English is my second language, though I did grew up in an English speaking country, and at this point I only speak English. I'm not white. I also thought the OP was kind of racist when I first read the post. I just choose not to say anything at the time. I've also reviewed images before for one of the big 4 stock agencies. I think I did it for 2 years. It takes no more effort to accept all your images vs reject all your images. Either way, they are just pressing either an accept button or reject button. In fact if they are giving you a reason about the rejection, then it takes more effort to reject your videos because they have to find the correct rejection reason among the list they can choose from.

very frustrated with some of the reviewers who appear to just do an auto "100%" rejection because they are too lazy to do their job.

seems some of the reviewers shutterstock employs have figured out how to game the system, so are doing zero work, to get paid. (to be clear, not all of them - some do their job - I like those reviewers - it's the ones that don't do their jobs that I don't like).

seems the game is for those ones is - they wait as long as possible to review the items (i.e., say a week) - so it gives the "appearance" of being reviewed to the (semi-automated) metrics shutterstock uses - so they can paid for doing nothing. I'm all for reviewing & approving 'good quality' images & videos, and rejecting poor quality. But when you happen to land one of these reviewers who just wants money for nothing, so autorejects 100%, it's very frustrating.

Would be a great time now shutterstock to either weed out these poor quality reviewers - OR - a different company to do a better job than shutterstock.

I have been experiencing bogus rejections as well.  I posted about one of them awhile back where they rejected my waterfall photos for ""Title: Title must be descriptive and relevant to the subject matter and must be in English. Titles cannot contain special characters, spelling/grammar errors, or repeat words/phrases in excess."  My title for both (same waterfall, different angles) was: Name of waterfall, Name of National Park, Name of State, USA.  All in English. Completely relevant to the subject matter.  All spelled correctly.  Nothing repeated.  No special characters - just commas.  I re-submitted them and they still rejected one of them, even though the focus was on the waterfall and was f/13 taken on a tripod. 

The other bogus rejection I got recently was for another waterfall.  This time it said I was missing a property release and that the title/key words contained trademark issues.  Again, I re-submitted it and it was accepted....because a property release was not needed nor were there any trademarked words in it.

It would be nice if SS would address these reviewers who aren't doing their job properly.

Last night I uploaded a mixed themes batch with 14 photos, shot with various cameras, some outdoors with iphone, some with full frame dslr, some with digital toning, some with studio light...really mixed.

Today 13 were accepted and one declined.

Maybe I just got lucky.

And that takes us back to the bottom line, biggest complaint.  Inconsistency.

We don't know if the rejection is real, a mistake, someone who can't comprehend English or just lazy.

Are you sure there is a human behind the IA? In my batches, when I send them to SS and BS the same pictures are rejected with the same reason.

I'm not sure there is always one person clicking. Looks like sometimes It's automatic, sometimes not.

yes, pretty sure.
a) If it was AI - computer's dont "need" a week to review a photo/video/etc. "They" could do a batch of 10,000 videos, or 100,000 images in a fraction of the time it would take a human reviewer. (You certainly wouldn't wait a week for results, and computers wouldn't get "ill" and need to work from home and need more time to process, etc).
b) For the nature of the photos/videos, etc - it would be difficult to make it pure AI algorithm vet photos/videos. Sure - it could flag certain things for follow up (i.e., if you really did have a 'noisy' photo) - but it would still need to be manually reviewed because maybe that 'noise' is good (i.e., static on a t.v. screen, rainfall, fast moving but desirable editorial footage, etc, etc).

Not sure what "bs" is though? What agency is that?

Quote from: cobalt on April 23, 2020, 12:05

Last night I uploaded a mixed themes batch with 14 photos, shot with various cameras, some outdoors with iphone, some with full frame dslr, some with digital toning, some with studio light...really mixed.

Today 13 were accepted and one declined.

Maybe I just got lucky.

And that takes us back to the bottom line, biggest complaint.  Inconsistency.

We don't know if the rejection is real, a mistake, someone who can't comprehend English or just lazy.

And you think the artists are consistent in the quality of their uploads?

My new results:

Last night I uploaded a mixed theme batch of 16 images.

- one was declined...because I had already uploaded it before and it was already in my portfolio (my stupid mistake)

- one was declined for legal reasons, apparently benches in Hyde Park are under copyright which I didn�t know

- one was part of a series and they liked the others more (fair enough)

- one was declined for focus, that is the only one I don�t quite understand, but I can always downsize and resubmit

So overall...pretty normal and reasonable result

Big Stock. It follows the same patterns as SS.

In my case BS rejects completely different pictures than SS does....
If they get rejected on SS BS will accept them - and the other way round.

15 rejected - 2 film noise/grain, 1 focus and 12 file transfer error, next submit all accepted, then 8 rejected - file transfer error, next all accepted

Quote from: Uncle Pete on April 24, 2020, 06:58

Quote from: cobalt on April 23, 2020, 12:05

Last night I uploaded a mixed themes batch with 14 photos, shot with various cameras, some outdoors with iphone, some with full frame dslr, some with digital toning, some with studio light...really mixed.

Today 13 were accepted and one declined.

Maybe I just got lucky.

And that takes us back to the bottom line, biggest complaint.  Inconsistency.

We don't know if the rejection is real, a mistake, someone who can't comprehend English or just lazy.

And you think the artists are consistent in the quality of their uploads?

My new results:

Last night I uploaded a mixed theme batch of 16 images.

