takes a look and decides if any words should be removed [...] Believe me, the queue is very, very long (up to a year) because this is at the bottom of their priorities.

I don't see how that matches my experience. The comment from the other 'contributor' is dated a week ago - the image had only been approved 2 weeks earlier. If I now edit that image, next to 'keywords' it says "This image has been rightfully reported as having bad keywords and an editor approved the needed corrections." And I'm locked out from editing that image.

I received no email about this. The only way I would have had a chance to respond would be if I'd noticed the comment within a week. So what happened to that "long queue"?

red · « **Reply #36 on:** November 27, 2012, 23:43 »

I bet that they are now checking current spam reports first. I know that they let this slide for a long time and that is where the long queue lives. DT is very literal when it comes to keywords and is always reminding people that fewer words are better. I guess a glass of whiskey doesn't depict a bar unless it is sitting in a saloon, or the word pour unless whiskey is being poured into it. At least that is what the keymaster thought. You can always contact them and state your case. DT doesn't like things like plurals when only one thing is in the image and doesn't like adjectives as keywords. They don't like synonyms, they strip out hyphens, the words in the titles and descriptions are more important than the keywords field - I guess if we could figure out the search algorithms at any of the sites we could keyword better.

lisafx · « **Reply #37 on:** November 28, 2012, 09:19 »

I know they've said you don't have to respond to keyword flags, but I always do.

I recently had an entire series of a gay wedding couple flagged for "wedding" and "couple". The flagger is some pastor at an ultra conservative church (I know because there was a link in his profile). He didn't flag the images because the keywords were wrong, but because of his personal bias against the subject matter.

rubyroo · « **Reply #38 on:** November 28, 2012, 09:42 »

Holy cr*p!

I'm all for freedom of speech and thought, and for people with strong views to air their comments in appropriate arenas... but flagging your images to make a point? Unbelievable.

lisafx · « **Reply #39 on:** November 28, 2012, 09:49 »

Quote from: rubyroo on November 28, 2012, 09:42

Holy cr*p!

I'm all for freedom of speech and thought, and for people with strong views to air their comments in appropriate arenas... but flagging your images to make a point? Unbelievable.

Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too.

I understand that not everyone is on board with the subject matter, but the keywords were central to the concept and perfectly appropriate. There are more appropriate places for people to vent their personal issues.

rubyroo · « **Reply #40 on:** November 28, 2012, 10:03 »

Yes indeed. I agree completely .

gostwyck · « **Reply #41 on:** November 28, 2012, 10:03 »

Quote from: lisafx on November 28, 2012, 09:49

Quote from: rubyroo on November 28, 2012, 09:42
Holy cr*p!

I'm all for freedom of speech and thought, and for people with strong views to air their comments in appropriate arenas... but flagging your images to make a point? Unbelievable.

Yeah, that was pretty much my reaction too.

I understand that not everyone is on board with the subject matter, but the keywords were central to the concept and perfectly appropriate. There are more appropriate places for people to vent their personal issues.

That's outrageous! He probably deliberately searched using those keywords to find images to flag. You should report the time-wasting idiot to Admin. What's he going to vent his prejudices on next? Any images illustrating 'evolution' maybe?

rubyroo · « **Reply #42 on:** November 28, 2012, 10:04 »

Great point!

stockastic · « **Reply #43 on:** November 28, 2012, 10:23 »

Quote from: cuppacoffee on November 27, 2012, 23:43

I guess a glass of whiskey doesn't depict a bar unless it is sitting in a saloon, or the word pour unless whiskey is being poured into it. At least that is what the keymaster thought.

It's a "shot glass". You don't drink from it - it's used to mix drinks. By pouring out a shot. In a bar. I guess 'keymaster' doesn't get out much.

The guy that tagged my photo was obviously just cruising through the 'new' images. It would be nice to know how many he's tagged altogether. I was incorrect when I said he recently joined; he's been at DT since April 2010 and has 20 images in his portfolio. And 947 enthusiastic posts on the DT forum.

Crowdsourcing often just creates nothing but a big mess.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #44 on:** November 28, 2012, 11:25 »

Quote from: lisafx on November 28, 2012, 09:19

I know they've said you don't have to respond to keyword flags, but I always do.

I recently had an entire series of a gay wedding couple flagged for "wedding" and "couple". The flagger is some pastor at an ultra conservative church (I know because there was a link in his profile). He didn't flag the images because the keywords were wrong, but because of his personal bias against the subject matter.

I hope you contacted support about this. I think that DT should add a feature whereby those who abuse the flagging privilege have that removed - just as keyword spammers have their editing privileges revoked.

We can't have the culture wars or personal vendettas messing up a stock web site's keywords - and that pastor should go find a congregant to minister to...

Minerva Studio · « **Reply #45 on:** November 28, 2012, 13:04 »

Does DT even have customers?
I'm asking that because it performs, for us, even worse than the so called low tier agencies.
Just IS does worse in terms of number of sales, but that's for another reason, non-exclusive contributors are junk for them.
DT now does about 1% of our total sales.
Thay have never performed well for us, but 1%, come on...

WarrenPrice · « **Reply #46 on:** November 28, 2012, 13:59 »

Pretty good month so far; RPD-wise.
Carefully measuring my comments. Don't want to jinx my search position.

stockastic · « **Reply #47 on:** November 28, 2012, 14:11 »

To be fair, they deserve praise for trying to deal with keyword spam and it wasn't their intent to open the door to these kinds of abuses. If they respond to my appeal I'll post the outcome here.

I'm not even angry at DT, just at bottom feeders like the guy who tagged my photo.

gillian vann · « **Reply #48 on:** November 28, 2012, 14:35 »

this happened to me last month, someone (new, zero images) flagged 'boutique' on my image of a sale tags on rack of women's clothes (in a boutique). I replied politely but firmly.

stockastic · « **Reply #49 on:** November 28, 2012, 14:47 »

Quote from: vannphoto on November 28, 2012, 14:35

this happened to me last month, someone (new, zero images) flagged 'boutique' on my image of a sale tags on rack of women's clothes (in a boutique). I replied politely but firmly.

So what was the outcome?

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Author Topic: DT dead since November 12 (Read 15503 times)

stockastic

dbvirago

stockastic

WarrenPrice

stockastic

WarrenPrice

stockastic

red

Mantis

stockastic

stockastic

red

lisafx

rubyroo

lisafx

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gostwyck

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stockastic

Jo Ann Snover

Minerva Studio

WarrenPrice

stockastic

gillian vann

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