- one was declined...because I had already uploaded it before and it was already in my portfolio (my stupid mistake)

- one was declined for legal reasons, apparently benches in Hyde Park are under copyright which I didn�t know

- one was part of a series and they liked the others more (fair enough)

- one was declined for focus, that is the only one I don�t quite understand, but I can always downsize and resubmit

So overall...pretty normal and reasonable result

Fair enough, but one day something will be rejected for grain, the next day, same shoot, same camera, same settings, same lens... same processing will be refused for focus. Another day, another reason. What I'm getting at is not the fact that something is rejected, but the reasons vary and are inconsistent with the same images or others in the same setting, that were accepted or rejected.

Horrors, would I upload something substandard just to see if it passes? Yes I would.  And if something is rejected because it should be or because of some flaw I didn't detect, that's fine too.  I'll say that the most I upload the same image is the first time and maybe once more. After that, time to move on. I'm positive that there are some people who upload the same many times, different weeks or months. I don't think something that's that marginal is so important.

If the reviews were consistent, we could learn and adapt and maybe avoid uploading images that are going to get rejected?

No, currently on less than half what I'd normally make in a month from Shutterstock. The reason I'm questioning what you're saying is that "shutterstock has CLOSED acceptance of new videos/images..." is a big thing. Like massive... headline news. But unless you can provide some kind of evidence that they have, then it's just not true. Please tell me you're not basing such a claim just on the fact that you're having all your content rejected?! That would be like me submitting five videos, having five videos accepted and then starting a thread saying that "Shutterstock are now accepting 100% of all content submitted".

I have a similar experience to the OP.
In the last few months, for VIDEO at SS there was this thing widely reported of batches with 30 to 50% of files rejected without any logical reason (Often sequentially, like the first 12 rejected, the other accepted).
But it was only a matter of resubmitting and they would all be accepted.
But lately I have had a couple of batches with 100% rejections and then rejected again. After that I cannot upload to SS anymore, just cannot make connection through Filezilla.
The funny thing is that with ADOBE I had for the first time a whole batch rejected (hardly any rejections before) and not one single sale in March and April. I generally had 15-20 videos sold each month.
Finally I had a batch totally rejected at POND 5 (never ever had a single rejection there, they simply do not review files). Not a big problem because Pond 5 for me is dead and buried.
But there is certainly something going on, and that is not surprising because of the virus

Here is an odd thought,
We are happy to use tools to bulk upload and multi agencies submit but do agencies can handle both curation storage and promotion of this large amount of work? Is there any reason for most files especialoy if eitherway they appear through most agencies and their partner sites, resellers, etc etc?

Not sure if i got the bigger picture correct.

Here, try this? Partners for some of the agencies, old list.  https://www.microstockgroup.com/general-stock-discussion/a-list-of-partner-programs/

I'm against the upload everything = everywhere plan. Some people like it. I think the uploading to as many sites as possible takes the market and makes us cheap, a pure commodity, nothing to do with quality and where the price is lowest wins. But look? Some people were still hanging on at Crestock or Yay or the others that have been nearly dead for years.

For What? So someone can sell our work and never pay, or so someone can hope for a payment every few years? Are people that desperate that they don't value their own work and don't see that the tiny parasite agencies are going away and unreliable. The idea that making a little is better than making nothing, seems to ignore that sold and not getting paid, is not only making nothing, but also means, missed sales from reliable agencies?

Anyway, I don't have to upload to 25 terrible cheap sites, the agencies are doing that for us. 

The inconsistency in reviewing is not only at SS. While it's currently a lot better at Adobe Stock I have a 3D illustration pending for 8 days now. Other images and illustrations that were uploaded afterwards (sometimes days later) have already been approved.
Coincidence? sure but then why does it only seem to happen to my best work?

Reviewers are either your best friend or your worst enemy in stock, be it micro, macro, boutique, etc... In my case they are the enemy practically from day one.
I submitted the same image to SS and it got approved the day after. But then SS reviewers like to play games and randomly reject which requires a resubmission to get a proper review, most likely by a reviewer admin. Well this was the case a few years ago anyway. Maybe now they jump from one clown to the other.

Now that's all fine and dandy if you're uploading images and illustrations but 4K video? I don't know where you guys get the motivation to play along with these fools.
Obviously there are some justified rejections but most of the time it's just messing around.

If you do think reviews are done properly then explain to me why there are thousands of stolen images, almost exact copies (similars) and what not? They slipped trough? yeah right!

Meanwhile I see people trying to find rational explanations for what is happening, quite amusing actually. Don't you realise what power reviewers have in this business? Don't you think they can push one's exposure while limiting others with their reviewing tactics? Push one contributor in search while limiting others? Or just demotivate you to continue uploading by rejecting randomly? To me they practically run the show here, they are in control! not the admins or higher up. Keep that in mind when you get your next weird rejection

The blame game (if i got the phrase right).

Yes, curators might be or feel little Gods with their approve/reject buttons
but if agencies had actual people to address our concerns or requests or problems
there would be no issues unsolved. Right?

Here is a native phrase from my language, the fish stinks from it's head.

Shutterstock have lost their credibility in stock. After 2 years of an idiot being in charge their rejections are mainly wrong. I complained about it yet the people you complain to are useless & don't even work directly for shutterstock. They are  alienating everybody (not just contributors) and it's about time buyers realised this and buy elsewhere. I am a qualified designer and shutterstock are bollocks. They haven't got a clue about photo quality. Someone there is definately NOT doing their job properly because even abdobe accept my photos that SS rejects. Shutterstock are going downhill fast.